WEEKLY WHINE

As always, Gauguin was correct

We are delighted that our recent GoobNet Decade Championship was such a success. Many of you submitted brackets or otherwise tried to predict the outcome [there was a lot of love for the 1820s out there]. We also received a number of questions and comments about the 64 decades that were the subject of the tournament.

One question was raised by many. In our seedings, we awarded each event a plus sign or minus sign according to whether we considered that event positive or negative. Unlike most events of discoveries, however, we considered the discoveries of asteroids 1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, 3 Juno, and 4 Vesta as a negative event. When they were first discovered, astronomers believed they were planets. Eventually, other objects in the asteroid belt were discovered, and the category of “asteroid” was created. Because astronomers were originally confused, however, we felt that it was actually a detriment to the practise of astronomy to consider them planets.

Let’s now take a look at some other responses that we received in the GoobNet Mailbox. As always, please wear the lead aprons, opaque goggles, and tight belts provided at all times when the GoobNet Mailbox is open. We regret that we are no longer able to provide latex gloves as part of the safety protocol, due to an unsanitary condition created by a certain individual. Additionally, Christopher O’Neill, husband of Princess Madeleine of Sweden, is no longer permitted to attend openings of the GoobNet Mailbox.

Also, those two announcements are completely unrelated.

I began The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. Surely that decade deserves to receive credit for a cultural event.

– Geoffrey Chaucer
London, England, UK

Congratulations on The Canterbury Tales. However, we did not feel that it quite attained the level of excellence needed to make it a major cultural event of that decade.

The death of my friend Vincent van Gogh was one of the worst events of the decade of the 1890s.

– Paul Gauguin
Tahiti, French Polynesia

Yes, it was. We are considering whether we should have included that in our assessment of that decade.

I feel that you omitted one of the important events of the 2000s: Chris Crocker’s passionate video defense of Britney Spears, which was in response to the news degeneration that you included as a negative for that decade. There were many courageous people like Chris who spoke out against that degeneration, and I feel that they were worth a mention.

– F Scott Fitzgerald
New York City, NY, USA

We agree that many courageous people like Chris have spoken out and continue to speak out about what is happening to the mass media. In general, though, we tried to avoid including multiple events that have the same root cause. The humanitarian responses to the Boxing Day tsunami and TUE 11 SEP 2001, for example, were mightily inspiring, but they were not enough to overturn the net negative effect of those two events.

I was disappointed that my fellow Dutch Golden Age painters did not receive a mention. Surely the Peace of Münster and the paintings of it, by some of my contemporaries like ter Borch and van der Helst, were more important to the 1640s than wallpaper.

– Rembrandt van Rijn
Amsterdam, Netherlands

With respect, Mr van Rijn, in Reg’s house, one will find wallpaper in every room, but nowhere is there a single one of your paintings.

Three of my sisters all published wonderful novels in 1847: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Anne’s Agnes Grey, and Emily’s Wuthering Heights. Combined with their 1846 collection of poems and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in 1848, my sisters’ achievements in the 1840s are well worth a mention.

– Branwell Brontë
Haworth, England, UK

We are considering whether we should have included them along with Dickens and Poe.

The quiz show scandals were a major cultural event of the 1950s. I believe that they would have been worth mentioning in your review of that decade.

– Joseph Stone
New York City, NY, USA

We decided that the quiz show scandals did not quite reach the level necessary for inclusion. Their effects are largely limited to the United States.

Were the founding of Twitter and YouTube not worth credit for the 2000s? Those two sites are probably the most important sites on the Internet today. In fact, most other websites have accounts on Twitter and YouTube. You, however, do not. Are you not simply biased against Twitter and YouTube? At long last, GoobNet, have you no decency?

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky
St Petersburg, Russia

None whatsoever.

I was the first woman to be nominated for vice president of the USA by a major party in 2008. That has to be one of the most important events of that decade, if not the most important. That would move the 2000s from a 16 seed to a 1 seed in your tournament. Also, Darwin’s publication of his theory of evolution should have a minus sign next to it, not a plus sign.

– Sarah Palin
Wassila, AK, USA

Go away. And stop denying the existence of global warming, evolution, and Geraldine Ferraro.