End of World as we knew it? Not likely

Let me state up front that I fully expect to awake on Sunday with little or nothing around me having changed.

So yes, I’m skeptical of all this talk of “the Rapture,” which is the moment when the faithful will be carried off this Earth to a better place (Heaven?) while the rest of us are left here to suffer the End of the World.

A RELIGIOUS BROADCASTER has said that this event is destined to happen on Saturday. Sometime today, those of us who have been faithful to the Christian religion (or more likely, certain sects of it) will be rewarded for their piety while the masses are punished for our wickedness.

Not that any of this is new. There always is someone predicting the End of the World, trying to scare us all into repenting our “sins” and making amends so we can be among the few who do not suffer and can relax for all eternity.

So the idea that May 21 is a significant date? I take it about as seriously as I do those people who seriously believe that the Aztecs (or was it the Mayans?!?) predicted we’re all going to die on Dec. 21, 2012.

Of course, most of these “doomsday” dates don’t get the international fanfare that this particular date does. I haven’t seen Garry Trudeau doing a series of his “Doonesbury” comic strips that this particular date is getting.

I ALSO HAVEN’T experienced anyone making a generous gift of their worldly possessions to me because they won’t need them after Saturday (unlike Doonesbury’s “Zonker” character, who was given a luxury automobile that he thinks will make his experience on the “Hell on Earth” that this planet will become all the more comfortable).

Yes, I find the people who are taking this kind of talk seriously to be scary.

Should we feel adequately warned? Or is this much adieu about nothing? Images provided by The American Jesus (above) and The Practice Room.

It bothers me whenever I hear these religious-types talk of how we’re going to suffer. Because it seems like what they really enjoy is NOT the idea that they have a chance at an eternal life of peace and harmony.

Instead, they want the idea that everybody around them is going to suffer. As though they can’t be happy unless everybody else is miserable.

ANYBODY WHO SERIOUSLY needs THAT factor in their life ought to quit hanging around a clergyman so often and ought to spend some time with a psychiatrist.

Because they’d all be seriously happier in life if they could learn to quit taking pleasure in others’ misfortune.

But then again, those people are all going to be gone from our lives after Saturday – if the prediction is true. For it also says that this planet is going to become a miserable place to exist; making us wish we were dead.

Of course, that will happen on Oct. 21 – which is the date that the Universe as we know it will cease to exist. No more Earth. No more us. Somewhere, all these holier-than-thou types will be snickering at our misery.

THE SCARY THING is that it is true. This planet we call Earth will come to an end some day. Mere science says it is so.

Because the star we think of as “the Sun,” which provides the heat in just the right proportion that allows our planet to support life (all types, not just human) is NOT a ball of gas that will last forever.

The day will come when the Sun becomes a dried-out wad of nothingness. Before that, it will expand to a size so big that it likely will engulf our planet, incinerating it into ashes.

Now I’m sure some people are going to want to think that it is a “God” who is determining when this happens, and that it will happen for a purpose of punishment of the wicked – instead of just being the natural cycle that every star goes through.

NOW HAVING SAID that, I’m also aware that this is a process that takes millions of years to go through. Scientific-types will be able to provide us ample warning for when this planet becomes uninhabitable.

The Sun isn’t about to explode in the next few months.

Not that there’s anything we’d be able to do about it – unless space travel has significantly developed to the point where we can evacuate the masses and go somewhere else (to a place that could support life, which means we don’t know yet of its existence).

So like I wrote earlier, I don’t expect life to be significantly different when I awake on Sunday. I don’t expect the holier-than-thou among us to suddenly disappear from our midst. I fully expect to see Tim Pawlenty begin his presidential campaign come Monday.

WHICH MIGHT ACTUALLY be the ultimate punishment for the rest of us. We’re stuck with these self-righteous types amongst us who try to disguise their arrogance under the cover of religion.

If there really is a God, he’d spare us these miserable people – allowing us to live our lives in peace.

 -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: It seems The Simpsons gave us a vision of Saturday some 18 years ago. I still get my kick out of the thought of a picnic in Hell including German potato salad.

Predictions always a risky business

I have worked in the news business long enough to understand the problems confronted by deadlines – they are unbendable, unless someone has a readership that doesn’t care about getting their publication delivered on time.

That rarely is the case. So often, a story has to be cut short in mid-happening, to ensure that it gets out to the public in a timely manner. Sometimes, someone has to take an educated guess as to what will happen – then hope that there really is a God who will prevent something unexpected from changing the outcome completely.

THAT DEITY MUST be hearing prayers big time these days from cartoonist Gary Trudeau, and from the editors of a Santa Fe, N.M.-based newspaper. Both of them have already taken steps that declare Barack Obama the winner of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential elections.

In the case of the New Mexico Sun News, the newspaper’s current issue has been sent out with their attempt at a big screaming banner headline reading “Obama Wins!” Apparently, they have dreams that Obama maniacs across the country are going to want a copy of the first newspaper to say their guy won, because the paper’s website these days has nothing but instructions on how and where to send money if you want to buy a copy.

