The Mayan Calendar. Where it all begins, er, ends.
Since the end of the world is less than eleven months away, I thought I’d offer you, dear readers, a little background on the Maya, especially since it’s their calendar that says we’re all doomed. The Maya were a Mesoamerican civilization that enjoyed mass human sacrifice, genital mutilation, a planned economy, totalitarianism, a corrupt ruling class, a virulently intolerant political pseudo-religion, and sloped foreheads. Actually they differ very little from modern liberals. Despite the fact that their ruling class was enabled and encouraged by a very sympathetic entertainment-media complex and controlled almost every aspect of Mayan culture (from the legal professions, journalism, and academia to music, satellite television, and the internet), their society nonetheless collapsed due to a lack of green jobs and an ineptly run anti-obesity campaign that had its genesis in a crusade against trans-fats but ended up banning all their food.
Oh well. At least they left us their calendar! Modern New Agers and liberals looking for something – anything – to believe in after being so bitterly disappointed by yet another Messianic Socialist who seduced them with stupid slogans find the Mayan calendar’s immutable guarantee of cosmic doom to be refreshing. Especially after enduring four anxious – and ultimately disappointing – years of waiting for Gitmo to close and for the government to redistribute every dime of the “1%’s” cash. However recent archaeological discoveries have caused Mayan experts to re-consider their original theories regarding what the Mayan calendar’s abrupt denouement was really alluding to.
Early in 2011, in the jungles of southern Mexico, a stucco mural revealing an exclusive Barbara Walters’s interview with the great Mayan king Pakal was discovered among the ruins of the majestic city of Palenque. In it, Pakal made numerous references to the “Pakal Rule,” which would raise taxes on the rich, thereby lowering Palenque’s $1.6 trillion budget deficit by .000000000000235121%. Pakal said this was necessary since he paid less in taxes than his secretary. He then made a cryptic reference to Mormons, Saul Alinsky, “The Bain Way,” and borrowing cash from the Chinese Politburo. Following a fawning question from Walters on how his wife’s organic garden was progressing, Pakal stated that despite running Mayan civilization into the ground with confiscatory taxation, PakalCare, and an activist Environmental Protection Agency, it still wasn’t as bad as what would happen to people 1400 years later. The program then cut to a commercial.
Following a mural for a buy-one-get-one-free deal on Maize Nuggets at the ubiquitous fast-food chain McMaya’s, the Pakal interview continued. Unfortunately this section of the stucco was heavily damaged by hackers from WikiLeaks, but researchers believe they were still able to piece together a somewhat coherent narrative in which Pakal, acting as an emissary of the corn god Archer-Daniels-Midland, revealed that – instead of an apocalypse or a “paradigm shift” in universal consciousness – the Mayan calendar predicted that on 21 December 2011, a demonic Ego with big ears would defeat both a robot and a flabby, pasty man with a shock of white hair (whom Pakal alternately referred to as “Camelot” and “Silver Queen”). Following this victory, the Ego would initiate a period of unbridled barbarism by classifying everyone as “the 1%” and sell them as an IPO through Morgan Stanley to Middle Eastern investors. Or something like that. Unfortunately, like deciphering the quatrains of Nostradamus, interpreting Mayan prophecies can prove equally capricious. Recently Mayan researchers have cast a pall of doubt over the accuracy of this scenario as, due to the mural’s damage, they admit it’s unclear whether it was the robot or the Ego who emerged victorious from their clash; however despite this uncertainty, they hastened to add, the ending remained the same.
