"I was skimming this article and made me think about your conspiracy theory/'how we are all going to die' blog"

One of my favorite things about having this blog, even though I basically stopped posting anything on it for a very long time*, is that my friends periodically forward me articles that they think I might find interesting. In pretty much every case, the forwards are exactly the type of thing I'm interested in, and also the type of thing I would blog about, if I ever blogged.

WELL. Here I am blogging for 30 straight days, so what better time to highlight some of the articles people have sent my way? This should hopefully encourage people to keep sending me stuff, because even though I don't always respond, I do always read the messages and the articles and I always appreciate the thought. (And just as an FYI, I'm happy to return the favor and send out dire news via email as well, if you're into that sort of thing. I've got over 200 articles bookmarked to read/blog about someday, so if you let me know what kind of bad news you like, boy oh boy can I forward you some stuff about it!)

But I digress. Without further ado, let me start makin' my favorite thing--a list!

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1. From my favorite undergrad worker bee/research assistant I've received several interesting articles in emails all appropriately titled "for your blog." For example:

I was skimming this article and made me think about your conspiracy theory/"how we are all going to die" blog. 

(He hasn't read a word of this blog, but he's already decided I'm crazy, apparently!) Shortly after the above link, he also sent along, with no comments whatsoever (apparently my interest for the article speaks for itself):

NYTimes: Tea, Sugar and Death: Cafe Groups Ponder the End - An informal group discusses philosophical thoughts on dying at a monthly gathering in New York called Death Cafe, one of many such get-togethers around the country.

After I received that first link he sent along, I read the whole article and then went out and bought the book that the article was based on. I enjoyed the book immensely, but I have to say, if you read the article in full you basically get the main gist of the book, and with a lot less repetition to boot. When I told the worker bee I was reading the book, and that it was making me think about what "food" really is, he sent me back this pithy remark: "Food is a scary thing. And yet I just keep on eating all of it." Isn't he so cute.**

2. My friend Tiffani also often sends me amusing emails with dire links, and since I know Tiffani reads this blog, I want to say directly to her: Thank you, I do dearly love all the emails you send me. Recently, there was the gem of an email with the subject line: "Good news on the flu front!", which then went on to say

just kidding. why would i send good news about the flu? and is there even such a thing?
(Link)

That article that she forwarded along was suuper terrifying (so I obviously highly recommend reading it). Basically, it describes how average sanitary habits are NOT SUFFICIENT to stop the spread of norovirus, which "is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis -- stomach upset -- in the United States," as well as "the most common cause of foodborne-disease outbreaks." How do you get norovirus, and how do we seem to not be able to get rid of it? I'm glad you asked:

Hand-washed dishes are especially likely to carry the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in its website -- which could be one reason norovirus causes so many outbreaks on cruise ships. “You cannot get the water hot enough if you wash by hand,” says Aiello.

Norovirus is spread fecally -- in the poop -- and that means it can get into laundry. Studies show that fecal matter spreads even in ordinary laundry, so if someone is sick, it’s important to use very hot water and bleach to destroy virus that could be on any clothing, sheets or towels.

And regular cleaner won’t get the virus off surfaces. CDC recommends using bleach, including chlorine bleach or hydrogen peroxide.

Complicating the problem, most restaurant workers don’t get paid sick leave, so if they miss work, they don’t get paid. This means many workers come in sick, and they can spread the virus to hundreds of customers. Food handlers, dishwashers, even staff who bus and clear tables, all can spread the germ.

The problem extends to the home, too. There, Aiello said, several factors make it hard to keep one sick family member from infecting others. "It could be the door handle. It could be the toilet tank cover. Some studies show it can be aerosolized. If you throw up and then flush the toilet, how much of the spray gets into the air?" she asked. One study last year showed how the virus spread on a plastic bag that had been in a bathroom where a norovirus patient threw up.

Ugh. But hey, speaking of getting sick on cruise ships, there was another message Tiffani sent me recently, which exclaimed:

First, calamities took cruises away from me... now they are taking hot air balloon rides?! What is going to be left? Sitting on grass and hoping you don't get hit by a meteor? (Link)

Thankfully, I'm happy to report that Tiffani's last resort--sitting on grass and hoping you don't get hit by a meteor--is no longer something we have to worry about. That's because of what I'm about to describe, which comes courtesy of a coworker who I probably ill-advisedly told about this blog.

