The Perils and Promises of The Second Coming

People were murdered for religion last week in Beirut, Lebanon, and no one anywhere else in the world batted an eye. Seriously. If I hadn't just told you it happened, would you have known? I'm not a great guy for passing it along, so cool your jets. I didn't pay any attention either when it happened. Why? Because "it" has been happening "there" for so long. When cowardice murdered innocents in Paris, we all noticed.

Not sure when I became one of the 'reasonable people in the world.' And I have no idea how many of us there are, but it's damn sure not anywhere near enough. We have members of nearly every organized religion (and a few disorganized ones as well) scheming and dreaming to putting an end to everyone (else) who doesn't pray like they do. Don't have a particularly well-developed sense of the theologic but can't help but think that your God, however you see him-Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin-would be less than pleased with that approach.

"The darkness drops again but now I know 
That twenty centuries of stony sleep 
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

I'm getting old when I wonder if this is the brave new world Al Gore envisioned when he invented the Internet back when the last Ice Age was ending. We've engineered ourselves practically out of existence and, as it happens, no one and nothing else on the planet will miss us when the last of us has gone. 
And some days, I worry that day may be coming sooner than we thought.

"I went walking in the wasted city, 
Started thinking about entropy. 
Smelled the wind from the ruined river, 
Went home to watch TV. 
And it's worse when I try to remember, 
When I think about then and now .
I'd rather see it on the news at eleven,
Sit back, and watch it run straight down."
-bill kenny