Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
— Revelation of Christ to John, 6:12-17 (KJV)
If I were The Devil and it was my mission to bring about the end of the world, I would do it one baby step at a time. I would see to it that every generation of mankind is capable of doing less than the generation that came before, and has less a sense of perspective about what’s important.
I would bring about Armageddon, as the fulfillment of a desire people held in their own hearts, being unaware themselves that the desire was there. I would do what I can to make the human race look in the mirror, and see a loathsome, entirely expendable thing, unworthy of attention, maintenance or most of all, defense. Drop by drop, ounce by ounce, inch by inch.
It occurs to me that this is exactly what has been taking place. We all like to talk a good game about wanting to help each other, but lately there’s been a huge push for everyday folks to aspire toward being noticed and being watched. This has supplanted or subordinated all other desires. Making life easier for others, or building things that would make someone’s life easer, is decidedly passe. Maybe if someone takes the time to figure out what’s coming down the pike that we haven’t quite seen yet, sort of get ahead of this downslide if you will, we’ll be able to see how steady and predictable this is. So here’s my shot at it.
How long do we have to wait until…
1. Everybody is in entertainment, or nothing at all. Nothing is produced. Nothing is fixed. We sing and dance, we clean the toilets of those who sing and dance, we deliver bottled water to them, we advertise for them, or we do nothing. In short, the point to our existence, for those of us who still have one, is to get attention for ourselves or for somebody else.
2. It is tolerated, and commonplace, for new mothers to be talking on their cell phones during the delivery. Better than even odds the doctor is on a cell phone too. “Me? Aw, nuthin’. Delivering a baby. What’re you doin’?”
3. Objects seem important when they possess attributes, and gender is an attribute. Gender must therefore disappear. Men wear cowboy hats, and goatees…and sundresses. So do the ladies.
4. There is a sequel to the Dukes of Hazzard. It is a “reboot.” Daisy Duke is now Duke Duke, a guy who runs around in a thong all day every day, works as a waiter in a gay bar, and drives a little white jeep named “Dixie.” Beau and Luke are now Bee and Lara, a couple of hard-driving ass-kicking ozark women. Uncle Jesse is a pre-op transgender. The General Lee has been renamed the Secretary-General Annan.
5. Sacrifice becomes ceremonial and loses all substance and meaning. Already you can buy a carbon credit, sponsoring someone else to conserve, so you don’t have to. Tomorrow you can buy a virtual carbon credit. You would essentially be paying someone to think about buying a carbon credit, so you don’t have to think about doing that.
6. As we trivialize boundaries that ought to be given more respect, we are divided across differences that ought not matter. A new U.S. Mint is opened that prints special money for gay people. Every time someone finds a vending machine that still takes only “straight” money, there are protests and candlelight vigils.
7. 60 Minutes does a piece on people who live in East Pennsylvania who are so poor they put signs in their cars that say “Car Radio Already Stolen.” Congress passes a law that all motorists with working sound equipment must put up signs that say “Audio Equipment Not Stolen Yet.” The inventory of said audio equipment is to be printed alongside, and is required to be kept accurate and complete. This is enforced through random inspections.
8. People decide for themselves whether their ways of living are helpful to the poor, facts be damned. Barbra Streisand shakes down the homeless population to buy her next mansion because she can’t afford it herself.
9. The media becomes more and more emboldened in giving us instructions on how to vote. Already, it has become routine to blindside Republican candidates with some silly question about how much milk costs, and take a pass on doing the same to the democrats. I see a future where infrared technology is used to measure greenhouse gas emission and power consumption at the Republican convention of ’08. An expose — government-funded, of course — broadcasts the results of this. No corresponding hit piece against the democrats, or any other party holding a convention. Nobody questions any of this.
10. The Fairness Doctrine is restored. Rush Limbaugh is forced to let Al Franken guest-host his show 50% of the time. His ratings start to look like Air America’s. He retires. Franken takes over the entire show, demands huge salary, EIB Network files for bankruptcy, capitalism is pronounced a failure.
