1.6 I Me Mine

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  Have I been too busy?  Maybe.  Actually, no.  Have I had nothing to really say?  That’s more like it.  There has been a lot to talk about in the news and everywhere else, but I just haven’t posted about it.

So, does that mean I have something big to say now?  Well, not really.  I’ve just decided to put something up on here.

What am I going to talk about?  Well, I think I’ll write a little about what I want to do with myself.  Yes, it’s not that interesting, but it’s a post, nonetheless.

So, what is it exactly that I want to do with myself?  Well, there’s a lot of things, really.  The main thing I want to do is study the Maya.  Study them, know them, understand them and share them with everyone.  I want to promote them.  Why would I want to do such a thing?  I feel they are one of the most under appreciated civilizations in the world.  We always hear about the Egyptians and those in Mesopotamia, as well as all the East Asian civilizations and the Incas and Aztecs in South America, as being the great civilizations of the world.  I think the Maya should be mentioned in the same breath as the Egyptians in terms of the greatest civilization in history.  Why do I think this?  The Maya developed things never thought of in history before, the idea of zero.  The Maya built amazing temples that would rival those of the great Giza pyramids.  They created one of the most accurate calendars ever made.  They had riches beyond belief.  They had amazing traditions and rituals.

Why do we not hear and know as much about the Maya as we do other civilizations?  The very reason is religion.  The Spanish, in their quest of colonization and spreading religion, destroyed the majority of Mayan written records that were done on “paper.”  All things that could be burned that had any recording of Mayan history was destroyed.  We only have a few things that were not completely destroyed by the Spanish.  We do still have written “hieroglyphs” all over Mayan territory, but they do not completely cover the history that these books would help supplement or even completely cover.

Any way that I can help to understand and know more about the Maya, and, in turn, inform others about them, I want to do.  I want to do it with a passion.  This is all what I want to do with myself.

1.5 Money (That’s What I Want)

So, watched The Constant Gardener the other night.  It is definitely an interesting movie, that’s for sure.  I thought it was well filmed and the acting was superb.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s more or less about the death of a British activist in Africa, killed by a major pharmaceutical company after she makes a report on how their testing of a drug is killing their test subjects.  The story follows the husband trying to track down how his wife was murdered, along with several others in her group.  So, more or less about how major companies will do anything, including killing, if something unfavourable comes up that will hurt profits.

So, all this got me thinking in regards of major corporations and profit margins.  I, personally, work for a somewhat large Canadian corporation.  I have seen the effects of the profit margin, in terms of less hours for me so that they can make budget, aka make the most money.  Money is the key ingredient for every company.  Some barely get by, while others dominate and rack in loads of dough.  There really isn’t much difference between the two.  Both want to make as much as they can and turn a profit.  It’s just the large ones make more profit, usually by any means necessary.  We tend to allow these actions to persist, as long as us consumers get what we want for as cheaply as we can.  This is why the likes of Wal-Mart thrive in our society, cheap products.  Some companies offer necessities in life.  Some companies bully their way around to eliminate the competition in this area.  This is why major oil companies and pharmaceutical companies thrive.  A select few control the majority of such necessities.  These companies can charge almost what they want, although there are usually regulatory institutions to keep things in line.  Still, the control of much is controlled by few.

When someone or something comes into the picture that will upset the balance of your business, many companies will do whatever means necessary to restore this balance.  It is well documented, but not necessarily well known, that Prozac is a harmful drug, and may make people who are on it into more of a danger than before using the drug.  Testing done by the creator of the drug, lead by Eli Lilly, showed serious side effects, and turned some people into someone aggressive, hostile and murderous/suicidal.  Of course, being a part of a major pharmaceutical company, many of these results were not reported so that the drug could be on its way to pharmacy shelves sooner to make money faster.  Deceit used to their advantage, as they really had no one to really check up on them.  The FDA just took their word and let it through.  You can’t always trust the big guys.

Now, I’m not saying that all major companies are evil, deceitful, killing monsters, but I would say that the majority of them are.  It’s just hard to find the ones that are truthful.  These companies remind a lot of the mob: anything to make a buck.  Anywhere, anyway, anyhow.