RIDICULOUS OR NOT, 'JUDGMENT DAY HAROLD' COULD ACTUALLY BE ON THE RIGHT TRACK

    
   
      AT GREAT RISK TO MY PERSONAL REPUTATION, I want to say a word or two on behalf of The Rev. Mr. Harold Egbert Camping, the California radio evangelist who claimed it would be game over for most of us on Saturday, May 21, 2011. That is, it was to be God's Day of Judgment, the Day of The Rapture.

      With egg all over his face, the morning after, he can't have felt very rapturous, having just suffered a massive failure, again, of his holy predictive capabilities, on the question of humanity's existence.

      It was the day on which some of us -- the chosen, the deserving, the believers -- were to be "raptured up" into the sky to be with Jesus. And the rest of us (meaning, if I'm not mistaken, most of us) were to be left behind to perdition, the place of eternal damnation, also known as Hell. For good measure, this Christian preacher added that five months after May 21 to the day, God would destroy the Earth and the universe.

      All of this is based upon Rev. Camping's interpretations of the Bible, and his complex calculations for the crucial dates, drawn from Biblical prophesy.


      I WILL NOT EVEN TRY TO GET INTO THE BIBLICAL convolutions that give rise to the Camping predictions. It is sufficient to know that his conclusions were made and, as these kinds of predictions generally do, attracted widespread public attention and response.

      That response, as we have seen, is made up mostly of jokes and wisecracks, many of them I think quite clever. However, I suspect the feelings of Rev. Camping will not be hurt, because his beliefs, backed in his mind by scriptural authority, undoubtedly give him confidence that scoffers will face special punishment.

      Here's my take on Rev. Camping and his imaginings concerning the End Time: he may be on the right track, but he is lamentably on the right track for the wrong reasons. He also is far too impatient in his desire to get to the end of the world.

      Of course, this may be a function of age. At 89, this gentleman, like all aging folks (yes, I include myself in that category) is holding onto the wrong end of what might be called "the stick of time," and some subconscious awareness of this might be influencing his religious outlook. A kind of "if it's going to be over for me, so it will be for multitudes, my Bible tells me" attitude; in this may lie some consolation for him.


      PERSONALLY, THE WAY I VIEW THE PROBLEMS OF AGING is to resolve that, whatever they are, one must do one's best to deal with them, and just keep on trying, to get the most out of and to give the most, to whatever time is left.

      I hope Rev. Camping has some similar rule to live by, but my point is that he doesn't have to rely on the Bible as the source for his concern over the end of the world (if it in fact is concern, in light of his apparent religious delight in the prospects for the end). No, the events of the world, and the condition of the world today ought to be enough to satisfy any need he has to see the world come to an end, or something close it. As I say, he just needs to crank it back a bit, and not be in such a hurry.

      If Rev. Camping would pay more attention to the daily news, he would see that humanity and its leaders are engaging in conduct that cannot continue for long with success.

      Has this reverend gentleman not acquainted himself with the problems of environment degradation, no small part of it irreversible?

      Is he informed on "the population bomb" and where it is inexorably leading?


      WHAT IS HIS KNOWLEDGE OF A RELATED PROBLEM, that of deep poverty in what we in North America regard as the disadvantaged Third World (but toward which a great many of us feel quite superior, even though we have substantial poverty problems of our own)?

      And let us not overlook what may be the most gigantic threat to the continued existence of humanity -- the growing militarization of the globe, including that of the outer space surrounding us.

      The weaponry available today worldwide, Rev. Camping, is so effective and destructive, and the existing and potential international conflicts so intense, that sensible investors must be salivating over the profits to be made from investments in war industry stocks.

      Thermonuclear bombs exist in the thousands, and range in power to many, many multiples of the tiny bombs that destroyed two Japanese cities in August, 1945, and brought World War Two to an end.


      I DON'T KNOW WHETHER OUR REV. CAMPING SAW IT or not, but an article was published eight or nine weeks ago in the San Jose Mercury News (in Camping's state), under the byline Nadia Drake, the first two paragraphs of which said the following:

        "SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Life on Earth is hurtling toward extinction levels comparable to those following the dinosaur-erasing asteroid impact of 65 million years ago, propelled forward by human activities, according to scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.
        "This week, scientists announced that if current extinction rates continue unabated, and vulnerable species disappear, Earth could lose three-quarters of its species as soon as three centuries from now."

     There you are, Rev. Camping. Little doubt exists that the end is going to come. It's just a question of when. And some of us will breathe easier in hearing highly qualified scientists in your state say it'll probably not be for another 300 years or so. So, unfortunately, you're not going to be around to enjoy it. Just the wrong time.

      Well, that's show biz. And, as you undoubtedly know, being something of an entertainer yourself, timing is everything.  

          
    

    

    

    

    

      

A POLITICAL BLANK CHEQUE FOR HARPER?

