The End of the World, For Sure
By Tony Castro, Voxxi
How do we know that the end of the world will come December 21, as foretold in the Mayan calendar?
My question is how could it not, especially when you read all the signs, the most recent in The New York Times on Monday, as if part of the doomsday countdown.
Signs that the end of the world is near
A Walmart now sits practically next door to the ancient pyramids in San Juan Teotihuacán, Mexico, compliments of a $52,000 bribe that shows just how little Mexican politicians think of their national treasures.
Want another disaster that could be a sign to the end of the world?
On Monday night, the athlete many consider the Mayan of the NFL, New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez suffered a career high five turnovers, possibly losing his job as a sign that the apocalypse is with us for sure.
On a more serious note, there is the tragedy of Jenni Rivera, a singer most of the world had never heard of until a few days ago.
Last week, Rivera, a Mexican American singer who rose to fame on traditional Mexican music, died in a plane crash that at first seemed like another air accident tragically taking the life of another entertainer.
It happened in Mexico, and then you learn about the shadiness over the safety and maintenance of the plane, not to mention the sleazy ex-con running the company that owned the Learjet and how he had gone to prison for a habit of fraudulently claiming to have serviced his planes in the past.
That ex-con is now hiding out in Mexico, which some could see as a sign.
After all, there’s been an exodus of believers in the end of the world who are waiting it out in Mexico, among them people from the Northern California Bay Area, including Harmony Festival founder Debra Giusti, in Chichen Itza on the Yucatan peninsula.
The Russians, of course, have been smart about this. They have been buying up vodka and stocking up on matches and candles. Some of them even went so far as to build a huge Mayan-style archway out of ice on Karl Marx Street in Chelyabinsk.
In China, two men are building arks because they expect world-ending floods. In Southern California, some businessman is building secret luxury bunkers for the rich and famous.
Or has the conclusion of the Mayan calendar cycle become just another large-scale apocalypse scare?
I was ready to believe it might have been part of a hoax had I not read that the Vatican had chimed into the debate, predicting there will be no monumental change and that end of the world scenarios are not even worth discussing.
This article was first published in Voxxi.
Los Angeles based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son.”
[Photo by dMap Travel Guide]