{"id":245,"date":"2009-11-19T18:31:17","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T18:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html"},"modified":"2009-11-19T18:31:17","modified_gmt":"2009-11-19T18:31:17","slug":"see-2012-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html","title":{"rendered":"See &#8220;2012&#8221; this Weekend!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why am I hoping that Roland Emmerich&#8217;s disaster epic <i>2012<\/i> stays<a href=\"http:\/\/www.variety.com\/article\/VR1118011354\"> spectacularly on top of the box office<\/a> this coming weekend? I&#8217;ve seen the movie and, while you&#8217;re not supposed to admit this in public if you want to be thought of as sophisticated, I found it utterly gripping if cartoonish and a bit too predictable. The scene where the <i>USS John F. Kennedy<\/i> is riding a tsunami and about to crush the White House stuck with me. No, I&#8217;m not kidding.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But apart from the entertainment value of seeing the world torn apart, I&#8217;m hoping people will continue flocking to theaters because it will inoculate them against anxiety when the real year 2012 comes along. Most of you will laugh at the whole Mayan prophecy\/end of the world deal, and I&#8217;m certainly far from taking it seriously myself. But there are plenty of people out there who, come 2012, could very well be full of worry and upset that the world is about end.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What I appreciate about&nbsp;<i>2012<\/i> the movie is that for just about anyone, having experienced the whole fun but absurd spectacle, it becomes even harder to see the Mayan calendar&#8217;s running out as a genuine existential threat to life on earth. The thing is just too much of a cartoon &#8212; however enjoyable, in the way that a roller coast ride is enjoyable, it may be. Everyone who sees the movie is rendered secure from panic two years down the road. So see it!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why am I hoping that Roland Emmerich&#8217;s disaster epic 2012 stays spectacularly on top of the box office this coming weekend? I&#8217;ve seen the movie and, while you&#8217;re not supposed to admit this in public if you want to be thought of as sophisticated, I found it utterly gripping if cartoonish and a bit too&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>See &quot;2012&quot; this Weekend! - Kingdom of Priests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"See &quot;2012&quot; this Weekend! - Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why am I hoping that Roland Emmerich&#8217;s disaster epic 2012 stays spectacularly on top of the box office this coming weekend? I&#8217;ve seen the movie and, while you&#8217;re not supposed to admit this in public if you want to be thought of as sophisticated, I found it utterly gripping if cartoonish and a bit too&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-19T18:31:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Klinghoffer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"See \"2012\" this Weekend! - Kingdom of Priests","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"See \"2012\" this Weekend! - Kingdom of Priests","og_description":"Why am I hoping that Roland Emmerich&#8217;s disaster epic 2012 stays spectacularly on top of the box office this coming weekend? I&#8217;ve seen the movie and, while you&#8217;re not supposed to admit this in public if you want to be thought of as sophisticated, I found it utterly gripping if cartoonish and a bit too&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html","og_site_name":"Kingdom of Priests","article_published_time":"2009-11-19T18:31:17+00:00","author":"David Klinghoffer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html","name":"See \"2012\" this Weekend! - Kingdom of Priests","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-11-19T18:31:17+00:00","dateModified":"2009-11-19T18:31:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/6e6734f7e172e24221264a565e8f4454"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/11\/see-2012-this-weekend.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"See &#8220;2012&#8221; this Weekend!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/","name":"Kingdom of Priests","description":"David Klinghoffer","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/6e6734f7e172e24221264a565e8f4454","name":"David Klinghoffer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/285\/28517f740f5d348f010a20178619ea6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/285\/28517f740f5d348f010a20178619ea6cx96.jpg","caption":"David Klinghoffer"},"description":"David Klinghoffer is an author and senior fellow in the Religious, Liberty & Public Life program at the Discovery Institute. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Jewish Forward. A California native, he currently lives on Mercer Island, Washington, with his wife and five children.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/author\/dklinghoffer"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}