Mayan calendar – Memphis Flyer

Those Crazy Mayan Liberals

I found Tommy Volinchak’s comments (Letters, December 19th issue) to be astounding — not to mention a little frightening to think that there are those who really think like him out there. He somehow twisted the whole Mayan calendar phenomenon into being the idea of so-called liberals.

Tell us, Mr. Volinchak: Is it the liberals who are stockpiling guns, ammo, food, etc. in underground bunkers to “survive” whatever silly end-of-the-world thing they think is about to happen? Or is it the right-wing, Bible-thumping, survivalist nut-jobs? I think you know the answer.

And all the things you listed as “crazy liberal ideas,” such as global warming, evolution, etc., are so “extreme” and unlikely that you laugh at them. But I bet you somehow find all the stories in the Bible to be reasonable and logical.

Well, Mr. Volinchak, maybe the sky will open up soon and the angels will call you to be raptured and you can leave this bad old earth behind. We will miss you and your kind, but we will be happy knowing you all are in a much better place.

Dennis Busby

Marion, Arkansas

Guns and the Mentally Ill

The NRA is rightfully encouraging us to take a look at keeping guns out of the hands of the mentaly ill. I’d go a bit further. As a therapist, I can assure you that paranoia is a recognized mental illness. Since those who are so obsessed with guns that they insist on owning a houseful of semi-automatic assault weapons are clearly and unquestionably paranoid, I’d recommend these people be the first to be investigated.

About half the U.S. population suffers some form of mental illness. Only a very minute percentage of these people are a threat to anyone. The only rational solution is to keep guns out of the hands of paranoid people, such as Adam Lanza’s gun-obsessed mother. Anyone owning an arsenal of semi-automatic assault weapons is clearly mentally ill.

Jim Brasfield

Memphis

Another Coach of the Year

I read Louis Goggans’ article on Whitehaven High’s Tennessee coach of the year (The Fly-by, December 19th issue). We have another local coach who has won coach of the year for his college conference — twice in a row!

I’m speaking of In-Sik Hwang , the head volleyball coach at Christian Brothers University. He has won coach of the year of the Gulf Coast Conference the past two years. He also took CBU to the NCAA tournament the last two years — a first for the school. On top of that accomplishment, last year, he started his own volleyball school because he disliked the way young girls were being taught the game here.

Mike Singleton

Memphis

A Vegetarian Year

This year’s developments have certainly vindicated those of us who care about our health, our environment, and our treatment of animals. In January, Michelle Obama unveiled revamped federal guidelines requiring school cafeterias to serve more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and less sodium and animal fat.

In March, a study involving nearly 38,000 men and 84,000 women by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that one daily serving of meat is associated with a 13 to 20 percent increase in the risk of death from heart disease or cancer.

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates that prevalence of obesity among American adults will escalate to 42 percent by 2030, with a $550 billion increase in medical costs.

The Humane Society exposed unconscionable atrocities among three pig producers in Oklahoma and a Pennsylvania egg farm. It’s little wonder that 7 percent of Americans now consider themselves vegetarian or vegan and 28 percent are actively reducing their meat consumption.

We should all consider following suit for this New Year’s resolution.

Trevor Faust

Memphis

Tea Party “Terrorists”

It’s often been said that you shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. Well, the Tea Party reactionaries have hijacked policy for the Republican Party, making true compromise all but impossible. These one-dimensional political pawns are economic terrorists who have chosen to leap off the fiscal cliff rather than do the sane thing and compromise for the good of the country. Enough, Mr. President. No more negotiating with those whose ideology trumps sanity and common sense.

Marlin Counts

Memphis

If you are reading this in the Flyer, I guess it’s safe to say the Mayans were full of it. If they were such an intelligent civilization capable of accurately forecasting future events, where are they? They couldn’t possibly have predicted the end of the world when their calendar stopped, because it only lasted 5,125 years. The Jews have already got them beat by 648 years, and still no one listens to us! But just let the ancient Mayan calendar come to an end, and the whole world goes crazy.

