Facebook can be a fickle friend. Oh yes, there are rules that we know everyone doesn’t quite obey. You are not allowed to falsify evidence about yourself on the great FB, although characters like Jesus have their own pages. The Chronicle of Higher Education this week followed the efforts of a University of Nevada at Reno librarian who tried to use Facebook for educational purposes. Donnelyn Curtis had set up Facebook accounts for two students early in the twentieth century to give current students an idea of how times had changed. The pages were summarily removed by Facebook staff, leading to the unfortunate second deaths of Joe McDonald and Leola Lewis. Second deaths always get me thinking about the book of Revelation. After all, we are now into the fatal year of 2012.

Few events elicit religious fervor like the end of the world. In the most highly touted end-of-the-world scenario since 2000, 2012 has emerged as the great contender for wrapping up the show we call life on earth. When I spotted a calendar to prepare the user for the end of the world, well, how could I resist? Each month on this terminal calendar features facts pointing to the culmination of this strange experiment that evolution hath wrought. If we can’t pull off a good, old-fashioned Evangelical rapture (sorry Rev. Camping), maybe the Maya can get the job done. They certainly managed to pull off an impressive vanishing act a few centuries back. Or did they? Despite the overrunning of enthusiastically avaricious Christian invaders, the Maya accommodated themselves to less-than-ideal circumstances and survived. They are still among us. Their culture, however, didn’t fare so well at the hand of the church. Nobody’s asking them about any of this.

Apocalyses occur all the time. When religions meet, one inevitably tries to vanquish the other. No one walks out of that arena without a limp. And the winners look over their shoulders for ever after. To prepare for this apocalypse, the January on my new calendar narrates how the Mayans and Egyptians shared some cultural secrets—such as how to build pyramids. How did they know about one another? My calendar says they could have walked across Atlantis, or they might have been carried by giant, domesticated condors. Either alternative seems as likely as the other. Either alternative seems about as likely as the world ending this year. But then again, already in 2012 a couple of promising young people have already been kicked off of Facebook for being dead. I think I feel the apocalypse beginning already.