Our readers sound off on the dog poop blues, modern astrology, and our future according to the Long Count Mayan calendar.
Doggone Shame
Regarding Stephen Kessler's letter (“Man Bites Dogs,” Posts, Jan. 4.html) I, too, nearly tripped over the same three blobs of s— during the Christmas holiday downtown. It was so bad that I mentioned it to two uniformed personnel behind me: they were completely unconcerned. I had just come from walking in the gutter due to two large German shepherds and their owners taking up the whole sidewalk area. I am also worried about health issues and danger to children at face-level and those wheelchair-bound. In such a small area, there simply is no room for chance—or dogs. Who made this decision about allowing dogs downtown, anyway, and how can we reverse it before it gets even more out of hand?
G R Pippin
Santa Cruz
We would like to clarify two points in the Jan. 4 article on 2012 (“The End of The World As We Know It,” Cover story.html) that might have been misleading. First of all, modern astrologers know what “precession” is (not “precision,” as quoted in the article). It is the phenomenon of the solstices and equinoxes shifting relative to the constellations at the rate of about one degree every 72 years. Because of precession, astrologers must choose to base the signs of the zodiac either on seasons or the constellations. Western (or tropical) astrologers have chosen to use the seasons, which are anchored to the precise times of the solstices and equinoxes. Thus, the sign of Aries always begins at the March equinox. Vedic (or sidereal) astrologers have chosen to use the constellations as the basis of the signs. Both approaches are grounded in real phenomena. That the seasons have shifted about 30 degrees relative to the constellations in the past 2000 years has no bearing on the validity of astrology.
Secondly, regarding what was called “Mayan stuff” in the article, most people probably think that the 2012 phenomenon is only a recent fabrication of New Age zealots. Actually, respected scholars were the first to recognize the Mayan beliefs in the great significance of the ending of the Long Count period. As early as 1951, Maud Makemson, Vassar College professor of astronomy, while translating one of the ancient Mayan texts, commented on the significance of the ending date of the Long Count calendar. She stated, “(T)he completion of a great cycle of 13 baktuns would indeed be an occasion of the highest expectation.” In 1966 Michael Coe, Yale University professor of anthropology and archaeology and one of the foremost Maya scholars, discovered indications in the Mayan glyphs that the ancient Maya believed that “our present universe [would] be annihilated… when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion.” (Both quotes are from The Living Maya by Robert Sitler, Ph.D.)
We think that the year 2012 represents more than one single day of exceptional importance. It could very well be a watershed time in the evolution or de-evolution of humanity. It is pretty interesting that the Maya Long Count period is ending just as a perfect storm of environmental and social degradation is looming on the horizon and on the other hand there are so many indications of positive change.
Rico Baker and Claire Joy
Santa Cruz