And in the case of Trudeau’s award-winning (and decades-long running) comic strip “Doonesbury,” he has already sent out to editors a series of strips to appear in newspapers this week. The one set for Wednesday has characters in the army stationed in Iraq watching a television set, where a newscaster informs them, “and it’s official, Barack Obama has won.” Are you willing to spend $7 (plus shipping and handling fees) to buy a copy of this newspaper? If so, check out http://www.nmsunnews.com/. Otherwise, pat yourself on the back for having some common sense.

For the record, the campaign of John McCain is trying to downplay these incidents, issuing a statement with regards to Trudeau implying that his strip just isn’t funny enough to take seriously – regardless of what he writes and draws.

BESIDES, TRUDEAU’S CAREER survived his gaffe of 1990 when he drew a strip in advance implying there would be no immediate reaction on the day then-President George H.W. Bush set for a deadline for Iraq to get out of Kuwait. I seem to recall that right at 12:01 a.m., “Operation Desert Shield” became “Operation Desert Storm” and the U.S. Army (including a cousin of mine) invaded Iraq.

The problem for Trudeau and the Sun News editors is that they are on less than a daily publication schedule.

For Trudeau, he usually has to do something like three weeks worth of comic strips in one shot, which are then sent out. So the strips that are scheduled to appear in newspapers this week were drawn sometime in early October.

So, he winged it. He took a guess, telling reporter types that the polls are all so overwhelmingly showing Obama as a big winner that if McCain actually winds up victorious this week, he will not be the only one to screw up.

HE GOES SO far as to say that he thinks the fact that his strip could turn out to be “wrong” would be lost in the flood of others who would also be wrong.

That attitude I can understand, in part because “Doonesbury” ultimately is just a comic strip (even though some newspapers are so humorless that they insist on running it on editorial pages).

If there’s anyone I have a problem with, it is the editors of the Sun News, who went ahead and did their front page with a hard news lead as a cheap stunt to draw attention to their publication.

The Sun News is a newspaper that only comes out a couple of times per month. By the time the next issue hits the streets, Election Day will be so ancient history (that’s the scary thing with modern news media news cycles, when seven to 10 days becomes like a millennium).

SO THEY WENT ahead with their front page intended to be a collectible (perhaps they have delusions of copies being hawked on eBay?). In the process, they cheapened themselves to the point where I can’t say I’d want to have a copy of their newspaper.

There are just some newspapers that ought to accept the fact that they can’t do the breaking news routine. The Sun News is one of them.

I understand they likely will want to do some serious analysis of the New Mexico elections, where the fact that such a large percentage of the electorate is Latino means Obama may be able to “steal” this state’s electoral votes from the Republican column.

But the way to promote legitimate stories such as that is hardly by pretending that your newspaper is offering the definitive newspaper front page that history books of the future will use to illustrate their paragraphs about the 2008 presidential election.

BY PRETENDING, NOT only are they letting their own egos run amok, they’re also feeding the anger of those half-wits who are looking for any excuse to believe there’s a massive media conspiracy determined to keep Sarah Palin from being just a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Who knows?

Perhaps the McCain campaign is among the few who have taken up the Sun News’ offer to buy themselves a copy (only $7), just so they can have the senator from Arizona waive it over his head early Wednesday – in hopes that the resulting photograph becomes as much of an iconic shot as that photo of Harry Truman with the Chicago Tribune.

Now personally, I’m inclined to believe neither Trudeau nor the Sun News are going to look too stupid Wednesday.

THE MOOD I’M sensing is that the people who truly believe in Obama, when combined with those who are repulsed by McCain for picking “that woman” as his running mate, are a larger force than the people who – whether motivated by race, liberal views on social issues or a combination of the two – just can’t bring themselves to vote for Obama.

But there’s also the paranoia running among some Democrats that such support isn’t enough (let’s never forget that Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election). And if the hard-core conservatives were willing to play hardball to win that election, they definitely will go all out for this one.

It’s like a recent newspaper column by the Rev. Andrew Greeley, where he said he did not believe the polls showing Obama with large leads, comparing Republicans to coyotes. “Coyote is still out there, and he’s still hungry,” the reverend wrote.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Nobody (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-doonesbury1-2008nov01,0,2244580.story) seems to be placing bets on John McCain (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2008/10/new-mexico-news.html) winning come Election Day.

Are Barack Obama’s supporters being more paranoid (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/us/politics/01angst.html?scp=1&sq=obama%20jinx&st=cse) than Chicago Cubs fans?

Is the Rev. Andrew Greeley hearing directly (http://www.suntimes.com/news/greeley/1247262,CST-EDT-greel29.article) that God is ignoring the prayers of certain media types who are hoping their early predictions that Obama will win will not come back to bite them?