Welcome to the last post in my series of holiday posts for 2022. This is the post where I take a look back at the year to see what the heck happened. If you are wondering why I am posting this a few days into January, hey, I am Puerto Rican. We are still in holiday mood for at least another week and a half or so. As I am typing this, last Friday was Dia de Reyes (Three Kings Day) in Puerto Rico, and that is followed by "las octavitas." So I am still on schedule. I will say upfront, and I probably mentioned this before, that 2022 was not exactly an improvement over 2021, which was not an improvement over the clusterfuck that was 2020. I am not holding much optimism for 2023, but I am willing to wait and see. Meanwhile, let's have a look at what the heck happened in 2022.
The top news event of the year
Oh, I saved this story halfway into the year the moment I saw it. We all know, or so many say, that cockroaches may well be the only survivors when human beings are long gone. Well, here is a bit more proof of that. Turns out. according to this report from Salon, that they are evolving now to prefer low sugar diets. Read on to find out why that is not good news.
- If you want a quick overview, the BBC has a video that gives it to you in 74 seconds.
- UPI has their year in review.
- Al Jazeera looks at 2022 in pictures. From the photos, the empty chairs memorial from Uvalde, Texas is silent yet powerful, well, at least to people who value lives more than their guns.
- Big Think has a list of their top 10 science stories.
- Higher Ed Dive has the year's biggest stories in higher education.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has their 2022 Year in Review. A big bit of fuckery from 2022 is the Big Four publishers suing Internet Archive. EFF is among those representing the Internet Archive in the case.
- In a different approach, the reporters from The 19th offer their end of year reflections on the year and what happened.
- Mother Jones offers their picks for heroes and monsters of 2022.
- Yes! Magazine offers their best stories, their readers' favorites for the year.
A bit from Around the World
- El Nuevo Dia (PR-Spanish language) newspaper has 11 photos that summarize the year in Latin America.
- The Progressive looks at 10 surprisingly good things that happened in 2022, many of them abroad.
- Claridad newspaper (Spanish language) from Puerto Rico looks at the economic condition of the island for 2022. They also look at the overall condition of the island moving forward.
Film and Television
I do this section in part to keep the information for myself as well as sharing with others. I just do the basics to keep up with new film and television every year, which is often reading about it since much of the new material is on streaming services I do not have. Anyhow, for reference, and maybe to get some ideas of what to watch down the road.
Film:
- Here is Rolling Stone's list of best movies of the year. The site also has a link for their review of the year for other articles that may be of interest.
- Here is GQ's list of best movies of the year.
- Here is The Beat's best movies list.
- Sounds and Colours has a list of best movies for 2022. This list has a bit more Latin American interest.
Television:
- Rolling Stone lists 20 best TV shows. Out of 20 there are 13 shows on streamers.
- Latino Rebels lists their top 10 Latino TV shows.
- Reality Blurred lists their best of reality TV for the year. If you cannot get enough reality TV, they also got 22 favorite reality TV stories.
Music
- Here is Rolling Stone's list of best songs of 2022.
- Sounds and Colours lists their best albums of 2022. List has a Latin American and Caribbean focus.
Books and reading
This part includes some best of lists I may have missed plus some other trivia things.
- A big bit of news in 2023 was the constant book challenges and bans all over the United States. PEN America takes a look at the absurd year in educational censorship. They also have a list of the 10 most banned books.
- InfoDocket looks at some library lists of most borrowed books for the year.
- Literary Hub lists their most scathing book reviews for the year.
- The Beat offers their list of 30 Best Comics for the year. There are some titles here I would add to my TBR list.
Adult and risque
Feel free to scroll down if this is not your thing. Otherwise, let's have a bit of a sexy look.
- Dr. Dick's Sex Advice looks at five lessons in love and sex learned in 2022.
- For folks who do resolutions, Kinkly has a list of new year's resolutions for good sex.
- What is an end of year summary without some penis mishaps and accidents? Here is a list via Defector. Hat tip to Boing Boing.
Miscellaneous
These are stories and trivia that for me did not fit in the other categories:
- Oxford English Dictionary names their 2022 Word of the Year, via UPI.
- Inside Higher Ed, on the other hand, offers words and phrases to banish in 2023.
- Time Magazine named their 2022 Person of the Year, via BBC.
- Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly's names their people of 2022.
- Cosmopolitan has their 50 wildest celebrity moments of 2022.
- Reprobate offers their roundup for 2022.
- Smithsonian Libraries shares some of their most popular stories.
- J-Stor Daily also shares their most popular stories of the year. I often enjoy their stories as they find all kinds of interesting topics.
- End of year summaries often look at who died in the previous year. For something different, Mashable has a list of the tech that died in 2022.
- Peste Magazine has the Snowzzies Awards, for public health disservice. A hat tip to Boing Boing.
- Like poetry and haiku, The Rude Pundit has haikus about 2023 submitted by his readers. We get haikus about worst persons, speaking no evil, and barbarian prey. I always look forward to these at the end of the year.
2023 Predictions
This is a new category I am adding this year. All sorts of folks make all kinds of predictions as a new year arrives, so here is a sampling. I am including a bit of esoterica and other predictions.
- The Hustle brings together a list of predictions for 2023 from various news sources. Among the predictions they found: Disney will spin off ABC and ESPN, and Netflix will merge with another big streamer.
- NPR also lined up some experts to make some predictions for 2023. The twist here is the experts made predictions for 2023 back in 1923. This is an interesting article to see what they got right or not.
- Verge offers 13 predictions for tech platforms. They also look back at the predictions they made for 2022.
- Nieman Lab offers their predictions for journalism in 2023.
- UPI reports that Americans are expecting a troubled year in 2023. I can't imagine why.
- Back in Puerto Rico, Claridad (Spanish language news) looks at what the island can expect in 2023.
- People tend to panic a bit when Mercury Retrogrades come around. VICE explains what the retrograde is and gives you the dates for Mercury Retrogrades happening in 2023, so you can be better prepared.
- Need a bit more help with the retrograde? OM Magazine offers a survival guide to the Mercury Retrograde. I think this article offers a bit more detail.
- For the folks who do Tarot, OM Magazine has their Tarot forecast for 2023.
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