Thanks!  I was wondering what happened to you.

 I woke up early from a bad dream and decided to
visit this little cafe, Just For You, on the other side
of town.  Took a bus there, got there just before
nine, and saw it was boarded up.  Walked back
through the Mission.  Every single place I used toc
like, every mom & pop cafe, was boarded up.  A
new Safeway, a new Noah's Bagels, and a new 
Blockbuster were doing good business, all in a 
gated enclosure teeming with guards.  And the 
SPCA was renamed "PeopleSoft Pet Recovery 
Facility".  Cops were everywhere, but there didn't 
seem to be any crimes to interrupt or prevent. A 
bus drove by, and I read the billboard on its side: 
"Our soldiers.  War is their reality; music is their 
world.  A special about our soldiers and the music 
that moves them."

 Well, this is reality, and I'm starting to think I
prefer the bad dream.  Here it is:

 I dreamed that someone handed me a microphone, 
and for a moment, I could talk to everyone in the world.
How to make the most of this opportunity?  Well,
all of a sudden I realized that I did really know what
our biggest problem was as a species, and what
we could do to solve it.  Why just then?  I guess it
seemed like, for once, someone might listen to me.

 I told everyone what our biggest problem was and
how to solve it.  I said that if we didn't solve it,
certain things were inevitable.  I said that people 
believed invisible spirit beings controlled them,
determined what would happen in the future, and 
dictated what was right and wrong.  I said that these
beings didn't exist, that they were an excuse for not
using our heads, and that human beings have all
the senses they need to see what's coming.  I said
this is why history is littered with dead prophets, who
simply used reason to figure out the obvious.  They
were killed for undermining belief in these invisible
beings.

 I said that their prophets complained that the world 
refused to listen to them, so their prophets resorted
to signs and wonders to prove the invisible spirit beings
weren't real.  The people took these signs as proof that 
invisible spirit beings were real.  Then they killed the
messenger.

 I said that without signs and wonders, people wouldn't
believe the truth even if it were presented as a logical
argument. So, in my dream, I devised a test.  If reason
could predict the future, but none of these invisible
spirit beings could, one would expect a rational person
to predict something correctly, and all the spirit beings
would fail to warn anyone.  Perhaps that would prove
reason was reason.  Suddenly I was filled with fear. 
Reason is the last thing people will listen to.

 But I tried to predict something, just once, based purely
on reason, and I said that no invisible spirit beings were
helping me, that they never had, and that they wouldn't
be there to intervene when the shit came down.  They 
wouldn't save anybody, but I was going to try.

 I made a list of things that seemed likely to happen,
based on what the mainstream media were saying. 
I said all my clues were public knowledge and that
anyone could check them out, draw their own inferences,
and reach the same conclusions. 

 Somehow, in my dream, I was able to predict the next
war.  I said things that could save thousands of lives,
things that could even prevent the war.  But, I said,
somehow people would still believe in invisible spirit
beings rather than take responsibility for their own actions,
even if they knew that belief was causing their problems.
They would rather be protected from imaginary dangers
than real ones.

 In the dream, all of my best friends abandoned me for
saying this.  Their invisible friends were more important
to them.

 In the dream, thousands and thousands of people heard
me and remembered what I said.  They remembered what
I predicted.  They saw it happen.  They understood why it
happened.  They knew that I was right.

 Then they bowed their heads, picked up guns, and vowed
to avenge their invisible protectors.


"Know ye not ye are all gods?" John 10:34 

"I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face 
and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a 
body bag."--Ralph Reed, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 11/9/91 

"Those who believe fight in the cause of God."  Koran 4.76

"Listen, if anything happens to Yoko and me, it was not an accident."  John Lennon