This is a modified version of last year’s 11/11/11 article, in case you missed it.
Today is a special day — at least if you are fond of the number 12, and especially so if you’re willing to buy in to one of the oldest human pseudo-scientific pursuits: numerology. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love numbers and I always have. When I was five years old I was mesmerized when my parents’ car reached 99,999.9 miles, and I think 12:34:56 on 7/8/90 is just a cool a time as anybody else does. But I do this with a sense of humor.
Unfortunately it happens that a few influential people attempt serious and consequential numerology involving the calendar — predicting disaster and convincing people to sell their homes and give away their belongings. Now that makes me mad. Outraged, in fact — because it’s often obvious from the way these predictions are generated that those who made them don’t understand much about the calendar, about time, about history and about astronomy or physics… and yet they speak with authority, an authority they haven’t earned and don’t deserve.
So as we celebrate this one-two-of-a-kind moment, let’s also remember, and enjoy, just how absurd it really is. Let us even count the ways.