The Maya
One of the delectable secrets of Mayan civilization is that they invented Mayannaise! Bwahahahahaha! Anyway, follow these links to learn more about the Maya. |
ClickThe Maya
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_2.jpg]The death mask of Pakal, the great lord of Palenque, immortalizes the vigor of his youth with 340 pieces of jade, four pieces of shell, and two pieces of obsidian, most likely arranged on a wooden backing that has since rotted away. Inscriptions record that Pakal spent eight years of his seven-decade reign preparing his lavish burial. When he died, on August 28, A.D. 683, he was laid to rest laden with jade—this mask, a large pendant, earplugs, rings, necklaces, and bracelets—beneath a temple where he would be venerated for generations to come.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_3.jpg]An incense burner’s ornate lid takes the shape of a warrior outfitted in Teotihuacan style, with a butterfly nosepiece and a helmet shaped like a bird—most probably an eagle. Many such objects have come to light near the modern town of Escuintla in southern Guatemala, where Teotihuacanos appear to have settled among the Maya.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_4.jpg]Objects such as this jade vessel crowned by the likeness of a king—Jasaw Chan Kawiil II of Tikal—testify to the Maya’s artistic skills and their far-flung commerce. Luxuries for the elite—including jade, the pelts of exotic animals, and brilliant feathers—were traded throughout the region and into central Mexico.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_5.jpg]Sitting on a stool of bones, an aged god holds a human head in his hands. This spooky ceramic incense burner comes from the early fifth- century tomb of Tikal’s King Yax Nuun Ayiin—son of Spear-thrower Owl, the man who masterminded Teotihuacan’s incursion into Maya territory. When the burner was filled with smoldering incense, smoke issuing from the god’s mouth enveloped the head. The figure may represent a creator god breathing life into a human head.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_6.jpg]The ruins of Tikal, rising from the rain forest of northern Guatemala, still display the grandeur that once awed multitudes. Among the largest of the early city-states, Tikal was likely the first target of a conquering army from central Mexico, which arrived on January 16, A.D. 378. During the next five centuries, it became a superpower with alliances—and enemies—throughout the Maya realm.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_7.jpg]With Polaris as a hub, stars streak through the night in a time exposure of the House of the Magician at Uxmal. Sophisticated sky watchers, the Maya tracked the movements of the stars and planets closely and created an accurate solar-year calendar based on their observations. The heavens also had metaphysical significance for the Maya. They believed the Milky Way was the path to Xibalba, the underworld, and they scheduled momentous events such as battles and sacrifices around the journeys of Venus and perhaps Jupiter.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_8.jpg]Kabáh, in the Yucatán, shares the same ornate architectural style seen at Uxmal, to which it is connected by a sacbe, or stone causeway. Its most famous monument, the Palace of the Masks, displays 260 images of Chac, the long-nosed rain god. Repeated on many buildings in this arid site, this motif was likely meant to summon rain. The snouts could have held offerings of copal, the sacred incense.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_9.jpg]A pyramid called La Iglesia (The Church) soars into the canopy of the rain forest at Cobá, in the Yucatán. Only a fraction of this little-known site’s 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) has been cleared of the tangled cover that overtook all Maya cities, and few visitors arrived until the promise of tourism brought a road in the 1970s. Now day-trippers from resorts on Mexico’s Caribbean coast climb the crumbling ruins, once reserved for priests and kings with godlike powers.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_10.jpg]Played in every city, large or small, the Maya ball game required heavy padding for competitors who hit a heavy rubber ball around a large court using just their upper arms and thighs. Often played with two teams of two or three members, the game was sometimes seen as representing the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planet Venus. It was also a metaphor for a mythical contest involving the maize god and characters known as the Hero Twins. At its most desperate, it became a ritual replaying of war, and matches ended with the beheading of the losers.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_11.jpg]In a terrifying expression of royal power, a stucco mural at Toniná shows a turtle-footed skeleton grabbing the hair of a severed head— with portrait-like features, perhaps of a real person—and a mythical rodent holding another head in a ritual bundle. These characters were the wayob, the affliction-spewing alter egos of kings that were used to curse enemies. They work here amid a scaffold bearing the heads of human sacrifices.
Note: All images property of National Geographic and their respective photographers. Click here to see more amazing images of this once flourishing civilization.
The GOP Establishment.
Whatever.
