2022 in Review

My Saturday History Tour and year-end retrospective collide today (often a risk you take when looking behind you). So here's a collage of a few of my favorite cartoons from 2022:

(I would have liked to include this week's cartoon, too. But I felt I needed to limit myself to six cartoons.)

Here also is my annual snapshot of the year's biggest headlines.

I've been taking these front-page headline photos for 50 years now, and I don't know how much longer this habit will be possible. Many newspapers have surrendered blaring headlines about national and international news to the immediacy of the internet. The local newspaper here is still likely to give prominent placement to news of the end of U.S. involvement in a long war, or a vice presidential resignation; but for the most part, front page coverage is reserved for local features.

Even the regional papers (e.g.: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Chicago Tribune) tend to highlight features of local and state interest over, say, a congressional hearing, or a coup in South America. National papers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reserve huge bold headlines for singularly monumental events — but on the other hand, I have a much better camera now. No way would you have been able to read the Boris Johnson headline if I were still taking pictures with my Kodak Instamatic.

__________

P.S.: Had I waited until tomorrow to post this, I might have been able to add a newspaper headline about Pope Benedict's death this morning. Well, perhaps. Tomorrow's local newspapers had probably been put to bed Friday night.

Q Toon: Cot in the Act

Hong Kong was selected in 2017 as the host city for next year's Gay Games, the LGBTQ+ version of the Olympics complete with all the hoopla of opening ceremonies and at least three dozen sporting competitions. Founded in 1982 as the Gay Olympics (but immediately forced to change its name by the IOC), the Gay Games have been held every four years since, featuring LGBTQ+ athletes from around the world — including from countries where it would be dangerous for them to be out.

This will be the first time the Gay Games will have been held in Asia, but there are rumblings that the Games — and the athletes — may not be officially welcome.

Now, attacks on the Gay Games from local lawmakers aligned with Beijing are revealing bigotry in the financial hub, where space for promoting ideas such as equality and diversity has shrunk under China’s tightening control. Amid a crackdown enabled by a national security law introduced last year, the Hong Kong activists who would typically push back against such attacks are either behind bars or in exile.

Leading the crusade is Junius Ho, a pro-Beijing lawmaker who has called the Gay Games “disgraceful” and a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” that could violate the security law. Another lawmaker, Priscilla Leung, said activists could use the sports and cultural event to promote political causes. Peter Shiu, a member of a center-right party, said Hong Kong can “tolerate” but not promote homosexuality. ...

Attacks on the event started in June during a legislative session, when Ho said the Games would yield “dirty money.” He upped the ante last week when he cited Article 23 of China’s national security law, which states that the country should “guard against the impact of harmful culture.” Previously, Ho, who did not respond to requests for comment, had called a TV show that featured homosexual relationships “marijuana coated in sugar.” 

This comes at the same time that Chinese officials have launched a campaign against "sissy culture," trying to convince Chinese youth that heretofore popular "boy bands" are a dangerously androgynous threat to the future of godlessness, ginseng, and moo goo gai pan. Having survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beijing has no intention of succumbing to BTS.

In July, the Chinese messaging app WeChat blocked accounts of LGBT student clubs and university organizations in China. A month later, Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, banned a male video blogger after receiving complaints about his “feminine” behavior. A leaked document reported by SupChina, a New York-based news outlet that focuses on China, separately revealed that Shanghai University has been collecting names of LGBT students for an unclear purpose.

Why do I suspect that it's not for assembling Shanghai U's Queer Ping Pong League?