“You think that the Giants are gonna be in the World Series this year?” I asked Madame Jane, our local fortuneteller.

“Probably.”

“And also what about ten years from now?” I’m a die-hard Giants fan.

“Nope. Not a chance. Everything is going to be real different around here in ten years. Ten years from now, no one will be able to afford $50 a ticket. But there will be other advantages,” M.J. went on to say. “Instead of watching others play baseball, we’ll be out there playing baseball ourselves.”

“Not even watching it on TV?”

“TV will be toast.” Apparently, instead of watching “Survivor,” we will be living “Survivor” ten years from now. Good grief.

But what else should I ask Madame Jane? “Will Wall Street and war profiteers still be running the U.S.A.?”

“What U.S.A.?”

“How about agribusiness?”

“You will take a stick, punch a hole in the ground and drop in a seed. That will be your agribusiness ten years from now.”

Too “Little Red Hen” for me!

“But what about L-O-V-E?” I asked next.

“Love? Love? That’s too Christ-like,” she replied. “Love is for hippies and commies. Ten years from now, Christian, Jewish and Muslim extremist madmen will be ruling the day. And we all know that their main message is H-A-T-E.

“And what about children and music and art?”

“We will still have those. We will always have those — as long as human beings have souls. You, however, might have to practice your fiddle underground. But that’s okay because we’ll all be living underground by then due to radiation anyway.”

And all this will be happening to us in just ten short years? “Hey, don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger.” Then who should I blame? “Right now Americans have allowed a bunch of corporate predators to take over our government — cheered on by a bunch of bozos and sheep who believe everything they see on TV.” Ah, campaign ads.

PS: There appears to be two kinds of Christians, Muslims and Jews — those who believe in killing other human beings for fun and profit and those who do not. I myself stand firmly with those who do not.

PPS: If I were suddenly gifted with super-powers, the first thing that I’d do would be to destroy every single weapon in the world more dangerous than a baseball bat. Then Madame Jane’s current ten-year prediction would never come true.

PPPS: The U.S. intervention in Iran and Lebanon in the 1970s was a disaster that led to putting Islamic extremists in power over there. The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s was another disaster that put Islamic extremists in power over there too.

The U.S. intervention in the Gulf in the 1990s helped keep Islamic extremists in power over there as well. The U.S. intervention in Iraq in the 2000s gave Islamic extremists a huge advantage there too. And now, in the 2010s, the U.S. interventions in Libya and Syria are putting Islamic extremists in power over there too. Currently there are approximately 250,000 Islamic extremist madmen running around Libya that have been armed to the teeth by NATO with weapons paid for by corporate-owned America.

There’s a moral here somewhere.

Perhaps Madame Jane is correct in predicting that the U.S. is going to Hell in a hand-basket sooner than we think.

PPPPS: Now I finally understand why the greedy 1% are always trying to push charter schools down our throats whether we want them or not — charter schools are non-union! Just another way of obtaining cheap labor. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2012-09-07/article/40160?headline=Berkeley-Schools-the-Billionaires-and-the-New-Superintendent-News-Analysis—By-Thomas-Lord

PPPPPS: I’ll be going off to Ohio in October. No, not to watch the Republicans steal yet another presidential election there — but to attend BoucherCon http://bouchercon2012.com/, an annual murder-mystery writers’ and fans’ convention being held in Cleveland this year. See you there?

And perhaps Madame Jane will be there also — and perhaps she might even be talked into predicting YOUR future too.