Greetings and Salutations Mutants! I would have posted earlier but I’ve been busy cleaning up after the holidays and organizing the lab. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to remove that much body fat from a drainpipe, and while we’re on the subject of body fat it might be nice if some of you would take it easy on the Twinkies will you, sheesh!
So how are all of you? Eat any good people over the holidays? We didn’t do much around here for New Year’s, just kept an eye out for the few drunks or salesmen that were stupid enough to be lost in our neighborhood. When the town fathers say they don’t appreciate vagrants they aren’t kidding. That reminds me; I really need to thank the sheriff for that visit last night. I was short some necessary, um… parts.
So, that out of the way we can stop sweating the supplies and get back to work. One of your fellow readers sent me two questions that I’d like to address. The first question is: What would you most like to see happen in 2009?
I honestly don’t know for sure what I’d want to see specifically for 2009, I just have a few vague ideas:
I’d like to see a drastic deconstruction of the Patriot Act of course, that goes without saying. There is just so much wrong and unnecessary about that festering gob of legislative effluent that I’d rather not bore you all with the details, but do I look like the type of creature that likes being watched? Not to mention the possible lawsuits if someone listening in on one of my calls has a coronary. I swear you humans have no stomach at all for science. Hell, the last time I called that farmer in the Ozarks I thought I’d have the CDC on me. I wouldn’t mind the partial or preferably the total dismantling of the Dept. of Homeland Security, but we know that money pit of a spook show is here for the duration. Washington loves it’s cash cows. Another thing I’d like to see is a nice, legal hunting season (or at least a single, special open season) on some of life’s more noisome creatures; the ones that are truly a pox on the peoples of the world, human and otherwise… like investment bankers and televangelists.
The next question is:
What do you think is going to happen on 21 December, 2012?
My personal feeling on the matter, along with a heartfelt apology to conspiracy fans in my readership, is that I don’t believe anything is going to happen. The Mayans, if most bonafide research is to be taken at face value, never said the world would end when The Long Count ended. In fact, they never said anything at all. It just so happens that the calender reaches the end of its cycle. The calender itself is identical in function to the other Mayan calenders (different calenders for different purposes) and it should be obvious to even the untrained eye that as the others begin a new cycle after the count resets than so should the Long Count. Conspiracy fans believe the cycle reset signals the end of the world simply because the calendar itself covers such a long a period of time.
They assume the Mayans intended the calender to encompass the entire span of human existence when this is never stated or implied. So sadly I have to conclude that no, those skulls aren’t going to save the world, they’re not going to get the Greys to pick some other planet to use as a tennis ball, and they won’t save you big bucks at your next tax audit. They just won’t.
Part of me wants to slap a bitch on the hand for using a recycled apocalypse theory, but then I remember that all of them are recycled. Don’t think so? Think about this: from a very basic POV, this doomsday scenario is identical to Y2K where it really counts. The clock winds down with a buttload of fanfare and when it reaches the reset point… POW, RIGHT IN THE SOCIETAL NUTSACK! Yep, sounds like a rerun to me. I don’t think I’ve seen an original doomsday scenario in at least three millenia. To review, the Mayans made no obvious allusion to an apocalypse at the end of the Long Count (or as a friend referred to it: the Alpaca Lips. *G*) at all. As far as I can see, they just didn’t plot the next cycle.
The beginning of the new cycle would have been almost a thousand years in the future from even the time of the last major Mayan settlement. Would you have bothered?
But I’d like to assure all the little paranoids, conspiracy fans, mutants, and of course the few sane readers I have that just because I think nothing will happen doesn’t mean I don’t want it to happen. Are you kidding me? I could really use a good apocalypse myself. Hell, Pompeii was a blast, or a blast furnace at the very least… sorry about that horrid little pun, I got all excited there for a moment. That kind of talk gets me moist, no mean feat when you’re dry as dust on most days. Let’s just say that I really enjoy the panic, paranoia and bloodshed that occurs before a predicted disaster and on those oh so rare
occasions that said disaster actually occurs I can usually look forward to lots of fun in the weeks, months, years, whatever that follow it. You say dark age… I say amusement park. It’s all semantics.
So long for now, and remember ladies: The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his ribcage. I recommend using a good broad axe.
