AND NOW the end is near and so I face the final curtain . . . Well, folks, this could be my last column, my last of anything for that matter. Yours too. According to some serious religious scholars, J-Day is tomorrow, May 21!
Y’all hillybillies livin’ in them there “boondocks” (also known as the “sticks”, “wops”, “backblocks” or “Woop Woop”) who don’t has no TV and therefore wallows “in crass ignorance of basic facts and informed world opinion”, better go check the maths on yo’ Internet right now. (“Informed world opinion” is, like, for example, “Dick Cheney”).
The basic equation is: 4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7000 years exactly. The flood of Noah’s day was in 4990 BC. Add 2011 and subtract one because there was no year Nought.. You TV-deprived Woop Woops can read further where the May 21 comes in. It has to do with the full 23-year tribulation period coming to its end on May 21, 2011, the day before Pentecost.
This is the big one, baby, Judgment Day, tomorrow! 7 000 years after the flood.
“If I have taken any man’s ox or ass”, said Samuel, “if I have wronged any man, if I have oppressed any man, if I have taken a bribe at any man’s hand, I will despise it this day and will restore it.”
Me too! If those two fish cakes from Owen Arthur were a bribe, I repent. Deepest apologies to those young ladies with whose affections I trifled in my younger days. No doubt you had better lives without me, but I’m sorry and I love you still.
And let me in the rest of this column try to placate columnist Peter Simmons, by his own admission “an old age pensioner reliant on several drugs” to keep him alive.
I only recall meeting Peter Simmons once at a Nation function, and he called me once on the phone. He was a former diplomat.
Russian diplomats are reportedly trained to “diplomate”, making love adroitly to the wives of generals and other highly placed officials to glean information. (Panting wife: “No, please, don’t stop now! We have 4 023 troops in Bogrudi! Yessss! Yesss!”) I didn’t think our diplomats performed such functions.
But Simms has had it rough. Just last month he wrote: “I spent eight years proselytizing in Britain and four other countries . . . .”
Time and again he was haunted by the cynical description of a diplomat as “a man sent abroad to lie on behalf of his country”.
“Lie” is an unfortunate word to use after admitting that you’ve proselytized. Thank God I’ve never proselytized. Mummy and big brother Ted warned against it.
I first “offended” Simms by apparently quoting him “verbatim”. He had got word at a gas station from a minister or somebody that Nelson would be gone in a matter of weeks and phoned to tell me.
How on earth was I to know that this was confidential information? Would a trained diplomat give sensitive information to Richard “Lowdown” Hoad of all people?
The Lowdown works at two levels. First, to reveal the real inside deal on any issue – the “lowdown”. Secondly, to go into the gutter-water, “lowdown” areas where the connected elite never venture.
My more recent offence was to condemn the illegal American raid into Pakistan to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Back off, Simms! Your learned legal brother will tell you you can’t win on this one.
We were raised on principles of sovereignty. If the worst outlaw crossed the Rio Grande, he was on Mexican territory and untouchable.
And every man, no matter what his crime, is entitled to face justice in a court if at all possible. Adolph Eichmann may have killed six million Jews, but they didn’t assassinate him.
If you care about Obama and America, Simms, don’t condone their roguish, illegal acts.
Anyhow, if tomorrow y’all hear a trumpet blowing and the earth shaking, good luck. Love you all!
This Woop Woop gone. Down or up is anybody’s guess.
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.