The Allstate Sugar Bowl
VS
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_1.jpg]A late bloomer in the Maya world, the city of Uxmal in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula continued to flourish in all its splendor after the fall of Tikal, Palenque, and the other great cities to the south in the ninth century. A ruin with ornate roof combs known as the House of the Doves showcases the Puuc architectural style, named for the hills of the northern Yucatán Peninsula.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/1.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_2.jpg]The death mask of Pakal, the great lord of Palenque, immortalizes the vigor of his youth with 340 pieces of jade, four pieces of shell, and two pieces of obsidian, most likely arranged on a wooden backing that has since rotted away. Inscriptions record that Pakal spent eight years of his seven-decade reign preparing his lavish burial. When he died, on August 28, A.D. 683, he was laid to rest laden with jade—this mask, a large pendant, earplugs, rings, necklaces, and bracelets—beneath a temple where he would be venerated for generations to come.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/2.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_3.jpg]An incense burner’s ornate lid takes the shape of a warrior outfitted in Teotihuacan style, with a butterfly nosepiece and a helmet shaped like a bird—most probably an eagle. Many such objects have come to light near the modern town of Escuintla in southern Guatemala, where Teotihuacanos appear to have settled among the Maya.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/3.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_4.jpg]Objects such as this jade vessel crowned by the likeness of a king—Jasaw Chan Kawiil II of Tikal—testify to the Maya’s artistic skills and their far-flung commerce. Luxuries for the elite—including jade, the pelts of exotic animals, and brilliant feathers—were traded throughout the region and into central Mexico.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/4.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_5.jpg]Sitting on a stool of bones, an aged god holds a human head in his hands. This spooky ceramic incense burner comes from the early fifth- century tomb of Tikal’s King Yax Nuun Ayiin—son of Spear-thrower Owl, the man who masterminded Teotihuacan’s incursion into Maya territory. When the burner was filled with smoldering incense, smoke issuing from the god’s mouth enveloped the head. The figure may represent a creator god breathing life into a human head.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/5.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_6.jpg]The ruins of Tikal, rising from the rain forest of northern Guatemala, still display the grandeur that once awed multitudes. Among the largest of the early city-states, Tikal was likely the first target of a conquering army from central Mexico, which arrived on January 16, A.D. 378. During the next five centuries, it became a superpower with alliances—and enemies—throughout the Maya realm.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/6.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_7.jpg]With Polaris as a hub, stars streak through the night in a time exposure of the House of the Magician at Uxmal. Sophisticated sky watchers, the Maya tracked the movements of the stars and planets closely and created an accurate solar-year calendar based on their observations. The heavens also had metaphysical significance for the Maya. They believed the Milky Way was the path to Xibalba, the underworld, and they scheduled momentous events such as battles and sacrifices around the journeys of Venus and perhaps Jupiter.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/7.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_8.jpg]Kabáh, in the Yucatán, shares the same ornate architectural style seen at Uxmal, to which it is connected by a sacbe, or stone causeway. Its most famous monument, the Palace of the Masks, displays 260 images of Chac, the long-nosed rain god. Repeated on many buildings in this arid site, this motif was likely meant to summon rain. The snouts could have held offerings of copal, the sacred incense.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/8.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_9.jpg]A pyramid called La Iglesia (The Church) soars into the canopy of the rain forest at Cobá, in the Yucatán. Only a fraction of this little-known site’s 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) has been cleared of the tangled cover that overtook all Maya cities, and few visitors arrived until the promise of tourism brought a road in the 1970s. Now day-trippers from resorts on Mexico’s Caribbean coast climb the crumbling ruins, once reserved for priests and kings with godlike powers.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/9.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_10.jpg]Played in every city, large or small, the Maya ball game required heavy padding for competitors who hit a heavy rubber ball around a large court using just their upper arms and thighs. Often played with two teams of two or three members, the game was sometimes seen as representing the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planet Venus. It was also a metaphor for a mythical contest involving the maize god and characters known as the Hero Twins. At its most desperate, it became a ritual replaying of war, and matches ended with the beheading of the losers.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/10.