This aspect of the end-times scenario frankly has taken us by surprise. But now that we're seeing the unmistakeable signs that indeed this is what is happening, there is something that seems so very right about it! Afterall, what was the first temptation in Eden? that your eyes would be opened, that you would be as gods. With that, how utterly fitting (and wonderful) that our judgment would be accompanied with the mercy of allowing us once again to close our eyes! In fact, the mercy is so real and so great, it might be that we won't be able to finish this report! Our own senses are so mercifully dulled right now that we're feeling a little lightheaded. Our first instinct was to present the mounting evidence of this personal and universal condition; now we're thinking 'what's the use?' There is no use, at least none that is obvious to the heaviness in our head, that fairly pleasant mushiness that's going on up there. We might have to lie down because it's just like there's a hypnotist speaking words of hypnotism... But while there's still some faint degree of awareness, let us think of the signs all around: Children don't really care anymore. It's not at all rare anymore for fourth and sixth-graders to still lack basic toilet-training skills. Just go to an elementary school these days, and walk up and down the hall, and see what you smell. You know how there's always a sign directing visitors to the office? And you think this has to do with security reasons, to keep perverts out? The actual fact of the matter is that they can't keep a decent janitor anymore, with all the children having this problem. These kids simply don't care. And the more they don't care, the more the problem grows. But they still don't care. Their little minds are mercifully atrophying. They're in a stupor and they're having the time of their lives. Teenagers don't have any ambitions or scruples. This is from a lack of brain-power, pure and simple. Teachers report that the upper grade classes are going nowhere fast. The only brains they have are hormonal. And of course those are brains that feed on themselves but yield only evil thoughts. About the only other thing a teenager is good at is renting a limo. And they don't care how much it costs! Since they don't work, why should they care? To them, money simply grows on trees. Well, I've got a little message for them: it doesn't. If you want nice things, you need to work for them. You think Mom & Dad started off with a brand new Ferarri and a thousand dollar stereo? You can't just expect us to hand these things to you! That little pea in your head shaking around, use it for something and quit being nothing but a rattle. Young adults aren't much better. They have zero values. All they want is mindless entertainment. They charge up a bunch of pay-per-view movies on their cable bill and when the bill gets there at the end of the month, they're like "what happened, dude?" And you'd think they'd be concerned about their credit rating and want to get those bills paid off, but they don't. They sit there with the remote, one movie after another. A normal person would be frantic with these bills nagging them! But not young adults! You say, "what about those bills?" And the dullards look back at you with this big blank ridiculous expression on their faces. Then you look over and notice a beer setting on the coffee table with a big condensed water circle under it, and it's setting on top of their cable bills! Which they've ignored! And when it comes to their very high phone bills, don't get me started! Middle-aged adults are probably still the smartest group. Because they used to be idealistic and they used to have generous values. Still they're pretty dull these days, and it's getting worse. Their whole failing is selfishness. They've pulled away from the world, from generosity, from idealism. They've seen how the system works and they've said "what's the use?" So they've recoiled, and not to a moderate standpoint but to a wholly self-absorbed one. You can't talk to a middle-aged adult. There's not a middle-aged adult anywhere in the world anymore who has a helpful bone in his body. They're all selfish to the core. And they're always listening to Oldies radio, which is extremely monotonous (if you think about it). Very...dumb bunch! Older adults are on their way downhill, too, physically and mentally. For them, the mental deterioration is an obvious boon. Because it covers up all the other problems. Their limbs are full of arthritis, their muscles are like jelly, their skin is practically leprous, their senses have failed them. If there's smoke, they can't smell it. If you click your fingers at their eyes real fast, they don't even flinch. You see an older adult walking -- or Heaven Help Us, driving -- and you feel sick all over. How could they let themselves go like that? Something somewhere snapped and now they're paying the price. You only wonder, why do their lungs keep breathing as they do? Surely, they're about to keel!? Then really older adults are off in a world of their own. And this is not any different than it's always been. They're full of mental deficiencies: synapses are shut off, the spinal cord no longer leads to the head, the only mental activity they have are the random firings of a handful of still-living brain cells in their last death throes. You see them, mercifully locked away in little rooms with a door with little wooden bars. You see them strapped to a bed somewhere, thrashing about. But don't worry about them. It's not that they're sad at all, because they're completely out of it. They don't even hope for things, except maybe to watch The Price is Right every morning. And the volume is turned nearly all the way up. The audience is shouting, the folks in the TV studio are laughing, but these poor souls sit there stoneface. If they're noticing anything whatsoever, it's only the flicker of the picture changing or now-and-then a color.

One of the greatest gifts of Divine Favor has to be the selection of GEORGE W. BUSH to be President of the United States. Politics aside, clearly here is a man who makes Chance in Being There look genuinely smart! And if you can't see that, then the reason is the merciful dullness has already gotten you. You're lost in stupor. Take a look at this picture. This is the President of the United States, demonstrating the great Divine Favor being visited upon us all. The "Basic Unit of Information" is before him. It might be gustatory, olfactory, auditory, or the eyes-word. The President's senses still function. So he smells it, tastes it, hears it, sees it. The unit of information now received, his body processes it. In time past, his mind worked with it, mulled it over, and we hope, processed it as is appropriate. If it tastes good, he said so. He didn't say, "That sounded funny." And if it appeals to the eye, he didn't speak of its taste as something he was just then experiencing. But with this merciful stupor, this gift of mental deterioration, any one of these reactions can happen at any time! And he doesn't care! He's right out in public, with aides propping him up, saying whatever nutty thing pops into his head. And it's going to get worse before it gets better....or perhaps we should say, it'll get better the worse things get! One other thing about the illustration: there are waves radiating off the back of the President's head. This represents losing more information than one takes in. That's where the divine favor is most evident, and it's easy to see: The Basic Units of Information, with the world getting worse and worse, are going to be more and more unpleasant. If one keeps information while attaining more, the suffering would be great. If one lost as much information as one took in, we'd be exchanging bad for good. It's only when one loses more than he takes in that the situation is good. Then, whatever you suffer, you don't know, you don't care. Divine Favor was at work in the Election of 2000. Al Gore was naturally resistant to this kind of deterioration in any reliable way, but Mr. Bush had apparently yielded long before. Therefore he was selected! Who better to lead a country, to lead the world through the mental stagnation we've been gifted with as the world comes to a sad end? For ourselves, this is more thinking than we're comfortable doing. We cannot go on. We seek comfort and peace, rest in a warm bower somewhere. We must lie down, perchance to dream, and to awaken in the world yet to come.