How I Know April is Evil

What in god's name is wrong with this month? Why is it that so much horrific crap happens in April?! We are all well aware that the Virginia Tech murders occurred on April 16th, and if you stop and think about it, April has always been a shitty month for America, hell- for the world. Let us stop as this hellish 1/12th of the year winds to a close, and reflect back on the wretchedness that it has inflicted on us.

1. The "Columbine Massacre" on April 20th, 1999. Oh sad, sad, assholes. Taking the beloved stoner holiday of 420 and turning it into a tragedy. To be honest, 1999 was the worst year of my life, so I remember very little of Columbine's worst day ever but who can really forget it? Eric and Dylan, two mentally deformed rejects, entered their school armed to the teeth and killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

2. Adolf Hitler's birth in 1889. Need I say more? Gross. His racial policies killed more than 11 million people, and the ensuing war meant the deaths of over 45 million people in Europe alone. Those are some big numbers from just one tiny, pathetic douchebag.

3. The Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995. At 9:02 a.m. Timothy McVeigh detonated 5000 lbs of explosives in the back of a Ryder truck that took out 1/3 of the building. It killed 168 people, including 19 children as young as three months, 15 of which were at a daycare in the building directly above where the truck was parked.

4. The Rwandan Genocide in 1994 began on April 6th. By the time it ended in mid-July, an estimate claims between 800 thousand and one million people were killed.

5. Waco, Texas. The 51 day siege ended on April 19, 1993 with a fire that killed 79 people including 21 children.

6. The L.A. Riots, also known as the "Rodney King Riots" began on April 29, 1992 after motorist Rodney King was videotaped being beaten by L.A.P.D. after evading police during a traffic dispute. This day included the Reginald Denny beating, when a white truck driver was dragged from his vehicle and beaten severely by a group of black gang members. He recovered after being rescued by black neighbors who saw the beating live on television, and received brain surgery. When the riots ended 6 days later 53 people had been killed and millions of dollars in damage had been done.

7. Chernobyl. On April 26, 1986 an explosion of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine resulted in a meltdown that caused massive radioactive contamination, and fallout that reached all the way to the eastern North American seaboard. 56 people died of direct causes, and some 9,000 people are expected to die from resulting cancers, 4000 of which were diagnosed with thyroid cancer by 1992.

8. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968. James Earl Ray was later found guilty of the death, and riots occurred in over 100 different U.S. cities.

9. The RMS Titanic sank April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg late April 14th. The number of those who perished has varied from 1490 to 1517, and was due to a shortage of lifeboats on board what was considered an "unsinkable" ship.

10. The 1906 San Fransisco Earthquake happened on April 18. Estimated at a strength of between 7.7 and 8.3, the quake took the lives of about 3,000 people and left 300,000 people homeless out of a population of 400,000. The damage was then estimated at $400 million, which by today's standards would be about $6.5 billion, and a majority of it was blamed not on the earthquake but the subsequent fires which lasted for 4 days.

11. President Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865 at the hand of John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theater. He died of his injuries on the following day.

12. The American Civil War began April 12, 1861. The fighting of the north and the south over the rights of blacks in America (though that belief is a matter of controversy) continued for 4 years until Lee surrendered to Grant in 1865. The war produced about 970,000 casualties, 650,000 of which were soldiers, and 2/3 of which were caused by disease.

13. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775 with the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Fighting lasted until 1783, with the Treaty of Paris, but the casualties are unknown.

14. Kurt Cobain committed suicide on April 5, 1994, though this is admittedly more an act of stupidity than a tragedy. Still, perhaps we never would have been plagued with Nickelback and Scott Stapp if Kurt were alive today.

So there you go. The proverbial laundry list of reasons to hate April. April is the 4th month of the year, of course, and its no surprise to me that Chinese numerologists say the number 4 is unlucky and related to death. There are four horsemen in the apocalypse as told by the book of Revelations, which represent war, famine, plague and death. On a keyboard the number 4 is also the key used to make the $ sign, and of course we all know money is the root of all evil. We also know what one means when saying "A four letter word". The fourth tarot card is the Emporer, whose magickally associated herb is-get this- the Columbine. (Coincidence?) There were four ghosts in Pac-Man: Inky, Winky, Blinky and Clyde.

All I'm saying is that you should be wearing a helmet and protective pads at all times. If you have any kind of underground bunker, I highly suggest that as well. Its only a week people! PRIORITIZE! Helmet hair or death!