Doomsday merchants off the mark again

With all that's happened in the world in the past ten years, you'd be forgiving for thinking that it's on its last legs. It all started with the spectacle of the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, and ever since, we've had nothing but chaos. We've had revolutions, wars and rumours of wars in the cradle of civilisation. We've had superpowers standing up to one another of these and other trifles. In 2004, hundreds of thousands of people died after an earthquake and tsunami struck the Indian Ocean; whole islands were consumed by waves, and the effects of the disaster were felt as far away as Africa and Australia. We've had Hurricane Katrina in America's Deep South; terrifying earthquakes in Haiti and Pakistan, and more recently, volcanic ash clouds, and a chilling troika of disasters in Japan, in the form of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns. And here at home, we've had an economic meltdown of gargantuan proportion. With the exception of the poor souls who lost life, limb, wealth or shelter in these disasters, the world is still here. We are still ticking along, albeit subject to the temper of mother nature, and the cruelty of man. That so much has occurred in such a short time, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the end of the world is nigh or in economic terms, that Ireland is well and truly screwed. Most people have the common sense to know that disasters are an inevitable part and parcel of time and tide and that humanity has the capacity to move on - whether it be from environmental disasters of financial nightmares as in our case in Ireland. Yet there are some folks who will always believe the end is nigh. Spare a thought for poor old Harold Camping, the president of Family Radio, a well-known Christian broadcaster in the United States. For the second time in seventeen years, he has gone to great lengths to publicise his near scientific belief that the Rapture - a Biblical event which precedes the end of the world - would take place on a named date. On the first occasion, September 1994, he was proven wrong. Last week, the same fate awaited the 89 year old doomsayer, who has made a career out of a bizarre combination of religion and numerology. In early May, the Westmeath Independent - undoubtedly, like any news source across the road - was bombarded with e-mails from Family Radio, announcing that the end of the world is nigh. We were told that through an unexplained number crunching process, Judgment Day would take place on October 21, 2011 - exactly five months to the day after Saturday last, May 21, when the Rapture would take place, beginning "five months of torments". It didn't happen, and on May 22, Camping emerged from his home to tell the world's media that he was "flabbergasted" that his predictions didn't come to pass. According to Fox News on Monday, he refused to answer questions about the destiny of financial donations he received over the past few months, as his campaign of awareness about "May 21" gathered steam. And somewhat like our own little country, we should, to paraphrase Barack Obama, realise that we have great potential to shape our own destinies on this planet. Our own economic destiny is also not predetermined. We too can survive and prosper.