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Less Than 192 Hours To Go Until Doomsday, You Guys!
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 19, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 19, 2011
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We've been seeing doomsday vehicles and end-of-days billboards all over the city for the last week, and now we know why: the minions of Family Radio have been going from city-to-city to spread their message of doom via Project Caravan, and from May 11-15, it's our turn to be saturated with their Judgment Day prophecy. Just yesterday, we saw four of them slowly crawling down the West Side Highway, like a family of apocalyptic lemmings!
But there is a seriously sad side to all this ballyhooing: people who are spending their life savings, alienating their families, and basically ruining their lives, all to spread the gospel of destruction. Retired MTA employee Robert Fitzpatrick is one such person: he's invested $140,000 into a NYC Transit ad campaign, "Global Earthquake! The Greatest Ever - Judgment Day: May 21." The ads have appeared on 1,000 placards on subway cars, at a cost of $90,000, and at bus shelters around the city, for $50,000 more.
"I'm trying to warn people about what's coming. People who have an understanding [of end times] have an obligation to warn everyone," the Staten Island resident, who also has a self-published book "The Doomsday Code," told the News. Fitzpatrick's beliefs, like all May 21st believers, come from the preachings of Family Radio host Harold Camping. The Post asked Fitzpatrick what would happen if he turns out to be wrong: "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. Everybody asks me that."
If you're the kind of person who wants to at least try to understand why exactly the apocalypse starts May 21 (and not, say Friday May 13), you can try to parse all the "conclusive" signs and biblical "proof" here. As for us, we have our own theory as to where the prophecy comes from...and it involves Leonard Bernstein:
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apocalypse
doomsday
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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