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_11.jpg]In a terrifying expression of royal power, a stucco mural at Toniná shows a turtle-footed skeleton grabbing the hair of a severed head— with portrait-like features, perhaps of a real person—and a mythical rodent holding another head in a ritual bundle. These characters were the wayob, the affliction-spewing alter egos of kings that were used to curse enemies. They work here amid a scaffold bearing the heads of human sacrifices.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/11.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6756282821_ab1dba0e81_b.jpg]D - as in Darth](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/6756282821_ab1dba0e81_b.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6767054073_1468cf9181_b.jpg]Towards new beginnings...](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/6767054073_1468cf9181_b.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6776489207_9c7dedcf47_b.jpg]Shy just shy...](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/6776489207_9c7dedcf47_b.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6791503875_3658b58a56_b.jpg]Out on town](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/6791503875_3658b58a56_b.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6802941381_0a8972d2a2_b.jpg]You and me - Together](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/6802941381_0a8972d2a2_b.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_100822-nuked_-d-c.jpg]A post-apocalyptic Washington D.C.](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/100822-nuked_-d-c.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_51-armageddon-evacuation.jpg]The genesis of Armageddon: Nuclear War](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/51-armageddon-evacuation.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse-1.jpg]Earth impacting with Planet X](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/apocalypse-1.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse-moscow.jpg]A post-apocalyptic Moscow](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/apocalypse-moscow.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse-signs.jpg]The surrealness of the apocalypse](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/apocalypse-signs.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse.jpg]The vehicle of destruction: Planet X](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/apocalypse.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_destruction_by_huiyen.jpg]Images of post-apocalyptic destruction](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/destruction_by_huiyen.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_dr-strangelove-1.jpg]Riding the Bomb in Dr. Strangelove](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/dr-strangelove-1.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_nuclear1.jpg]A 1971 file photo of a nuclear bomb detonated at the Mururoa atoll, French Polynesia. (AP Photo)](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/nuclear1.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_post-apocalypse-london.jpg]A post-apocalyptic London](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/post-apocalypse-london.jpg){kind=link}
![[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_ss_boomer_movies_dr-strangelove.jpg]The progenitor of Armageddon: Dr. Strangelove](http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/ss_boomer_movies_dr-strangelove.jpg){kind=link}
Drop that asparagus, Whitey, and walk away…
By the dialectical playa on February 6, 2012
From Five Feet of Fury comes this gem, proving that to liberals EVERYTHING is political. Not content with their choke-hold on journalism, academia, law, government, the institutions of pop-culture, and the GOP, liberals are now mobilizing to assault the sole remaining bastion of good-ole-boy, patriarchal homophobia, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, intolerance, and hate that is “the oppressive food system.”
Yes, you read that right, they’re looking for a “freelance copywriter who can write like Malcolm X speaks.” I guess they’re looking for something like this:
Admittedly the use of this type of hyperbole can be quite effective and – more importantly – inflammatory when, for example, a writer argues that a cook has “engulfed” his/her french onion soup with so many onions that it ceased to be a soup. Though I’m not sure if randomly interjecting “Fuck Whitey!” throughout the copy is necessarily either “groundbreaking” or makes the dish being reviewed any more “sexy and delicious.”
“Writing like Malcolm X speaks” really shines, however, when equating the act of cooking with capitalism and imperialism, since a chef is in essence oppressing and exploiting all the ingredients used in a particular dish for personal financial gain. When Malcolm X said:
the copy writer who can create “powerful, snappy, copy that incites” and who isn’t “afraid to be controversial, polarizing and poetic” could make a similar allusion to the “kidnapped” ducks whose legs and livers were used against their will in the platters of duck confit and foie gras found in five-star restaurants throughout the country.
So since crème brûlée and tiramisu are both too bourgeois and “White” for the leftist intelligentsia and require a copywriter to provide a suitably multiculturalist, post-modern, literary re-interpretation for guilt-free consumption, that leaves more for me.
Posted in Commentary | Tagged black pudding radicals, edible activism, Jacobins against truffles, Malcolm X: Gourmond, the unbearable lightheadedness of liberalism, you're kidding me | Leave a response