Weirdly Specific Tarot Cards

Tarot cards are designed to be incredibly vague so that if you have any kind of imagination you can make the reading of the cards somehow about you and your life, past, present and future.

I want to create a deck of tarot cards that are alarmingly specific along with updated vernacular speech. Granted, these won't work on hardly anyone but when they do...

Here are some examples

13: Death
"Girl, delete that old MySpace account. Seriously, kill it and any other outdated social media platforms that you had an account with. These are bad omens and only cause pain, misery and external judgment from others. Herald in the new day and halt the old before the past consumes you.

16:The Tower
"You are too concerned with the lives and gossip of others. Focus on yourself and your immediate goals. Do not isolate yourself. These are your tendencies. If you don't heed this warning you will end up just like that kid in GoT, peeping on that queen in the TOWER boning her brother and then you will be a paraplegic but also can see the future?"

2:The High Priestess
"There are some uppity-ass bitches in your life, Wanda! Excommunicate these whores from your life. You will thank me later, Wanda"

10:Wheel of Fortune
"A series of emojis will go here"

6:The Lovers
"Stay single and your pockets will jingle."

9:The Hermit
"When Netflix asks, 'Are you still watching?' it's because Netflix is afraid that you might be dead. Someone should really alert the authorities, at this point. Rather, you have become a hermit and are incapable of leaving your hobbit hole which contains many leather bound books (Which you don't read) and Netflix."

7:Wands
"Collect all the wands, pass GO and then you win at Tarot! Isn't that how this game works?"

These Colors Don't Run

Right after the Paris bombings many of us on social media turned our profile pictures into an Eiffel Tower or French slogan to show our support and solidarity with the French people. Soon afterwards, peoples of differing African nations and Middle Eastern countries cried out. Why not change the colors of your online avatar to those of the Afghani flag? Or the Sudanese flag? These are but a few examples of countries that face national atrocities and horrors on an almost daily basis and these occurrences are but a blip on western news. No one would light up the White House with the colors of the Nigerian flag or cover British Parliament in an Algerian banner. The bottom line is this. Westerners have turned a somewhat blind eye to the terrors of Africa. Be honest with yourself. We all do it. The horrors are sadly just too numerous and the issues that cause these problems can't all be solved with money or Doctors Without Borders. These issues are multi-faceted, some even ancient, political, religious, cultural and on and on and on. Because of this we choose to look in the other direction and to not dwell on such sadness. For good, evil or some weird grey area in between this is the way of the western news system and society itself.

Today my husband asked me if I had read the news stories about the shooting in Orlando or the rapist from Stanford University. I shrugged my shoulders and said,"I saw those headlines but I didn't read the stories". In that moment I realized that I didn't bother to actually read about those awful stories for the same reasons that I choose not to go any further than a headline into any of the awful situations in Africa or the Middle East...because the situations are just too numerous. Without knowing it, my mind has subconsciously placed America in with Africa and Atrocities. Obviously America is still safer and more stable than almost any African nation but I'm not sure anyone would glean that from the news headlines. There are shootings, seemingly, every day in the U.S., rapes, robberies, hate crimes, preposterous political campaigns, corruption, extreme wealth disparity and severe lack of charity. Has it gotten this bad?  So bad that when I read about a shooting in the news I just gloss over it as yet another American shooting? Yet another bombing in Africa? Who can keep up with this?

Perhaps it's time to get out of our comfortable suburban bubbles and talk with those that are different from us. Make a friend who is at a different economic level (up or down) from yourself. Talk to a Muslim. Befriend people of differing ethnicities, gender or sexual preference from yourself. Why? Because it's easy to hate a stranger. It's impossible to hate a friend. Get past the headline, make a friend and maybe the stories will begin to change.

BREAKING NEWS

Every presidential campaign season comes with it's own level of stupidity and annoyances from both parties but this year has added a new spice to the mix: BREAKING NEWS

Adjust your TV dial (I know it's not the 1960's, we don't have dials anymore) or AppleTV, news website, magazine or actual newspaper to any and I mean ANY news outlet and you will see the bold words: BREAKING NEWS. Underneath this headline you will then see any combination of the following: Obama supports Clinton for democratic nomination, Cruz supports Trump for republican nomination, Pelosi supports Clinton for democratic nomination, Palin supports for Trump for republican nomination and so on.

How, I ask you, is this BREAKING NEWS? All democrats will support all democrats and all republicans will support all republicans. The republican nominee could be the Dark Lord Cthulhu and ALL republicans will support him. Ragnarok, Bringer of Armageddon, could be the democratic nominee and ALL democrats will support him/It. How is this information 'news' let alone BREAKING NEWS?

Here are some examples of ACCEPTABLE BREAKING NEWS!: Obama supports Trump as republican presidential candidate!, Palin supports Clinton as democratic presidential candidate! Haters NOT gonna hate!, Trump calls on Cthulu as vice presidential running mate!, Clinton names Ragnarok as ambassador to Norway!

I also want you to know that I am saying all of these fictitious headlines, in my head, with that transatlantic accent from the 1950's and it is hilarious....you should try it, like, right now.