Paul the Psychic Octopus Fhtagn!

As the final World Cup match approaches, I can’t help thinking there is something familiar — and sinister — about the world delighting in combative arena-revels while thinking of a prophetic, tentacled beast with purported psychic powers.

And speaking of dread Cthulhu:

•This two-year-old story about a ban on photographs of H.P. Lovecraft’s grave was just brought to my attention.

•This news story about a woman living among her beloved dead sounds rather Lovecraftian.

•But Julian Sanchez, as one of my co-workers points out, has nicely summarized why we needn’t run around being either dogmatic or completely agnostic all the time.

So don’t waste too much time fearing that today’s game will end with the winning team swearing allegiance to Paul the psychic octopus and ushering in an era of global darkness and bloodshed that will leave us all speaking with sorrow of “the strange events of 7/11” (in a non-convenience-store sense). That probably won’t happen.