3. There is something called "DoomsDay Dwellings." In June, my coworker sent me an email pointing me to maybe the best site on the internet, which promotes the Dwellings, and she noted:

Why buy a used house when you can build one of these and be prepared for the apocalypse?   Designed to withstand fire, social unrest, shrapnel, governmental collapse, and earthquakes (optional). http://www.doomsdaydwellings.com/
The "Genisis" model comes with a "Civilization Generator".

The website for these Dwellings is very much worth a perusal. If you don't want to click away from my blog and get lost in the epicness of DoomsDay Dwellings though, I'll list just some of the things that the fanciest Dwelling (GENISIS: 6 Adults and 9 Children  - 10 years of indoor food, air, water, power  + Civilization Generator) allegedly protects you against:

• Double Dip Recession / Depression  [Huh? Does the house come with its own economy?]

• Gas Shortage / Peak Oil 
• Drought / Famine 
• Cyber Warfare that Destroys the Grid
• Social Unrest / Large Scale Riots
• Government Collapse [In your DoomsDay Dwelling, the government will never collapse!]
• EMP Burst / Solar Flare
• Pandemic
• Earthquake (Optional)
• Volcanic Disruption [Is that different from a volcanic eruption?]
• Minor Climate Change - Excluding Major Flood Zones [Aren't major flood zones like, the first places that might need a DoomsDay Dwelling?]
• Magnetic Field Rotation [????]
• NBC Explosion < 1 Mile Away [not really sure what an NBC explosion is; I'm assuming it doesn't involve the TV network]
• Total Environmental Collapse [but only "minor" climate change...]
• Non-direct Meteorite Impact 
• WWIII - Nuclear War [Only if the nuclear bombs do not have a "direct" impact, I assume]
• The end of the Civilization as we know it [Don't worry, the genesis model comes with that handy Civilization Generator, so humanity won't die out on your watch]

Truthfully, I would totally like to own one of those DoomsDay Dwellings, just in case things spiral out of control out there. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that I do not have (and never will have) nearly enough money to afford my own self-burying bunker. Based on the research I've been doing lately, the amount of money I have available to purchase a dwelling in the area in which I currently live seems to be able to get me approximately two bedrooms, one bathroom, and no special doomsday protection whatsoever. Alas alack.

4. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not give a hat tip to Jessie, who's sent me too many links to even remember. Recently, she notified me that "Everything is trying to kill us," and she sent along this link, which totally made me sad, since I really really want a treadmill desk. But more interestingly, she also sent along this article about Greek Yogurt, which is quite interesting. It was the second thing I'd read about how hard it is to get rid of the whey that's produced as Greek yogurt is strained (there's whey too much of it!***), and it was the final straw that made me stop eating Greek Yogurt. Of course, the first straw that made me stop eating Greek Yogurt was the realization that I just don't like it very much. I prefer a runnier, more sour yogurt (like the kind they have in Bulgaria. In case you care...).

I suppose I could go on and on with this list, but lucky for you I'm running out of time. I've got to be off to my tennis lesson! I can't wait to go smash balls for 90 minutes. Hopefully those two Russian chicks from last week show up and shriek just as much as last time when I hit the ball to them...that was fun.

Day 2, complete!

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*Not intentionally, it just kept (not) happening.
**I am not coming on to him. I mean cute in a precious kind of way. Not that this kid reads my blog. We just talk about it sometimes.
***Ba-dum ching!

Everything you've never wanted to know about the Mayan Apocalypse

Because I have a blog entitled "We're All Gonna Die," however intermittently-active said blog might be, many people have asked me whether I believe the Mayan Apocalypse will happen this Friday. The short answer is "Hell no, I'm no dummy. I think we're all gonna die as a result of man-made errors, not cosmic coincidences. (Duh.)" The long answer is that I actually know very little about the so-called "Mayan Apocalypse" aside from the fact (is it a fact?) that the Mayan calendar allegedly ends on December 21, 2012, and that some people believe that this will trigger (or coincide) with some kind of cataclysmic and/or cosmic event. So my response is typically, "Uh no; our calendar ends every December 31, and so far that hasn't caused any apocalypse." Which seemed clever and pithy to me (if I do say so myself) until I read that NASA is using the same reasoning to dissuade people from believing in the impending Doomsday. After I learned that, my reasoning seemed more on the rocket scientist level. (Fortunately, I just read that NASA thing today, so I haven't let my (supposed) genius go to my head for too long.)

