Of earthquakes and lost boys

We were hit with an earthquake yesterday off the west coast of BC.  I know this as Gord called me from work to tell me that the pulleys on all the blinds in his office were simultaneously knocking against the window.  A few minutes later he called back to say that CBC was reporting that we had in fact, just experienced an earthquake.  And not exactly a small one as it clocked in at 6.7 on the magnitude scale.  I didn't feel a thing.  By the sounds of it nobody did.  Apparently it originated as a shift at the base of Vancouver Island, deep enough that it wouldn't shake us up top.  It did, however, shake up some BC'ers and the 'word on the street' is that it's a precursor to the 'big one'... that there's this brown dwarf star hurling towards earth which is sucking us into it's gravitational field which will send us into oblivion.  Hmmm.  This is also somehow linked in to the Mayan Calendar.  I'm not real sure about all this, as there is always some nutbar spewing dates and insisting the end of the world is nigh.  Still, there are forces in this universe that certainly makes it feel like it's the final act.

On Wednesday evening a man entered a house in Sparwood, BC, picked up a sleepy 3 year old, placed him in his car and drove away.  The rest of the family were sleeping soundly not realizing he was gone until the next morning; by this time the suspect had hours of driving time behind him.  The police feel confident they've identified this man as one Randall Hopley, so his picture, car description and license plate are all over the web.  Randall is mentally impaired.  Randall has a lengthy criminal record.  Randall is considered dangerous.

At first glance these two events seem non-related, but when you look at them in the big picture, these things are both symptoms of a planet in it's death throes.   Sure, the earth could easily recover and last a few more thousand years, however our societal ills are chronic bordering on fatal.  The economy, the corruption, the destruction of the environment, the disease, the wars, the natural disasters, the money lust... this is what is killing us.  We have turned from God to worship at the feet of science and technology and effectively replaced ourselves with machines and computers, unable to even feed ourselves due to geneticaly engineering out the reproductive nature of the food we eat.  The toxins we ingest everyday brings with it new and stronger diseases which we, in turn, refuse to allow us our demise.  So, regardless if the planet gets obliterated out of existence, we're right on track to do it to ourselves.  When you look at it that way, Randall, with his untreated mental illness, is a product of our environment.  Born into a society that seems more interested in Kim Kardashian's sex tape than finding effective and humane ways of dealing with persons with mental illness.   It's shameful... we're shameful.

I pray that somehow, someone finds this man and assists to get little Kienan back home safely and without scars.

And maybe, just maybe the Mayans are right...