This weekend I was lucky enough to catch the aptly titled The Simpsons Movie at my local independent theater. With all the hype—7-11s transformed into Kwik-E-Marts complete with Squishees and Buzz Cola, annoying ads during other Fox shows—I was ready to be wowed. But what wowed me, I didn't expect—the movie took on the thorny issue of environmentalism ... well, sort of, if you count Homer fighting power-crazy environmentalists with motorcycles and dog sleds.

In the film, Lisa crusades door-to-door for the salvation of Springfield's lake and, predictably, gets many of them slammed in her face; Homer's her undoing, dumping a silo of "pig crap" into the lake that turns it into a seething, green, boiling pool of acidic sludge; and there's an interesting twist, wherein, the EPA actually cares about the environment. Humorously, the EPA puts a huge, glass dome over the city to keep the lake's toxins from spreading (they care more about the trees than the people of Springfield).

The Simpsons of course fight back and attempt to free Springfield from its doom in the dome and the EPA v Homer battle is surely amusing, but unfortunately, after 87 minutes of comedy, the sentiment that people should not drop "pig crap" into lakes is pretty much forgotten. Not that I was really expecting (okay, I kind of was) great pearls of wisdom from The Simpsons but I had hoped for more examples of criminal environmental degradation, especially since the mastermind behind everything Simpsons is from my home state of Oregon, a state with a long history of fighting the timber and fishing industries to preserve its unique natural beauty.

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I'm sure that all of the "aggressive, shirtless, white males" that saw Rage Against the Machine perform at the Rock the Bells hip hop concert in New York this weekend were stoked to see the Grammy-winning political metal-rap band back together after a seven-year hiatus.

But were they expecting lead singer Zack de la Rocha to say that members of the Bush Administration should be hung and tried and shot for war crimes? Yikes!

I mean, I'm all for mixing politics with music, but really? After seven years off, you'd think the band would have prepared a better statement.

This is the same band that, 10 years ago, took on social justice issues by making an album cover from a picture of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk protesting the murder of fellow monks by self-immolation in Saigon in 1963. This is also the same band that has spoken out against the death penalty in front of the United Nations, donated concert earnings to social justice organizations, and performed benefit shows for American political prisoners like Leonard Peltier.

I'm not sure what the band was hoping to accomplish, but de la Rocha's comment got author Ann Coulter and rocker Ted Nugent to agree that there's a limit to freedom of speech rights.

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The, ahem, bizarre love triangle (sorry) that British synth-pop band New Order has become got even more bizarre over the weekend, as (former?) bassist Peter Hook threatened to sue the remaining members if they continue under the New Order name, reports NME.com.

Hook had previously announced that the band (a three-piece after Gillian Gilbert left in 2005) had split up for good; this prompted remaining members Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner to issue a statement saying that, in fact, they had every intention of continuing under the New Order name, with or without Hooky.

Hook then posted an angry rant on his MySpace blog, saying, "This group has SPLIT UP! you are no more new order than i am! you may have two thirds but dont assume you have the rights to do anything NEW ordery cos you dont ive still got a third!" He then adds, somewhat cryptically, "But am open to negotiation."

Can people please learn to spell? I know it's just a blog, but still.

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The LA Times is reporting a body found in the ocean off of New Jersey is presumed to be that of video artist Jeremy Blake. Blake had left his wallet and a suicide note behind in his East Village apartment where his girlfriend had also committed suicide just a month ago, and was reportedly seen walking into the ocean off New York's Rockaway Beach on July 17th.

Blake, who was until recently based in Los Angeles, created hypnotic, abstract video pieces often consisting of slowly-changing washes of bright colors. He was best known for his work on Beck's "Sea Change" video, as well as interlude sequences in the 2002 Adam Sandler-starring film "Punch-Drunk Love." He was 35 years old.

Above: Detail from Winchester (2002)

Beck – "Round the Bend"

"Punch-Drunk Love" trailer

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