Why Does 12/21/12 Make Me Think of 666?

One month out from the supposed day of destiny, despite being widely discredited, the notion of the Mayan apocalypse prediction still lingers in the popular imagination. If this idea is going to insist on persisting, we owe it to ourselves to consider it from an alternative angle. Perhaps December 21 isn't the date when the world will literally come to an end but rather is the point at which we collectively stop believing that it deserves to continue.

As I looked in the sky tonight, I marveled at the array of color that was a jet's vapor-trail. Therein was the dilemma - as lovely as my heart found it, my head knew the chemicals the plane was pushing out were bad for our planet. Somehow science is rarely so beautiful as when it's being destructive, even when it does so in subtle ways.

Perhaps that's part of why so many people of faith have difficulty with things like "global warming". It's hard to reconcile one's faith in a supreme being with the concept that that entity's handiwork could be both appealing and dangerous. After all, isn't that the Devil's move? If so, perhaps all it means is that the Devil isn't just in the details - the Devil's in us as well.

If at First You Don't Secede

At first, I worried that my urge to post about the picture here was overly petty. After all, everyone spells things wrong on occasion, and that especially vocal segment whose calls for greater freedom often seem to be as much about freedom from proper grammar and spelling as they are any deeper considerations are such easy targets. Put another way, shooting fish in a barrel is barely worth the 2nd Amendment remedies required to get the job done. On further reflection, though, it struck me that many of these folks are the same ones calling for English to be declared America's national language - despite their seeming inability to use it properly. Needless to say, I immediately felt much better about the whole thing.