2013 Will be the Dumbest Year Ever

With the forgivable exception of the world ending (see below), all my other predictions for 2012 came true (here).

Given that I seem to have been blessed with the gift of augury, I feel obliged to offer these prognostications for 2013. (Feel free to add your own in the comment section!)

• Nintendo will release a miniature game console called the Wiini
• Apple will spend its cash hoard to buy a small country for its competitors to live in.
• Momentum to legalize marijuana will fizzle as activists forget what they were fighting for.
• In the USA, gay marriage initiatives will pass in 10% of the states.
• The US Constitution will be modified to allow citizens the right to carry concealed nuclear weapons.
• Texas will finally outlaw forced conversion of vegetarians.
• Admitting that “fluorescent lights really suck,” California will decriminalize incandescent bulbs.
• The British Royal Family will make it official by starting a reality TV franchise.
• Popular baby names will include #Hashtag, Snapchat, and Poke.
• New apocalypse fears will arise when scientists discover an "off by one" math error in the Mayan Calendar.
• The arrival of a very bright comet will renew the global debate over very bright comets.
• Controversial scenes in the new Star Trek movie will trigger outrage from Vulcans.

 If  your New Year's Resolution includes adding brain cells to compensate for those you killed in 2012, you probably shouldn't read my novel, "No Roads Lead to Rome."

Stamp Out Intolerance!

I’ve had the honor of providing a virgin encounter to over seventy people without ever having to die or visit anyone’s odd notion of paradise.

I regret to clarify that none of these cases involved any physical intimacy with the exception of the kid on the playground who punched me in the nose for having killed Christ. Or the time a questionable friend’s older brother pushed me into a closet with a lit candle and ordered me to beg forgiveness from Jesus.

I continue to be the first Jew many people have met. I don’t wear it on my sleeve, but it does tend to come out in conversation when people are trying to convert me. This is a shame because I’m a terrible ambassador for my tribe.

My faith lapsed shortly after cashing in my Bar Mitzvah winnings. I grew increasingly frustrated with not being invited to join secret Jewish conspiracies like Wall Street, Hollywood, or the tenured staff of Brandeis University. (If any member of the International Cartel of Jewish Bankers or the Elders of Zion is reading this, please contact me before my next car payment is due.)

I later passed my skepticism on to my sons by answering life’s big questions – “where do we go when we die” and “will there be hamburgers” – by explaining that Star Trek was the documentary story of our exiled people. I then told them to go outside and watch for the mothership.

“Looks like we’re on our own,” I said when no mothership arrived.

American kids nowadays are lucky that differences are celebrated and bloodied noses are fewer. They are blessed to live in the most religiously tolerant and diverse country in the world where church parking lots are full, temples have security guards, and mosques are routinely denied building permits.

The USA even had a Mormon run for president! He gave a big speech to profess his tolerance of other Christians. His opponent, our current president, caught flack for being a member of a radical church. Once elected, he took heat for being a radical Muslim – clear testimony to our open mindedness.

There may not be a mothership, but as the holiday season descends and yuletide Muzak fills our cinnamon-scented shopping malls, we can still raise our eggnog lattes in common worship of the Gods of Commerce.

May your season be joyful and the after-Christmas sales heavenly.

Looking for an innapropriate gift? Steal this book!!

Electile Dysfunction Disorder

No sooner had the US elections ended than the backlash started.

Right after two states legalized marijuana the company that made Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Hoho’s went out of business. In spite of a swelling wave of new customers with munchies, 18,000 people who made the snack food beloved to pot smokers everywhere lost their jobs. 

Too many Twinkies might explain why tens of thousands of citizens across the country filed petitions to have their states secede from The Union immediately after Obama's reelection.

Ding Dong Mitt Romney lobbed some Hohos of his own by announcing that he lost the presidency because Obama gave financial gifts to women and minorities. Mittens was stunned that the financial gifts he had promised to the super rich somehow failed to sway the popular vote.

Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan blamed “urban voters” for his defeat even though a majority of voters in his rural hometown voted against him. Fact checkers got busy looking into what percentage of the nation is now urban.

Those poor fact checkers! How empty their lives must feel now that the country has recovered from Electile Dysfunction Disorder.

The son of mega-evangelist Billy Graham announced that Romney lost because Christians failed to vote.   While it’s true that Obama carried the Jewish vote, it was surprising to learn that the Electoral College is full of pagans.

Confirming that the End of Days is upon us, the Israelis and Palestinians began fighting, Europe slipped back into recession, and the CIA Director was brought down by a sex scandal that spread like a virus.

It seems the nation’s top spy didn’t realize that e-mail exchanges could be hacked by shirtless FBI agents.

After seeing his party lose decisively by insulting women and minorities, Obama’s former foe, John McCain thought it might be a good idea to loudly impugn the reputation, achievements and intelligence of a prominent black woman. He missed a confidential hearing on the Benghazi attacks to attack UN Ambassador Susan Rice for being misinformed about the Benghazi attacks.

Clearly, McCain has put the 2008 election behind him and, like the rest of the nation, is now ready to move forward.

 

The decline and fall is sure taking a long time! It all started in "No Roads Lead to Rome!"