Without “Selfie” Regard

While wandering around the internet in search of something to divert our gaze from that gruesome presidential race, we happened upon a story about the rising toll of deaths resulting from “selfies.” We like to think ourselves the compassionate and nonjudgmental type, but we’re not so stone-hearted that we didn’t have to suppress a slight chuckle about it.

If you’re not au courant on the latest hep cat lingo, “selfie” is the neologism that probably best sums up our sorry zeitgeist. It’s broadly defined as a cell phone camera self-portrait, taken from arm’s length or a slightly wider angle with help of a “selfie stick” that some people apparently carry around, which is then shared with the self-portraitist’s friends on Facebook and Instagram and other social media, another newfangled nuisance we still like to call “social media,” with the quote marks there to express our hope it will soon go away. In some cases they depict the self-portraitist enjoying a satisfying meal at a nondescript chain restaurant or running into an old classmate or becoming so pleasantly drunk they felt compelled to share some documentation of the moment with their friends, in others they document that the self-portraitist was in camera range of some famous landmark or minor celebrity or ongoing natural disaster, and in some cases they depict the self-portraitist engaging in some sort of derring-do.

That lattermost genre has recently led to the deaths of two tourists standing astride the dangerous cliffs overlooking Machu Picchu, Peru, and the Conde Nast travel company is reporting that around the globe “selfies” have lately claimed more tourists’ lives than sharks. There’s already one of those newfangled Wikipedia pages devoted to the phenomenon, and it reports that other “selfie”-induced deaths involved a fellow who was electrocuted standing atop an electric train, another falling down the stairs of the Taj Mahal, and yet another posing with a walrus. Cliff-falling and drowning seem to be the most common sorts of fatal “selfies,” but sooner or later someone is bound to perish by posing for a “selfie” with a shark, and we guess the Conde Nast people will have to score that as a tie.

We lament these tragic deaths, being such compassionate and nonjudgmental types, despite having to suppress that slight chuckle, but we also lament the whole idea of the “selfie.” To get all Ecclesiastical on you, the whole “selfie” thing always brings to mind that fine Old Testament wisdom about “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” That ugly “selfie” coinage somehow signifies to us all the self-regard and self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement that makes for such an ugly zeitgeist, and we can’t wait for the fad to pass.

Most of the “selfie” fatalities so far seem to have been foreigners, but we’ve long been embarrassed that the current President of the United States is also an avid cell phone self-portraitist. He’s embarrassed himself and the country by posing for a smiling “selfie” with that hot Denmark Prime Minister at former South African President Nelson Mandela’s funeral, and he’s one of those people who carry around a “selfie stick” for some reason, and if he does somehow manage to make the sea levels lower in his lame duck months in office we’re sure he’ll be there to document the occasion at an arm’s length or longer. His likely successor’s only redeeming qualities are that they’re such old geezers neither claims to be au courant on the latest hep cat lingo.

The presumptive Republican Presidential nominee is a force on “Twitter” but always allows himself to be photographed from more than an arm’s or “selfie stick” distance, and the presumptive Democratic nominee is offering her geezer Luddite tendencies as an excuse for her should-have-been-indicted e-mail practices, and although both are by now probably right up there with the the bald spot in self-described socialist and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ head and the various Kardashians in the number of “selfies” taken with them neither is guilty of the practice. Still, they both seem so typically-of-the-zeitgeist self-regarding and self-centered and self-aggrandizing that there’s no respite anywhere on the internet.

— Bud Norman

Believe It or Not

Even the most far-fetched conspiracy theories are starting to sound slightly plausible these days, what with the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme, the Internal Revenue Service’s harassment of the president’s political opponents, the National Security Agency’s extensive snooping around America’s phone records, and all the other hard-to-believe revelations of the past five years. Still, given our experience of mankind we retain our longstanding belief that well-intentioned stupidity is always a more likely explanation than diabolical genius for the sorry state of the world.

More fevered imaginations continue to concoct the most meticulously plotted tales of intrigue, and the fine folks at Popular Mechanics have helpfully rounded up an intriguing list of “Nine Utterly Ridiculous Conspiracy Theories.” The venerable geek-porn publication did a great service by using its technological expertise to debunk the bizarre conspiracy theories concerning the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., which have largely gone away since the hateful George W. Bush left office and the loveable Barack Obama became an accomplice by his role in the continuing cover-up, but in this case they’ve offered up some ideas that seem every bit as unlikely.

One comes from the Middle East, which exports even more conspiracy theories than it does oil, and concerns some killer sharks that the Israelis allegedly trained to attack Egyptian swimmers. Jews are recurring characters in popular conspiracies, as are the Masons, and we’re therefore awaiting an expose of how Jackie Mason is the true puppet-master of the world. Another comes from Atlanta, usually more a sensible part of the world, where the two inches of snow that shut down the city was thought to be a chemical product that somehow defies melting even by blowtorch. One can well understand how a bit of snow could cause a traffic jam in such a typically temperate climate, but we wouldn’t have expected it to result in such a pile-up of logic.

A third theory posits that Adam and Eve were members of an extra-terrestrial race who came to earth aboard Noah’s Ark, which was actually a space ship, while a fourth insists that the world is secretly run by a race of extra-terrestrial lizard people. We’ll stick with the account in the book of Genesis, which holds that Noah’s Ark was built of gopher wood some time after the appearance of Adam and Eve, but we have to admit that the lizard people story would explain a lot. A fifth theory holds that a popular Iphone application will cause the gates of hell to open on July 27 of this year, and even though we’ve seen too many people mesmerized by cell phones to doubt their demonic powers we’ll still make plans for July 28.

A sixth theory holds that the years between 614 and 911 A.D. didn’t happen. The theorists don’t adequately explain what happened to them, but we must admit we can’t recall anything of that era. For those who have grown bored with the decades-old theory that the moon landings were faked there is a seventh theory claiming that the moon itself is faked. That silvery round thing you see in the night sky is actually a hologram, according to this theory, so apparently hologram technology is old enough to have fooled all those ancient poets. An eighth theory is that the Denver International Airport is the base for a Federal Emergency Management Agency death camp, which in turn is part of a Satanic conspiracy. Having spent an hour-long lay-over there this past November we can attest that this is not outside the realm of possibility, although it didn’t strike us any more Satanic than any other big city airport. The final conspiracy theory is that the Large Hadron Collider project is actually build a star gate to revive Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, for unexplained reasons. The first time we heard of the project it was misspelled as the Large Hardon Collider, which seemed a damned silly waste of scientific resources, and we must admit that reviving Osiris would be a better use of the project’s massive funding.

Several of the comments noted with astonishment that none of these conspiracy theories involve the Koch brothers, and these days that is hard to account for. We love a good Koch conspiracy theory, as it heartens us to think that the world is being clandestinely manipulated from here in Wichita, but it seems we’ll have to rely on MSNBC and the latest Democratic fund-raising letters for our daily dose of those. Some conspiracy theories are so utterly ridiculous they can be found only there.

— Bud Norman