Best movies? Music? Look elsewhere. Here's the real list to help digest the year gone by
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
12) Top 20 dictators of the world (Parade).It's like a reality show in hell, a rogue's gallery of the most heartless, insane, power-mad thugs and cretins (all male, natch) this side of Dick Cheney's darkest orgiastic fantasy. Even Vladimir Putin made the list, mostly for the weird beauty of his flat, heartless stare. Side question: When the hell did Parade magazine, so beloved for its unreadable, ultra-saccharine swill of fruitcake recipes and fluffy profiles of Billy Ray Cyrus, 'The Lockhorns' comics and George Bush telling America about "What made my year special" (oddly, "most inept, despised U.S. president in history" not mentioned), become some sort of authority on brutal world dictators? Is it because they have special insight into the banality of evil (ref: The Lockhorns)? Hmm.
11) Top 10 vegetarian-friendly prisons (PETA).Attention, radical unshowered vegans who've lost all perspective and want to blow up Whole Foods and set fire to shops that sell leather! When they haul your cute, dreadlocked butt to prison, be sure to request one of these fine facilities, where you can serve out your time enjoying low-grade vegetarian gruel, like tofu cattiatore in Pennsylvania, soy taco crunch in Tennessee and meatless Sloppy Joes in North Dakota. So helpful! Do inmates deserve accolades for wanting to turn their lives around and start eating healthier? Hell yes. Does PETA make you want to order a fabulous Prather Ranch grass-fed steak in defiance of its harsh Taliban-grade fundamentalism? One guess.
10) Top 10 food and drink hacks (Lifehacker). In which it is revealed that vinegar is quite likely the greatest and most versatile liquid known to humankind, slicing a mango does not have to be a sloppy sticky mess (unless you are naked and partially drunk and really, really want it to be), and you can learn how to chill a bottle of white wine in about two minutes, make sexier cocktails with clear ice cubes and use your old plastic CD spindle as a perfect little bagel tote. Didn't know any of that? You're not reading the right blog.
9) Top 10 celebrity products (Trendhunter)."Hannah Montana" clothing line for screechy tweens; 50 Cent condoms; Roberto Cavalli vodka. Is this why they hate us? Or rather, why we hate ourselves? Oddest inclusion: Bjork introduces a weird new musical instrument in her concerts, available if you want it. Bjork is a fearless and insanely talented musical genius. Bjork selling a new musical instrument is an act of genius. Kanye West letting Fendi buy ad space on his head for ten grand is, decidedly, not.
8) Top 10 videos of 2007 (AlterNet).No, not music videos. No weeping gay teens wailing on YouTube about how you should leave Britney alone. Rather, an oddball mix of smart, semi-political outbreaks, including Michael Moore's terrific retort to Wolf Blitzer, Stephen Colbert effortlessly daring the Dems to impeach Bush, Mitt Romney's favorite cartoon, psychotic evangelicals attempting to disprove evolution with a jar of peanut butter and "The Simpsons" blasting Fox News, a.k.a. "Your Voice for Evil." See how easy?
7) Top 10 science revelations (LiveScience).Yes, the "peak oil" era is now under way, the American Southeast may very well be facing a brutal 90-year drought as dry areas get drier and wet get wetter, a region of ice in Greenland twice the size of the United States has now melted, the World Conservation Union's list of endangered animals now tops 40,000, with more than 200 moving closer to extinction in 2007. And the No. 1 spot, naturally, is climate change itself, now so overwhelmingly omnipresent and ominous it would take a band of truly troglodytic jackals to deny, reject or otherwise sneer at what the world's scientific and environmental community is desperately trying to tell us.
6) Top 10 climate myth busters (Fox News).And there you go. Shut-ins, inbred cultists and global warming deniers rejoice as Fox News' junk science "expert" and Big Tobacco boy-toy Steven Milloy lurches and leers, cherry-picking a handful of minor studies in an effort to mount the world's shakiest anti-warming argument, all while ignoring mountains of evidence, not the least of which is the recent, dire 3,000-page report from the 113-nation-strong Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Bonus: Calls anyone who might agree with Nobel-winner Al Gore part of an "alarmist mob," despite how that mob now includes an increasing number of Christians and Republicans. Also announced, a new network slogan for 2008: "Fox News: Like an angry psoriatic monkey, flinging feces. Mostly at itself."