11. Technology continues to expand, ostensibly for the purpose of bringing us information more quickly, but in reality, to service our growing demand for more attention. Cell phones can “message” live, high-quality moving pictures. You don’t have to go on American Idol anymore. You can phone in performances along with votes. This becomes so popular that new houses have universal cell phone “tripods” built in to the childrens’ bedrooms.
12. Disability becomes strength. There are pills available to give you a disability if you’re tired of being too normal and therefore failing to qualify for special treatment other people routinely receive in contracting, admissions and hiring. The pills are color-coded according to what disability you want. There is an ADD pill, a race pill, a stupid pill, a cocaine withdrawal pill, a homosexual pill, a Tourettes pill. The ACLU sues the pill company on behalf of the color-blind.
13. Parenthood continues it’s decline, and evolution into a needlessly-painful institution. Producers of kids’ television cartoons decide to come clean and make a show called, “Just Tune In And Give Your Parents A Migraine.” It has no plot, no story, no characters, no voices, not even any pictures. It just emits an annoying buzz. Oh, and when you tune to this channel your volume setting automatically goes all the way up, your power locked on, your channel frozen in place.
14. Mankind continues to envision “peace” as a commodity, with no price attached, free for the asking, unconditionally. All branches of the Department of Defense are closed, except a brand-new “Peace Division.” Boot camp in this branch: Learning to cry, fingerpainting, nap time, puppet shows, sensitivity training. The mission: Invading underdeveloped countries filled with poverty-stricken people, and teaching them how to…form labor unions, tax capital gains, and oppose the death penalty.
15. Work continues to be attacked, and denigrated into pointlessness. More things, staples and luxuries alike, are available with or without work. You have a right to gas. You have a right to toothpaste and deoderant. You have a right to food. Naturally, if you’re stubborn enough to try to buy your own, even a mayonnaise sandwich will be devastatingly expensive.
16. News networks stop pretending to bring us news. Tune in to the evening news and you will see NO FACTS, just instructions about who you are supposed to trust and what you are supposed to think. Tune in to the morning news, and you’ll see three perky people seated around a coffee table telling you what your favorite color is for that day.
17. “Civil liberties” are cherished, but real freedom is abused and ignored. In the privacy of your own home, it’s a misdemeanor to look at a pictorial representation of someone smoking a cigarette. It’s for the children after all.
18. The evisceration of the Second Amendment is complete. Nobody under the age of 30 has ever seen a gun, and few can remember what one looks like. Only mugging victims. The guns must be coming from somewhere, of course, so homeowners are “encouraged” to open up their houses for inspection.
19. New World Order. One-World Government. Global income tax. Sovereign nations still have their own governments, but it’s a little tough for anyone to explain or comprehend why.
20. Language, as a tool for person-to-person communication, disappears entirely. As people approach a service counter, they fully expect to waste their time instead of acquiring useful information, and the service people have lost the expectation that they’ll dispense any good answers or be able to help anyone. Words do not convey ideas, now that it is rare for any two strangers to be speaking the same language; shrugs and grunts and pointed fingers are the currency of exchange now. The newer versions of Microsoft Word have no spell-checking, a new “phonetic” alphabet is invented that consists entirely of gutteral sounds.
21. There is a virtual “moratorium on brains.” Creativity is history. Nothing is invented, nothing original is ever written, every song is a remix, every movie is a remake or sequel of something else, even public speeches consist entirely of quotes copied or plagiarized from elsewhere. Trivial Pursuit ends in a stalemate everywhere it’s played because nobody knows the answer to anything, and is eventually relegated to the dustbin of old fads. The brightest schoolchild knows nothing, but can sing rap tunes non-stop. He mumbles. Nobody really knows what he’s singing. Nothing is ever built, very few things work, and when they break nobody knows how to fix them. The very last human skill to disappear: Dialing a phone number. Everyone spends all day talking on a cell phone — about nothing important — to someone they wouldn’t know how to reach, without their own one-button speed dial directory, which someone else transfers for them from one phone to the next. Invariably, this involves shipping the phone to another country and bitching about how long it takes to get it back. Unintelligibly.
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Morgan, you have seen the end of the world, and it is upon us.
*sigh*
There are some real gems in there 😉 They’d be a lot funnier if they weren’t quite so close to the truth.
- philmon | 05/11/2007 @ 09:57