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The Latter Day Saints of Maya Prophecy or Last Flight for Mercury

So, what about Maya prophecies whose time of fulfillment coincides with our date of 20/21 December of 2012? If asked, any hip Maya individual will smile knowingly and say, “those crazy gringos! What Maya prophecies?” Because no such related Maya prophecies really exist? Only conjecture? Granted, good money making conjecture? We will see!

And … without a knowledge of 21st century science when the ‘prophecies’ would have been made in the year, say, 700CE, what, minus exact scientific terms, would be the worst imaginable catastrophe a prophecy could fulfill that would occur in the week preceding the celebrating of the anniversary of the birth of Christ a la 2012?

So, two important questions: will the Maya prophecy, real or not, come true? and what is the worst possible disaster that could be foretold for 2012’s close out sale?

A short and pithy book will appear in a couple days on Kindle by CanDo Jack ( http://www.amazon.com/author/candojack ). The title of the book is The Latter Day Saints of Maya Prophecy. And, hey, if you have One Click Kindle Delivery you can get it fast and read it in time to light out for Mars should fear take control.

I will tweet when the book goes up.

The book considers: one, the idea that such a prophecy exists has a very interesting source story. And, two, the fact that a prophecy does NOT exist has never prevented greedy “prophecy experts” from making a buck off it and three, the fact that a prophecy does not exist has never prevented terrorists from using it as a date to schedule an incredible catastrophe. And, four, such a catastrophe could be the most devastating catastrophe ever experienced by humanity. And the most novel, and the most feared for the last fifty years by threat knowledgeable US Defense experts. And is more threatening now than ever before.

More on that beginning with a little background.

More than a year ago, I began researching Maya history for a fact filled novel entitled Nine Elevens. The term ‘MayaN’, capital N for emphasis, is reserved as an adjective for the language of the Maya people who exist, by the way, primarily in Guatemala. They have been there for certainly three and probably five thousand years. They are the reason you can have bananas on your cereal.

Not to get lost in word misuse and Maya abuse but here is a quote from a review of a review of Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.” The review of the review is at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/08/278950/-Maya-vs-Mayan

Quote:
One is a Maya, two or more are Mayans?

Well, no. Here’s the convention used by Mesoamerican archaeologists. Always choose “Maya” unless referring to a language, in which case the word is “Mayan” (there are at least two dozen living Mayan languages.)

The people are Maya, not Mayans. Our reviewer writes of “a Mayan urban center.” Those in the know would say “a Maya urban center.” He speaks of “Mayan culture.” Nope. Say “Maya culture.”
Unquote.

That entire gotcha may seem to be more archeological language detail than is required. But, keep it in mind for the next week or so because that detailed knowledge may be handy for making some judgments about the credentials of Maya Prophecy ‘scholars.’

My novel, Nine Elevens, began with my discovery that the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred on a 9/11 date, 1857 specifically. The location, specifically, was about thirty miles west of Cedar City, Utah. Personally, until that point the only thing famous to me about Cedar City, Utah was that in 1993 I arrived in Utah from my home near Munich with two goals: one, sharing Utah’s weightless white wonderful ski slopes with my wife; and, two, renting a plane in Cedar City to fly her around the entire Grand Canyon.

Years later my interest in the Cedar City area was resurrected with the story of The Mountain Meadows Massacre and a trail of 9/11s which took me eventually back to the land of the Maya on the date 9/11/911.

I was hooked. My brain, joined by my heart early on, spent the next three months with the Maya. I was with them in the first great civilization, then through the classic civilization and six hundred years later to meet the Spanish Conquistadors.

By then my Classic Maya twin brother heroes Pacall and Exall had created themselves and gotten ship wrecked on a small island in the Caribbean. The island’s chief cannibal was explaining to the tree bound twins how he would prepare them for supper. Writer’s responsibility to ensure the story continued demanded that the twins be rescued. But, by whom?

