Monthly Review: July 2012

Monthly Review: July 2012

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The month of July kicked off with CERN's groundbreaking announcement of the Higgs Boson discovery, the first milestone in the Large Hardon Collider project that began in 2008. But despite the sensational headlines hailing the discovery of "The God Particle," many of us following the news outside the scientific community were more baffled than anything else by the complex explanation of the discovery and the choice of MS Comic Sans for the typeface of CERN's official report. In the U.S., both President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney began picking up the pace on the campaign trail, and while President Obama has been relatively untouched during this high season of political punditry, his day of judgment finally came with the quotable "You Didn't Build That" remark during a stump speech in Virginia earlier this month. On Reddit, a New York City resident's bizarre encounter with a “homeless looking man” in the subway sparked an impromptu cryptology workshop and an unfruitful offline investigation in Midtown Manhattan. In the sports world, London's Summer Olympics commenced last week with an epic opening ceremony that captivated the world's attention, well, all except her majesty Queen Elizabeth II who didn't seem amused at all.

On a much more somber note, the highly anticipated release of the last chapter in the Batman prequel saga was marred by a national tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, when a 24 year old Ph.D program drop-out walked into a midnight premiere screening and killed at least a dozen of innocents and wounded nearly hundred moviegoers. The Internet and citizen journalists reacted in full force to the news with the hashtag #theatershooting on Twitter and survivors’ exchanging witness accounts on Reddit.

The Rest of the Best

• Internet Reacts to Tosh's Racy Joke Daniel Tosh’s controversial sexual assault joke caused a stir online earlier this month, sparking a debate about the ethics of humor.

• #ExilePitbull Sends Rapper to Kodiak, Alaska: All anti-fan sentiments aside, the Twitter hashtag petition to exile Pitbull took a surprisingly heartwarming turn, when both the rapper and the Something Awful prankster David Thorne showed up in the small town of Kodiak, Alaska.

• Internet Defense League Launches: The latest project from the core organizers behind the anti-SOPA protests finally kicked off this month with projection of mega-sized “Cat Signals” in San Francisco, New York City and Washington D.C.

• Spain's Olympic Uniform Controversy: Designed and donated free-of-charge by the Russian sports fashion brand Bosco, Spain’s official Olympic uniform kits have been so widely ridiculed since the games started that it is on the verge of becoming a controversy.

• Chick-Fil-A Gay Marriage Controversy: Chick-fil-A’s support of anti-gay marriage organizations has sparked a huge debate online, with many calling for a boycott of the American fast food chain.

Back on the Radar

• Kanye Interrupted at BET Awards 2012: Just as Kanye’s interruption at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards seemed to be fading away, Jay-Z brought it back to life by giving the 35-year-old rapper a taste of his own medicine during the BET Awards ceremony on Sunday.

• ACTA Rejected by European Parliament: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was overwhelmingly rejected by the Members of European Parliament, bringing the controversial anti-piracy pact to a state of abandonment.

• Slender Man Indie Game: Parsec Productions released Slender, a free indie horror game in which the player must avoid looking directly at Slender Man to keep from going insane.

• Pedobear Featured on KitKat's Facebook Page: The parade of PR controversies on Facebook continued this month when American candy brand KitKat's Facebook announced its expansion into Instagram with a cute picture of …Pedobear.