Something Happen While I Was Gone?

The past ten days or so have been, as Tom Lehrer used to say, "That Was The Week That Was".

Let's do a quick review, shall we? And, yes; this may be on the Final.

• North Korea Pulls Another Nutter
  Some months ago, a South Korean navy vessel blew up and sank in the waters off the western coastline of the Korean peninsula (aka The Disputed Zone). The South believes, and apparently has evidence to support the charge, that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the ship. Tensions escalate, and everyone seems to be waiting for the Pyongyang crowd's next move. Rightists dance with glee: Democrats are soft on defense! Another thing to use against that awful negro socialist leader!
  
  Remember -- these are the same Guys who want to ship nuclear bomb-making technology wherever they can. The same Guys who built a reactor for the Syrians in the middle of nowhere, which the Israelis bombed to pieces, and which the Syrians cleaned up faster than you can say "Keyhole satellite" before denying everything.


• Gulf Oil Spill
  Bad to worse. The Obama administration inherited an U.S. Interior Department that was that has always been the paid whore of oil companies; but the administration also listened to British Petroleum's estimates of the rate of the oil leak -- and because, aber natürlich, those estimates were self-serving and far too low, made Obama appear slow to mobilize a government response. Rightists dance with glee: It's his 'Katrina!' Another thing to use against the scary black man illegitimate leader!
  
  And, the response of the general public for the first weeks (Hey! Folks! Oil has been gushing for 39 days!) seemed like, "Yeah; bad news, hah? So Whadya Whadya?". The Great Curmudgeon noted oil would have to hit the Gulf coast beaches before anyone in Washington and the media would believe there was a crisis. Essentially, he was right.
  
  So: "Top Kill" fails. "Junk Shot" fails. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil per day continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Hey -- maybe people will really wake up when oil starts moving via the Atlantic Conveyor currents, and begins affecting ocean life more globally? Huh? Ya think?


• Scientists Create New Living Organism In Lab
  (Sigh) I don't even want to think very deeply about this. Science in the service of profit, particularly when it involves cutting-edge genetics or nanotic technology, has some real horrible bad crazy awful (a combination of 'Zombieland' and the last four years of the Go-Go, "Lil' Boots" Bush years) potential consequences.
  
  The boys and girls who did this will probably get a Big Award for it anyway. Alfred Nobel did soup up the manufacturing process of dynamite, after all. And, Rightists dance with glee: Science bad! Science against god! Evil evil evil evil Punish them in the fire!! It's all because of the evil awful negro leader in the pocket of oil companies!


• Continuing, Escalating Islamic Violence
  Every time I turn around, there's another report of another suicide bombing by the Taliban in a Mosque, or an attack on an American base in Afghanistan.
  
  And, I can't help but think that "Lil' Boots" Bush and President Cheney were the most criminally incompetent leaders the United States has ever had. Invading Iraq, for no reason beyond the fact that Saddam Hussein was a cheap, easy target, while ignoring the real danger in Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, was a mistake on the order of sending the 6th Army in to take Stalingrad.
  
  However, Rightists dance with glee: Islamists evil! Osama-Obama scary black man illegitimate leader is a secret Muslim! A Toyota truck full of Taliban and Linsday Lohan will come to your house and leer at your daughters!!


• Large Art Heist
  In Paris, a museum was robbed -- apparently by a lone burglar, though a job of this caliber being pulled off by Le Chat (Cary Grant's character in 'To Catch A Thief') is small; it takes a Crew. Taken were works by Matisse (sad), and Picasso (paint them over with gesso and reuse the canvasses, please), and Cezanne (Quelle Horreur!) However, Rightists dance with glee: Art bad! All art but Thomas Kincaid and Lawrence Welk bad! Burn it all in the fire!!


• Lindsay Lohan Appears In Court
  This is completely gratuitous filler; I don't give a damn what that spoiled [deleted] does with her life. However, Rightists dance with glee: Bad girl bad! Lesbians bad! Against god! Evil evil evil evil Punish her in the fire!!


• Celebrity Deaths
  Art Linkleiter. Gary Coleman. Dennis Hopper. Louise Bourgeois.
  
  When I was a boy, I liked watching Linkleiter in the 1960's as the host of a long-running afternoon teevee program, Kids Say The Darndest Things. The premise was simple -- take young children, put them in chairs and ask them gently revealing questions about life and their experiences.
  
  Linkleiter's son died after jumping off a roof while allegedly high on LSD -- which, I will attest, can make you do nutty things. I was always the Guy who, when everyone suggested driving to Marin County to eat, would look at you, note that your head was on fire, and say No, man; you're obviously too screwed up to drive -- I mean, your head's on fire, dude -- so give me the keys. C'mon! Fork 'em over.
  
  I never watched Different Strokes, and had assumed for years that Coleman was actually Mickey Rooney in makeup.
  
  Dennis Hopper. I enjoyed him as an actor, but knew he was not the Guy To Be Trapped With In A Bus Shelter During A Torrential Rainstorm, because he and I had been to similar places (See the bit about LSD and driving above). But, I'd had a tourist visa; Hopper had opted to live there.
  
  Louise Bourgeois: Didn't begin producing her most seminal work until she was in her sixties. I didn't always understand the language she spoke in, but admired her energy and persistence. Thought her 'Spider period' was pretty creepy, though.
  
  (The Rightists are kind of standing around here, with nothing much to say; several try to get some chant going about Bourgeois being an evil feminist artist (Art bad! Against god!), but this peters out pretty quickly.)

Oh, right: Remember, kids: Art is both an individual and collective human response, in symbolic terms, to the fact of our own deaths in a Universe whose purpose cannot be known.

And that will definitely be on the final.