Rarely is this question posed: Have I unknowingly been in the hot tub time machine or has the past week or so been a really wicked case of déjà vu? I have recently been asking myself this as a series of seemingly long-exhausted events came to an incredibly startling — OK, slightly entertaining — temporal intersection.
Most prominent in both the current public eye and the foundation of my possible time warp conundrum, the Roman Catholic Church has entered round two of its sex-abuse scandal chronicles, the first instance of which rose to a national fervor here in the U.S. during the early part of the last decade. Now the allegations have emerged in Europe, where Pope Benedict XVI, the cardinal formerly known as J.Ratz, has been implicated in a case in Germany, as well as in the halting of the prosecution of a case from Milwaukee.
Demands of an apology and acknowledgement of responsibility have been raised, along with a few assertions of resignation, amid much speculation concerning the tarnishing of his legacy. I suppose this means his options include his original, colloquial reputation as “that nearly Nazi pope,” his established standing as “that whip-cracking pope,” and newly-revealed role as “that fondle-friendly pope.” (Bonus points if he goes for all three; I hear that’s quite the often-strived-for, seldom-achieved combo-fetish in his native Deutschland.) Perhaps he should just pray for a swift onset of Parkinson’s disease so the church can allow his responsibility in the matter to be conveniently sidestepped and diminished, as was done with his predecessor Pope JP II.
Another blast from the past reared its head last week in Arizona. That’s right, McPalin is back together. I was beginning to long for the dumb-yet-spunky/ancient-thus-crotchety dynamic that rocketed them all the way to an impressive second place finish in the ‘08 election. At a rally for McCain’s re-election to the Senate, Palin pleaded with crowd, “for the sake of our country,” to support the elder senator. Of course, her appeal would have been more effective had, say, a group of Palinites not shown up with T-shirts, signs and, naturally, palms branded with “Palin 2012.” As if that wasn’t attention-diverting enough, the consensus quoted among her folksy-focused supporters was approximately, “I could care less about this ‘John’ character, I’m here for Sarah — wooo!” Perhaps they were confused about the nature of the event. Perhaps she was confused about the nature of the event. Maybe they all just went rogue (independently, of course).
Keeping this flashback train rolling, reminiscence of Kanye West and Hurricane Katrina danced through my head after seeing a video of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton visiting Haiti. The clip shows the two former presidents shaking hands with residents and survivors of the recent earthquake, when a seemingly panic-stricken Bush suddenly and blatantly wipes his hands all over Clinton’s shirt sleeve after finishing his greeting rounds. Bill gives his best WTF face as the clip cuts away. Hilarity ensues, followed by a sobering feeling that Kanye West was in fact on to something when he stated, in a post-Katrina moment of agitation, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
Not only did this wipe channel Bush’s alleged distaster-triggered racial indifference, it also prompted memories of the famed eyeglass wiping incident and, of course, his post-Obama-shake hand-sani-spritz, all combining to form one mind-bending cluster-nugget of coincidence I’ve come to expect only from “Lost.” I’m just glad to see G-Dubs still sticking to his guns. His unapologetic, PC-slaying guns. Way to keep it classy.
All in all, I think it’s appropriate to give a shoutout this week to random resurfacing, fecund fortuitousness, historical happenstance — oh, and nicknames.
Ryan Spencer is a psychology senior. His columns appear on Mondays.
