Boulderites love to talk about the end of the world.
Whether they're scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research obsessing over the environment, hippies on the Pearl Street Mall preaching about genetically-engineered food, or University of Colorado students bemoaning all that world poverty and disease stuff, Boulder residents have an apocalypse complex.
But with good reason. After all, radio evangelist and doomsday prognosticator Harold Camping was born in Boulder ninety years ago. Camping's group, the California-based Family Radio network, is the organization behind the many billboards around Colorado (and elsewhere) that read: "Judgment Day May 21."
And that's May 21, 2011.
According to www.familyradio.com, Peter 3:8 "reminds us that one day is as 1,000 years. Therefore, with the correct understanding that the seven days referred to in Genesis 7:4 can be understood as 7,000 years, we learn that when God told Noah there were seven days to escape worldwide destruction, He was also telling the world there would be exactly 7,000 years (one day is as 1,000 years) to escape the wrath of God that would come when He destroys the world on Judgment Day.... Seven thousand years after 4990 B.C. (the year of the Flood) is the year 2011 A.D."
Camping's happy campers have worked out the exact day of doom using more calendar-related fun. But what they haven't said is where the apocalypse will begin.
The answer, of course, is Boulder. And here is our reasoning, which uses much of the same brilliant logic as the Family Radio network:
1) If the terrorists come, they'll start in Boulder — but not because of IBM or NCAR or even Rocky Flats (that plutonium went missing a long time ago). No, they'll be coming for pay-per-view porn producer New Frontier Media. Now that the Navy SEALs have Osama bin Laden's stash, they need to restock — and they'll bomb the place to cover their tracks.
2) Remember when someone hacked into a Colorado Department of Transportation electronic highway warning sign just outside of Boulder in March and changed the flashing message from "Shoulder Work" to "Zombies Ahead"? Remember when George Romero's 2008 zombie-pocalypse movie, Day of the Dead, had the military closing the roads from Leadville to Boulder to prevent the zombies from getting through? Do you think that's a coincidence? We don't.
3) In Stephen King's post-apocalyptic novel The Stand, Boulder plays host to an epic battle between the forces of good and the forces of absolute evil. Stephen King is a brilliant author. Why would he pick Boulder if it wasn't true?
4) Nearly naked fifty-something gardeners have been cited, twice, in Boulder for tilling the soil in full view of their neighbors. For that alone, the city deserves to be smitten.
5) Okay, so maybe the Apocalypse isn't coming in 2011. It's actually coming in 2012, the year predicted by the Mayan calendar. Just ask Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose trip to Boulder with Mayan prophets inspired Ivan Suvanjieff and Dawn Engle to create the documentary 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy. Okay, so maybe the point of the movie was to debunk the doomsayers; whatever. But Suvanjieff is so sure the world won't end Saturday that he's making another movie, Jesus vs. Bono, and betting on the U2 superstar, who'll be playing the Pepsi Center that night.
Those who aren't planning on awaiting the end of the world at the Pepsi Center might want to join the Boulder Atheists, who will be watching comedian Paula Poundstone, a self-professed atheist herself — perform at Chautauqua Auditorium. Or they can check in with the Denver Atheists and Freethinkers (DAFT), who will be having a Judgment Day Party, complete with a viewing of the documentary Waiting for Armageddon and a tin-foil hat contest.
