Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Thursday, December 20, 2012

The End of the World and Other Trivial Issues

Might be my last post.

I see that per the Mayans the world ends December 21. Time to load up that credit card, and eat all those high cholesterol snacks in the fridge. If I am heading into the apocalypse, might as well do it with a bowl of pork rinds, a sizzling rib eye, and a baked potato with all the trimmings.

It goes without saying, of course, that we should heed the Mayans because they have such a successful, thriving culture that has contributed so much to our modern world. They wrote the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights; were the first on the moon; wrote magnificent symphonies; cured rabies and polio; discovered penicillin; invented the printing press, the airplane, the helicopter, the telephone, the camera, the computer, the Popeil pocket fisherman, and, of course, the internet, and . . . oh, wait, maybe I have them confused with somebody else. But that doesn't matter, aren't all cultures equal? Isn't that what our dopey students get taught by their dopey professors? Can people with COLLEGE DEGREES be wrong about the worth of Mayan culture? Cannot be, cannot be . . ..

Let's give this to the Mayans. They might not have nailed the exact date for the end of the world, but weren't too far off on the date for the end of our world, you know, that quaint old world in which individual freedom, responsibility, and initiative were prized and exalted. I'd say that date was, more or less, November 6. A Tuesday, I believe. That was the date that the greatest country that has ever existed made it official: it no longer wanted to be great. It preferred to live in a world of illusion, governed by crooks, liars, mountebanks, and hustlers. In other words, the spirit of Chicago City Hall defeated that of Faneuil Hall.

It is about to start raining, but, so what? My gas grill will still fire up those steaks . . . might light a cigar, too. I am even thinking of driving around the neighborhood without wearing my seatbelt, and my shoe laces undone, while playing with a pair of scissors, and texting. A certain freedom comes with the end.

34 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I hope you and we are all still laughing tomorrow . . . .

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  2. If you talk to real live Mayans (their descendants, anyway) this isn't where the world ends; It's where the calendar rolls over and starts a new cycle.

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    1. Yes, but that's not as much fun as the end of the world.

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  3. A bunch of us are getting together later to run with scissors and play with BB guns. We're also going to rip the tags off of all the mattresses we can find.

    Then we'll turn all the lights on in the house and leave all the doors open because "Yes, we do want to heat the outside".

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    1. Tear the tags off the mattresses. . . I always wanted to do that. Dare I be so bold?

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    2. I dunno...taking those tags off. That's going a step too far, even in the context of an apocalypse. Somebody would find out, I just know it!

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  4. Well, as a "fundamentalist" Christian, I note that Jesus said that only God the Father knows the day the world ends (or anything future, for that matter)--Matthew 24:36. This is why I feel quite certain that the world will not end on 12/21/12.

    Also, I agree wholeheartedly that OBAMA means One-Big-@$$-Mistake,-America.

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    1. Yes, I whole heartedly agree, only the Lord knows the day and the hour. We (mankind) consistantly give ourselves much more credit than we deserve - pride of life, etc. Concerning Obama; this saddens me but in the context of Biblical understanding a constant note is heard concerning man's earlhly leadership....the end result is that perhaps America is receiving the leadership the Lord desires.

      "The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. "The LORD makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts. (1 Samuel 2:6-7)

      For not from the east, nor from the west, Nor from the desert comes exaltation; But God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another. (Psalms 75:6-7)

      The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes. Every man's way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts. (Proverbs 21:1-2)

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    2. Thank you for the great scriptures. I was and still am interested in Egyptian mythology. In it there was a weighing of the deceased's heart after death. If it weighed more than a feather on the balance scale then the person did not merit a trip to their afterlife "good" place and that wicked heart summarily was eaten by a demon. What is it that makes so many today think they won't be accountable to anyone, EVER, let alone, to our Creator?

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    3. Because in their minds they have become their own gods and they don't want to be accountable to God for their actions. We live in a time in which there is no absolute truth and contradictory beliefs systems are held to be equal and the same. And those are just the people in the church unfortunately. Granted that is a broad sweeping generalization but by and large except for a remnant, generally held to be "bigots and out of touch", it is true. People can't handle the truth or don't want to handle the truth because it doesn't fit their narrative.

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    4. Truth, and accepting something as 'Truth', implies personal responsibility and response. Hence, 'Fast & Furious' gunrunning, Libyan gunrunning, Syrian gunrunning and the Benghazi murders will never be solved by the Obama Administration. Like in the mundane, so in the spiritual - 'Truth' demands a response.

