MORE OBSERVATIONS FROM EVERYWHERE

The following is excerpted from Fia Tarrant’s December 30, 2011 column in Euro Weekly Online:

“One of my friends scared the living daylights out of me by telling me the world was going to end on December 21, 2012. I Googled the hell out of that date and the more I read the more frightened I got.

“So if like me you are freaking out, don’t. My mother’s got a bunker at her house we can all hide in that until it all passes.

“I am hoping that this is your year and don’t forget, if the world is coming to an end in 2012 bring chocolates and wine and we can sit it out in mum’s bunker.” 

This next is a series of excerpts from Jody Paterson, a columnist for the Victoria Times Colonist in Canada:

“I find it kind of sweet that people still get caught up in a good old-fashioned doomsday prophecy once in a while. 

“It's difficult to be certain of anything in this world, so I don't mean to poke fun at those who believe the apocalypse is coming in 2012. It could be.

“But what's charming is that the belief has gained so much traction that even the well-regarded Guardian newspaper in England felt the need to run a rather serious story this month featuring a German scholar disputing rumours that the end is nigh.

“I like that. We seem all sophisticated and rational as a society, but just below the surface is a wide-eyed kid who still believes in things that go bump in the night.

“Prepare for a good year on that front regardless of what's up with the apocalypse, seeing as the ancient Mayans aren't the only ones predicting intense times in 2012.

“It seems perverse to wish for disaster. But working ourselves up about a possible apocalypse is obviously something humans enjoy every now and then, and we do it well. Who can forget Y2K?

“The 2012 doomsday prophesy revolves around a stone tablet carved by an ancient Mayan civilization from the Tortuguero region of Mexico. The tablet marks 2012 as the end of a 5,125-year cycle of the Mayan long-count calendar.

“Some have taken that as indication that the world will cease to exist as of Dec. 21, 2012.

“Of course, you have to put a lot of faith in ancient Mayans to believe that. But that's the thing about faith - it doesn't need to make sense.”

And finally, this snippet from the December 30, 2011 opinion page of the Bangkok Post:

“…if the Mayans are correct and we only have until December 21, 2012 to improve our lives before we all get obliterated by the alien invasion/zombie apocalypse/[*insert your own doomsday ending here], then there's no room for failure in the upcoming year.”