This was a vastly different story three hours ago, and I think I lost the war to turn it into something more than a collection of loosely connected paragraphs. I’ve decided that surrender is the better part of valor in this struggle, and leave you with…
Today’s Word:
nullifidian
As in:
The Internet moved further up the rung of evolution this week, as mystics all over the world have begun to turn to the Internet as a predictive oracle.
Seers have been caught consulting Google for tips on the future, instead of more traditional tools such as tea leaves, Tarot cards and chicken entrails. “I got some great stock tips, and I totally avoided a massive car accident by using Google. It’s a life saver! Besides, entrails are so last millennia, and are kinda gross.”
Skeptics have dismissed these claims, and refer to these types of “predictions” as nothing more than research, and that it’s ludicrous to believe them to be insight into the future.
Fortune tellers are enjoying a brisk business in China, where concerned parents are consulting them for information on whether it is safe to send their children to school, and one of the parents is claiming that she kept her child home from school on the advice of the Internet. The next day, the child’s class was attacked by a knife wielding assailant.
Traditional nomads who, up until a few years ago used more traditional predictive techniques, are increasingly consulting the Internet for information and to find a patterns within the flow of cause and effect of current events to predict the next natural disasters. Some of these fortune tellers travel from Internet cafe to Internet cafe, finding time to follow forecasts and provide insight to paying customers.
One popular Internet mystic predicts that the fighting in Afghanistan will end May 21st. Most people have interpreted this to mean that the fighting will miraculously end sometime next week. Hoever, more savvy recipients of prophecies dismissed the revelation, which, like most predictions, are vague enough to be interpreted in hundreds of different ways.
Another seer from Russia, has a theory that NATO countries are being punished for continuing the war in Iraq. He insists that as soon as the troops leave the country, the recession and other disasters will end, and the world will enter a new era of prosperity and enlightenment. The seer cites the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the traffic problems in Europe due to Iceland’s volcanoes and the attacks on kindergarten classes in China as proof for this theory. No one has had the heart to tell him that China is not a member of NATO.
The use of the Internet as a new type of prophetic tool seems to especially be on the rise within the secular world. Experts believe that even the more nullifidian citizens of society have a need to seek answers from a higher power. In this case, they’ve chosen the Internet.
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I think I will simply leave this one in your capable eyeballs. I’m really using my eyeballs to look forward to this weekend.
nullifidian / NUL-eh-FID-ee-an / a person having no religious faith.