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Mistakes

Something I really need to think about more often...

Everybody makes mistakes, and you should take the opportunity to laugh at yourself.

Bye Bye, Miss American Pie

Don McLean used the song to describe what was happening in his generation. The imagery he used is still easily seen today in what is a sad commentary of a tumultuous time in America's history.

Gender Matters

Who cares if the government is run mostly by white men or mostly by black women or mostly by purple dogs--it's the *ideas* that matter!Bull. Shit.

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On Glowing Green Orbs

On Friday night N. and I came home late after buying the new Harry Potter book at an after-hours event. We were walking across the parking lot on our way into the apartment when we saw a magnificent event... one which we haven't discussed since then. We were both looking in the same direction as a glowing green orb crossed the sky in maybe one or two seconds, skirting across the tree tops in the distance and disappearing. The thing had a lovely yellow tail on it, and the most striking green color to the orb itself.

This blazing piece of interplanetary debris came flying into our lives and got a discussion going. She thought it might be a firework or something similar but I pointed out that there was no pop. Then she questioned the green glowing color, and I told her that it depends on what material is burning up while traveling to Earth, and besides I had seen this color streaking through the sky before. She called me a know-it-all and we went inside. Oh well, such is life.

Actually I've now seen four of these pieces of the galaxy as they free-fall to Mother Earth. The first was when I was a young’n in Pennsylvania. I was in my standard position in front of the TV which had a west-facing window behind it. It was one of those normal PA cloudy days, where it could start pouring rain at any time. Quickly my eye caught a yellow ball of light falling directly down which made me think of a sun which was setting WAY TOO FAST! Of course I was alone in this room, so there was no one to confirm my sighting.

Now I wasn't too afraid of the whole event, because I'd seen Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and knew that this HAD to be a meteorite! When I ran in the kitchen to get Mom (she was always either in the kitchen or in the bathroom - My Mother, the voice behind the bathroom door!) she told me to calm down, and she would call our local weatherman, or meteorologist. Hey, I never thought about that meteorologist name before... you would THINK that this guy would have known about it... but he didn't. All in all it was a cool event, even IF Mom didn’t want to get in the car and go looking for what had landed. In the end I suppose that it was another of those events that got me interested in the whole concept of outer space.

For the next sighting I was living in Seattle, but the event was not nearly as cool, maybe that was because I was an angst-filled teenager… few things are very cool when you are an angst-filled teenager. I was walking home from the school bus on one of those stereotypical cloudy/rainy/crappy Seattle days when a green sphere came out of the clouds and streaked across the sky eventually disappearing into the trees. Actually it seemed a bit anticlimactic and I almost forgot it until the night of our latest event.

In the early 90’s it happened again, this time in Wichita. An ex (D.) and I were driving through downtown (yeah, right… Wichita DOES have a downtown) as both of us were drawn to a rapidly falling sun-sized yellow ball of light. It was only visible for a split second in-between the buildings as the truck moved down the street. Unlike my other sightings, it was a bright, sunny day… but we knew immediately that there was no way we were looking at the sun or a reflection of the sun simply by its relation to where we were. Later that night our favorite meteorologist (Merryl Teller – miss ya man) discussed what we saw and let us know that it landed somewhere in Oklahoma… WOW! It looked like it was falling INSIDE the city limits! It was HUGE!

All the time I lived in the wide open spaces in Kansas, that one time was the only sighting of the BIG version. Of course we would go lie in the pickup bed and watch the Perseid Meteor Shower, but while these are fascinating because there are so many of them… they are small, white and you KNOW they are FAR away. The perceived closeness of these others is what makes them so cool.

When I think of where these pieces of space litter came from… possibly broken off of a comet, something from the asteroid belt, or maybe from an exploded planet… I am simply awe-struck. Think of it, what N. and I saw last Friday night could be from the other side of The Milky Way, or even from a completely different galaxy.

Statetris - A Cool Online Geography Challenge

OK, so I suck...
On Easy, I got 6:30

Statetris

What is your score?

Cool Harry Potter DH Parody!

OMG!
Ya gotta read this funky parody of the Potter book!