Fortunately, the writer’s background brain delivered, under threat of an inaugural case of writer’s block, the character, Phoenix, the first Phoenician Jew. At least the first Phoenician Jew, sailor, explorer, cosmopolitan, dilettante, inventor, scientist whom the writer had ever encountered. And the first to reach Maya.

And neither Maya nor the Caribbean were ever the same again. And the etymology of Caribbean, cannibal, was restored if for no other reason than to honor James Michener, whose 672 page novel, CARIBBEAN, introduced those cannibals to the readers of the world in 1989. That tome sits next to its German cognate cousin, KARIBBEAN. They stare at me from my bookshelf to ensure I give them proper recognition. They stand shoulder to shoulder with an older sister, Iberia, whose Michener knowledge base and influence provides some help on the al Andalus chapters of my NINE ELEVENS. Remind me sometime to tell you the tale of how I happened to have in hand a half read copy of IBERIA when I arrived in Spain from Denmark in 1980 to work with Iberia Airlines. And forgive my typing a final sentence to this paragraph as my heart takes a brief leap back to high school where I first read Michener’s Bridges at Toko Ri instead of reading Chemistry, the only course I ever failed. Even then Michener wrote long books.

BREAKING THE MAYA CODE by Michael D. Coe introduced me to the cast of characters who did the breaking. The documentary by the same name is primarily favored by David Coe. Linda Shele’s extensive contribution and her taking a teenaged vacationer in tow. That charmingly brilliant kid became Dr. David Stuart who wrote the amazing book, THE ORDER OF DAYS: THE MAYA WORLD AND THE TRUTH ABOUT 2012. David’s knowledge and his tenacity in getting and securing that knowledge thrilled me and rescued me from a multitude of gotchas about the ‘Maya prophecy’ with the same vigor and analytical thinking that allowed my hero, Phoenix, to rescue Pacall and Exall, two of my Maya heroes from NINE ELEVENS.

At this point you may see growing in the knowledge that I have categorized the world of Maya ‘researchers’ into those looking for the long story of the real Maya and the short story of those looking for what can be boxed and sold in 2012 in time to be ready for the first social sensation of 2013.

But let me let Dr. David Stuart say what I want to say about that better than I can. I choose to let him say that in the book that will appear as mentioned on Kindle in a very few days.

And let me leave the laying out of potential events to that book as well.

For now, let this article persuade you go back to the top of this page and click on SHOP to buy my NINE ELEVENS and read it for yourself.

The novel has several adventures I did not even mention here. Ever been to Big Sur? It will take you there. Ever played poker with people like Jesus and his Papa, the Big Deal? It will take you there. Ever run off the cliff with lemmings, it will take you there? Ever steal a Spanish galleon from the conquistadores? It will take you there.

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Why Digital?

Here are some reasons my reading source is more and more digital and why I favor paper based books less and less.

In fact, please let me handle the negative first. And let me start by commenting on the reasons paper people say are the reasons they stay with paper.

The reasons stated by the paper people include:
1) I just like holding a real book in my hand.
2) I like to make notations and underline/highlight.

Actually, number one is the only reason I have heard from paper people. Number two is really, or was really, my own reason. UNTIL it occurred to me that I always have at least one Sansa Clip mp3 player with me.

Let me nest here in my reasons for digital a list of reasons why I always have at least one Sansa Clip on me.

ONE: I play a lot of music.

I like to play along. So, whenever I go for a walk, in fact whenever I leave the house my departure check list includes not just the Sansa Clip but what instrument I might want to play. So, I am likely to stop at a comfortable, suitable place and play along with whatever music I am listening to on the Sansa Clip. This week Michael Buble is walking his tuchus off.

For example, I might take the tenor sax along to the post office where a comfy, shady, jazzless seat awaits. The post office is on a busy boulevard with a lot of traffic noise. So the additional noise of the saxophone is not going to bother anyone as it might if I played at home. Additionally it is positive. People at the drive by mail boxes often pay compliments or give me a thumbs up.

TWO: I might have two Sansa Clips and I might use one to record what I am playing as I play along with music I am listening to on the other Sansa Clip.