In any case, I hoped to write a big ol' blog entry about why people believe that the world is going to end tomorrow, and what specifically is supposed to happen at the end, but the more I look into the issue, the less sense everything makes. There's not even one narrative that explains everything; it's all a mish mosh of paranoia. What seems clear is that (1) the Mayans most certainly did not believe the end of their calendar cycle was the end of the world (it's just the start of a new cycle...), and (2) all the prophecies that do foretell the end of the world are so insane as to test the limits of credulity, even among the gullible.* Among the various things that people believe will happen include a planet called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris approaching the Earth, threatening widespread destruction; a NASA conspiracy to cover it up; the Earth passing through a "galactic synchronization beam" (triggering what?); and more. And more.**) Assuming NASA isn't just trying to cover up the planet hurtling towards us, the following video makes a decent (if unimaginative) case for cutting the crap already. (My favorite part is when they talk about all the scientists discussing the doomsday on a Google hangout.)

So that's about all I have to say about that.

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Disappointed that tomorrow isn't the end of the world? Have no fear. Gawker offers some hope for us all:

So if the world's not ending tomorrow, when will it end?

• If we can slow global warming enough, we'll get another Ice Age in about 50,000 years.
• By 500,000 years from now we'll most likely have been hit by a meteor with a diameter of 1 kilometer or more.
• Within a million years we're likely to see a supervolcanic eruption of about 113 million cubic feet of magma.
• In 100 million years we will probably have been hit by a meteorite the size of that which triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs.
• By 800 million years from now the carbon cycle will have been disrupted, lowering carbon dioxide levels to a point at which multicellular life is no longer sustainable.
• In a billion years the oceans will have evaporated.
• And in 7.9 billion years the sun will expand to 256 times its current size and likely destroy the earth.

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*NOT EVEN NORTH KOREA BELIEVES THIS SHIT.***
**Mental Floss lists the following possibilities for what might allegedly happen tomorrow [Via LiveScience]:

We’ll be toasted by a massive solar storm; Earth’s magnetic poles will flip-flop catastrophically; Planet X (a non-existent “rogue planet”) will smash into us; the planets will align in a way that ruins everything...or there will be some kind of massive global blackout, possibly due to an unprecedented alignment of Earth and Sun.

***Allegedly. In cursory searching I could find no other source to confirm this allegation.

Whoopsies!

Oh, Reddit. So snarky!

Related: Turns out October 21 is the new, real rapture. May 21 was just "an invisible judgment day." I assume the fire and brimstone has been postponed so Jessica can turn 30 before she dies. And become a doctor, hopefully!

Judgment Day! Bible Guaranteed! (Or your money back?)

This wouldn't be a proper doomsday blog without a nod to the predicted upcoming rapture on Saturday, May 21st. This will happen, according to proponents, because the bible guarantees it!

The prognostication of May 21 as Judgment day is getting tons of press coverage, in part because a dedicated and vocal group of people has been traveling the country, putting up billboards, and just generally trumpeting (ha! picture-related pun!) the fact that on May 21 sh*t's gonna get raptured.  The projected date of judgment relies upon 89-year-old Harold Camping's mathematical calculations, which have "proved" (with math!) that on May 21, 2011--at 6pm--Jesus will come back.  Kind of crazy, yes, and entertaining too, but there is also a sad component in there. I heard a piece on the radio recently about people who have quit their jobs, spent all their money, even divorced their spouses, all in the service of spreading the word that judgment day is coming. I really hope they were living it up along the way, because come May 22--assuming nobody is swept away on the wings of rapture--those are going to be some unhappy people.

