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Big News » Chief Justice William Rehnquist died last night at 80. He had thyroid cancer. He served on the United States Supreme Court for 33 years.
Now, today's story...From my admittedly limited perspective on life, one of the most fascinating concepts seems to me to be that of the coincidence. Irony, put another way.
I sometimes laugh at fiction writers who choose to take their cues from actual events. Yet obviously art imitating life is the simplest form of coincidence. When "ripped from the headlines" is voiced over a Law & Order spot on NBC, you're not surprised to see a story that strikingly resembles something you just read in the morning paper. (On the other hand, the disclaimer at the end is a little annoying.)
What grabs my interest is life imitating art. Two examples of television entertainment are coming close to being realized in the three-dimensional world. It's really quite strange to me.
One example is the recent hurricane-caused devastation on the Gulf Coast (when compared with this year's FX movie Oil Storm) and the other is the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist (if you saw a 2004 episode of The West Wing).
Oil Storm, which I actually
wrote a little about, was a fictional movie shot like an after-the-fact documentary. It was about Hurricane Julia, a massive storm that destroyed Gulf Coast ports and the oil pipeline connecting them to the rest of the country, effectively cutting off the supply of quite a bit fo crude in September 2005 (the movie aired in June). Sound familiar?
I cringed every time they showed gas prices going up to four, five, seven dollars a gallon. And while the movie was on a more extreme scale than Hurricane Katrina, I'm still floored by the number of coincidences. I've listed some of them below (the work of fiction next to the top bullet, the real world beneath).
Storm names, landfall dates:
• Hurricane Julia, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005 (Category 4);
• Hurricane Katrina, Monday, Aug. 29, 2005 (Category 4).
Human death toll:
• Nearly 1,500 fatalities;
• Predicted to be in the thousands.
Average gas prices days following storms:
• $4.29 per gallon (regular);
• $3.08 per gallon (regular).
Not only are those things true, but other parallels include the evacuation of the city of New Orleans, the opening of the Superdome for those stranded, and a direct hit by the storm on Port Fourchon, a primary hub for oil coming into the United States.
So who thinks FX will be airing that movie again any time in the near future?
Then there is the Supreme Court situation which, while not sharing as many direct parallels, is just as ironic.
In a fifth season episode of
The West Wing, entitled "The Supremes," the Bartlet administration is faced with the opportunity of filling a vacant Supreme Court seat when an associate justice has a heart attack. There's a few semi-funny moments dealing with the declining health of the the chief justice and a White House aide sending flowers to the family under that assumption.
But the staff decides to completely overhaul the court if they can get the help they need. As Democrats, they want the most liberal judge they can find, though the Republican Congress will have none of that. So they talk the chief justice into retiring so they can name a liberal female judge as chief and let the Republicans choose their dream candidate as well. And so it was.
By the way, the fictional Bartlet administration filled a seat back in the first season also. But how often does an administration really get to nominate a new justice? Let alone two or three. For those of you who skipped during American Government class, Supreme Court justices are nominated to life-long terms.
Back in the real world, with O'Connor having stepped down several months ago, Rehnquist's passing last night now gives the Bush adminstration the chance to fill two seats, including naming a new chief justice. It's weird, right?
While neither of these situations exactly mirrors the fictional works, they are still striking to me in similarities. It's weird enough when art imitates life.
But this is just absurd.
Watch For Yourself: I cut together a two-minute video of scenes from Oil Storm that I thought related especially to the Hurricane Katrina situation. You can click
here to watch it. Remember, this movie first aired June 5, 2005. Feel free to leave your comments below.
