Warning: This blog may attempt real or attempted humor. Any reader who has allergic reactions to sarcasm, cyncism, and irony should proceed at their own risk.

I subscribe to a magazine called The Week. It is an excellent weekly summary of news both useful and weird. Here is a sampling of the “news” from the most recent issue.

• The Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics announced the first pill to combat stupidity. The drug has been shown to improve the attentiveness and short-term memory of flies and mice.

First impressions. It will now be harder to swat flies and catch mice. Now flies will more likely notice you approaching with the swatter. And the mice will remember that cousin Mickey did not have a good result going for the free cheese buffet. As for human applications, I was excited at first about the prospects of the anti-stupid pill. But then I started thinking that stupid people are not going to see the need to take the pill. And it seems that if everyone takes the pill we are going to be slightly smarter but the ratios will remain the same. People smarter than me will still be smarter than me if we both take the anti-stupid pill. Good idea…but now I will use up all of my extra smarts trying to swat the more attentive flies and catch those now wary mice.

• A camper is suing the U.S. Government because he fell off a cliff while relieving himself during the night while camping at Mt. Hood National Park. The lawsuit says (and I am not making this up) that “while looking for a place to relieve himself the plaintiff walked off the unguarded and unprotected creek, falling 20 to 30 feet to the creek below.” The plaintiff, Jerry Mersereau, said the government should have known that campers might wander off the cliff, and he is demanding compensation for his “mental anguish”.

I would suggest the first expenditure if there is any cash award should be to buy a gross of the pills described above. The plaintiff walked off the “unguarded” creek? Was there supposed to be an attendant there handing out hand towels? “Watch your step sir. There is a 30 foot drop to the latrine.” Anyone who regularly observes the workings of government would not depend on Washington to watch over the safety of nocturnal nature calls. I guess the standard response is obvious…blame George Bush. I do agree that such a tumble would give me “mental anguish”. Except I might also describe it as “extreme embarrassment”.

The Week Magazine excerpted an interview with writer/filmmaker Woody Allen. The original piece ran in the Washington Post. In the interview Allen laments that celebrity status really has not made him all that happy.

• “But once you get up in years, like seventies, there’s nothing good about it. The dynamite women you see on the street, that world is gone to you. “You know, it’s inappropriate,” he mutters, as though he’s about to think better of discussing this. “One of the great pastimes of my life was eyeing girls in short skirts, and that’s gone. They’re unavailable to you, and in the few cases where you could work your magic, it’s to no practical avail because you can’t plan a future if you’re 70 and she’s 22. So your flirtation life goes, which is a big part of everybody’s enjoyment in life.”

That is really sad. Make that pathetic. It is pathetic that a man could live over 70 years on this planet and that paragraph is his summation of happiness. When your “flirtation life” is gone a big part of your happiness is gone? I have learned a lot about happiness and love in the past few months. My wife’s battle with breast cancer has redefined beauty and love in a relationship. I wrote a piece called Bald is Beautiful. I regret that Woody Allen apparently has never experienced a relationship like that. But you have to dig a little deeper than “flirtation life” with “short skirts” to get there. Woody Allen could have saved himself a lot of anguish by reading Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament.

Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “utterly meaningless!”
What do people get for all their hard work? Generations come and go, but nothing really changes. The sun rises and sets and hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south and north, here and there, twisting back and forth, getting nowhere. The rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows again to the sea. Everything is so weary and tiresome! No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

As cool as celebrity and wealth may seem this is where you will ultimately find yourself without a relationship with the Living God. The wise king Soloman agonized for chapter after chapter about the meaning of this existence. And finally he concluded.

Here is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is the duty of every person. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

And that brings us to the saddest part of Allen’s interview. Allen concludes that his final destination will not be altered by his celebrity. On that point he is exactly right.

• He dislikes looking back, if only because his life seems wispy to him in hindsight and death is a punch line that turns the past and present into cruel farce. “It’s like the two trains at the beginning of my movie ‘Stardust Memories,’ ” he says. “There’s a train with these gorgeous winners on it, and a train with all the losers in it. You want to be on the train with the winners, but five minutes later, you’re pulling into the same depot. My 70-plus years will be spent better than those of a beggar on the streets of Calcutta. But we’ll wind up in the same place.”

That conclusion may or may not be correct. In my belief it will depend on which train the beggar had boarded. Scripture notes that the order of “Stardust Memories” is often reversed. The first shall be last. The “losers” shall be “winners”. The destination may well be different. The difference is Jesus. It seems from his public comments that Woody Allen has rejected religion. He certainly does not seem to have figured out how to fill that void.