I'm as curious as the next person about a) why so many people have jumped on board the May 21 train, and b) how this specific date was chosen as doomsday, so I read through this insanely long document, titled "NOTHING is more important," which covers, in detail, a) how to read the bible, b) how to interpret the bible, and c) why the day of judgment will be, without question, on May 21.  (Also, d) why evolution is wrong.) Man...let me tell you, whoever wrote that tract was super thorough; it is jam-packed with information!  There's so much to take in that it took me an embarrassingly long time to find the part where the author explicates the calculation of the precise date of the rapture.  Along the way, I learned several interesting things, including:

1. God Loves Factor Trees.

An Infallible Proof (their words, not mine):

Christ was crucified on April 1, 33 AD, the day of Passover in 33 AD...[and] there are exactly 722,500 days inclusive from April 1, 33 AD to May 21, 2011, the Day of Judgment. The number 722,500 can be broken down to the spiritually significant numbers of (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) (5-judgment/salvation, 10-completeness, 17-heaven).

It is absolutely incredible that two dates (April 1, 33 AD and May 21, 2011) separated by almost 2,000 years break down into two pairs of very significant spiritual numbers (5, 10, 17). Only God, who created this great universe with all of its precise physical laws, could have designed the timeline of history in such a precise and marvelous way. It cannot be coincidental that these two dates are tied together in such an exact manner.

But wait, there's more! Chew on this:

The number 666 [which signifies the devil, obvs -ed.] breaks down into the spiritually significant numbers of 2 x 3 x 3 x 37. 7 (2-Gospel, 3-purpose, 37--judgment). 

The number of years from the completion of the Old Testament in 391 BC to 2011 AD is 2,401 years which quite amazingly breaks down to 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 (7-completeness).

Why do all this factoring? Well, like I said, God loves factor trees.  Or, in the words of the tract writer, "God uses numbers to convey spiritual truth." If by some chance you want to know more, there are tons of factor trees laid out on pages 29-33.

2. There is nothing you can do to be saved. You are either saved or you're not. It doesn't matter what you do.

To quote the self-professed experts:

God’s chosen people, referred to as His elect, had nothing to do with being chosen for salvation...Who God chooses is His business. He tells us He is not a respecter of persons. This means that God has chosen people from all walks of life, from all races and nationalities, no matter how sinful they might be. The saved can be mentally handicapped or smart, infants or elderly, rich or poor, or anybody in between. It is all up to God.

What if you haven't been chosen? Tough luck.

Those not elected by God will not be saved. They are born with souls that are dead, and their bodies will eventually perish.

But it's not all bad news:

Those who are not God’s elect will be eternally destroyed (annihilated), they will not be living eternally in a place of torment called hell as is commonly taught.

So hey, you might not get saved, but at least you won't rot in hell! Just in your grave.

3. All Churches are Wrong. They are false and lead by Satan. And I quote:

Without exception, there is no church today that is faithfully listening to the entire Bible....Anyone who is not following the God of the Bible is following a false religion and will come under the wrath of God.

Church members sincerely believe that they have the truth, but there can only be one truth, and that is the truth of the Bible as revealed by God to those whose spiritual eyes He has opened. The Bible is clear that beginning with The Great Tribulation, Satan began ruling in the churches. Churches are now under the authority of Satan who is showing himself as God.

Satan is the ruler, and the ministers and teachers in the churches are transformed as ministers of righteousness.  In other words, by all appearances those in the churches believe they are worshipping God, but in reality they are worshipping Satan!  

In particular, Satan has become particularly active since 1988, when The Great Tribulation started. Um, of course. I knew something went wrong in '88...that's the year my brother was born.

4. Many people believe the mark of the beast is some type of ID or embedded chip.

Really?



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Okay, let's get back to the point: Why May 21? I'll tell you.

According to God (slash Harold Camping), Noah's Flood was on the 17th day of the 2nd month of the year 4990 BC.  Since God said that "a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day," and that Noah was given 7 days to enter the ark, by logical extension humanity has been given a 7,000 year warning (starting at the time of the flood) about the Day of Reckoning. What is 7,000 years after 4990 BC? Why, 2011, of course, and converting the biblical calendar to our current-day calendar reveals that May 21st is "the 17th day of the 2nd month in the year 2011."

