Okay, so we've all heard about the
impending doom that earth is facing, and how the world will end on December 21
later this year. Riiiight. Many speculate that it's going to be by a zombie
apocalypse that's supposedly coming. Where has this all come from? Adding fuel
to that fire, a 31 year old Rudy Eugene attacked, beat, and eventually ate the
face off of a 61 year old homeless man by the name of Ronald Poppo in Miami on
May 26, 2012. In case you haven’t heard the main part of that story, Eugene was
seen by a passerby bus driver, who called 911 as he was witnessing Eugene
beating the other man. As police arrived on the scene, they witnessed a naked
Eugene on top of Poppo, eating the face of his victim. Police gave orders to
stop, only to be acknowledged with a growl, and continuation of the mutilation.
The only option the officer felt he had at that point was to use deadly force,
and opened fire. Eugene was killed by the gunshot wounds he sustained.
Here, you can read more about the
attack:
With the zombie craze in full force
before the attack, this was sure to catapult believers’ opinions and change
opinions of some doubters. My opinion hasn’t changed though. When we look at
the facts, this is just a drug induced attack that has nothing to do with
zombies. The true culprit here is “bath salts,” a synthetic LSD that has many
adverse effects that according to webmd.com include “Agitation, paranoia,
hallucinations, chest pain, suicidality, high blood pressure and increased
pulse.” For these reasons, Eugene was
overheated (reasoning for being naked) agitated (reason for attack) delirious and
hallucinating (reason for cannibalism.)
Read more about bath salts:
What I
am basically getting at here, is that we all have wild imaginations, and every
generation would like to believe they are the last, greatest, or most
historically impactful. The problem I am finding is that the only real evidence
we have of the world ending, is that the Mayans stopped writing their calendar
on December 21, 2012. How do we know the guy in charge of it didn’t just get
lazy and decide that no one cares about what day it will be in however many centuries?
From there, wild, absurd stories of how the end of the world will happen have
popped up, and taken off. What I think should be happening is we should be
focusing on problems that are real, fixing them, and getting ready to move
forward as a prosperous country.
What an interesting topic!! I think you are like a lot of people in the world, a little skeptical about everything lately having to be related to “the end of the world”. As disturbing as that man’s actions were in Miami, there was a cause – drugs. Equally disturbing is the drug epidemic in this nation. I am horrified about things like this on the news and having to explain them to my kids, but maybe they will be even more terrified of drugs because of these stories?
ReplyDeleteI’m with you in your thoughts that maybe a Mayan calendar creator did in fact just get lazy and decide no one really cared about his thoughts on the end of the world. We are a nation of being obsessed with the extreme aren’t we? What can we really do about such an event anyway? Our nation should own up to it’s issues instead of blaming them on things like zombies.
What an awesome blog! My friends and I were discussing this very story earlier in the day. The story is very shocking to me, not the acts done by a person on a bad trip. Anything can happen when a persons mind is under the influence of substances. It shocks me because people are intentionally making this bad drug and people are still wanting to use it!
ReplyDeleteThe world ending in December is not something I believe. An episode of Ancient Aliens a few years back explained very clearly 12/12/12 is not the end of the world, it was the end of their calender which was actually two years ahead of us making 2010 the real year of so called doom. However, as a person who is very concerned with the planet and well informed I know without immediate action, our planet earth will deteriorate. Most likely not anytime in the near future but sadly our children will have to see the irreversible damage done. The severity of the issue on earth conservation goes beyond a single country. Without the efforts of every country making changes..."doomsday", it is guaranteed, will come.
I'm happy to hear someone is as skeptical as me regarding these topics. First, the Mayan calendar has little to do with zombies. Exactly how people decided that the end of the world would be because with zombies is beyond me. As far as the man eating another man’s face….it makes me want to research more into bath salts. That’s extremely scary that someone could hallucinate to that extent. Nonetheless, I’m pretty convinced the the LSD was to blame and not a zombie attack :)
ReplyDeleteThe zombie story was originally conveyed to me via a 17 year old girl, who loves horror movies, and was completely convinced that the zombie take over was on the way... needless to say I had to talk her off that cliff. The story, and the other accounts of cannibalism that are related to it because of the drug are terrible, but zombies and the end of the world are not only not correlated but are not happening. Based on my beliefs, I do believe that there will be an end of the world, but it's not in our hands at all, and is certainly not likely to happen this year. I completely agree with you, in the fact that we need to focus on what we can do and take action! If we (as a nation) are so desperate for a good trip that we are taking drugs this powerful, there is something desperately wrong with us! There are children and people starving, not just in other countries, but in our own backyards; and our preoccupation is getting high?! How sick is that?
ReplyDelete