The nation's hairs on fire. Sony Pictures cancelled the release of "The Interview" after every movie chain in the country cancelled its opening on Christmas Day (talk about "for chrissake"!).

Hackers said to be North Korean apparatchaks invaded Sony computers and released gossipy e-mails, future movies, new songs, and lunch orders from famous people. They then threatened to blow up any theater showing the movie. The two buffoons who made the movie seem amazed that the assassination of NK's Kim-Jong Un, by blowing off his head, should cause such a stir (it's only a joke); so too are movie critics, pundits, and the president of the United States. Those North Koreans have no sense of humor! Guess not.

I have been waiting for someone to write, "And while I am all for bold creative choices, was it really important that the head being blown up in a comedy about bungling assassins be that of an actual sitting ruler of a sovereign state?" David Carr (NYTimes) finally did along with a long analysis that brings me to conclude that these buffoons along with many other Hollywoodites are as much a national security threat as North Korea. North Korea scares us but the buffoons make us stupid.

UPDATE: "CloudFlare, an Internet company based in San Francisco, confirmed Monday that North Korea’s Internet access was “toast.”  Retaliation? More buffoonery? Battery shortage? Toaster overheated? Story here.

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Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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