Rick Raw: 2012 Doomsday Date–Apocalypse Pending?–Or Another Y2K Fizzle?

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

The prophets of doom are at it again with the new scary date 2012. (Cue end of the world music.) Sparked by nutty Mayan scholars, who claim the date marks the end of a 5,120-year cycle on the Long Count calendar developed by the Maya. They were an ancient civilization known for its advanced understanding of astronomy. These mystical people also built great cities in Mexico and Central America. Then, they mysteriously disappeared. The whole civilization just vanished.

This 2012 hype parallels the Y2K 2000 Armageddon that fizzled. The sun came up on January 1, 2000 and everything was alright. Now, these nut-jobs are speculating that all the ancient visionaries who supposedly saw the future, such as Merlin, Nostradomus, some babbling old hag who lived in a cave, the Bible, and other mythical figures who place special significance on 2012 as the end of time. The 2012 speculators foresee mega-disasters, reaping death and destruction on the planet and the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles, which would be bad.

Mainstream Mayan scholars are mocking this balderdash as pure fantasy. But filmmaker Roland Emmerich seized the opportunity to direct a big budget disaster movie titled 2012 starring John Cusack. The film is set to be released this fall.

Of course, all the buzz on 2012 makes great free advance publicity for the film. It’s also fertile ground for the publication of books on the subject to spark interest in the end of the world trendsetters.

The latest book, Apocalypse 2012 is by author Lawrence Joseph who set out to sell many books by scaring the bejesus out of the fools who buy into this gibberish. Besides, I’d never buy a book by an author who has two first names. It’s freaky. And, how many Y2K books were published? Too many.

If the prognosticators of disaster are right, then there is nothing we can do about it. If the magnetic poles suddenly reverse, imagine the hellish disasters that would follow. Or what if the Earth starts rotating in the opposite direction. There would be no time to pray. Total wipe-out.
However, do I think there’s even a remote possibility that the date 2012 is the end of the world--absolutely not! Crazed preachers and cultists have been predicting the end of the world for Centuries.

There were the Earth Enders who sold all their possessions and moved to the Midwest to wait for the apocalypse that never came. The date came and went and suddenly, they were homeless and felt stupid. The preacher just said he was mistaken. He recalculated the date as sometime in the future. And, the group started to prepare for another end date.

The Bible has the colorful Book of Revelations featuring the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding to doom. Some theologians interpret this dramatic end of the world to the date 2012, which is complete nonsense.

Real Mayan scholars say that the 2012 cycle is an alignment of the December solstice sun with the center of the Milky Way, as viewed from earth. "Two thousand years ago the Maya believed that the world would be going through a great transformation when this alignment happens," said Mayan scholar John Major Jenkins.

Since our solar system is in an outward leg of the Milky Way, we see the galaxy from a side view, which changes the alignment theory. In other words, if we could look down on the Milky Way, we’d see our solar system on the right outer bands of the galaxy. Nonetheless, I’m not worried.

It will be just another day on Earth. The 2012 doomsayers are wild speculators of misinformation to feed their paranoia. Dawn will break on December 21, 2012! I would bet heavily on it.