The University was put on high alert last Thursday when a “suspicious animal,” possibly a cougar, was reportedly seen roaming North Campus. And no, I’m not talking about a middle-aged woman hoping to meet a nice Engineering student. (Bet you hadn’t heard that one before.)
The alleged cougar sighting may have captured the attention of students for a few hours, but it wasn’t the most ridiculous piece of news to make waves this week. Here are some other stories that, like Cougargate, caught my attention for their sheer absurdity. Except, for better or for worse, these stories actually matter.
1. The true cause of Trayvon Martin’s death? According to Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera, the 17-year-old’s hoodie. Of course. Because when you see a “dark-skinned kid walking down the street,” shooting to kill is simply a “reflexive action.” We all know that murder is bad. But murdering someone wearing a hoodie? Well, Rivera seems to think that’s a reasonable thing to do. Rivera has received considerable backlash for his insensitive statements, and rightly so. There’s a way to talk about stereotypes and their deadly consequences with integrity. And then there’s Rivera’s tactic: blame the victim of those stereotypes, thereby reinforcing them.
2. The newest star in the Republican presidential primaries? The Etch A Sketch. On Wednesday, senior Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said he wasn’t worried that Romney’s extremist rhetoric would alienate moderate voters come November.
“It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch,” he said on CNN. “You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”
Pouncing on the opportunity to discredit Romney’s claim to conservatism, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich made the Etch A Sketch a centerpiece in their public appearances over the next couple days. Both candidates could be found holding up the toy as they condemned the “inevitable” candidate’s inevitable flip-flop. I enjoy picturing the interns who were sent on a wild goose chase to track down an Etch A Sketch — almost as much as I enjoy Santorum and Gingrich’s attempts to brandish the Etch A Sketch casually in the middle of their speeches, as if they just happened to have one on hand. That’s a political gimmick at its finest. Who would’ve thought that the decades-old toy would be making headlines in the 2012 race for the White House? Call me crazy, but I’d say the Etch A Sketch is this year’s most surprising comeback in national politics.
3. Who’s getting a new lease on life? Dick Cheney. The former vice president received a heart transplant on Saturday. Still no word on whether Cheney’s new heart will make him a decent human being or, given the series of car bombings that devastated Iraq last Tuesday, any more capable of expressing shame and regret for the futile war he helped to manufacture. The attacks marked the ninth anniversary of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Apparently, violence lingers even after war officially ends. Who would have guessed that? Back in October, former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann argued that “Iraq should reimburse the United States fully for the amount of money we’ve spent to liberate these people.” Aside from the backwardness of her morals, I wonder if Bachmann still subscribes to this pay-per-liberation logic. Now that Cheney has a heart, maybe he’ll convince Bachmann and her fellow Republican presidential nominees to do some soul-searching of their own. Or maybe she’ll just get the Iraqis to reimburse Cheney for his surgery.
A heart transplant, an Etch A Sketch and a hoodie. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.
Worse: it’s a recipe for bad news, bad politics and bad people.
Daniel Chardell can be reached at chardell@umich.edu.