I made some predictions at the start of the year on KKLA. Here they are. . . with my comments below the original post in italics.
KKLA gives me a chance to host a monthly radio program with three other fine folk!
I love doing radio. . . and if anyone wants a fill in host (cough, cough) I am here and talking.
My shift happened to be on the last day of the old year. Here are my predictions. . . based not on any great prophetic ability and certainly on no psychic powers about what will happen this year.
This way you can hold me to them!
First, Iran will become more important in the news than Iraq. Iraq will begin to move toward peace and the mullahs will feel the threat of reaction to a democratic neighbor in their own people. When in trouble, dictators demonize Jews and Americans. Expect the nuclear program to continue and for someone (Israel if the worst happens) to take it out. Have the doves so ham-strung Bush that he will not be able to keep this rotten regime from getting weapons we know they will use?
This seems much more right than wrong so far. . . I think Iraq is going about as well as I had hoped (though that could be debated), but that Iran is going exactly as I thought. Here is hoping Bush gets tougher before our friends in the region have to do it.
Second, the Democrats will be disappointed in the mid-terms. The President is just under 50% in some polls and at 43% in the lowest I have seen. That is not “bad enough” to set up a big reaction. Most folk will pull the lever for their local guy.
Publicly, Democrats may trumpet a few small gains (no more than a net two Senate seats gained and less than 10 house seats), but the in fighting will begin when the hard line crowd measures their wished for gains against reality. I still think the best chance is that the election will be a draw leading to a Democrat blood bath and even more weird vote-losing conspiracy theories.
I am sticking to this. . . and feel good about it.
Third, the success of Narnia will finally cause at least one mainstream studio (Disney?) to become more openly friendly to evangelicals. Disney is never going to win Oscars anyway. Money will talk. Walden Media will slowly become a major studio with a chance to do so outside of the Hollywood system.
My read on the industry say that this happening, but we will have to see how the holiday films look on the “family friendly” front.
Four, the new Pope will be demonized on the front cover of at least two news magazines as he takes off the gloves and goes after Islam, modernity, and post-modernity while defending reason and Western civic values. This time, however, many Europeans will listen. France in particular will have the first stirrings of a Joan of Arc moment when religion begins to perk up. Someone on the left will even notice this and it will horrify them more than the demographic time bomb of their own cultural failure.
I feel good about this one.
Five, the old media has been propped up for little bit, but this the year that Netflix and Tivo (or services like them) really makes it obvious that people are creating their own networks and watching their own programs. “Underground” programming that already has been produced by groups like Mormons for their own consumption will get more “mainstream” as new folk find out about it. This will not be the coming of the Kingdom. However, this is the tipping point year when more people wait for a series to finish so they can watch it all in order on DVD from Netflix than wait every week to follow the story line. . . realizing that more shows will be obvious “rewatch” bait and continue this cycle.
Apple is the company that it turns out is doing this at the moment. . . feeling good about my Mac right now. . . so this seems true as well.