Weekend Update - Apocalypse Edition

(There are legends and then there are legends. Eugene is a legendary town, what with your Grateful Dead types and your Ken Kesey types and your jeans-wearing Governors telling tourists to visit but don't stay, Oregon, and especially Eugene, is, well, mygod you gotta love this place. People can become legendary here, but they really really have to work at it. You can't just walk around downtown with a funny hat and expect to be treated like a legend. Not in this town. We demand more. With that in mind, and with the authority granted me by a young hippy girl with no top on at the Oregon Country Fair in 1981, I would like to declare someone legendary. His name is Brewster, and he and his bicycle-with-trailer apparently have been banned from riding any of the local buses, and Brewster, in his mid 40's, who has taken the art of holding a grudge to a completely new level, rides daily by the main LTD bus stations in our area. Suddenly he'll shoot a couple blasts from his boat-type air horn and then shout at the top of his lungs "L...T...D can lick my hairy, sweaty nut sack!" He's been doing this most every day, rain or shine, for over 2 years. During football season he'll preface his mantra with "Go Ducks!" Add this: a couple times a year our legendary town holds what is called a "naked bike ride" to protest something, can't remember what at this point. Participants in various stages of undress ride in a group around town during the evening hours. All harmless fun I suppose, until earlier this month when our boy Brewster decided to join in. I didn't see this myself, but the report is that when the group approached the LTD bus station downtown, Brewster was seen in the middle of pack, stark naked, honking his horn and yelling his legendary phrase. To everyone's dismay, it's also reported that our boy Brewster was quite erect at the time. Therefore, I officially declare that from this day forward, John Brewster is a Eugene Legend. But I digress ...)

• The oily disaster that is the BP Gulf Oil Spill Clusterf**k continues unabated. Mark Morford is beginning to believe this all is the sign of the coming apocalypse. He offers us two Worst Case Scenerios and then this grand finale: A new survey says that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans -- 40 percent, to be exact -- actually believe Jesus will return by 2050, likely riding on the back of a flaming asteroid (30 percent think one will hit us by then), waving a cowboy hat and yodeling as he careens toward our hapless blue dot of inequity, pain and lousy AT&T reception. This one calls for a trip to the liquor store.
• We generally love and agree with Frank Rich, a senior editorialist for the New York Times. Here he discusses President Obama's response to the disaster in the Gulf, and it's well worth the read. Click here.
• Arthur in Marin County writes: "Drill baby drill! I had forgotten what an absurd mantra of the 2008 campaign that cry had become, lead of course by Sarah Palin." Also, "In the whole discussion over the Gulf Oil spill there are some things I did not know. For example, all of the deep water drilling only started on Bush II's watch and it is now a major part of the oil production in the Gulf. No wonder people are fighting to keep the right to continue to do it. Money."
• Apparently our economy isn't in all that bad of a shape. Our beloved government is spending $517 Million to develop a blimp! to spy on Afghanistans. Cool! "This opportunity leverages our longstanding leadership positions in developing innovative unmanned air vehicles, C4ISR weapon systems, and leading edge systems integration, and moves Northrop Grumman into this rapidly emerging market space of airships for the military and homeland defense arenas," said Gary Ervin, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems sector. It's shit like this that makes me so proud to pay my taxes on time. (Sorry, that trip to the liquor store is getting to me...)
• Someone explain this one to me. Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot has been bragging about receiving a deluge of attention from women since confessing to the murder of Stephany Flores. Apparently murderers in prison get all kinds of letters filled with offers of marriage and whatever from lonely women. What? Oh, it's a fetish? Oh brother. That calls for another drink. I'm outta here. Get out there and mow that lawn.