the apocalypse

i’ve been ruminating about this blog post for about two weeks now, which accounts for my recent lull in blog activity. and while it seems rude to start a global panic, i think we need to come to terms with the fact that the world is ending. like, tomorrow.

just listening to npr this morning — my adoring wife’s daily ritual — makes a case for the pending apocalypse that’s at least as good as the case for increasing domestic oil production.

let’s run through the major topics addressed as i refused to get out of bed this morning, hoping the world wouldn’t notice my absence … we’ve got:

• flooding in the midwest
• drought in the south, panhandle (drier than the Dust Bowl of 1930s)
• fires engulfing california (two months earlier than usual)
• earthquakes in china (69,000 dead)
• cyclones in myanmar (138,000 dead or missing)
• plants on European mountain ranges are moving up the mountain, searching for “higher ground”

… and, lest we forget, people are killing each other in iraq, afghanistan, israel/palestine, and (it seems) most of sub-saharan africa and south asia — not to mention drug wars in central and south america.

add this to what you and i already know:

• gas prices are through the roof
• home values are in the toilet
• food staple costs are up 30% in the last year
• the stock market has slid back to where it was in July of 1999
• consumer confidence index is the third lowest since it began in 1952
• presidential approval rating is at 28% (worst sans truman and nixon)
• a whopping 14% believe our country is moving in the right direction (lowest ever)

…and what al gore (the guy who invented the interweb) has told us:

• the 11 warmest years on record have all been in the last 13 years
• the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years
• the flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade

… and we’ve pretty well slept with the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and possibly tried to steal their girlfriends. we’ve got conquest, war and famine all sorts of angry. turns out there is even a good, old fashioned plague (locusts in massachusetts) which, in other news, can’t be a good omen for the democratic party.

i was talking to a friend of mine about this “crazy like a fox” idea at lunch today, and it turns out that i am not the only one stockpiling water, duck tape and plastic sheeting. both abcnews and the associated press have come to similar conclusions … and both in the last month.

now, looking at my own reaction — and running through what i remember of the five stages of grief — i have either skipped three stages (straight to depression) or am still in denial. actually, considering i have blacklisted all sources of news from my daily existence (npr, bbc, washington post, even those metro tabloids) i think i’m clearly in “kathleen harris running for public office”-level denial.

that leaves anger (which’ll be easy!), bargaining, depression (that’s easy too!) and then acceptance. of course, all four together might be hard to get through by the time we turn into nothingness, like, tomorrow.

p.s. if you are planning on being raptured, now would be a good time.