End of Days Traditional Cache
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#3 of my 5 rants for fin de l'année 2012.
We have just been through one catastrophe scenario – the end of the Mayan Calendar – and are preparing to enter another – the Fiscal Cliff. Now, even though we thought we had Mayarmegeddon all wrapped up, just think: when was the last time we had an end-of-world failure that wasn’t followed up by a recalculation? So who -is- counting after all? Archeologists? I thought students went into archeology because they were terrible with math! Computers? Really? Doesn’t anyone remember Y2K anymore? Billions of dollars went into that effort to keep them from choking on the new century! Do you really want to put your trust in computers? What am I missing here? I could swear I received 13 cell phone bills this year. Computers?
From an anecdotal point of view, the Mayan calendar first came into contact with the European point of view through the efforts of the Spanish Conquistadores, who had their boots on the ground and on several other, principally living things. So, they would have been the first to confront the secrets of the calendar. At the same time, Ponce de Leon was looking for the Fountain of Youth. I really doubt that a people worried about predictions of the end of the world would also be seeking eternal life. What does that look like? Yeah, now I can forever escape the inevitable in the full flush of primal existence, but the entire earth has disintegrated beneath me – sounds like Club Med to me. Of course, this from a culture that every year allows its grown men to run down the street in front of a rampaging herd of angry toros. This is not a country that has a well-proportioned notion of immortality!
Of course, it wasn’t the Spaniards who started the whole thing; it was Christopher Columbus, who was Italian. He just left the mess for the Spanish to clean up! Remember, Italy also gave us advanced concepts like the Papacy, which oversaw wholesale slaughter in the New World, but which also caused us all to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This was done because the church was running out of funds and needed an excuse to sell more indulgences, therefore inventing the “double-dip”. (Now if only the Church managed its people as well as it manages its finances!) “Hey, you think you already paid through the year 1582? Guess what? That was so last year! This is now 1581, and you owe big time!” Now, why does this remind me of my cell phone bills? Hey, that’s where they learned the trick in the first place! And now as a result, we have Leap Years, and even Leap Centuries - but not every century. So who is keeping track of all these dates? Why are we so confident that December 21 was the Big Date? Why not December 31 – or October 15? I tell you, I’m worried sick about all this!
Now, Italy has also given us former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who singly handedly has ruined the fine reputation of a model country and turned it into a laughingstock - which is saying a lot! As a result, Berlusconi has been rudely turned from office three times already, but guess what? He is running for a fourth try! Now, after repeated humiliations, he and his cronies are looking for payback. They are going want to collect, big time! And they have plenty of precedent to borrow from. Mark my words, people, if we ever start to hear about changing to the New Berlusconi Calendar, we know we will have reached the End of Days.
TH earns the Tricky Hat. BTW where does one go to purchase those?
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Jub nz V? Jung vf zl checbfr urer? Jurer vf zl frperg? Ubj ybat pna V erznva fgrnqsnfg?
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