      Most people don't even mention it any longer, but after 9/11 2001 America went to war - first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. Were our enemies ever openly acknowledged? 'Terrorists' were as close as George Bush came. The truth of Islamic Jihadi troops are America's enemies have never been proclaimed.

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    5. Uh-oh. Did I reveal a hidden theological seminary out there?

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  5. Did anybody else see the TV special n this a few months ago-! Discovery or NatGeo? They interviewed an archeologist working with the original Mayan stone tablets with the calendars engraved. The last third or so of the'last' tablet had been broken and the fragment has not been found. Guess where the break was.... wait for it.... 12/21/2012. Gallic shrug. Much ado about nothing.

    But go ahead and rip those mattress tags. Live a little bit. I may even drive my 7yo to the school bus stop... without a car seat!! Bwahahahaha.

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  6. I don't know. Oreo's kind of look like little Mayan calenders and I saw where the Oreo said "just eat the center and don't worry about it. It's going to be all right.

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    1. Must . . . Get . . . Oreos . . . before . . . it's . . . too . . . late ..................

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    2. Who knew little cookies could save mankind?

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    3. Does anyone remember in the movie Zombieland where Twinkies became as rare as hen's teeth?

      I heard it was Mayans who produced that prophetic film.

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  7. Hey, the Mayans invented chocolate! At least that's what an NPR program said today... Gonna sleep with my hoodie on tonight though.

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    1. Whether it was the Mayans or the Olmecs or whoever who first domesticated the cacao plant, I don't know, but it is a Central American plant, and our word for it comes from Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs).

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  8. Mayans, schmayans what a bunch of malarkey(sorry Joe), how could rational people believe this. Everyone knows that the Ibos' of the sacred acacia tree predict 2013 as the drop dead date. Hrrrump sirs!

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  9. Ahhhhh, the Mayan legacy.......How many liberals will be wearing their sacred condom hats today? Thanks for a great laugh, Diplomad. I really enjoyed your post. Especially those untied shoe laces, scissors and texting while driving. You are the best!!

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    1. Heheheh. The cultural relativism nonsense is one of the reasons I fled wackademia after finishing my MA/PhD. Seems military/diplomatic history is trivial compared to gender hermeneutics (whatever that is).

      My advisor said it was a fad...I told her I thought they'd end up in charge of the asylum. Unfortunately, I turned out to be correct.

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  10. paul vincent zecchinoDecember 21, 2012 at 10:16 AM

    Ripping tags of the rest of the weekend.

    My wife and I laugh regularly over the sheer terror we as kids experienced during the 50s/early 60s, whenever some 'tag' started to fray away from a mattress or stuffed toy.

    "Warning, Federal Law Prohibits...Penalties...severe...drawing & quartering...evisceration...transportation for life...family disgrace...trial by fire...dunked as a witch...burned as a warlock...public shaming...death...screams shattering the peace of night...wild animals ripping your flesh...dogs & cattle prods...flogging..." Horrible.

    I mean it, we as kids lived in fear that if we had some toy with the tag half-off, 'the policeman would come take us away' as adults sternly warned.

    By the bye, didn't the Mayans also develop the color TV, the Mars lander, and CB Radios? Or was that the soviets?



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  11. Hey, WAIT A MINUTE!

    I spent all my retirement and ran up my credit cards to their limits!

    Does this mean i'll have to pay them off now?

    SHEEEESH...

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  12. Well that was a scary headline to see upon opening the page.

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  13. You remind me of this: A man (or civilization) that that can forsee a near death ceases to have a rational self-interest. This has important implications.

    Not my own. It's from David Goldman, "How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too)", Regnery, 2011.

    ... which if you haven't read it, Mr. Diplomad 2.0, I think you might want to ... and if you have, I would like to read your comments on it.

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  14. BTW, it sure was nice having a Constitution, wasn't it?

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    1. The Constitution can still be resuscitated, all it takes is a few old men dying of cancer with the appropriate skill set.

      But why even try to bring it back to life? The sheep seem happy (right now) being the kept flock of the liberal tyranny. Fact is, the sheep are even demanding that the gate to the sheepfold be closed. Convenient, to have the slaves demand shackles.

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  15. Great post, DiploMad. Speaking as an anthropologist, I figured that those Maya schmucks just ran out of space on that big tablet. ;)

    But you and those here have brought to mind my initial thoughts on the Great Prediction... that for great predictors, they had really bad luck predicting what the Spaniards were going to do... The Maya calendar is a mathematical wonder, but a prognosticating zero. Like any other calendar. ;)

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  16. BTW, the post above was me, Mamapajamas. :D

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