The Mayans are reputed to have created the world’s most accurate calendar, but so what? I understand the Babylonians kept excellent time as well. I think what happened was that the Mayans were carving their great wheels with so many icons and glyphs, they finally ran out of room. What they needed was a congressman like Steve Cohen, and they could have gotten a new calender every year — autographed. There have been doomsday prophets since the dawn of man predicting the end of the world, but no one’s nailed the date yet. So why is December 21, 2012, causing an international freak-out?

The History Channel fueled the fire by airing a two-hour documentary attempting to link the prophesies of Nostradamus to the Mayan apocalypse. The ancient seer may have talked about a certain Hister when discussing World War II, but his quatrains are so generic, they’ve been used to explain everything from dirigibles to donuts. A 2009 movie titled 2012 is in regular rotation on cable movie channels. It depicts, among tsunamis and firestorms, the destruction of Hollywood, which would have been considered biting the hand that feeds it had the film not made so much money.

The Left Behind flicks made a ton of cash too. According to one reputable poll, 22 percent of Americans believe the world will end in their lifetimes, and anytime you can get one out of five people to buy into pseudo-historical paranoid bullshit like that, it’s worth a fortune.

Among the more insane information disseminated online were the rumors that an alien spaceship, which had been camouflaged by a mountain in the French Pyrenees until this moment, is the sole means of escape from the destruction, and a previously unknown planet named Nibiru will suddenly appear from behind the sun and crash into the Earth. Consequently, according to news reports, the French government has blocked further traffic from entering certain mountain villages during the solstice, so that residents might “live in peace.”

Neo-hippies and New Age freaks have flocked to the ancient Mayan homeland in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula for the date. Hotels close to the ruins at Chichen Itza, near Cancun, have been booked for a year in advance, so spiritual tourists can gather near the pyramid for organized drum circles and ritual dancing.

A group called Birth 2012 is sponsoring 40 events around the world to launch a new global spiritual campaign. AP reporter Jack Chang quoted the movement’s founder as saying, “We’ve activated this campaign for three days of love,” making it sound vaguely like Woodstock. Either this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, or we’ve gone through all this hocum before. I once climbed the pyramid at Chichen Itza, and, though it was nice as pyramids go, with an ocean view, I felt no mystic crystal revelations. I have long grown tired of the phrase “been there, done that,” but I think it just may apply here.

The hysteria spread as far as China, where at least two men built arks to survive the chaos. I would hate to be the guy who wakes up on December 22nd with the realization that he spent his life savings on a giant, homemade frigate that’s sitting in the backyard.

Anthropologists have translated one Mayan carving to say that on the feared December 21st date, “Nine gods will descend from heaven to Earth.” This would be a good trick, except that it might be the 1919 Chicago White Sox coming to play another game on the “field of dreams.” The carving never said what the gods planned on doing once they arrived. But if they’re going to launch a new era of kindness and they land in Mexico, they had better have papers if they plan to spread their message to this country.

The Mayan people made great contributions to the advancement of knowledge. They were peerless astronomers and among the first to use math in astronomical calculations. They discovered the concept of zero and created an advanced writing system. Mayan architecture and agriculture still influence today’s world, as well as their discoveries in medicine. They did all this but failed to discover the wheel. And despite being advanced metallurgists, their weaponry was no match for the Spanish Conquistadors, who conquered them and sped the collapse of Mayan civilization in the 9th century. Only the ruins remain, but the Mayan calendar never mentioned that unfortunate occurrence.

Perhaps the cosmic purpose for the existence of the race was to give to mankind the gift of chocolate. In any case, we don’t need the Mayans to forecast the destruction of civilization. We’ve created our own hell. The end of the world might be a step up. If you’re still breathing, we’re probably stuck with each other for a while, so we need to either discover a way to peacefully coexist or suffer the same fate as the Mayans. I’d never root for Armageddon, but we got it coming.

Randy Haspel writes the Born-Again Hippies blog, where a version of this column first appeared.