ANALYSIS: TRUE. Society is in a constant race “between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.” As Richard Fernandez writes, “Guns, Gorillas, Moon Missions: Overprotection Makes Us Less Safe.”

The media’s obsession this week over the gorilla echoes its obsession with shark attacks in the summer before 9/11, doesn’t it? Or as the earlier, funnier Onion noted afterward in October 2001, “A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again.”