Next question: What will happen on May 21? I'm glad you asked! According to Harold Camping's bible readings:

On May 21st, whoever has been pre-chosen to be raptured will be "caught up in the air" and raptured.  With whatever benefits come with that. I guess no more sin? And a new heavenly body?

Meanwhile, there will be, and I quote, a "super enormous earthquake," one that is so big that all the graves of everyone who has ever been buried will be thrown open and corpses will be thrust out on the earth's surface. (Exception: dead people who have been raptured.)  The earthquake will result in tsunamis, "destroyed water systems and power plants, etc. Thus, there will be great plagues."

The earthquake marks the beginning of the five-month/153-day period between the rapture and the End of Times.

All those of us who were not ratpured will spend the period between May 21, 2011 and October 21, 2011 surrounded by decomposed and decomposing corpses, being plagued, and bemoaning the fact that we have not been saved.  Indeed, everyone on earth who was not preordained to be saved will experience (and I quote) "horrible sorrow" and "great shame" as they realize that we have been "left behind and are under the full wrath of God."  We will also "experience physical pain, which results from the plagues that will occur all over the world." 

On or before the last day of the universe, October 21, 2011, we will all die. If we didn't die from plague, earthquake or tsunami, then we'll be around for a great big fire, it seems.  On October 21:

The earth and all of its works will be burned up, even as the whole universe will be destroyed. The 13,023-year history of the world and all that has transpired here will be remembered no more.

All 13,023 years of the earth--all for naught!  Such a shame.

So that's what's coming, starting on Saturday, May 21, at 6pm.  Mark your calendars!

Final question: Why do so many people believe this?  This I have no answer for.  Except to say that it is probably only a small proportion of people who have actually wholeheartedly embraced the May 21 J-day thing.  It just seems like more because the rash of media coverage (plus the billboards) gives the false impression that the belief is more widespread. So perhaps the question should be, why do any people believe this?  And why is Harold Camping's media empire worth millions of dollars?

******

Clearly, I got a little too into reading about this May 21 hoohah, but I couldn't help myself. It's so fascinating (in an intellectual rubber-necking sort of way) that I can't help but look.  I'm not quite convinced by the arguments, however. I've got a few questions.

1.Time reports the earthquakes will start at 6pm on May 21.  6pm in what time zone? Or is the earthquake going to shake only one timezone at a time, starting at 6pm local time?

2. What is the point of quitting your job to tell everyone they are going to die? Especially if doing so won't help anybody get saved?  It's a little bit morbid and depressing, if you ask me (you know, the girl with the blog titled "We're All Gonna Die.") I mean, really. If there is nothing you can do to save yourself, why bother spreading the word? Do you just enjoy giving bad news?  Wouldn't you rather spend your last bits of money on booze and meth? You've already been saved, presumably, so you might as well sin it up instead of standing around on Bruin plaza in neon yellow shirts with signs proclaiming the apocalypse.

3.  Follow-up question: if we are already saved, or not saved, what's with the billboards?

4.  The word "Infallible," often followed by "proof," dots the document I read about May 21 being judgment day.  Do you think Harold Camping has a file in his office called "Infallible proof my May 21st infallible proof was fallible"? How is he going to explain himself if this time-zone-specific earthquake thing doesn't happen?  In 1994, when he previously predicted the rapture, erroneously, he claimed "important subsequent biblical information was not yet known." Basically, he made a math error. But now the Bible Guarantees May 21 is Correct!  I can't imagine his media empire will be worth as much on May 22, if the earth doesn't become covered in dead bodies...though who knows. He can always blame the math (which, let's be honest, nobody really "got" in the first place).  Plus, people are crazy.

5.  Is it a coincidence that on May 21 I will be "caught up in the air" (albeit on an airplane, not necessarily in rapture)? Or that I have 5 presentations to give at a conference staring on May 22, but none of them are done yet despite my best efforts?  Or that the number of days between my birth and May 21--10,824--factors into (4*6*40*10)+(2*12*(17+40-6)), where 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 17, and 40 are all spiritually significant numbers? OR that I am actually already one of god's "chosen people," according to what I was told in Hebrew School? ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

*****

Two links to end the post.
1. Worried about your pet after the rapture? This guy has you covered.
2. Want to party while shit gets crazy on May 21? AP has some party suggestions.

