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Recently there has been a lot of commotion over whether December 21, 2012 is the day the world will end or not. From earthquakes to tsunamis to the sun burning up the planet, the list goes on and on, but how valid are these claims? Who can predict how and when the world will end and who on this planet has the power to know when such a drastic event will occur?
Many people started to believe that December 21, 2012 is the day that the world will end, but where are these people coming up with these ideas? The people’s answer: “The Ancient Mayan calendar ends on this date.” Many people see this as a “prophecy” of the end of the world. According to Argüelles, December 21, 2012 is merely “the day the Maya Long Count Cycle of 5125.26 years ends and restarts” (Solare 1).
Originally, the Mayan calendars were short. The Mayans had one calendar lasting only 260 days, and they had another calendar lasting 365 days. The Mayans combined these two calendars to form what they called the “Calendar Round”, “a cycle lasting around 52 years” (O’Neill 1). This calendar was no good for recording events in history, so the Mayans came up with the “Long Count”, the calendar lasting 5125.26 years. The calendar “depends on a base unit of 20” (O’Neill 1). The Long Count “starts at “0.0.0.0.0”, so the first day…is denoted as 0.0.0.0.1” (O’Neill 1). This continues all the way to the 19th day. “On the 20th day, it goes up one level...[to] 0.0.0.1.0” (O’Neill 1). “13.0.0.0.0 represents 5125.26 years,” which just so happens to be December 21. 2012 (O’Neill 1).
Just because the Long Count calendar date ends on 13.0.0.0.0, or December 21, 2012, does not mean the world is going to end. O’Neill writes:
When something ends (even something as innocent as an ancient calendar), people seem to thing up the most extreme possibilities for the end of civilization as we know it. A brief scan of the internet will pull up the most popular to some very weird ways that we will, with little logical thought, be wiped off the face of the planet. Archaeologists and mythologists on the other hang believe that the Mayans predicted an age of enlightenment when 13.0.0.0.0 comes around; there isn’t actually much evidence to suggest doomsday will strike. (O’Neill 1)
According to Solare, “the Maya left not a single inscription anywhere indicating any…conditions that could accompany 2012” (Solare 1). Myths of 2012 have been proven wrong. Maloof says that “evidence in rocks confirm that continents have undergone…rearrangement but the process took [a long time],” so the idea of “breakaway continents [destroying] civilization” in a matter of a single day would be extremely unrealistic (Handwerk 1). A lot of people believe that there will be some kind of galactic alignment will cause unknown forces to be revealed and that these forces will somehow leave no hope for the planet. According to NASA’s Morrison, there will be no significant galactic alignment. University of Texas Maya expert David Stuart says “no ancient Maya text or artwork makes reference to anything of the kind” (Handwerk 1). It is also believed that there is some object floated around in space that is going to collide with earth. Morrison, NASA astrobiologist, reports that “there is no object out there…If there were a planet or a brown dwarf or whatever that was going to be in the inner solar system…, astronomers would have been studying it for the past decade, and it would be visible to the naked eye by now” so there is no way that there could be some strange object floating around out there.
The truth of the matter is that there is simply no evidence that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. The Mayan calendar starts over at the end of it’s cycle just as ours does. O’Neill quotes Dr Karl’s “Great Moments in Science”:
…when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 – or good ol’ 22 December 2012. (O’Neill)
Works Cited
Handwerk, Brian. "2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked." Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines National Geographic News. 6 Nov. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .
O'Neill, Ian. "No Doomsday in 2012." Universe Today. 19 May 2008. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .
Solare, Rohaan. "– On the Trail of the Super Organism, The Question of 2012 and the Marvel of Maya Calendrics." Emergent Culture. Tuesday Dec. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .
Stone, Mark V. "FAMSI - 2012: The End of the World?" FAMSI - Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .
Yeomans, Donald. "» Blog Archive » 2012 - A Scientific Reality Check." NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Blog. 10 Nov. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .
In today’s society, if you are a female and are not extremely thin, or if you are a male and you are not muscular there seems to be a problem. All of the advertisements cause people to perceive that “normal bodies are not culturally acceptable” (Source E). There is no doubt that the media cause a lot of people to feel bad about their bodies.
Today’s models have unrealistic characteristics. Since the 90’s, the perfect body has been set at “5’10 in height and 110 pounds in weight” (Source F). “These weights are 13-19% lower than the average North American woman” (Source F). “Magazines and television shows [are] serving up ads [that] celebrate the waif look by portraying pencil-thin models” (Source A). It is no wonder that so many people are not satisfied with the way their bodies look.
Brumberg “reports that 53% of American girls are unhappy with their bodies at age thirteen [and] this grows to 78% by…seventeen” (Source B). Mundell’s studies show that “10 year olds…were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video” (Source B). According to a “study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute”, 40% [of 9 to 10 year old girls] have tried to lose weight” (Source B). In source D, the cartoon shows two girls deciding no to talk about their bodies anymore. After the girls decide to do this, they have a hard time coming up with something to talk about. It is as if the media has pushed the unrealistic view of what a woman should look like so hard that it is all that women can think about.
