In response to ABC News’ exclusive photos of the explosive rig worn by the so-called “crotchbomber” — who failed to bring down Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, but did manage to burn the hell out of his own legs and, presumably, genitalia — Xeni Jardin over at Boing Boing remarked:
What better way to round out this scorched and shitty decade than to gaze thoughtfully into the charred, soiled underpants of a stranger. A troubled young man who seems to have hated America only as much as he hated his own junk.
I wholeheartedly concur. This entire decade has been pretty much end-to-end suck. Don’t believe me? Check out Newsweek‘s retrospective video (not embeddable, unfortunately) and refresh your memory. From hanging chads in 2000 through 9/11, the Iraq War, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and government-sanctioned torture; the PATRIOT Act; the TSA and its increasingly ridiculous “security measures”; the break-up of the space shuttle Columbia; Hurricane Katrina; the rise of reality television and the belligerent vapidity that came with it; the general bellicosity that seems to have infected even the simplest public discourse; increasingly corrosive and seemingly intractable political partisanship; a truly frightening resurgence of religious fundamentalism all across the globe, and the outright renunciation of science by a shockingly large percentage of Americans; the proud-to-be-ignorant anti-intellectual attitude displayed by far, far too many people in a country that used to value education and expertise; the crashing economy; all the talk about global warming and peak oil; the general sense that The World As We’ve Known It is coming to an end; and a constant societal undertow of fear, uncertainty, and disillusionment, all leading up to the recent death of Patrick Swayze (which, even though I haven’t blogged about it, really bummed me out) and finally this dumbass with the bomb in his shorts. Not to mention the inexplicable popularity of Napoleon Dynamite and Family Guy. Is it any wonder that I am ever-more consumed with nostalgia with each passing year, if this is the 21st century?
On the positive side, I read somewhere that Google Books now has a fine selection of back issues from the old Weekly World News tabloid, so that’s something at least. Bat Boy, save us from our despair!
