Once in a while, someone proclaims that the world is going to come to an end on a certain date. It turns out that today is one of those days.

School attendance and the Miranda Rights

I was on a jury in the early 1970s for a public school truancy case. The case ended up being thrown out of court because it came to light that the county school system’s truant officer (probably called something like “attendance facilitator” today) failed to read the children’s mother her Miranda rights. (Bear with me. This story directly relates to today’s blog topic.)

For those of you in countries other than the United States, in 1966 the US Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v Arizona that a police officer must tell a suspect they’re about to question that they have the right to remain silent, anything they say can and will be held against them in a court of law, they have the right to a lawyer and for that lawyer to be present while they’re being questioned, and the government will provide a lawyer for them if they can’t afford one.

The mother had kept her children out of school for several months, but now the county had to start over in its effort to get those children back into the classroom. The reason the mother was not letting her children go to school was because she belonged to a religious group that believed the world was going to come to an end on a specific date in the near future and, therefore, her children didn’t need an education.

And then, there was 12:00:01 a.m. on January 1, 2000

Those of us of a certain age remember all the hoopla over January 1, 2000. Computers were predicted to crash. Life as we knew it would end because the computers invented in the 1900s weren’t capable of anticipating the year 2000. There would be no electricity. Our phones wouldn’t work. Our clocks would stop. Well, January 1, 2000 arrived with the usual New Year’s fireworks, etc. and life continued.

Predictions based on Natural Disasters and Wars

The current Covid-19 pandemic has prompted some people to predict the imminent end of the world. They might be right and the joke might be on me, but I’m reminded that there have been pandemics, earthquakes, floods, wars, and hurricanes all throughout world history. Why would anyone think the Covid-19 pandemic is the event that will knock Earth off its axis?

In the spirit of full transparency, I’ll start by saying I don’t believe a human being can know the date that the world will come to an end. I believe that only God knows. It’s not something I have to worry about. I don’t want to know the day or the hour. It would make me live my life differently and, probably, not for the good. But I digress.

That brings us to December 21, 2020

It came to my attention early this month that on December 21, 2020, Saturn and Jupiter would be the closest to each other that they’ve been in some 800 years. Cool! I wish I had a telescope to view this with. I’ve been watching those two planets with the naked eye for a couple of weeks, and it’s been interesting to see two such bright objects near each other in the sky.

It wasn’t until December 10 that I became aware that some people were predicting that this interesting and rare astronomical event was a sure sign that the world would end today. I chuckled about it. If you’re reading this, I was apparently right to chuckle. If I was wrong, …. Poof! It’s been nice knowing you. Thank you for reading my blog all these years. It’s been fun. I wasted my time planning future blog post topics. On the bright side, I’m glad I made that dental appointment for December 23 instead of early December. I saved myself a bunch of money.

If you and I are still here

If you and I are still here, whew! We’re safe until the lunatic fringe chooses the next date for the world’s demise.

I hope you have a good book to read or write.

I hope you have rewarding creative time this week.

Keep wearing your mask.

Merry Christmas to my fellow Christians on December 25^th.

Janet