WELL here we are, it’s the year of our Lord 2009 and humanity is under attack on all sides from a host of evils and threats (spoilt for choice in fact), and richly deserves it too. I suppose I should really be writing this piece at the end or beginning of a year but there’s so much that is downright nasty going on at the moment that I could not resist taking stock of the situation now, be it ever so general and simplistic.
SO let's see how we've fared so far: If you've not been blown away by a terrorist bomb, flooded out due to global warming, swindled by dishonest politicians, cleaned out by greedy bankers, laid low by swine flu or whatever other disease may be doing the rounds, you can count yourself lucky. The down side is that terrorism still flourishes, global warming is set to intensify, dishonest politicians are not in short supply, greedy bankers are a way of life in today's capitalist economies, swine flu has not yet run its course and anyway other deadly maladies are queuing up to have a shot at us.
DESPITE all this, I hear you say that the title of this post, 'Armageddon', is perhaps a bit over the top. Well, it might be, but have you given serious thought to the possibility of all-out nuclear war, global flooding due to rising sea levels from the melting of the ice caps, a head-on strike on the Earth from some large cosmic body, and even a series of worldwide biblical plagues that decimate the human race and threaten it with extinction? 'Armageddon' may come from the hand of Man, Nature or God. Or maybe all three are one and the same anyway? But whichever it is, the result would be cataclysmic and long-lasting if not permanent.
WITH all these calamities potentially in store for us, we might well wish to follow the example of the Epicureans who advocated that "we eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die". Yes, you've recognised it, it's the familiar "carpe diem" ("seize the day") in a different guise, which is currently on everyone's lips, both Latin scholars and the unschooled. Pardon me though, because I thought that was what everyone's doing anyway: grabbing as much of the cake as they can eat and making off with as much of the goodies as they can carry and to hell with everything! Still, it always sounds better in Latin, doesn't it?
BETTER still, let's put all this doomwatch malarkey and eleventh-hour end-of-world talk to one side and get on with the business of buggering up the planet good and proper. Amen to that and pass the tranquillisers!
SO let's see how we've fared so far: If you've not been blown away by a terrorist bomb, flooded out due to global warming, swindled by dishonest politicians, cleaned out by greedy bankers, laid low by swine flu or whatever other disease may be doing the rounds, you can count yourself lucky. The down side is that terrorism still flourishes, global warming is set to intensify, dishonest politicians are not in short supply, greedy bankers are a way of life in today's capitalist economies, swine flu has not yet run its course and anyway other deadly maladies are queuing up to have a shot at us.
DESPITE all this, I hear you say that the title of this post, 'Armageddon', is perhaps a bit over the top. Well, it might be, but have you given serious thought to the possibility of all-out nuclear war, global flooding due to rising sea levels from the melting of the ice caps, a head-on strike on the Earth from some large cosmic body, and even a series of worldwide biblical plagues that decimate the human race and threaten it with extinction? 'Armageddon' may come from the hand of Man, Nature or God. Or maybe all three are one and the same anyway? But whichever it is, the result would be cataclysmic and long-lasting if not permanent.
WITH all these calamities potentially in store for us, we might well wish to follow the example of the Epicureans who advocated that "we eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die". Yes, you've recognised it, it's the familiar "carpe diem" ("seize the day") in a different guise, which is currently on everyone's lips, both Latin scholars and the unschooled. Pardon me though, because I thought that was what everyone's doing anyway: grabbing as much of the cake as they can eat and making off with as much of the goodies as they can carry and to hell with everything! Still, it always sounds better in Latin, doesn't it?
BETTER still, let's put all this doomwatch malarkey and eleventh-hour end-of-world talk to one side and get on with the business of buggering up the planet good and proper. Amen to that and pass the tranquillisers!
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