Flannery O’Connor once described the contradictory desires that afflict all of us with characteristic simplicity. “Free will does not mean one will,” she wrote, “but many wills conflicting in one man.” The existence of appealing alternatives, after all, is what makes free will free: What would choice be without inner debate? We’re torn between staying faithful and that alluring man or woman across the room. We can’t resist the red velvet cake despite having sworn to keep our calories down.

Mayan mythology enthusiasts, Christian evangelicals, and assorted conspiracy theorists all have their reasons to believe the world is going to end the Saturday after next, May 21. We will know that this particular date is wrong soon enough -- or we'll be too busy being flambéed to care. But it's worth engaging the generally apocalyptically inclined, nonetheless, if just to prove that, even on the terms of their own dystopian visions, the end of days are nowhere close to being near.

In most things, I adhere to the principle that free trumps fee. Accordingly, I happily opt to run through my neighborhood, braving variable weather conditions and swarms of families with dogs and strollers, to avoid paying a gym for what I can accomplish for free.

So, how did Groupon get me to join a gym?

Earlier this year, the $21.7 billion Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria was forced to retract or suspend millions of dollars in aid after rampant corruption was discovered. An audit of a modest portion of selected programs found staggering percentages of money misspent or unaccounted for: 67 percent in Mauritania; 36 percent in Mali; and 30 percent in Djibouti. There were also serious concerns involving millions of dollars sent to Zambia.