It's all LOLCATS and lots of pop culture...
"Aberforth: (...) Where is Dobby anyway?
Ron: You shouldn't've sent him out with a red shirt on."

I had a lot of trouble reading it at work without breaking out laughing... um, yeah... I'm workin' boss...

Harry Potter - The Deathly Hallows ... Warnin' dar B Spoilers!

Well I did it. I read the book in one weekend. Although I had feared that I wouldn't be able to do it, and my friends would all get there before I did… BUT!

I really already had the book coming to me; two months earlier I was excited enough to pre-order the adult version of the book. I was thrilled to be getting it, but not clever enough to do any real thinking about getting it.

On the Friday before I got an e-mail that said they were shipping out my book and that I should get it on Saturday… YEA! I'll get it on SATURDAY!! SATURDAY! My elation started to deflate when I continued reading and realized that as I have done for all other books, I had given my work address as a delivery address. SHIT, I won't be there; no one will be there… I'm not even sure the post office delivers to the building on that day… I won't get my book until Monday… Monday… and everyone I know will have already read it!

Forget that! I'm going to go stand in line and get it like the gazillion other PotterFreaks!

I bought the Harry Potter book in the middle of the night on Friday. A colleague and I had decided to get together at a book store which was going to sell the book from 1am to 2am on Saturday morning.

So N and I straggled out to the car at 12:15. She had decided that she was tired, and was being super nice to me about this whole deal, so I would get to drive. For those that know me, it will seem strange to read that I don't drive very often, but I really don't. I'm only behind the wheel about once every quarter year. Needless to say, as we embarked on our experience, not only was I excited about Harry… but I was also a bit nervous about driving.

Both my books are the British version; the prices printed inside are in pounds. The adult book has different images. On the front is the locket which tempted Ron before destruction and the back is a pic of J.K. Rowling herself. The binding itself is of medium quality, but most certainly better than the plastic backing on the children's version. The animation on the children's version is enough to stir the imagination. It took me a few hours before I realized that Ron was not holding the sword of Gryffindor, but a house elf or goblin was holding it over Harry's head.

Spoilers Below!





Be careful, here we have some spoilers…

I tore through the book at top speed… trying to get done before the weekend would end… so I would like to go back and clarify some points… but here are some thoughts on the thing.

Finally, except for that whole "wandering through the countryside for a year in a tent" thing… and the whole whiny Ron arc... the pacing is superb… back to the fast-paced drama that kept me enthralled in book four.

I was surprised to see so many of the "good guys" using Unforgivable Curses. I thought that was WRONG!?!

"You know, sometimes I think we Sort too soon..."
It's the best line in the book… and really means something. In this last book we see it so glaringly. A Slytherin with lots of bravery, a Gryffindor who was the most cunning… it shows that we all grow and become more than we were as we were young.

How sad about Hedwig. I think I was more broken up about Hedwig than I was about MadEye.

I felt deep down that there HAD to be some reason that Dumbledore trusted Snape so deeply… and really I had a suspicion about the Lily thing because it had been discussed in an earlier book… he always said she was so good at potions, yadda yadda… but I never knew the depth… and would NEVER have suspected that deep down Snape ended up loving Harry.

Now we know why Aunt Petunia was sooooo pissy, she was jealous of her sister.

And hey, Ginny has been a good fighter for the Order… why keep her out of the fun on the last, big fight?

Way to go Neville! He had character; we all knew it early on when he stood up to Harry, Hermione, and Ron when they were going out after hours against the rules… aw man, what book was that…? Had to be an early one. He ended up getting house points for doing it… and they won the house cup because of it… and getting turned to stone to boot.

Overall I think that JKR did an admirable job of tying up lots and lots of loose ends, and in such a way that the entire book didn't come off as a bunch of strings tied together for a convenient ending. BUT, I do think the whole thing comes off as a screen play… AND I think that J.K. realizes that the guy playing Ron isn't multi-faceted, and we are seeing her change the stories accordingly, not giving him so much to have to work with.

The Great Mosquito War

It is summer in Berlin… again. For about half of June and the first week or so of July, Berlin was experiencing this horrible November-type weather… cold, windy, rainy… pretty shitty, actually.

