The Media Makes It Official: The Sky is Falling

For anyone with the tiniest doubt whether the world will end 12/20/2012, the media has officially declared that we will all be lucky to survive that long. It began with air quality issues during my youth, escalated to global warming during my children's youth, and tops off with nuclear disaster in my g'son's youth. There is no escaping these ominous tidings because the media has come to its conclusion and pronounced us all done.

Jack London wrote often about the external conflict between man and nature: nature always wins, evidenced by a scene in which a man, committed to having his way with the wilderness, squats beneath a snow-laden tree in the forest and uses his last match to light a small fire without which he will freeze to death. Snow melts, falls onto fire, puts out fire. Score: nature another one; man loses again.

Man, who creates an internal universe within his own mind, has delusions of grandeur, but Nature, an uncontrollable external force, works independently of mankind. Hence, the Japanese went above and beyond what was thought prudent to allow the nuclear generating stations to survive an earthquake, but oops, someone forgot to protect against a 35-foot tsunami wave moving at approximately 600 miles per hour generated by basically a 9.0 earthquake in immediate proximity to a nuclear generating plant built on the same side of an island as the epicenter. Man's construction did a good job handling the 8-foot displacement of the Earth and the resultant aftershocks, but not so well at holding at bay the tsunami wave.

This is what is known as a "one-two" punch, and it's not going well. We thought we had it figured out, but Nature provided mankind with another demonstration to illustrate that we will not win -- ever.

Two hundred thirty thousand human beings lost their lives in the last great tsuanmi, and it appears that Japan will lose a similar number of its people before this natural event settles. It is the natural order of things for man to build and nature to destroy. The natural destruction cleanses the Earth so man can try again. Looking back through the centuries, we keep getting it wrong, but each civilization advances more than the last. Perhaps, eventually, mankind will create an endurable lifestyle on Earth, but it is equally feasible that this planet will become a puff of cosmic smoke one day.

Perhaps that day is right around the corner, predicted by an oracle of his time, Nostradamus, but, in the greater scheme of things, it's just as likely that this is merely another in a long chain of cataclysmic events that are part of the natural order set in motion millenia ago. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best is as good as the advice anyone will give as we all wait to see what tomorrow -- or 12/20/2012 -- brings.