Yow! Lotsa stuff in the real world last week!

Item:

Minnesotan art student runs amuck, pipebombing mailboxes for no apparent reason.

Alice in TV Land has more, including a link to a mirror of the kid’s band site (they are called “Apathy”).

Here’s what I’d like to know: why is John Walker Lindh such a lighting rod compared to this this kid? My only slightly informed opinion of the bomb kid is that he’s sort of hapless, which is somehow reinforced by his choice of band names.

Here’s what’s interesting to me about this: we don’t actually have any evidence at all that Lindh ever hurt a fly. He’d been trained, sort of, and had chosen a religious belief system that became highly unfashionable in the American press in September, granted.

But I’m hard pressed to recall a clear, unambiguous blowing-up-a-mail-carrier’s-hand incident associated with Mr. Lindh.

So:

Luke Helder, associated with injuring six people via pipe bomb, a hapless art-nebbish whose concerned parents have helpfully illuminated his troubled mind in the media.

John Walker Lindh, associated with our gummints’ enemy du jour, a hapless religious nebbish whose concerned parents have helpfully illuminated his trobled mind in the media and whose head is slated for pikeage by pundits and represtatives of the US government as well.

UPDATE: (CNN.com) “Police: Suspect planned smiley face bomb pattern”

Okay, maybe that explains it. Or maybe the kid just read “From Hell” and “Watchmen” a couple too many times.

Check the map. Looks like he’d gotten the left side of the smile started.

So, is this a junior thesis for art school? It may be the world’s largest work of geographically specific art.