But last weekend, the clouds parted and brought forth sun! LOTS of sun, and lots of heat. It was 37c (98F) on the Saturday, and even hotter on Sunday.

All that crappy rain mixed with the increased temperatures has meant that the mosquitoes have had a breeding frenzy. Every night I am awakened by the singularly annoying buzzing sounds of the little bloodsuckers.

Therein lays the problem for me. I can put up with a lot of irritating things… bugs, flies, even the occasional snake… but things that want my BLOOD… This is where I lose it.

Making it even harder is the NOISE that makes it so hard to sleep through. There I am sleeping peacefully and in the back of my consciousness comes this far away buzzing sound. My brain categorizes it… not as a mosquito, but as one of those wretched beastly flying blood-sucking things.

Then the buzzing sound gets closer and closer and the pitch raises higher and higher. It's almost as though he sees his target and he gets more excited with each raise in pitch. Also the sound isn't controlled, it's not like the Doppler Effect where it gets closer and closer at the same speed, eventually passing you and getting further and further away… NO, these despicable creatures seem to be little flying drunks or something… the pitch gets higher, then lower, then higher again until he is very close to your ear… then lower again as it moves away, eventually coming back again because of course your face is the best natural target.

So now he knows you're there… and you know he's there… what do you do about it? The odds of actually smashing them between your hands in a darkened room while in a sleepy stupor must be astronomical… so that doesn't make any sense. But of course you must do something…

At one time I would find myself waiting until the little drunk bastard seemed to be at his closest to my ear… then I would quickly bring my hand up and slap myself (uh huh, you got it… smart eh? … give me some credit, I AM half asleep), hoping that somehow I would have caught the greedy bloodsucker in that slap and killed it … DEAD. It really doesn't take too long for the realization to sink in that this is not a very reasonable thing to do.

So now when I hear the flying bastards coming close in their strangely drunken way… I consider the slap process and vaguely remember that the stinging of my face just isn't worth all the trouble. What is left to do but wildly flail my arms about… (totally like a girl!!) each arm going in a different direction, hoping to discourage the obnoxious creature or at least cause enough wind from the movement that they are blown away.

The main problem is that all of this ridiculous movement isn't really as effective as I would hope… it seems that one of the bastards figured out last night what was getting him blown about the bedroom and decided to exact his revenge… on my hand (see below). This morning I awoke to two aggravating bites on the same hand. These compliment rather nicely the five new bites I have on my legs, and the new bite on my other arm.

I don't think I'm winning this war... Honey, where is that mosquito net we got for the Maldives? Do we have any more of that deet?

30 Random Ways to a Happier Life

Go read Shane Nickerson's 30 random ways to a happier life.

2. Let go of your need to make all the choices all of the time. Other people have better ones sometimes.

10. Love what you love. Don't trick yourself or others.

13. Stop imagining that people are saying things about you. They're mostly just worried about themselves.

15. Learn to play D&D. If you're already laughing this one off, learn it immediately.

25. Treat yourself to nice underwear. Life is too short.

He's right, you know. Life is too short, and by the time you realize just how true that is, by the time you can really feel what that means, you've usually got a lot of it behind you. Luckily, you also have a lot in front of you.

Keith Olbermann: Bush and Cheney Should Resign

I voted for Gore in 2000, and watched with some distaste as Shrub was declared the early winner in the electoral college as Florida seemingly flip-flopped at the last minute. I didn't know much about the man, but the few things I had heard about him, mostly from co-workers and friends, were all negative.

I tried to suck it up, and much like Wayne said to myself "Ok, well he's President now so I hope he does a good job." My hopes were soon dashed after that fateful presidential address in which he declared that no federal funding would be given to stem cell research, as I just couldn't fathom such a short-sighted decision.

Then there was 9/11. And I, like many people, got behind him and said I would do what I could to help out our country and the families that had lost a loved one. But again, he let me down.

He told us to continue shopping, and don't give in our way of life to the terrorists. And then he and his cronies came up with reason after reason for the American people to become filled with fear... more fear than the terrorists could even instill.

