A Mayan ceremonial mask worn in “Apocalypto”. Photo courtesy of www.visualhollywood.com

The Trojan Times Special Report: Doomsday Obsession

volume XII - issue 5 - December 5th, 2012

4 5

This past summer, I was on a mission. I wanted to revisit the Mayan ruins at Tikal – a place I had visited before in my native country of Guatemala. Why did I want to visit Tikal so badly? Just in case. Just in case the Mayan prophecy of December 21st, 2012 was true. Am I a lit-tle crazy? Am I alone? I won’t answer the first question, but the reality is that I am not alone in questioning whether the end of times is near.

This month has been the focus of much specula-tion be-cause of the peculiar case of the Mayan calendar. The Maya, an indigenous people that lived in Cen-tral America thousands of years ago, had a remark-able civilization that flourished across Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. I feel a con-nection to the Maya because I actually am part Maya on my father’s side.

The Mayan

An Ounce of Preparation Is Worth Pound of Regret

Editorial Commentary

civilization collapsed over a thousand years ago and while they have been studied closely for many decades, archaeolo-gists still don’t know why the Maya abandoned their cities and civilization. Besides the ruins in places like Tikal, the Maya also left a calendar that is a marvel – it is one of the most accurate calendars ever created.

When I was visiting Tikal, I asked my tour guide about the 2012 Mayan prophecy. You see, the Mayan calendar just stops on December 21st, 2012. The Maya calculated time for thousands of years after their civilization was long gone,

only to have their calendar end abruptly – this year. My tour guide had obviously been asked this question quite a lot because he had a well-prepared answer.

In short, he explained that the end of the Mayan calendar does not imply the end of time, but instead a time of change. In fact, the end of the Mayan calendar cycle has happened before. This month’s end of the Mayan calendar will be 13th end of a cycle called a “baktun” that counts 144,000 days. And while December 21st is the end of the “long-count” calendar based on the Sun, the Maya also used a second calendar based on

the Moon. That calendar is not ending this month.

So why is ev-eryone so worried this time around?

Let’s not forget that this isn’t the first

time we thought the world was coming to an end. I remember very well the urgency surrounding

the Millen-nium and Y2K.

We genuinely feared that planes

were going to fall out of the sky and that we’d lose comput-ers and modern life forever.

Previous to that, genera-tions of school children in America and the Soviet

Union lived under the threat of nuclear war

with only “duck-and-cover” as their salvation. And human history is filled with other times

when we thought that “the end

is near”.Are there genuine reasons to

be concerned about December 21st? I think so. Besides the end of the Mayan “long-count” calendar, that date is rumored to be marked with an astrological alignment with our planet, the Sun, and the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We know that the

be prepared for the unexpected. Just ask the residents of New York and New Jersey that suf-fered the devastation of Super-storm Sandy. Or ask the people of Haiti after the Port-au-Prince earthquake a few years ago. Or ask the people of Banda Aceh in Indonesia after the tsunami that killed over 170,000 people in

Sun is in a pe-riod of hyper-activity right now called a solar-maxi-mum. And I’ve person-ally been a bit perturbed by the seeming frequency of major earthquakes in recent months.

So should we all run out and buy a bunch of bottled water and canned food by the truck-load? Probably not. But keep in mind that we should always

2004.So

just in case the worst does happen later this month, I went to Tikal and had a great expe-

rience. And just in case, I’ll make sure I have a fresh bag of dog food for my dog Elly at home, along with food and water. I’ve never been a Boy Scout, but I think their motto “be prepared” is something we can all take to heart.

Nat Geo’s hit TV show “Doomsday Preppers” documents the preparations being made by thousands of Americans in preparation for a variety of emer-gencies. The show is in its second season and has recently featured preppers as young as 15 years-old. Photo courtesy of www.natgeotv.com

Even Homer Simpson has had his share of prep-per fever. Photo courtesy of www.mintmaga-zine.co.uk

Various times throughout history people have predicted the end of days. The latest anticipated doomsday is com-ing up: December 21, 2012. That’s right—we supposedly have T-Minus 16 days till the end of the world. The latest is due to the end of the Mayan Calendar.

The Mayan Empire in-habited the Yucatan Penin-sula—present-day Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and some of Mexico—from around 300 BC to 900 AD. They are well known for their many remark-able achievements. They built huge and elaborate buildings and temples without tools we would consider absolutely es-sential now. They had a very complex language system con-sisting of about 800 symbols

called glyphs. The Mayans also had an advanced understanding of the cosmos. They knew how to predict solar eclipses and used astrological cycles to fig-ure out when to plant crops and harvest them. This advanced understanding of astronomy led to the development of the two Mayan calendars. Most people have never heard of the first one. It measured time in an end-less loop and was very ineffec-tive at fixing events in chrono-logical order. For this reason, in about 236 BC a priest devised a new calendar system he called the Long Count. This is the one we are all familiar with. The Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 BC and ends on De-cember 21, 2012, the beginning of the Winter Solstice. At this point on the calendar, suppos-edly the world will reset back to zero and the fifth race of man will arise. This has led people to believe that this will be the end of days. In all actuality, the calendar may have ended here

to signal the end of an era. They could be wrong.

The end of the calendar, though, is eerily cor-related with other events. For example, the sun will be aligned with the Milky Way galaxy for the first time in 26,000 years on this date. The sun storm cycle also peaks around this time. A big enough solar storm can knock out power grids, leaving millions without electricity, and interfere with satellites and other electronics

such as GPS and cell phones. Whether these events will even happen or have any impact on society if they do happen is

debatable. December 21 will most likely come and go and a new theo-ry about the end of days will arise, just like every other time in history.

Why Doomsday Now?

With December rolling in, the days are winding down from one of the most important events in history, the end of the world. Again. December 21, 2012 is coming closer and it is vital that fami-lies be prepared for the “disaster” that may or may not come.

First, you and your family must have a plan. Although it may sound silly, but if something would happen, whether it would be a natural disaster or if it would be a mass bomb threat, you and your fam-

ily must have a set spot where you meet to be together if some-thing happens. This will not only comfort your family, but it will be easier to find out who is missing and who is not.

Next, you must gather docu-ments. Again it sounds silly, but important documents such as Social Security cards, passports, and birth certificates could

become useful in the future, if there is a future. Make sure you place this in a waterproof container so

they stay safe from flooding.

Then, you must also stockpile

food because when the world is com-

ing to an end, it’s every man for him-

self. If you have already started preserving and canning food, you are off to a great start! But,

you must realize, that people will get crazy and greedy for a small can of beans if they have not eaten for days. Hav-ing a large supply of bottled fresh water, canned foods, and other non-perishable foods will help you survive much longer if the world would come to an end. You must also stockpile on other essential things. Toiletries, batteries, wood, gasoline, and blankets will all be useful.

Finally, with drawl all the cash you can. If the world does not end, then you can always deposit it back into the account, but if it does it’s good to have during an emergency. You can trade and barter with fellow sur-vivors and cash could be used for basic survival from gangs.

December 21, 2012 is coming closer and with these helpful tips you and your family could survive. Good Luck!

Preparing For Doomsday: The Trojan WayPreparing For Doomsday: The Trojan Way

Makayla Brainard