Posts Tagged ‘Mayan prophecy’
The End (Diagrammed)…
click the image above, or here, for larger version
From Good, a breakdown of the 10% of the world’s population (!) that believes the world will end by the conclusion of this calendar year.
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As we turn to happier– but also unlikely– thoughts, we might recall that it was on this date in 1971 that the Houston Astros’ Cesar Cedeno, at bat with with the bases loaded and his team trailing the Dodgers 3-2, hit a pop fly that turned into an inside-the-park grand slam:
One is what one eats…
Kelly Pratt loves sandwiches…
I’ve set out to make the sandwich for each of the 50 states as a fun way to work on my photography and design skills. It will be quite a delicious journey across the US. Before I make each sandwich I do research on the Internet, call local sandwich shops, ask foodies on twitter and check out a few books to be sure I do my best to properly represent a state.
The result…
For instance…
I may have grown up on the east coast but I was brought up with mid-western values. My mom was born and raised in Minnesota so it was only fitting to make the fried walleye sandwich on Mother’s Day — complete with a virtual bite!
My interest in cooking is a direct reflection of my mom. Although I was convinced everything I ate growing up was chicken, I can assure it was likely a tender leg of lamb [an Ann Hughes specialty] or perfectly grilled flank steak. And no matter what day it was, all four of us sat down and ate a candlelight dinner as a family.
Before I moved to Chicago, I was working with my parents and lucky enough to eat lunch with them every day. Now my mom and I are always quick to share our latest and greatest recipes with each other so we don’t miss out!
According to my mother, fish is meant to be fried on Fridays (I hope Minnesotans can forgive me for making their sandwich on a Sunday). When I told her I was using crushed up saltines to coat the fish she was reassured of the sandwich’s authenticity…
Gorge on geography at Stately Sandwiches.
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As we ask for extra mayo, we might– of might not– recall that it was on this date in 1987 that the Harmonic Convergence began. Foretold by José Argüelles (based on a reading of ancient Mayan texts), the Convergence was the world’s “first synchronized meditation.”
The belief was that if 144,000 people assembled at “power centers” (like Mt. Fuji and Chaco Canyon) and meditated for peace, the arrival of the new era would be facilitated.
In the event, it appears that Doonesbury may have nailed it when the strip described the event as a “moronic convergence…sort of a national fruit loops day, lots of wind chimes…”
Grace period…
Archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University excavates the house in the ruins of the Maya city of Xultun.
It’s with mixed emotions that your correspondent notes the emergence of firm evidence that the painfully powerfully-prescient Mayans did not in fact believe that the world will end this year…
In a striking find, archaeologists in Guatemala report the discovery of a small building whose walls display not only a stunningly preserved mural of a brightly adorned Mayan king, but also calendars that destroy any notion that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012.
These deep-time calendars can be used to count thousands of years into the past and future, countering pop-culture and New Age ideas that Mayan calendars ended on Dec. 21, 2012, (or Dec. 23, depending on who’s counting), thereby predicting the end of the world.
The newly found calendars, which track the motion of the moon, Venus and Mars, provide an unprecedented glimpse into how these storied sky-gazers — who dominated Central America for nearly 1,000 years — kept such accurate track of months, seasons and years.
“What they’re trying to do is understand the large cycles of cosmic time,” said William Saturno, the Boston University archaeologist who led the expedition. “This is the space they’re doing it in. It’s like looking into da Vinci’s workshop.”
Before the new find, the best-preserved Mayan calendars were inscribed in bark-paged books called codices, the most famous being the Dresden Codex. But those pages hail from several hundred years later than the newly found calendars…
After retracting the invitations and canceling the caterers– so much for what would have been, literally, the party to end all parties– readers will find the full story in the Washington Post.
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As we reconcile ourselves to more of the same, we might recall that it was on this date in 1839 that a huge 33-year-old man named Thomas Rees, AKA Twm Carnabwth, led a group of men dressed in women’s clothing in an attack on the toll gate at Efailwen, in Wales. The group called itself Merched Beca (“the Daughters of Rebecca”), and went on for another four years to attack and destroy toll gates in Wales. The “Rebecca Riots,” as they became known,” were the reaction of local tenant farmers and farmer workers to the imposition of tolls on local roads (and other taxes and rent increases they perceived as unfair). In the end, some rent reductions were achieved, the toll rates were reduced (but not eliminated: destroyed toll-houses were rebuilt), and the protests prompted several other reforms (e.g., Turnpikes Act of 1844, which simplified rates and reduced the hated toll on lime movement by half). But surely most significantly, the riots inspired later Welsh protests.
Depiction of the Rebecca Riots, Illustrated London News 1843
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