The Glib Mr. Gibbs

The Book of the Future, the gift that others keep on sharpening for me.  I want some happiness, some joy, some sunshine, a warm bed, a good hug or two a day and untamed woods.  Instead, what do I get?  A box of powdered nongraphite particles, and glued slivers of pencil pieces.  Turns out the Book of the Future only tells the future when a specific pencil type is used.  No formulated wood byproducts.  No pencil "lead" wannabes.  So, while I track down authentic fortunetelling writing utensils, I'll tell you what the artificial pencils have said and let you decide what they mean.

First item of interest - the glibness of the White House Press Secretary when he poked fun at a former vice presidential candidate (and likely forerunner for the 2012 U.S. Presidency).  According to a timeline described by the Book of the Future, Mr. Gibbs' hand action has ensured that the 2010 midterm elections will bring into U.S. Congressional offices a group of leaders determined to find a way to impeach and oust the current U.S. President based on legal terms inaccurately used in future exercises of executive power.  Along that same timeline, many other White House advisors, once described as positive do-gooders associated with the "Chicago Mafia," will turn tail and run when they find out that their business interests back home have been infiltrated by people with real power who are siphoning money to conservative political leaders.

Meantime, Saudi and Chinese bankers will quietly let world leaders know their decisions are no longer their own.  Not that that's news but the world leaders will be forced to make public announcements to that effect.  The pencil shavings are hard to read at this point but it appears to say a historic announcement will be made by President Sarkozy, who will concede that France has officially become the first of many European nations to convert to the official world religion, Buddislam.  As usual, Great Britain will be the lone holdout and will negotiate a treaty that allows the swap of religious asylum seekers across the Channel.  The Channel Tunnel will be called the Gate of Heaven, with the Continental people seeing the British Isles as hell and vice versa.  Vatican City will completely turn into a tourist attraction, hiring consultants from famous amusement parks to install roller coasters and 3D rides throughout the former Catholic enclave.

Bob Costas will revive the Timex watch brand, using his trademark nervous twitches and fidgeting to show how the watches are self-winding.  With the technical fiasco and death at the Vancouver Olympics blamed on NBC's pressure to boost ratings, the network will pass the Olympic broadcasting torch to the new global media conglomerate of Fox, CCTV, and Univision.  Future Olympics will be centered on reality TV stars whose popularity will be monitored by a set of producers who decide the outcome of "public" voting polls to determine the Olympic participants.  The participants will not only have to demonstrate their athletic skills but also negotiate impossible business deals, perform surrealistic death-defying tricks, have soap-opera style love trysts, prove the existence of legends (Atlantis, Bigfoot, etc.) and speak more than 10 languages fluently while working as undercover specialists for opposite sides of a yet-to-be-revealed international spy network.

Parents who cannot afford private education of their children will be forced to make their children permanent wards of the state, allowing governments to decide how to treat childhood violence as a set of systemic infections, such as funneling violent children into government factories (formerly called prisons), with future genetic testing allowing the corporation-run governments to tell parents that their unborn potentially-violent children will have to be taken away at birth in order to serve the greater good.  The Book of the Future does not say whether violent children will be allowed to procreate.

Now you can see why I want a set of real pencils to work with.  These future readings from "parts is parts" pencils are like putting too much Bisphenol A (BPA), HGH, and other artificial acronyms into a Toyota automobile designer - we're endangering the future for all of us.

I want a happy future so until I find some pencils that don't smell like they came out of a chemical factory, I'm setting aside the Book of the Future.  The future happens without my predictions.  In the meantime, I'll look for the signs and other forms of communications you want to leave me that tell how people plan their future moments - I'll report the ones that seem to make the most sense (and to answer one reader's question, no, I don't accept "tips" about Triple Crown horse race winners or which players and referees have been paid to throw a game's outcome; I don't report them, either (not on purpose, that is)).

I tend to report only those future outcomes that point to my getting our species and their representatives off this planet.  Other outcomes, like the effect that unlawful tracking of people's cell/mobile phone use will cause, have no meaning to me - they're simply side effects of the widening gap between the digital and the nondigital citizens of our world population.  People can choose not to participate in such futures by being digital or nondigital; thus, those futures require individual decisionmaking.

Do you believe in magic?  Well, my crystal ball is still working.  It tends to report futures that apply to people who believe in miracles, love, religion, luck, fate, etc.  Like those who thought that universal health care coverage is a guaranteed right.  According to the crystal ball, something wonderful's about to happen in Australia.  Kinda fuzzy inside the ball but I'm seeing clear blue water.  Not sure what it means but I'm sure we'll find out.