As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been a little under the weather for most of the month. Haven't really been in the mood to post things. But now I'm coming out of my cave, and things are returning to normal.

I watched a lot of tv while I was ill. And one of the things I noticed was the proliferation of "end of the world" tv shows. They were fucking everywhere.

One night in particular, there was a movie about a massive earthquake wiping out of the west coast, a documentary about what would happen if the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs struck today, another show about a gamma ray burst destroying most life on Earth, and various Biblical apocalypse shows. I've seen Houston consumed in a fireball, San Francisco destroyed by earthquake AND a meteor, Dallas destroyed by an asteroid, Kansas City's population devastated by a killer plague, etc etc etc.

I can only assume these shows are popular or they wouldn't be on the air. But it makes me wonder why are we so pessimistic? Why can the future only be bleak? Outside of Star Trek, you never see any shows depicting a wonderful, Utopian society in the future.

I prefer to think of the future as a land of promise. Yes, someday an asteroid could hit Earth. Hopefully, we'll have the technology to avert that when it comes. Yes, some day the California coastline will slide into the ocean, but that's millions of years of tectonic sliding away. Yes, some day the sun will expand and consume the inner solar system, but that's at least 5 billion years from now. And most credible theologians believe the apocalyptic writings of the Bible were written for the people of that time, not some future end of the world scenario.

Frankly, I'm more afraid of what the idiots in Washington are up to as opposed to some cosmic disaster. We are our own worst enemy.