DOOMSDAY TIDBITS FROM EVERYWHERE

Gordon Holmes

Fife Today

Truth is, we will all just have to wait and see what happens when the end date finally arrives - my own theory is that on the morning of December 22, we’ll be waking up to the same trials and tribulations of daily life as always and another doomsday prophecy will have come and gone.

Ayaz Amir
The International News

Pity our doomsday prophets who have been predicting the end of things. For them this is likely to be a long year. When predictions fall by the wayside, when fate refuses to march to our tine, and the pillars of the temple expected to fall remain standing, hope turns to dust and time takes on a different dimension.

Alexander Diakonis
Ypsilanti Courier

(Reporting on a presentation by astronomer and astrophysicist Phil Plait in the auditorium at Eastern Michigan University’s Student Center.)

A child in the audience asked Plait if he has any theories on how the world will end

“…the Sun will turn into a Red Giant and burn us up,” Plait said. “I 100 percent guarantee.” He explained it won’t happen for billions of years and highlighted two points from his presentation.

“One, that asteroids are a real threat,” he said. “Two, we can do something about it.”

“The difference between us and the dinosaurs is that we have a space program.” he pointed out.

He said people spend more on tobacco products in a year and more on Valentine’s Day this year, than the budget of NASA.

“We can literally save the world,” he said.

Ed Barnhart
Director, Maya Exploration Center
Denver Westword

Question: So what - if anything - do you think will happen on December 21?

With all of these people thinking these various things, I am a proponent of self-fulfilling prophecies. I think there's going to be a lot of people expecting something. But I think the day will pass like any other day. I think there'll be lots of people in the Maya ruins. I fear there may even be some cults who try to bring themselves to an end. I hope there's not a Jonestown sort of thing among any folks, I hope that doesn't happen to people. But I think as far as the world and people, it'll be a day like any other day. Now I do believe that the Maya would see this date coming up, December 21, 2012, as an important junction in their calendar. Kind of a grand anniversary, even. It's the completion of thirteen baktuns, which are four-hundred-year periods. The reason we get this date to begin with is their creation story tells us that the third creation ended when thirteen baktuns were complete, and now we're in the fourth creation, and we're coming up on thirteen baktuns again. That's why people are assuming everything will start again. And I believe the Maya had an idea -- instead of prophecies, what they had is kind of a cyclical view of time and the cosmos, and there were certain times where cycles came around, and it was kind of your obligation, or at least a good idea, to change the way you live. And I think this is one of those times. So the Maya themselves would be expecting a time of what some people call transformation and renewal. But it's something we do, not something that happens to us.