  
       IF I HAPPENED TO BE A SERIOUS GAMBLER, why, I'd be dealing in big bucks right now in the aftermath of Canada's important national election -- and I'm sorry to have to report that my bucks would all be going the wrong way.

      Yes, I have to admit it:  I would have bet on the wrong horses. Today, therefore, I will operate on the principle that, like it or not, you can't deny a winner, and do record my surprise at the showing by Stephen Harper and his Conservatives. And one absolutely has to congratulate the New Democratic Party for its historic advance, while feeling a bit sorry about the demise of the Liberal Party.

      The Harper Tories won the big prize in an all-out battle that was relatively fair and square, with only the occasional blob of serious mud hurled. Today is the first day of four straight years of Harper majority government.  And, after five years of minority Harper government, Canadians will find out how realistic were concerns, by people like me, that a majority Conservative government would not be good for the nation.

      In my pre-election comments in this space I found it difficult to see how the Harperites could achieve majority status, in light of some serious policy issues they represented. These included their suspected leanings toward: a probable shrinking of health care; tax breaks for big business; heavy deficits; inability to cope with worsening inflation and a poor employment picture; and wasteful financial commitments to  militaristic ventures -- to say nothing of control-freakishness, authoritarianism, government scandals and Tory contempt of Parliament.


     MONDAY'S ELECTION RESULTS SHOW that those issues had no negative influence whatsoever on support for the Conservatives; in fact, the Tory vote went up. A great many Canadian voters, it seems, really don't care a lot about such issues. (That's now -- but who knows? Perhaps in the next four years they will find some issues, in addition to the aforementioned, upon which they actually will be moved to vote.)

      But isn't what we got still a minority government? I expect some people will ask that question, pointing to the fact that the Tories received only about 40 per cent of the popular vote, and yet won more than 54 per cent of the seats in the Commons. And it will be said, as well, that a total of only 61.4 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots, with the effect that the Tory 40 per cent actually is much less than 40 per cent of eligible voters.

      Well, I'm sorry, folks, that's just the way our electoral system works. Yes, there was talk election night about the need for electoral reform, to more fairly and democratically reflect voters' wishes, but I'll bet that Mr. Harper, who benefited hugely from the present system, is unlikely to do much about changing it. (That's one bet I wouldn't mind losing, though.)


      AS MUCH AS ONE MIGHT LIKE TO SAY the Tory mandate isn't really a decisive one, and that the party has only a minority mandate, I insist it isn't that way at all. If nearly 40 per cent of eligible voters are regarded as having failed to participate in democracy, I'm here to say they did.

      Without casting ballots they were still voting because they were saying: "Hey, I'm perfectly happy with whatever the voting outcome might be. I'm too busy, anyway, to get to the polls. If others can afford the time to vote, then that's great --  they can decide for me, I'll go along with them whichever way they vote."

      I'm not recommending such an attitude at all, because it's my view that if you decline to vote then you have absolutely no complaint coming; should a government be elected that does things you don't agree with, you've pretty well already shown you don't care.

     So, on that basis I have to say that the Harper mandate is a very solid one, and he can now proceed in the knowledge that he has what looks to me like a blank cheque, politically.


      EVERY ELECTION IS HISTORIC, BUT SOME ARE MORE historic than others -- and of course the May 2, 2011 vote was historic, bigtime. Especially when it comes to the Liberals and the New Democrats.

      With respect to the Liberals, if a medical person were describing what happened to them, that person likely would be diagnosing the Liberal party as being in "guarded" condition, meaning "We're not sure we can save the patient."

       That party on May 2 suffered a serious, near fatal attack and is on life support. Mr. Ignatieff may become a footnote to Canadian history, if he's lucky -- but it will be only in the sense that he was on the bridge when the typhoon struck his party's ship, and was completely unable to find the wheel (or if he could find it, didn't know which way to turn it). To say the Liberals struck a reef is putting it mildly. Plus, I don't think it is overstating matters by saying that any party selecting two losing leaders, for two elections in a row (i.e., the Liberals), well, that party can't look to much of a future.

  
      SO, THE LIBERALS HAVE BEEN SHOVED OUT OF THE WAY by the New Democratic Party into the political region we recognize as nowhere. The NDP's Jack Layton ran a masterful campaign, found the right words, and knew how to use them. He stunned Canadian politics by surpassing the wildest dreams of his party's rank-and-file, and perhaps even his own expectations of success.

       Imagine -- he turned Quebec politics completely on its head, destroying the Bloc Quebecois (probably Quebec separatism, too), and virtually shutting out the Liberals and Conservatives in that province.

       Now that he's Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition, Jack Layton knows that in this position he leads a party that is "the government in waiting" -- it is the alternative to the government of the day. He cannot help but feel himself on a historic path to power. It has been said that if your party achieves Official Opposition status is will be government one day. We'll see.

       How Mr. Layton performs in his new position, how he carries out his significant responsibilities "on behalf of average, working Canadians," these things will be important not just for his future, but for  Mr. Harper's and, more importantly, Canada's future as well.