Miscellany:
1 - a) plural: separate writings collected in one volume. b) a collection of writings on various subjects.
2 - a mixture of various things.
Synonyms: anthology, assortment, collection, diversity, farrago, gallimaufry, hotchpotch, jumble, medley, mélange, mixed bag, mixture, omnium-gatherum, potpourri, salmagundi, variety.
Blog: Don’t expect only discussions of writing life, though they may happen. As will other things.
I didn’t make up the title – it’s there on the video…. laughed till I cried… but it may be just the kind of day/week/month/year it’s been so far.
At any rate – Sunday antidote to the god-bothering – we offer…. sheep-bothering. In the nicest sense.
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So….twelve months from now, to the day, we’ll hit the date the Maya named 13 Baktun, 4 Ahau, 3 Kankin – the date on which their calendar heralds the end of a ‘World Age’ and the beginning of the next.
The last world age turned over in August 3114 BC and nobody, not even the Maya, have any particular record of what happened then, so we have no real idea of what they thought would happen, or why they set the start of their calendar so far before the beginning of their civilisation (which flourished from 600 – 900AD although remnants survived until the 16th century when the Jesuits destroyed it utterly). But we know that they did, and that one year from now, the current ‘World Age’ ends. In the Popol Vuh myth, it is said that the gods have had several previous failed attempts at creating humanity and each one has ended at the end of a world age – from fire, earthquake and, most recently, from floods. This one will allegedly be ended by humanity, but nobody is quite sure how.
I’d suggest some obvious alternatives are:
1: The Americans elect a Republican President. Doesn’t matter who, really, they’re all completely crackers and most of them will actively endeavour to promote the biblical Apocalypse, no matter how many people die in the process.
2: We’ll continue to ignore things like the recently found 1km-wide methane fountains in the Arctic and tip ourselves over the edge into irreversible global warming.
3: we’ll hit the Technological Singularity – which is the point when we develop a computer which is capable of designing and building its own successor. We’re really not too far from that and, almost overnight, we’ll become redundant in the process of technological development. Given that Asimov’s Laws of Robotics probably won’t apply, it won’t be long before the newly developed super-human entity takes one look at the planet and realises that the one species which is doing most damage is…. us. After which, all bets are off.
But it may also be that 2012 provides an opportunity for social and spiritual evolution – that the Occupy movement comes of age and we begin to look at our place in the world differently. Each of us can be ready for that, can have looked at where we are and where – if tomorrow is absolutely not going to be a repeat of yesterday – we’d like to be.
And then we can make it happen.
Have an inspiring Solstice. And be ready for a fascinating 12 months ahead.
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This is just gorgeous. Click link for full thing, after you’ve read the excerpt below:
Gender is not a subject that I would have broached in primary grades a few years ago. In fact, I remember scoffing with colleagues when we heard about a young kindergarten teacher who taught gender-related curriculum. We thought her lessons were a waste of instructional time and laughed at her “girl and boy” lessons.
My own thoughts about gender curriculum shifted when I became a mother. As I shopped for infant clothes for my first daughter, I was disgusted that almost everything was pink and there was no mistaking the boys’ section of the store from the girls’. I refused to make my baby daughter fit in the box that society had created for her. “What if she doesn’t like pink?” I thought. “What if she likes tigers and dinosaurs?”
As my two daughters grew, I talked with them about gender stereotypes. I let them choose “boys’” clothes if they wanted to (and often encouraged them because they are more practical). The first week of kindergarten, my younger daughter’s teacher told me that she had a heated argument with a boy while they played dress up. “She insisted that boys can wear dresses if they want to,” the teacher told me. I beamed with pride.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I had a child dealing with gender variance (defined as “behavior or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female”) in my classroom that I realized how important it is to teach about gender and break down gender stereotypes. Why did I wait so long? I should have taken a hint from that kindergarten teacher years ago. As I thought about how to approach the topic, I realized that the lessons I was developing weren’t just for Allie. She had sparked my thinking, but all the children in my class needed to learn to think critically about gender stereotypes and gender nonconformity.
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