Dartblog

That sentence comes from Kjell Ekholm, a Finn broadcaster who is organizing this year’s Eurovision song contest. That’s the annual contest meant to unite Europeans by inviting each state to contribute a song lyric. The winning song gets orchestrated and produced. A few runners-up are gussied up with music as well. The contest has, in the past, occasioned fine music. Volare (Nel Blu, dipinto, di blu) won in 1958 and became a hit for its writer, Domenico Modugno, as well as Dean Martin and, later, the Gypsy Kings.

What has Ekholm so exercised this time ‘round? Whose song is do direly inappropriate? Israel’s, of course. It goes something like this:

I don’t want to die; I want to see the flowers bloom

Don’t want to go kapoot-kaboom, and I don’t want to cry

I wanna have a lot of fun, just sitting in the sun.

But nevertheless — he’s gonna push the button.

Most suppose that “he” is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the fashion-conscious chargé d’affaires of Iran. Most suppose as much because he, Mahmoud, has basically said that he’ll push the button and exterminate Israel when his proud Islamic republic obtains the ability to do so. The supposition is sound. But the song? Inappropriate!

“It’s absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition,” said Kjell Ekholm, an organizer of the contest and a representative of the host broadcaster, YLE of Finland. “We’ll have all the delegation leaders here in Helsinki next week, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this case.” He told Reuters that the station had received “many e-mails complaining” about the song.

Israelis are increasingly obsessed by Iran’s pursuit of enriched uranium, which few here doubt is intended to create a nuclear weapon.

You may view the Israeli band “Teapacks” perform the song here. But do not let it agitate you too much—those Israelis are big sillies, obsessing so about Iran’s nuclear bomb.