THREE: I write with my voice. Walking is a tremendous motor for creativity. So, I write into the Sansa Clip. I wrote my first real book on a Sony Walkman, walking the John Muir trail in Yosemite high country. I have many reasons for using the Sansa Clip instead of other devices but, primarily, the microphone is suitable for laying down music tracks, it is so good.

FOUR: I can record ideas on the Sansa Clip.

FIVE: I often read a book as I walk. My Kindle Touch, for example, fits in a pocket. The Kindle Touch has a good text to speech app.

SIX: If I think of a book I want to buy, I can often connect to the net and order the book from Amazon, download it and start listening to it as I walk.

SEVEN: If I am accosted I can record the incident. I actually did this when I was attacked and beat half to death on the street near my home. No, I was not playing an instrument. I was walking my dog, 2B, and the attacker was obsessed with ridding the world of dog poop. I opined that had he not been obsessed with dog poop it might have been abortions so perhaps unwittingly I saved some woman’s life. 2B is actually the name of the dog character my dog played in the novel, Nine Elevens. My dog’s real name is Mr. Darcy, a la Jane Austen.

EIGHT: I often create my market list while walking.

OK, those are reasons I always have a Sansa Clip on me. But, if you recall, I started this article talking about books.

So, here is a list of reasons why I like digital books.

ONE: I mentioned highlighting and margin notes. Of course, I do that now with my Sansa Clip whether at home or out for a walk or drive. When I finish the book I have all my notes in a handy audio recording.

TWO: ordering quickly. I mentioned I can order a book immediately from almost anywhere and be reading it in a couple minutes. Yes, I could do that with a paper based book except the nearest three or four towns to me have no book stores. I do have a library near but most of the books are beyond the freshness date. Additionally, I can download many digital text as well as audio books from the library with my Kindle Touch.

THREE: hands on. Or off. I do not have to hold a digital book. I can put it on a stand within vision limit. On the way to pick up the coffee cup my hand can swish a turn of book page en passant.

I have actually been reading digitally for many years. The net provides a number of sources for audio books and texts. Project Gutenberg was my primary supplier. Almost everything out of date and in public domain is on Gutenberg.

So, used to find a good book on Gutenberg.org and read from the monitor. I could set the font size, font color, font face, and background and scrolling rate, get my drink and settle back in my comfy chair and read an entire novel and never touch the book. Or, I could feed the text to the PC program Text Aloud and have it read to me by our lady of the mellifluous tones, Heather.

FOUR: vision limit. I mentioned this before but, I did not mention that my vision limit is increased because I can set the font size on my digital book and increase my vision limit.

FIVE: personal library in my pocket. At the moment I think my Kindle Touch has about twenty five books on it. The Touch fits in my pocket. So, I am not carrying one book. I am carrying many.

Additionally, I can store my Kindle books in the Kindle cloud, or on my PC or on a laptop.

Additionally, articles and text I find on the net that I want to read later, I can store on the Kindle Touch in text or pdf and have it via text or voice.

SIX: if you do not have a Kindle reader, not to worry. Kindle provides free apps for reading on your computer, your phone, and well, any appliance you can think of.

SEVEN: if you want the book read to you, then know that most authors publish on Kindle with text-to-speech enabled. But know too that not all Kindle appliances are text-to-speech enabled. The latest model, the FIRE is NOT.

EIGHT: I like my own voice. So does my dog. Often, I will find an article online, or in a newspaper, or paper based book that I know I will want to refer to often. So, I turn the Sansa Clip on and read aloud. I can always listen to the material later from the clip or transfer it to the reader, perhaps along with some new mp3 based music. Your dog probably likes your voice as well. So, you might just leave a copy of something you recorded for the dog to listen to.

Once you go digital, assuming your goals are consumption and production while having fun, the results will outweigh the pacifier aspect of holding the book in your hand and trying to get it to open up enough for your eyes to reach the words at the inside marging of the page.

If you have any questions about any of this I will try to help you resolve them. Just put in a comment below. It will require taking a minute to enter your email address. I do not abuse or misuse email addresses.

Have fun,
jack