And here I thought I was getting all caught up – and I’d do my Jesus #2 installment for December 28th…alas, many more pressing issues grip me than the 2000-year-old-dead-dude. My God! He’s basically a Mummy!
Something really caught my eye in today’s beloved Times (1.3.09 [so we all know that I’m running about 2-plus weeks behind!]) – something that some Russian scholar postulated: that the U.S. would be embroiled in a civil war circa 2010! Finally!! A prediction that makes sense to me!!! And this prediction also suggested that the current U.S. Pacific Coast would be under China’s auspice; while Texas would return to Mexico; and, the Northeast U.S. (and why doesn’t THIS surprise me?) would join the European Economic Community). So what this really means, is that Manny Ramirez probably won’t get what he’s worth in 2010. As-a-matter-of-fact – I can’t imagine the Chinese paying any American (or Beckham) athlete what Scott Boras thinks they’re worth…baseball WILL survive…as should basketball – but American football? Just too goddamned expensive!
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: “Rome is burning!” Am I the only one who is unnerved when their country has been high for four decades, and has been essentially amusing itself to death? I mean, everyone else can point out the problems (as I do) – but everyone else seems to hope for some kinda fairy tale happy ending: where the knight-in-shining-armor comes riding in and takes us all into some happy sunset. This “civil war” thang (that the Russian has forecasted) makes a hellova lot more sense to me than a fairy tale ending. I have NEVER been able to stomach denial – as a practicing psychotherapist, or as a man-of-the-world.
I’ve never been able to shake the American conceit of the food fight: whether it was captured in “Animal House” or one’s own high school. It only takes seeing one person starving to death in front of one’s eyes – to realize the massive disconnect that post-WWII-U.S.of-A. had with the rest-of-the-world. We (us Yanks) – tried to get “real” during the Viet Nam years (thank you Jim Morrison and Co. [and the list is legion]) – but you were all sabotaged by the petro dollar and the concept of credit…so the field of dreams was replaced by that field of credit. And it seems like the Chinese are about ready to collect (I initially wrote ‘correct,’ [a Freudian slip?]).
I can’t wait to see how Americans survive THIS depression! Were we “in hock” back in ’29-’31 — like we are now? I have no clue to the machinations of the Big Financiers – but I think that Rome is burning quite wildly – and no one can put out this blaze…I’m sorry Obama – I didn’t think they were going scuttle the ship on you: I thought they had a plan…I actually thought the Bushies had Plans A, B, C, & D ready for action — but maybe their oil and banking buddies have been given their final dues…but where are they going to hide during this civil war that the Russian dude is predicting? Not everyone has a Dick Cheney-styled bunker (or Saddam)…let’s just hope that folks don’t keep confusing Nostradamus and Jesus…