Vol. 8, Issue 3, May 4, 2010
Iceland Secretly Glad Something Big Enough Happened to Bump Volcano out of News
There are very few upsides to the massive ecological disaster underway following the explosion of an offshore BP oil well. However, while most see the relentless and increasingly grim headlines focusing on the deadly oil slick menacing the entire U.S. East Coast as depressing, there is one group that is allegedly not complaining: Icelanders.
"The oil spill is a terrible news juggernaut," said Rolf Jónsson of Reykjavik gleefully. "Like the dark slick itself, the news stories are sweeping across every part of the news: economic, social, energy research, environmental... Thank God no one is talking about the volcano anymore."
The beleaguered island nation of Iceland, in an economic tailspin since its banking system collapsed last year, has been in the headlines for weeks after an Icelandic volcano filled the air over northern Europe with ash, grounding thousands of commercial flights and angering an already touchy EU.
"They were already mad at us for not paying back these bank loans," said Jónsson, "and then there was this natural disaster caused by a volcano nobody could even pronounce. And they were mad at us for that, too, because nobody likes to look foolish while trying to pronounce weird Icelandic words. I mean, I hear the CIA interrogates people by making them repeat things in Icelandic and playing Bjork records."
While it is true, scientists suspect, that Iceland can turn its volcanoes on and off as needed, it is widely accepted that the April 2010 eruption was most likely an accident, as it served no strategic function that anyone can determine.
"I bet someone sat on a switch or something," said Brookings Institute analyst Jacob Green. "Happens all the time. That's why Mount Saint Helens went off in 1980. Especially since they probably wear big thick parkas in Iceland. Could sit on a porcupine and not notice anything wearing one of those."
In a bid to spur along the media trend, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service has been running heavy and at times hastily cobbled together coverage of the American offshore oil spill, erroneously leading some Icelanders to believe that the spill is actually off their own shores.
"God must really hate us!" said Icelandic undersecretary of public affairs Anita Scheving. "Maybe we can burn off the oil if we turn on another volcano?"
