Opinion & Columns

Every year around Christmas, I think what a burden it is to be Christian and consider joining another religion with fewer Yuletide demands. Addressing the cards and pretending I like fruitcake leave me exhausted. I toyed with the idea of becoming a Buddhist monk, which is just exotic enough to be hip, but then I remembered they have to set themselves on fire if a war comes along. As much as I dislike Christmas, I still prefer it over immolation.

Deep in Southern Indiana, businessman Robert Vicino offers the cure for paranoid doomsday-preppers: a retrofitted Cold War–era communications bunker where 80 people can weather a catastrophe underground for up to a year—among the kind of tony trappings one might find on a luxury yacht. Vicino’s sales pitch leaves no potential natural or manmade disaster unmentioned, including nuclear explosion, biological warfare, solar flares, and, of course, the Mayan prophecy that appears to foretell an apocalypse this month.