Pied Pipers

To the list of loonies in the world, add the Dallas conspiracy theorist who's decided the Tucson shootings were a hoax and has inspired similarly deranged people to confront the victims with their supposed fraud.

First Harold Camping, then this guy. What is it with these nuts, and why do they attract followers?

The phenomenon isn't new. In fact, it's happened down through history--look up Savonarola in Google. Think of Hitler. Think of Jim Jones, the Kool-Aid man.

Fio's take is that some people prefer to turn their brains over to anyone who will stand on a soapbox and tell them what to do.

Doomsday Postponed . . . Again

So, the day of doom has come and gone--again. Camping has decamped,I hear, nowhere to be found. But being 89, maybe he was the only one claimed, and Fiorella doesn't think it was by God.

Fio remembers her first encounter with an end of the world prophecy, when she was in elementary. The Branch Davidians were the source, and they were sure enough of Rapture that they withdrew all their kids, easily identifiable because they dressed oddly, from school. The sky was overcast and threatening as Fio trudged home from classes on the designated day, but nothing happened, not even rain. Nothing ever does. Amazing how religious zealots choose to ignore the Biblical admonition that no one will know the day or time of the Apocalypse.

Three years later, the Davidian kids were back in school and dressed normally. They'd gone Baptist in the meantime.