>From Mark Iverson: > Good or bad, the genie is out of the bottle and there's > no way anyone can stuff it back in... I sincerely hope, > pray, that the human species has matured enough to accept > the responsibility that comes with this kind of discovery.
I agree, Mark. <Sunday Sermon> Potential change of this magnitude is likely to be perceived as unsettling news, perhaps even terrifying by many. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can accurately predict what the eventual outcome will be – how it will affect our daily lives. In religious terms, I don't even think g*d knows what's going'ta happen next. Like in the comic strip "NON SEQUITOR" g*d is probably sitting at his monitor, saying something profound like, "WTF!" See: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/ Actually I don't believe there will be an "eventual outcome" as history tends to be an infinite continuum of events. Granted, we certainly can speculate. Indeed, we SHOULD speculate. We should try our best to predict the most likely scenarios, and then plan accordingly. But in the end it's the insidious little unknowns we remain oblivious to that will end up doing the most damage. ;-) They'll emerge from obscure little nooks and crannies and bite us in the keester. As for me, I have to confess the fact that there still exists a significant part of my psyche that remains in total denial about the Italian demo. It keeps warning me: "Come on, Steve! You just KNOW that this dog-and-pony show is nothing more than another sophisticated shell game – a con job. Wake up, Man! Don't make a fool of yourself. Don't go about blabbing to all your friends about what an amazingly kewel historical event this is! You just KNOW that you'll end up making a complete and utter fool of yourself... again!" Believe me, I can understand good'ol fashion herd mentality. I can understand why most of the popular American periodicals willing to mention the Italian event have tended to be derisive. It's pure defensiveness – self preservation of the first order. As much as it pains me to say this, it's really not that ridiculous of a "defensive" position to maintain. While the latest weather reports continue to predict increasingly favorable conditions, there is STILL a possibility, however diminishing small those possibilities might be, that a nasty hail storm could suddenly appear over the horizon and smash our house of cards to kingdom come. And then, won't we all have egg on our faces... told you so! It's times like this that I try to once again remind myself of a time-honored suggestion Buddha once offered up to his disciples - of walking the middle of the road, of taking everything in moderation. I still have a lot to learn from Gautama. ... and so, I wait for Monday's news. </Sunday Sermon> Special regards, Grasshopper Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
