So, What will Tomorrow Bring?
I have always loved science fiction. Ever since I learned the magic of reading, these kind of stories and books drew me like a magnet. I can remember reading 4-5 books in a week, sometimes through the summer nights, with the windows open; the heat still radiating from the rooftops and the crickets and cicadas chirping and rattling.
Sometimes my father would come in and say "You're still up? Go to sleep!", and I would roll over, turn out the light and close my eyes. Usually I fell asleep, but sometimes I could not and I would wait till he went back to bed and start reading again, sometimes even by flashlight.
I loved science fiction, as it told of futures not yet seen, inventions not yet invented but already saving and condemning worlds we had yet to discover. Mostly I loved science fiction because it was the closest thing I could find to my Holy Grail: Time travel. The things I read in the older stories had frequently become reality in my present. I intuitively knew that the things I read of that were not yet were someday to be. I could travel to the future in my mind and see what was coming. Of course not everything I read actually became reality, but many things did, along with many things no one thought of at the time.
In the linked article, Dan Simmons quotes a book 'Replay', by Ken Grimwood. I have read it and loved it. I'm sure it influenced, at least in part, Bill Murray's 'Ground Hog Day' which I also loved. In Dan's (fictional?) story, a time traveller arrives from the future and our immediate future is spelled out for us. It is an unhappy one.
Tomorrow brings the 22nd of August, 2006. This is the day Iran's President, Ahmadinejad, says Iran will answer the world as to their nuclear program and the world's demands that it cease developing weapons and enriching uranium. You can read elsewhere of his determined beliefs that he can hasten the arrival of their messiah/prophet/Madhi through war and bloodshed. The bottom line is that his particular sect believe they can, and that August 22 is a forecasted day of the Mahdi's return. What I focus on is Ahmadinejad's claim that he will light up the sky over Jeruselem.
As in the science fiction of my youth, not all that is predicted will occur. However, something tells me that soon this may be one of those things that did.
Hold on.
Sometimes my father would come in and say "You're still up? Go to sleep!", and I would roll over, turn out the light and close my eyes. Usually I fell asleep, but sometimes I could not and I would wait till he went back to bed and start reading again, sometimes even by flashlight.
I loved science fiction, as it told of futures not yet seen, inventions not yet invented but already saving and condemning worlds we had yet to discover. Mostly I loved science fiction because it was the closest thing I could find to my Holy Grail: Time travel. The things I read in the older stories had frequently become reality in my present. I intuitively knew that the things I read of that were not yet were someday to be. I could travel to the future in my mind and see what was coming. Of course not everything I read actually became reality, but many things did, along with many things no one thought of at the time.
In the linked article, Dan Simmons quotes a book 'Replay', by Ken Grimwood. I have read it and loved it. I'm sure it influenced, at least in part, Bill Murray's 'Ground Hog Day' which I also loved. In Dan's (fictional?) story, a time traveller arrives from the future and our immediate future is spelled out for us. It is an unhappy one.
Tomorrow brings the 22nd of August, 2006. This is the day Iran's President, Ahmadinejad, says Iran will answer the world as to their nuclear program and the world's demands that it cease developing weapons and enriching uranium. You can read elsewhere of his determined beliefs that he can hasten the arrival of their messiah/prophet/Madhi through war and bloodshed. The bottom line is that his particular sect believe they can, and that August 22 is a forecasted day of the Mahdi's return. What I focus on is Ahmadinejad's claim that he will light up the sky over Jeruselem.
As in the science fiction of my youth, not all that is predicted will occur. However, something tells me that soon this may be one of those things that did.
Hold on.
posted by wennejunk at 5:09 PM
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