Then he waged war in Afghanistan, which I kind of was behind, but not 100%. OK, so we're going after the "bad guys". I understood that we were not in a standard war where our enemies all lived behind the same country's border... they are all over the world. BUT, if the training camps are in Afghanistan, let's go there and break them up.

Then there was Iraq. By this time I was stupefied. But to speak out AGAINST the war was unpatriotic! How could I possibly support our troops, yet be against the thought of the war?

But most horrifying of all was when they tallied the votes in 2004 and he was declared the winner in the presidential election yet again. I couldn't believe it. I thought I had entered the twilight zone. How did this man get elected a second time?

Three years later and many, many missteps by him and his administration and we have ourselves our present day situation. I am saddened every day knowing that another few soldiers will be blown up in Iraq, another few young mothers will become widows, another 10-50 innocent Iraqis, some children, will be blown to bits, or tortured, or raped. I am saddened by all the good honest people in America who can no longer make ends meet thanks to the fiscal policies of this corrupt administration. I am saddened by the military corporations profiting from the death and destruction by the US military. I am saddened by the destruction of our planet and the disappearance of thousands of species of wildlife.

I no longer recognize this man as our leader, and I will state that for the record.


Text from video - although the video is awesome!

"I didn't vote for him," an American once said, "But he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

That -- on the 4th of July -- is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away in commuting the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The man who said those 17 words -- improbably enough -- was the actor John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he learned of the hair's-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.

"I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier, but there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne's voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgment that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.

We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president's partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world -- but merely that we may function.

But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an implicit trust -- a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

Our generation's willingness to state "we didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a good job," was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most.

And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us.

We enveloped our President in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected -- indeed those who did not believe he had been elected -- willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice; did so despite what James Madison -- at the Constitutional Convention -- said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes "advised by" that president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish -- the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of "a permanent Republican majority," as if such a thing -- or a permanent Democratic majority -- is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain into a massive oil spill.

The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.

The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice, this President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously.

"Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people."

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.

And in one night, Nixon transformed it.

Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law of insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood - that he was the law.

Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the Courts. Just him.

Just -- Mr. Bush -- as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee" of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.

But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush -- and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal -- the average citizen understands that, Sir.

It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one -- and it stinks. And they know it.

Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.

It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to "base," but to country, echoes loudly into history. Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.

But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them -- or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them -- we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time -- and our leaders in Congress, of both parties -- must now live up to those standards which echo through our history: Pressure, negotiate, impeach -- get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.

For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

And give us someone -- anyone -- about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

Quoting Success

"You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion."
— Eric S. Raymond

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."
— George Bernard Shaw

"If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours."
— Ray Kroc — Founder McDonalds Corp.

"You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it."
— Oprah Winfrey

"To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy."
— Bette Davis

"My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil."
— John Paul Getty

"If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability."
— Henry Ford

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give."
— William A. Ward

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however."
— Richard Bach

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
— Woody Allen

"Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success."
— Dr. Joyce Brothers

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that."
— Norman Vincent Peale

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, 'Press on,' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
— Calvin Coolidge

High Tide Heels

I want the BLUE ones!!
They will SOOOO match my Chanel 6mm semi-dry scuba suit!

Science Versus Faith

Happy 4th! Some of the Spirit!

This is SO COOL!
Dan Dunn paints a full painting in 2 1/2 minutes!
Thanks Kate!


Awesome Stevie Ray in the beginning and to all of the kids out there...
That is Jimi Hendrix playing the "Star Spangled Banner" in the background...
Nobody does it better.

New Words & Terms for the 21st Century

"New Words & Terms for the 21st Century"

Blame storming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Ego Surfing: Scanning the Net, databases, print media and so on, looking for references to one's own name.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

GOOD Job: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Beepilepsy: The brief seizure people sometimes have when their mobile phone or Blackberry goes off (especially in vibrator mode). Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions and interruption of speech in mid-sentence.

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

SITCOMS: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Animal and Rita Moreno... Fever!

Does Mayan Calendar Predict 2012 Apocalypse?

