These past four years have brought us sorostitutes, chalkings, dubiously racist comments, death panels and f-books. But what does it all mean?

The joyous spectacle that was the Flaming Lips concert gave all of East Hill a profound lust for life. But a few days after the concert, the banality of day-to-day life has returned.

Last week the Grand Old Party found itself embroiled in yet another sexual imbroglio. Members of its national committee were revealed to have spent party dime on a debauched evening at a sex-themed nightclub, wining and dining top donors to the beat of stripper anthems and simulated girl-on-girl action. Voyeur, as the L.A. establishment fashions itself, is a “provocative” enclave where “exclusive clientele” can enjoy “risqué photography … with impromptu performances,” according to its website.

The past year has seen a strange development in Libe Café. In addition to the usual cast of characters — the sorority girls rehashing the weekend’s drunken escapades, the biochem students fretting over electron counts, the indie kids twirling their headphones — a strange new breed of introverts has grown up amongst the crowded tables and chairs. Consumed by conversations taking place on their laptops, these videochatters pass the hours in virtual exclusion from their peers, all but oblivious to the cacophonous, non-digital reality surrounding them.

Surely there was something symbolic in the technical glitch that disrupted the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics on Friday night. In the original plan, four giant phalluses were to have risen from the ground in unison. Instead, one of the columns got the jitters, stayed down and embarrassed Canadian speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan, who was overseeing this automated erection. Needless to say, it’s not the way you want to end your first date.

On Thursday, Ben Bernanke was confirmed for a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. While we’ve all got our own feelings about this event — some consider Bernanke the poster boy of fat-cat capitalism, others our savior in the financial apocalypse — one side of the story has been missed in the media: the man’s facial hair.

Something sexy’s going on at the White House.

Peter Orszag, the young (and somewhat handsome) director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been making headlines lately — not for how he balances the budget, but how he balances his ladies. The story involves his engagement to a hottie financial correspondent from ABC News (ow-ow!) only a short while after another chick gave birth to his daughter. It’s been the talk of the Washington rumor mill (after all, it’s been over a decade since anything slightly erotic came out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.), and Orszag’s trying to keep his head down and plow ahead with the numbers. But didn’t anyone tell him not to mix balance sheets and bed sheets?

Quick quiz: Whom are we fighting in Afghanistan? If you say “the Taliban,” you’re only giving the easy answer. What exactly is “the Taliban?” Who comprises it? What are its motives, its goals?

Most people would say that the Taliban is a hardened group of “terrorists,” an extremist group of murderers bent on destroying freedom and eliminating the West. This view is understandable — it’s all anyone hears from the politicos and pundits, who, in their laughably narrow debate over the war (has anyone in power seriously advocated immediate withdrawal?), paint “the enemy” in broad strokes and leave little doubt that we’re engaged in a conflict of ideas.

Historical precedent has been getting a lot of play in the news lately. Whether they’re discussing financial collapse or imperialist expansion, decaying morals or civil rights, pundits love to center on a few, oft-cited examples: the Great Depression, Vietnam, Hitler. By mixing historical anecdote into their analysis, the talking (and twittering) heads try to add a touch of gravity and validity to their arguments.

The book and the Internet: One is old, staid and respected, the other’s young, sexy and rude. The new guy’s looking to knock the king down, and he’s looking good. Think Achilles vs. Agamemnon, Magic vs. Kareem, Happy vs. Shooter.

Suffer another analogy: Our adjustment to digital media has been like losing your virginity — fast, messy and painful. While legal issues surrounding music, movies and books have hardly been resolved, everyone’s pretty much in agreement now that the InterWeb is the image of the world.

Well, not really. But it’s getting damn close.