Only eight months until 2012...

Call me a pessimist, but we might need to start preparing for the End Times like, now.* Just look at what has happened in the last day or so!

Another giant earthquake in Japan!

A pretty big earthquake in Mexico.

A less big earthquake in Arkansas.

Announcement of two Jersey Shore spin-off shows, featuring JWow/Snooki and DJ Pauly D.

Need I say any more?

On top of all this, I learned today that cats have been known to sleep with babies...on their faces...suffocating them. Evidently this is not news, however, as this New York Times article from 1909 attests:

Thank goodness I'm allergic to cats, is all I have to say about that (and we haven't even touched on toxoplasmosis!). Not that I have a baby, but still. If California gets hit by a giant earthquake, causing major societal collapse and disruption of the food supply, I'm going to recommend eating the cats first of all. We've got to save the babies!



Keep up with your earthquake sightings here.  And learn more about cats suffocating people, such as drunken college students, here.


*By preparing for the end times I mostly mean buying a gun and investing in some water filtration products. Don't want to get too crazy, now.

We're All Gonna Die: Recommended Reading

Because part of my fatalistic world outlook has resulted from some books I've read, I thought I'd start an intermittent feature called "We're All Gonna Die: Recommended Reading." I think if the world were going to end tomorrow, I might spend today reading...I love books that much.

Anywho, the first doomsday book I'm going to recommend to those of you who are in the market for such things is the one that got me started down the path that lead to this blog: Jared Diamond's Collapse.

It's been four or five years since I read this book, but I find myself thinking about it from time to time. While it doesn't quite live up to the "masterpiece" status of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse does contain an interesting analysis of how environmental degradation contributes to societal downfall.

The basic premise of the book is that civilizations and societies often collapse not because of a cataclysmic event (like the meteor impact that might have doomed the dinosaurs), but rather because they choose to maintain themselves socially at the risk of ecological devastation.

Malcom Gladwell wrote a very nice book review of Collapse in the New Yorker and described the phenomenon (as it played out on Easter Island) thusly:

...Look...at Easter Island. Once, it was home to a thriving culture that produced the enormous stone statues that continue to inspire awe. It was home to dozens of species of trees, which created and protected an ecosystem fertile enough to support as many as thirty thousand people. Today, it’s a barren and largely empty outcropping of volcanic rock. What happened? Did a rare plant virus wipe out the island’s forest cover? Not at all. The Easter Islanders chopped their trees down, one by one, until they were all gone. “I have often asked myself, ‘What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?’ ” Diamond writes, and that, of course, is what is so troubling about the conclusions of “Collapse.” Those trees were felled by rational actors—who must have suspected that the destruction of this resource would result in the destruction of their civilization. The lesson of “Collapse” is that societies, as often as not, aren’t murdered. They commit suicide: they slit their wrists and then, in the course of many decades, stand by passively and watch themselves bleed to death.

In another section of the book, Diamond discusses the Norse settlement of Greenland, and how the Norse's stubbornness in insisting on replicating the European way of life--despite clear indications that Greenland could not support it ecologically--lead them to starve to death. The part that sticks with me about this is that the priests--who maintained high status until the end--were, Diamond says, "the last to starve."

Sometimes I think America is too complacent about what is happening to the world environmentally because we are going to be the last to starve.

Collapse also discusses more recent societal treatment of the environment, and its discussion of China, Australia, Rwanda, and Haiti are all fascinating. I highly recommend the book, although I must say the section covering the Greenland Norse gets a bit long and boring. Keep on going through it, as the rest of the book is worth it.

We're All Gonna Die gives four stars (of five) to Jared Diamond's Collapse. Read it before you are the last to starve!

Read more.

Don't like reading?

Signs of Armageddon?

In case you haven't heard, there was a giant earthquake in Japan.


I really hope I get out of LA before California gets its long overdue quake. I'm not sure my apartment could stand up to a major shift in the earth's crust. Though I do think I'm far enough away from the ocean that I wouldn't be flooded...I think. I hope. Maybe I should invest in a scuba suit just in case.