End times on the The Sunday Morning Sidewalk

I was on one of those ‘end times’ sort of sites last night. It spoke about ‘terrifying events’ that are shaking the world.. to its core. While there are times I think the core is shaking, I typically dismiss any end of the world scenario or Armageddon claim that comes by. 

But there are certain mornings as I update the HORROR REPORT with the previous night’s news, over a nice hot cup of coffee, that I scratch my head in disbelief. Actual headlines so often appear to be more as the storyline of some Hollywood blockbuster.. 

Whether it’s planes literally vanishing before our eyes or volcanoes forcing the evacuation of 200,000 people, I can see easily how someone of religious faith would be compelled to think the jig is up.  The only trouble with that logic is how often in history the jig could have been up.

In reality, end times do happen every day. But it’s an individual thing. The one characteristic of life that we all have in common regardless of race color or creed is this: We perish from this life .. and go wherever we do. That’s it. We all love and honor different things.. we are all filled with a varied amount of goals. But we all go to the same place when this game is done. Where that is? That’s sort of my mission in life to constantly question–I am never satisfied with typical answers, never just ‘fine’ with believing a Bible thumper’s enthusiasm or an atheist’s pessimism.. There needs to be something more to life.. and death. Right?

And in that sense, there is one way that the end of the world can happen.. one way that we can exclude ourselves for our inevitable personal Armageddon and instead had a community end time. And there were three chances of that happening last week alone! Asteroids. There were three CLOSE calls to this planet in the last few days..

Keep this in mind Asteroid 2014 EC flew by Earth Wednesday. It was only discovered Tuesday—which would have given this planet little to no chance to do anything at all about it if it was going to hit.
I cannot understand this.. Asteroids seem to be the biggest story that should be focused on by any politician running for office. If a big one hit, it would have a massive impact without regard to national origin, religion, color, or creed.
But instead, stories of asteroids—and all of science—are regulated to the last bit on the local news. Right after sports. A “fun little story to end the night” accompanied by a joke about how the Earth had a ‘close shave’ .. I hate the term close shave. 
How about this: News casters should lose the ‘close shave’ analogy and instead report it this way: “The world almost had a major city obliterated today” or “a world coastline almost was destroyed by a tsunami wave today.”  Maybe that will get the attention necessary for this to matter.
Three in one week, and one discovered the day before the potential hit. 
That’s not good..
It should be high time for us, as a world population, to understand this: Our wars and our needless hate, our anger and our pointless rage, all won’t matter a hill of beans if a large asteroid visits our planet with a mighty blast. 
There should be a collective ability for this world to come together and use science and reason to find the objects in the sky that may provide doomsday with our morning coffee. And maybe a way through physics or nuclear science to dismantle the threat or at least lessen it.
You’d sure think that doing that would be our mission. But it’s not.
Instead, the 11 o’clock news will simply add on the fun little story about a near disaster as the makeup-faced frauds that read teleprompters chuckle at their–and our–peril..