Repent! Or pass the Cracker Jacks!

Whenever I need to cheer down, I have a look at the End Time Headlines for “News from a Prophetic Perspective.”  A family member turned me onto this website.  She wants me to be mindful of all the disasters that are about to befall me.  And the world at large.  And the United States in particular.  So thoughtful. 

I probably sleep too well anyway. 

Let’s have a look…  OMG!  Huge spiders are raining down from the sky!  In Brazil, it’s raining really big spiders. 

Well.  Not exactly raining.  They’re sort of falling. 

Actually, to be completely accurate, when you check it out online, you can see a video of admittedly large spiders constructing giant “sheet webs” to capture insects in an unfortunate town in South America.  They float from tree to post on gusts of wind.  It’s what they do, those crazy sheet-web-building arachnids.   

It is pretty freaky.   

But it’s not a sign of the end of the world, unless you want it to be.  In that case you can denounce any and all scientific explanation and refer to www.endtimeheadlines.wordpress.com for confirmation of your greatest fears. 

Here’s an excellent example of something the End Times wants us to worry about:   Obama Has Put in Place a Secret Database with ‘Everything on Everyone.’ 

Oh man.  That could be bad.  He’s bound to be making a list, checking it a couple of times.   

And I’ve fallen off on my flossing.  That doesn’t make a good impression.  

I wonder what he’ll think of my TV viewing habits?  After the morning news it’s either murder and mayhem or Comedy Central.  What does that tell you?  Wait.  Don’t answer that. 

But I love a Twilight Zone marathon.  That should count for something. 

Here’s one story worthy of consternation that would have slipped right past me if it were not for our vigilant friends at End Times:  Twitter Explodes with Fears of Armed Drone Strikes Targeting [fugitive] Chris Dorner.  Yeah. 

The Prophetic Perspective includes “Signs in the Heavens 2013-2015.”  In this section, we discover “how signs from the heavens are once again happening [and] preparing us for coming Wars, Prophetic Events and the Soon Return of the Lord Jesus Christ.”   

It’s good that they’re tracking this stuff, right?  Otherwise, the thread would be lost.  With no one monitoring and reporting the dark doomy news, we’d all probably trail off into photos of natural beauty and unfettered optimism.  

I think I’ll let the End Times folks carry the lead, though.  I’ll peruse other sites for newsworthy items - things to distract us in the meantime.   

Here’s one:  Puck Daddy reports that the Bakersfield Condors, a minor league hockey team, suffered an unfortunate incident this week when their mascot turned on them.  The California condor named Queen Victoria escaped from her handler and wobbled and flapped her way across the ice to the penalty box where she began pecking the players.  Only mortification and minor injuries were sustained before her highness was corralled and escorted to the locker room.  (The Condors went down in defeat to the Las Vegas Wranglers, 4-1.) 

Oh, and the Pope resigned.  God love him.  In a perverse way, I’m looking forward to what the Prophetic Perspective on this will be.  Maybe the President’s new database had something juicy on the pontiff and he stepped down to avoid exposure.  

After an engine fire, the Carnival cruise ship “Triumph” is drifting in the Gulf of Mexico, powerless; its 4200 passengers experiencing ennui.  Certainly this sort of thing isn’t out of the ordinary.  Next comes a reality series episode on each cruise itinerary. 

Darn it, the End Times has gotten in my head a little bit.  Torrents of spiders, endangered birds behaving badly, the Pope punts, cruise ships running amok.  Who can’t add these seemingly random and unrelated events together without concluding we could have some prophetic events on our hands?!   

Throw in the President’s database and armed drones targeting fugitives on American soil, well, I’m sure you recognize the omens.  It could be bad.  Signs in the Heavens.   

I just want to be prepared, that’s all.  Maybe I’ll dig a hole.  Crawl in.  At the least I’ll worry!   

Or… I could stay out here and watch baseball.

Just Send Smoke Signals

Washington politicians could take a lesson from the process for selecting a Pope employed by the cardinals of the Catholic Church.

 As you recall, when a Pope dies, cardinals from around the globe assemble at Vatican City, huddle up in the Sistine Chapel, peruse the resumes of all the prospective Pope candidates, and haggle, haggle, haggle.  When they finally agree on a new Pope, they send up a plume of white smoke, thus proclaiming their decision to the world.  

Hooray!  Well done!  For us, painless.  For them, mission accomplished and dignity retained. 

In those intermediary moments, when they’re bickering and disagreeing, when the extremists among them will not budge and even threaten to bring down the Church before they’ll compromise, they send up a billow of black smoke.   

That’s how we know things are unsettled in the cloister.  We sigh and exhale, shrug our shoulders.  What’s taking them so long? 

There may be multiple iterations and repeated puffs of sooty effluent.  We wait.  Even we Southern Baptists twice removed sit at seat’s edge.  We’re intrigued.  We’re titillated.  We wanna know. 

Of course, we find out who the new Pope is, but we never get to know who voted for whom.  We never learn which radical cardinal dug in on what point of contention.  We don’t know who caved.  We never realize how close to the brink the Church teetered. 

Could the Cardinals improve the process by sharing their deal breakers with the masses before going into the huddle?  Maybe they could draw strength for their positions from the perceived moral support of Catholics around the world who agree with them, “Yeah!  The new Pope better not relax the Fish on Friday rules.”  (Forgive my flippancy.) 

I wonder how it would go for the new Pope if all good Catholics knew he was a compromise candidate.  Would they sandbag him if they knew their first choice for the top dog was vetoed by a recalcitrant conservative or hardline liberal cardinal? 

No.  The process would not be improved.  It would be worse. 

The new Pope’s ability to lead would not be enhanced.  He would have a more difficult time asserting himself.  

I think our congress should consider this process for the upcoming Gang of Six “negotiations” on the remaining trillions of dollars of cuts mandated by the recent debt ceiling deal. 

Both parties seem likely to send their dug-in, hard-nosed, party-line perfect representatives instead of the moderates among them who might actually be able to negotiate effectively.  We’re already bracing ourselves for the process of disingenuous proposals, haranguing, lamenting, insincere counter proposals, gridlock, and at last, compromise. 

Why not lock them in to a beltway backroom and let them slug it out like the cardinals do – in seclusion? 

The cardinals surrender their cell phones and iPads.  They even sweep the Sistine Chapel for “bugs” before the conclave, so adamant are they that their deliberations remain secure, no tampering occurs, nor outside influences allowed to creep in.  The cardinals don’t come out between ballots and complain about their colleagues’ well-known ideological stances. 

How could our representatives decline being treated like cardinals?  We can ferry in food and fresh shirts.  Heck, we can sing a song and buy them all capes.  They can send up smoke signals to let us know what we already know:  They’re still fighting.  They haven’t decided.  It’s hard. 

We wouldn’t have to listen to their infantile whining and complaining.  They couldn’t take false encouragement from mindless press coverage of their fingers pointing hither and yon.  We would view the dark vapors wafting from the chamber, recognize them as the typical emissions we’ve come to expect from our elected officials, and wait. 

I know, I know.  Transparency.  Sunshine.  But must we hear every cry of “wolf”?  Must we reel in all red herrings of proposal and counter proposal?  Must we endure the artificial anguish of falling skies again and again? 

I say No!  Lock ‘em up.  Don’t let ‘em out until the white smoke flies.  We will be just fine out here, living our civilized lives.  And, as always, when they’ve reached an agreement, we will deal with their decisions.   

Just once, save what’s left of your dignity by doing the difficult dirty work away from the cameras and out of earshot.  Spare us the maddening and predictable blow by blow.  Just send up the smoke.