180 degrees

Mitt Romney’s Major Fail

There were many reasons Mitt Romney failed to capture the imagination of the American electorate during his Presidential election campaign. One of the most significant was the release of the “47 Percent Video” in which Romney was caught on camera at a private fundraiser saying a huge chunk of the U.S. population were pretty-much parasites. The story was broken by Mother Jones, a small independent news magazine, a feat that highlighted the shifting role of media in elections.



The Fall and Fall of Syria

The guy who runs my local falafel store is from Homs in Syria. When I asked him earlier this year how things were going at home, he said, “Okay – it could be worse.” He’s a master of understatement.

Elderly Man Writes A Blog

A 92-year-old man, whose wife died in December, started a blog. Then it became so popular he stopped writing it.

Some People Are Awful

A website called “Potential Prostitutes” allowed users to anonymously upload a photo of any woman along with their contact information and then accuse them of prostitution. The site demanded $100 from each woman for the listing to be removed from the site. As of December 30 the site was still live but has recently not always been able to be accessed. Thankfully.

Some People Are Even More Awful

The horrific rape and murder of a woman in New Delhi in December exposed an awful culture that prevails against women in India. The event grabbed global headlines and shone a bright spotlight on seemingly institutionalised attitudes. A global survey found India to be among the worst places in the world to be female, alongside Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, and Somalia.

The Republican Party Held an Election Year Conference…

… At which the highlight/lowlight was legendary actor Clint Eastwood talking to a chair.  

President Obama Won Reelection – Thanks to Nerds

Depending on who you listened to, the 2012 election was going to be a Romney landslide or (at best for Obama) a close-run thing. Votes were cast and Obama’s win turned out to be one of the biggest winning margins in U.S. history. Part of the reason was deployment of a team of death-metal-loving, tattooed and pierced, technology nerds who helped the President seek out every last vote that could go his way. It turned out politics was all about maths and science.

Karl Rove’s Meltdown

Karl Rove was sometimes known as “George Bush’s Brain”.  This was not always a good thing. On election night 2012, as it became clear Barack Obama was heading for a convincing win, Rove experienced a form of rarely-seen combustive self-denial live on Fox News. It was great viewing.



The Misunderstood Right To Bear Arms

Aurora, Colorado, is now on the map. So too is Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and Newtown, Connecticut. These are all small towns in the U.S. that shouldn’t have ever featured too prominently but because of men armed with assault weapons they’re now big dots on a map of avoidable gun deaths. The Second Amendment, supposedly giving American citizens the right to own military-grade weaponry, is one of the most misinterpreted pieces of law in history.

It Wasn’t All Bad

A man from Austria jumped from a hot air balloon 24 miles high – and lived.



A man from Seoul told us about style from Gangnam.

Meanwhile, this guy conceived an incredibly elaborate marriage proposal that included family, friends, and half his neighbourhood. Thankfully, she said yes.