*** Plan to see a lot more of this as the date approaches. ***
*** Should we be scared, or should we laugh? ***
*** Do you think the Maya were just tired of extending the calendar out, and just decided to end it on this date? ***
*** Taken from USA TODAY ***

Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse?

THE YEAR FOR BOOKS

Current and coming books on 2012:

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck (Penguin/Tarcher, May 2006)

2013 Oracle: Ancient Keys to the 2012 Awakening by David Carson & Nina Sammons (Council Oaks, November 2006)

Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End by Lawrence Joseph (Random House/Morgan Road, January 2007)

The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation by Andrew Smith (Ford Evans, January 2007)

Serpent of Light by Drunvalo Melchizedek (Red Wheel/Weiser, Autumn 2007)
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Special to USA TODAY


With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date that ancient Mayan societies were anticipating thousands of years ago.

Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. A fourth is due this fall. Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May and counts more than 40,000 in print. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya, fueled in part by Mel Gibson's December 2006 film about Mayan civilization, Apocalpyto.

Authors disagree about what humankind should expect on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era.

Journalist Lawrence Joseph forecasts widespread catastrophe in Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End. Spiritual healer Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a "true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine" in The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation. In 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck anticipates a "change in the nature of consciousness," assisted by indigenous insights and psychedelic drug use.

The buildup to 2012 echoes excitement and fear expressed on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K, though on a smaller scale, says Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly. She says publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom.

"The convergence I see here is the apocalyptic expectations, if you will, along with the fact that the environment is in the front of many people's minds these days," Garrett says. "Part of the appeal of these earth religions is that notion that we need to reconnect with the Earth in order to save ourselves."

But scholars are bristling at attempts to link the ancient Maya with trends in contemporary spirituality. Maya civilization, known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, flourished for centuries in Mesoamerica, especially between A.D. 300 and 900. Its Long Count calendar, which was discontinued under Spanish colonization, tracks more than 5,000 years, then resets at year zero.

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."

Part of the 2012 mystique stems from the stars. On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that "whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time," Joseph writes.

But scholars doubt the ancient Maya extrapolated great meaning from anticipating the alignment — if they were even aware of what the configuration would be.

Astronomers generally agree that "it would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that," says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What's more, she says, "we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point."

University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes "from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own."

**** THIS WAS TAKEN FROM THE "WICHITA NEWSBRIEF". ****

I just read a report on the Mayan Calendar that used scientific facts and studies to support the belief that it predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012. The Mayan Calendar is actually three calendars that enter lock with one another; the religious calendar, the solar calendar and the long count calendar. The most significant segment of the calendar is the Long Count. As it turns out the date the long count ends is significant in several ways. This is the short version of what the report had to say. First it is the day the next active solar cycle peaks, Saturn and Jupiter align on the same side of the sun. The massive flare that hit the North American continent in 1989 that caused massive power outages in the US and Canada may have been the result of just such an alignment of large planets. The second important fact that will occur on 12/21/12 is something I was shocked to learn. Earth and our solar system did not originate in the Milky Way. Our solar system is actually part of the dwarf galaxy Sagittarius that is being gobbled up by the Milky Way. The existence of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy was not discovered until 1994. The significance of this is that we are not on the same gravitational plain as the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy but on an elliptical orbit that takes us over and under the plain of the Milky Way; the exact same elliptical orbit as the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy has around the Milky Way Galaxy. Right now we are on the upper side of the gravitational plan on our way to the bottom side. On 12/21/12 our solar system will feel the maximum gravitational force of the Milky Way Galaxy because that is the day we will be in perfect alignment with its gravitational plain. Our approach to the gravitational plain of the Milky Way with its increasing gravitational influences may explain why we have just gone through an abnormally active solar cycle and even though we are in the less active period of the cycle we are still seeing higher than normal activity. The clincher is the third alignment that will occur on that ominous date. The Milky Way Galaxy will also experience an alignment as it passes through the gravitational plain of the Universe on 12/21/12. You can take it anyway you like, but it would appear that the Mayans may have had a very good reason for ending their calendar on December 21, 2012. For the religious out there correct me if I am wrong, but didn't your God say He would not destroy the earth again by floods but the next time He would destroy it by fire and brimstone?