5) Top 10 Christianity-related stories of 2007 (Christianity Today).In which successful atheist authors get jabbed, Jerry Falwell is actually not acknowledged as Satan's newest fluffer and hardcore religious orgs of every stripe celebrate and/or lash out at other religious orgs for either a) not being religious enough, b) not being bigoted enough, c) not hacking away women's rights, d) not slamming gays, e) all of the above.
Highlight: Militant evangelical nutjob Dr. James Dobson tries — and fails — to have slightly less militant nutjob Richard Cizik ousted as vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals over the latter's global warming activism. Also: Episcopal church fractures because one half doesn't hate gay people enough. And Jesus returns, says Christianity was "a huge mistake," turns Wiccan.
4) Top 10 new organisms (Wired).Hypoallergenic cats. Fluorescent tadpoles. Schizophrenic mice that exhibit Bush-grade hallucinations, paranoia and delusions of grandeur. Alas, no mention of whatever the hell mutant virus is attacking the American brain and causing millions to actually give a damn about how much blow Lindsay Lohan does or that white-trash wunderkind Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. Maybe that's another list.
Mixes well with Wired's other top 10 list of scientific breakthroughs, in which transistors get even tinier, any type of blood can be converted to Type O, female chimps make actual spears to hunt lesser game, and scientists manage to skirt BushCo right-wing idiocy by creating stem cells from skin. I mean, thank God. Now we can put those controversial frozen human embryos back where they belong: in the garbage. Score one for Christian fundamentalism!
3) Top 10 astronomy photos of 2007 (Bad Astronomy).You know what we as a nation, as a people lack more than anything else in this bitter, Bush-gutted age? No, not more porn-happy YouTube-ripoff sites. It's awe. The raw, delicious, mind-bending, perspective shattering, oh-my-God-what-the-hell-is-that kind of awe that makes your id tingle and your ego sigh.
Stare in wonder, then, at these photos. Let them seep in. Note for example, how the star known as Mira (a.k.a. "The Wonderful") has a tail that is 13 light years (about 80 trillion miles) long. See two massive, ancient galaxies mingle in a lover's embrace. Note how two of the most beautiful words in the English language might just be "whirlpool galaxy." Feel your brain whimper, but your soul expand.
Stare in wonder, then, at these photos. Let them seep in. Note for example, how the star known as Mira (a.k.a. "The Wonderful") has a tail that is 13 light years (about 80 trillion miles) long. See two massive, ancient galaxies mingle in a lover's embrace. Note how two of the most beautiful words in the English language might just be "whirlpool galaxy." Feel your brain whimper, but your soul expand.
2) Top 10 hottest good luck symbols.Pity the luckless, hobbled rabbit, the feet of whom we still prize most of all as our fuzzy icons of fortune. Also: four-leaf clovers battle it out with spiffy angels and cute ladybugs for the top spots for women, whereas men apparently go more for horseshoes and Buddha, who clocks in at No. 4, well above jade elephants and coffin nails (but curiously, makes no appearance at all on the top 10 icons for women). Highlight: The No. 5 most popular good-luck icon/item for children? "Rock."
1) Top 10 positive stories of 2007 (Ode).Former Taliban fighter now a humble teacher to young girls. A new, market-ready LED light bulb that uses 90 percent less energy than regular bulbs and lasts 35 years. Organic agriculture actually can feed the world. A zero-emissions, zero-combustion car engine that runs on compressed air. A damn fine, glowing list from Ode Magazine, the best little antidote to media nastiness you're not reading, but should be.
Honorable mention: It's not a Top 10 list. It's not even a top 100. It has nothing to do with fashion or trends or politics or the year's coolest iPod accessories. It is intellectual hotbed Edge.org's annual question, this time a profound doozy: "What have you changed your mind about, and why?"
Honorable mention: It's not a Top 10 list. It's not even a top 100. It has nothing to do with fashion or trends or politics or the year's coolest iPod accessories. It is intellectual hotbed Edge.org's annual question, this time a profound doozy: "What have you changed your mind about, and why?"
One hundred sixty-three of the world's finest scientists of all kinds and caliber respond with some of the most insightful, humbling, fascinating confessions and anecdotes, an intellectual treasure trove of proofs that flip-flopping is a very good thing indeed, especially when informed/inspired by facts and shot through with personal experience and laced with mystery and even a little divine insight. Best three or four hours of intense, enlightening reading you can do for the new year. Read it. Read it now.
And then, flip it over and answer the same question for yourself.
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