Again??!...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I am writing this on a Sunday, 22 May of 2011. If you are reading this on a Monday the 23rd May, or even after 6 p.m. of this Sunday, then depending on which camp you are in, you are either thoroughly disappointed, greatly relieved or utterly hilarious that the day turned out as you are experiencing now.

That's because one Harold Camping, one of the founder of Family Radio - a nonprofit, noncommercial, listener supported Bible Radio Ministry - has mentioned, rather confidently that the world will see its demise on the 21st May 2011 at 6.00 p.m., New York time. Massive earthquakes would begin in the mid-Pacific and will be wending their way around the globe all day long. New Yorkers can expect seismic horror at approximately 6 p.m. It's the Rapture!

Hmmm, where have we heard all this before?...

Camping and many others before him and many more after this will always fascinate the world with their doomsday prophecies which will always come to nothing. They and many others always can't seem to get it round their heads that no one human can predict and even prophesy exactly when the world is to end. It is only under the purview of God and God alone. It is an event that the Son Himself doesn't have the privilege to possess (cf. Matt 24: 36).

So, here I am now, happily tap, tapping away on my computer keyboard and wondering when's lunch...

Related articles

• Doomsday prophet Harold Camping gone into hiding? (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• Dave Silverman Calls Out Harold Camping (friendlyatheist.com)
• How Harold Camping marketed the Rapture (cbsnews.com)
• Apocalypse not now: The Rapture fails to materialise (guardian.co.uk)
• Harold Camping's followers prepare for End of Days (cbsnews.com)
• "New Zealand Unharmed, Harold Camping Hit Hardest" and related posts (reformedpastor.wordpress.com)
• Apocalypse believers await end, skeptics carry on (salon.com)

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... oh! if you want to know what utter craziness of Italy is all about, well, consider the following. Their word for 'retreat' and 'advance/forward' is one and the same - 'Avanti!'... *shakes head*

Stultify

We had a short outage for our Internet connection in the later part of the afternoon today. Apparently, there were some repair/shifting works done at the University office where the server was kept and some connection(s) was either dislodged or taken out by mistake and wasn't put back in. A call had to made to the person in charged of the system to check and then rectified the matter. After all that, we just had to shake our heads and shrugged - "This is Italy..."

In another remark made during dinner today by someone living here as a student like myself, added to the litany of woes for living in Rome, which happens to be the capital of the country and true to its colours of also having capital honours for incompetency and utter decrepit service. I shall not repeat what he said but it goes to show just how incredible this city is or even how the whole country itself has managed to function for so long based on stupidity and absurdity. If 'stultify' had another name, it would be 'Italy'!

Then there was a point of discussion over dinner between the word 'anywhere' and 'everywhere'. What's the difference? An answer was offered in relation to our city of stay, even if it didn't seem quite accurate to me. So, anywhere shows a sense of limitation in reference to a place. However, for everywhere, that sense of limitation broadens or is non existence altogether. For instance, I can say,"I would rather be anywhere other than Rome" (I do really feel like that now) and that would be gramatically fine because it expresses that any place on planet Earth would be fine to be in except Rome. Now, to say that "I would rather be everywhere other than Rome" would take the cake because I could be in blooming Venus suffocating under sulphurous clouds and disintegrating under tremendous pressure but I would still be happy and smiling from ear to ear that I am not in Rome!

Oh, dinner over at the Convitto was at our usual place on the terrace where you can see some of the gorgeous sunsets over the utterly crowded and polluted city landscape...