Because of unrealistic views of the perfect body, many women are scared of being overweight. “The national Eating Disorders Association estimates that 91% or 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat and between 5-10 million girls and women…are struggling with eating disorders” (Source A). Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc. says that “one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control-[such as] fasting, skipping meals…and self-induced vomiting” (Source G). Teen magazine reported that “35 percent of girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at least one diet and that 50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight” (Source G).
In entertainment today, there is rarely a song without reference to sex or drugs or a show on television that does not have a pregnant teen or a “gay” couple. It is almost impossible to find a movie or song without some kind of vulgar language. In entertainment today, people seem to have a lack of morality. In today’s society, morals are quickly washing down the drain as well. Who is to say that modern entertainment has nothing to do with it?
On ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, one of the main characters, Amy, gets pregnant at fifteen years of age. Two other characters, Ricky and Adrian, are always having sex and yet two more characters, Jack and Grace, are claiming to be Christians but are lacking sexual morals as well. The title fits the show perfectly. Is this not how many teens act in today’s society? How many teenage girls got pregnant just ten years earlier compared to how many do now? I would say the numbers have increased. Many teens claim to go to church; they claim to be Christians, but many of them are out having sex on the weekend. Who can say that shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which many teens watch, have not played a role in society today: People are influenced by what they expose themselves to.
The song Tik Tok by Kesha has become a very popular song, yet the whole song is a reference to sex and alcohol. In the song, Kesha sings lyrics like, “…before I leave brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack…”. Lyrics like this make it seem like it is okay to go out and get drunk all the time. What does this say about society today? I know many people that are out getting drunk on the weekends. I know a few people that are into drugs. Entertainment did not used to be this immoral; society did not used to be this immoral either. There is a connection between the two.
The more people watch and listen to vulgar shows and songs, the more likely they will be influenced by it. There is no way that there is no connection. As entertainment worsens, so do society’s morals.
Jennifer Price looks down upon the American’s tendency to go along with what everybody else is doing, such as the flamingo trend, and how we should be better than that. She shows what America should be based on.
Price crafts her writing in a way that really reveals what her view of American culture is. She talks about the five species of flamingos feeding “in flocks on algae and invertebrates”. It is as if she is saying that Americans are spineless; she is saying that we feed off of what other people are doing, that we have no backbone to stand up and choose for ourselves. She talks about other cultures using the flamingo to represent important things, such as the sun god Ra in Egypt, where as Americans used the flamingo for style. Price is saying that Americans feed off of each other. She is saying that we do not focus on what is important.
Price’s use of sentence structure really gets her point across. In the first paragraph, Price talks about the flamingo being a synonym for wealth and pizzazz. She uses ellipsis as if to show an unfinished thought. She puts the ellipsis there to make the reader stop and think about the reality of the statement. In the third paragraph, Price writes about the “sassy pinks” being “the hottest color of the decade”. She uses quotation marks around these two phrases as if to mock Americans for the importance we put on trends.
- I read Do You Know the Monkey Man? by Dori Hillestad Butler (worth one book). This book was very good. It talks about a girls named Sam whose twin sister supposedly died when they were three years old. When Sam is told by someone that her sister is still alive, she starts to believe it and starts to search for her? Will Sam find her sister or is she really dead?
- I read the books TTYL, L8RG8R, and TTFN by Lauren Myracle (three different books). This trilogy is about three best friends: Angela, Maddie, and Zoe. Each book is written in instanting messaging format all the way through the book. The books follow all three of the girls through out their high school careers. The books were very entertaining.
- I read the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (worth two books). I enjoyed this book. Even though it was long and kind of drawn out, it was interesting enough to keep me reading. I just couldn't put the book down most of the time! The story of Amir is a sad but touching story.
Many people believe the legal drinking age should be lowered, but I disagree. There are many negative effects of lowering the legal drinking age.
A lot of college presidents and university presidents think that the legal drinking age is not effective and should be lowered. People will find a way to drink whether it is legal for them to be doing so or not so the law is never completely effective anyway. Also, most people that are under twenty-one are not mature enough or responsible enough to be drinking.
Lowering the legal drinking age would result in more car accidents. Car crashes are the leading cause of teenage death, and a lot of the accidents are caused by driving while intoxicated. Just as Pam Richter said, "There are already [enough] distractions for teen drivers." We need not add alcohol to the list.http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/11/25/article/editorial_essay_drinking_age_should_stay_21
Texting while driving is bad, period! It can cause drivers to become distracted from the roadway, which is never ok. Although Mr. Balko is right about the fact that there are other forms of distraction while on the road, studies have shown that a person is twenty-three times more likely to get into an accident while texting. In fact, texting while driving is nearly as dangerous as driving while intoxicated.
I know a person whose stepfather was killed in an accident because the person that hit them was not paying attention because she was texting while she was driving. Now that family has to live every day without him by teir side, and the lady that hit them has to live with the guilt of killing that poor innocent man.
Texting hehind the wheel should be illegal nationwide. If this were to happen, families would be less hurt by loss of loved ones, people would not have to live with the guilt of killing someone, and the roadways would be safer. No text is that important.http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/10/13/theres-no-way-to-enforce-a-texting-while-driving-ban.html
