Photo: Presidente da República, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, durante reunião no Palácio do Planalto. Brasília. Foto: Ricardo Stuckert / PR.
I found out something today… by which I mean, September 24. For you, yesterday.
What I found out: The Daily Post interface allows me to “schedule” my articles to appear at a future date. I can even pick the exact hour and minute I want the column to appear. In this case, I picked 5:07am on Thursday, September 25. No special reason, I just liked that particular hour and minute.
I had to write this column in advance, and get it posted before the end of the day Wednesday, but I scheduled it to appear on Thursday. Because, you know, the Rapture.
The Rapture is scheduled to occur today, Wednesday, September 24 — according to a YouTube video I ran across last week.
The video had over 570,000 views, indicating that everyone ought to take it pretty seriously. South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela received a vision from Jesus, announcing His Second Coming on Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year celebration which began on Monday and ends today (for you, yesterday) at sundown.
Jesus was Jewish back in the day, and probably still is. But also, probably Christian as well.
Pastor Mhlakela explained that he saw “Jesus sitting on his throne, and I could hear him very loud and clear saying, ‘I am coming soon’…”
I’m betting that He didn’t want to ruin the holiday, so he’s waiting until the last minute. That would mean, presumably, sunset in Hawaii.
“He says to me, ‘On the 23rd and 24th of September, 2025, I will come to take my church,’” Mhlakela said in the video.
It’s very likely, if you are reading this on Thursday, September 25 or a later date, that I will no longer be present on Planet Earth. It will also mean that you were left behind.
I am using the term, “very likely”, rather casually. Actually, a more accurate way to say it would be, that my disappearance from Planet Earth is “highly unlikely”. But I’m trying to cover all my bases. The last thing I’d want to do, if I am indeed taken up to heaven today (for you, yesterday) is leave my readers feeling disappointed.
“What?… No Ready, Fire, Aim column this morning? What happened?”
Journalists like me need to hang onto whatever loyal readers we may have, just in case the Rapture doesn’t happen, and I have to continue writing my column for the next who knows how long.
In 2022, Pew Research Center found that 39 percent of American adults believed that “we are living in the end times.” That leaves 61 percent who don’t believe it, but who are also largely Democrats.
Granted, this isn’t the first time the world was supposed to end on September 23. On that day in 2017, a mysterious celestial body known as Planet X was predicted to appear in the sky and shortly thereafter crash into Earth, according to calculations based on a solar eclipse. (Rosh Hashana that year had ended on September 22.)
When Planet X failed to appear, believers did some improved calculations and moved the due date to November, and then to the following April. By April I was pretty sure it was a hoax.
The Mayan calendar predicted an apocalypse in 2012. That’s the year Darlene and I lost our house to foreclosure, so I’m marking that one down as “partly accurate”.
You might be wondering about the photo our editor picked to illustrate what might well be my final column. It shows Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meeting with some of his advisors in January 2025, well before anyone knew about the Rapture happening this month.
Not really much relationship to the subject of today’s column, other than the crucifixion sculpture on the wall.
But I get it. How do you illustrate the sudden disappearance of a huge percentage of the world’s population? Well, you choose a photo showing Jesus looking down on the people who will be left behind.
The politicians.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.