Barring any major uptick in stupid, this will be the last time I poke the 2012 believers with a stick. I swear. (At least, until January 2013.) Besides, this is a slightly different take than the usual debunking. The Santa Fe Reporter (the paper) sent Santa Fe reporter (the person) Corey Pein into the heart of the End of the World Industrial Complex to capture a slice-of-life that is by turns frustrating, fascinating, depressing and hilarious.
To be precise, there are 1,149 days until Dec. 21, 2012, when something will–nay, must–happen. It won’t be the end of the world but, if it is, SFR regrets the error.
And later,
One nine-part YouTube film claims “The Illuminati Freemasons” have conspired over centuries to erect the new tower of Babel, aka the Freedom Tower, over the World Trade Center site in 2012. (“Anti-Semitism tends to float behind some of the conspiracy theories,” Hoopes says.) The sublimely paranoid film also claims that since the 1970s, this cabal has “conveniently conditioned you to accept that global warming is all your fault,” when actually “Your SUV’s have little to do with it.. THEY.. conditioned you to become AFRAID of the SUN and CO2.” Another production–by a man whose résumé boasts a few years’ work long ago as a CNN field producer–makes the exact opposite argument, assailing “global warming deniers” for hiding evidence of the coming catastrophe. “In 2012, Americans will be burying their dead as their forefathers did during the Civil War–by the thousands. By the tens of thousands,” the narrator says solemnly. (He goes on to pitch a “2012 Survival Guide,” $34.90 plus shipping.)
My Oh Mayan! from the Santa Fe Reporter
Image courtesy Flickr user schoschie, via CC