Last Christmas George Michael didn’t give up his heart. Apparently, it was his heart that gave up, making the pop singer just the latest celebrity to pass away in what is already being called the worst year ever (seriously, tho’ calm down – 1939 was way worse). It might be ending in a handful of days, but 2016 will be giving way to a period of Mercury being retrograde, so – if you believe in things like that – we’re really not out of the woods yet.
Nor, it seems, will we be for quite awhile – at least not, according to Baba Vanga.
Known as the Balkan Nostradamus, Bulgarian born Baba Vanga is a seer of some note. Her believer claim that she has an 85% success rate, having foretold the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl (1986), 9-11 (2001), and the election of an African-American as America’s 44th President (2008), among other things (a longer list can be found HERE).
That last one wasn’t just on the money, it was also very disturbing and, in a perverse way, rather timely.
Baba Vanga didn’t just predict the first black US President, she also predicted that he would be the last. Considering that Barack Obama technically remains President until the end of the year, Baba Vanga’s forecast has people wondering whether 2016 will end with a massive political upheaval.
And it isn’t just a willing suspension of disbelief either. As it turns out, the blind seer also said that at the time of the 44th President’s assumption of the office, a massive economic crisis would come, and that people would think that the President would be the guy to solve it. Instead, Baba Vanga warned that the President would actually bring the country down, leading to the eruption of conflict between the northern and southern states, reminiscent of the American civil war. If you’ve been following recent events in the US (because, let’s face it, who hasn’t?), the seeming coincidences are startling.
If Baba Vanga got that close to painting a picture perfect prediction of the Obama presidency, it makes you wonder how that “last US President” bit is gonna unfold. If it happens – however it happens – there is no denying that it’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario where the American Presidency would come to such an abrupt halt without an accompanying geopolitical cataclysm.
Is it gonna be another economic collapse? A pandemic? Or is it gonna be war? Is 2016 just waiting for one last chance to screw us over?
Who knows. But last December 16, in Naples, the universe may just have winked at us.
On that day, the solidified blood of San Gennaro didn’t liquefy on schedule, an event that according to tradition foretells the coming of war, famine, and disease. Ominously, the Italian paper La Stampa, reported the blood didn’t liquefy either just before the outbreak of the second World War.
Such a cheerful thought, no?
On the other hand, we’ve seen our share of failed end-of-times scenarios. Even Baba Vanga predicted that the third world war would happen from 2010 to 2014 and yet here we all still are. And then there was that Mayan calendar nonsense. And Y2K.
As the world grows ever more complex, I suppose it is natural for people to latch on to these foretellings as a way of imposing some sense of order and predictability on an increasingly chaotic existence. So we careen from one doomsday fear to another, rarely taking the time to look back every time we “survive,” if only to sheepishly laugh at ourselves, taken in by yet another tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
So, while we await the coming of 2017, it’ll probably be a better use of our time to just take stock of 2016, say our good-byes to the dearly departed, and learn from the year that was what we can, secure in the knowledge that we’re gonna be alright in the year yet to come.
…
Or maybe it’s gonna be a meteor. Damn you, 2016!