Month: December 2012

The world is going to end in seven days. How do we know? Because, in 1966, a rather dubious American anthropologist, Michael Coe, stated in one of his sensationalist publications:

“…there is a suggestion … that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b’ak’tun]. Thus … our present universe [would] be annihilated [in December 2012]…”

In fact, Coe’s date was December 24th, though he later revised it to January 11th 2013. December 21st wasn’t settled on until the 1980s, by another rather dubious ‘Mayan expert’.

No-one, apparently, stops to consider that the writers of the Mayan calendar had to end it somewhere. It couldn’t go on forever. They’d already been working on it for centuries. They were tired, and wanted to go home to their wives and children. Presumably, 2012 was so far in the future there seemed little point in continuing further. After all, they’d all be dead, their children would all be dead, and their children’s children’s children’s children would all be dead, long before 2012.

“I say we end it at the 13th b’ak’tun, Itzananohk’u. What do you say?”

I’m with you, Kukulcan. I’m pissed off with it all anyway. Fuck it, let’s go home.”

The Mayans had some sense. Which is more than can be said for ten percent of the planet’s population today who firmly believe the world will end in one week’s time. (Twelve percent in the United States, but that’s to be expected).

Of course, the same thing happened as the millennium approached. Half the earth’s populace climbed up mountains waiting for Jesus, or Mohammed, or any one of the three hundred and thirty million Hindu gods, to come abseiling down from the heavens while the rest of us just got quietly drunk and thanked all the deities for arranging Armageddon at a weekend, so we didn’t have to go back to work the next day with hangovers.

According to the US media the economy’s doing really well at the moment, with retail sales setting records in the lead up to Christmas. It rather begs the question, if Americans believe the world will end on December 21st, why are they buying all this stuff?

Do they really believe they can take it with them?

See you all on December 22nd.

“We’re going to have to come together to meaningful action on this, regardless of the politics…” ~ President Barack Obama, following the shootings this morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“There is, I am sure — will be, rather — a day for discussion of the usual Washington [gun control] policy debates, but I do not think today is that day.” ~ White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Another twenty dead.

In a country where the government considers it acceptable to hand out deadly firearms to all and sundry, regardless of age or mental fitness, where schoolchildren are regularly and frequently slaughtered by weapons that have no right to be anywhere in peacetime but under the stout lock and key of a military armory, is there any better day than today to debate the horrendous consequences of unregulated gun ownership in this country?

If I were the parent of one of those dead kids tonight, Mister Carney…I would vehemently disagree with you.

I’ve been an alien for ten years. Ever since I came to America. I used to hate the description, found it demeaning. Now, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

The lack of posting on Sparrow Chat of late has been due partly to pressure of responsibilities elsewhere, but mainly out of frustration -and, it has to be admitted, a degree of disgust – at the apathy of a generation (both American and British) that seems hellbent on personal financial self advancement at the expense of its fellow human beings. The “Fuck you, I’m alright, Jack,” generation is alive and well and living it up while others are homeless, existing in their cars (unheard of ’till I came to America), or blowing their (or others) brains out from desperation of their plight.

While the British do, at least, have a modicum of non-propaganda news in the form of the BBC, which perhaps gives them less of an excuse for this self-centered, grab-it-all, mentality, than the Americans whose media perpetuates the ‘American Dream’ myth 24/7, neither can take pride in being the first generation to leave full-time education with the sole ambition of making pots of money for themselves. Gone are the youthful dreams: “making the world a better place”, “joining the Peace Corps”, or “helping those less well off than myself”. Now, they just stab each other in the back for the prime jobs at Goldman Sachs or J.P.Morgan.

On the subject of American media, one has to marvel at a major news outlet, ABC, on its flagship World News show tonight, sparing valuable program time – amid the crisis in Syria, the Egyptian riots, US universities dropping to 14th in international rankings, all of which it failed to cover – to a precocious eight year old girl getting nipped on the hand by a dolphin at SeaWorld. America waited breathlessly through all the adverts to hear “what the parents had to say about it.”

Don’t bother with the expense of flying a reporter out to the Democratic Republic of Congo to interview the parents of the latest atrocity victim, raped and beheaded by rebel soldiers while the Chinese pillage the country of all its vast mineral wealth to make fucking Ipads for the indolent youth of Britain and America. That same indolent youth isn’t interested in “what the parents of that child had to say about it.” No, they’d rather have some cozy little home-spun yarn involving an all-American sweetie and an overly playful dolphin.

ABC obliged.

And, while we’re at it, the whole western world is simply agog to know where the hell David ‘bore the pants off me’ Beckham is off to next. Is it Monaco, or isn’t it? Will he be having a piss in the next ten minutes? Does he fart while making love to that skinny bint he married?

These are all questions of inexplicable importance to the populace of Western nations. Did you know Lindsay Lohen’s been arrested again today for slapping a woman in a nightclub? I couldn’t bloody well care less if she drops her knickers and shows her arse in Walmart’s window.

What’s the matter with people today? Why do they shut out the important happenings in the world, in favor of the trivial and absurd?

Yesterday, some NFL player shot his girlfriend dead. Then, he drove to the football ground and killed himself. This criminal act resulted in the orphaning of a three month old baby. The media treats him as some sort of fallen hero. Three minutes silence before the football game commenced today in honor of this man. He was a murderer, for God’s sake! He shot and killed another human being in cold blood. Yet, we’re told by the media, “it’s a tragedy” and we have to feel sorry for him. No-one suggested we should feel sympathy and compassion for campus killers, or the guy who shot up the cinema in Colorado recently. But then, they weren’t aspiring football stars.

You know, he can be forgiven for leaving his three month old daughter parentless, but had he persuaded his girlfriend to have an abortion six months ago, they’d probably have lynched him.

I’m so glad I’m not a member of the human race.