Day 25 – Cal or Cav?

Saturday February 13, 2021

I have to credit most of what I am going to tell you in the first half of this screed to Rachel Maddow’s show last night. It isn’t often that Rachel is caught without something to say. That she is so stunned and embarrassed for someone or some group that she puts her head down for a moment to collect herself before speaking, but last night’s show did just that.

Before I go on let me share some definitions and explanations:

1. Ben Roethlisberger is a football player. He is quarterback for the Pittsburg Steelers.

2. Brad Raffensperger is the Secretary of State for Georgia.

3. Censure is an expression of strong disapproval by a parlimentary body.

4. Censor is a person who bans books and movies and stuff like that, or it is the act of doing so.

5. Censer is a vessel for burning incense. Typically, held on chains and swung to be able to enwrap people in the smoke from the burning incense. It is often used in religious ceremonies.

6. Cavalry are mounted soldiers on horseback. It is also used for tank corps as they were originally on horseback. The expression “The Cavalry is Coming!” means “help is on the way!”.

7. Calvary means an open air depiction of the crucifixion of Christ or an experience of intense mental suffering.

I can excuse the defense in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump to mis-speak and say the quarterback’s name instead of the Secretary of State’s name. I can wonder if they meant to swing a pot of burning incense at Satan or to issue a “No-no” proclamation.  But to stand up there and try to suggest that Trump or his supporters were going to show their devotion by erecting a depiction of Jesus Christ on the cross when they clearly meant they were coming to the rescue? Maybe, the noose for Mike Pence they put up was really an ill formed crucifixion scene? Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket.

Realizing I guess that the fix was in they went to insulting the intelligence of the men and women who are senators. I guess that was the ploy. 

Then they attacked the House Managers. That didn’t go so well. See the House Managers are real lawyers. By that I mean they know the law, which they carefully explained to the chamber and the defense over and over again when they got confused or didn’t seem to know it.

Ah me. Moving on. I watched a show called “Unearthed and Unexplained.” Two bros were trying to prove that the Mayans settled in Florida after their civilization collapsed. These guys wander from place to place talking to “experts” and hiring other experts to help them in their quest. As I sat their watching I’m wondering, “How big a budget do they have?” I mean not only do they hire Lidar and Sonar folks, they get shots of themselves from the air as they hack through jungle, ride on a boat, or travel on a highway by car. I’m wondering whose holding the camera while they are swinging machetes and worried about a gator getting them?

So the first guy they go see is named Jovan something or other. Jovan is said to be an expert on old Mayan documents. He pulls out a copy of the Dresden Codex and the two bros say it could be a map. Jovan says yes. See there’s a bird with blue water spilling out of his mouth? Yes, they see it. And there are dots in the water. Yes, they see the dots. The Mayan used dots for counting. Really? Wow. So the dots could be markers counting how far they went. Yes, it certainly could be! Could it be saying they traveled from the Yucatan to Florida. Yes, of course. Of course.

But that’s not all. Really? No. There’s flightless bird that is found only in the old Mayan area and in Florida. How did the bird get there unless the Mayan’s brought it there? Ah yes. How else?

And Christopher Columbus or was it his son? I forget. Whomever it was wrote that he ran into indians with long canoes loaded with cargo in Florida. So they could be Mayan? Yeah. Or they could be natives, not Mayan.

The bros go to a museum and meet an amateur historian who shows them the remains of a canoe. It’s old. It’s one piece of wood. The amateur historian says the wood was treated with wax. The kind of wax found only in Belize. Belize is where the Mayans were! That’s right. So this could be a Mayan canoe?!!! It could be. See the wood at the end turns up. Like a bow! Yes. And there are pictures in the old mayan books which show canoes with turned up ends, like bows. I’m no expert on boats and canoes but wouldn’t anyone who built a boat turn up the front end and make a bow?

Then they go to a State Park in Florida which is an archaeological site and it has a mound. The Mayans had mounds! They talk to a “Mayan expert” there at the site. I’m wondering, “Why haven’t I heard of this Mayan expert?” I mean I’ve been doing a lot of stuff related to the Mayans and after awhile you know many of the main players. If this guy is such an expert it seems odd that I’ve never run across his name. Wait, maybe I have? Wasn’t he on another one of these shows where someone claims that there were Mayan ruins in Georgia? It seemed more like the remains of stone walls on a hillside. Wasn’t he the Mayan expert that was pulled in on that show? Didn’t they go to a park in Florida and see a step pyramid? Yeah. Wasn’t that step pyramid a series of layers of a mound of shells? Lemme look this guy up. Oh, he wrote books like what can the Mayans tell us about the future, Mayan prophesies.

But they are also told by this expert that beside the mound there are stellae here on the site. The stellae line up with the mound and form a triangle. One side aligns with the summer solstice and one with the winter, just like the Maya! And don’t forget the Maya had stellae! OMG. They go look at the stellae. They are rocks in the ground. I didn’t see any carving on them or any reason to believe they had been dragged to their current positions. Maybe they had been dragged.

The boys continue. Wouldn’t there have to be a step pyramid around? Yes, most likely to the west. Right out there. The bros are excited. The Mayan expert is not seen again. Wouldn’t he want to stick around while they look for a Mayan pyramid?

Oh I forgot, earlier they searched around a lake and found an open area that could be a settlement. They hacked through jungle with alligators lurking near by. It was dangerous, hot, sweaty. I’m not sure if they got to the spot they saw with their little camera drone or not. They gave up. They decided to look in the water. They got a guy with a Sonar. They “dropped the fish in the water.” They find a long line on the computer screen. They jump in the water. It’s a long piece of wood. It might be a canoe, a Mayan canoe! There are alligators in the water. There’s a storm coming. They leave. 

What? You find what you claim is a Mayan canoe and you just leave it? WTF?

Okay, now we go to the search for the step pyramid. The Lidar guys find out to the west a square-ish mound and it’s got a protrusion in the center of one side which the Lidar guy says is a staircase. A Mayan pyramid! 

Hum. I decided to look for anything about the island on which the pyramid is located. There’s a article I found which looks at the show. First, the article points out that the bird they were told about is thought to have gotten to Florida during prehistoric times when the Gulf of Mexico was dry land and this bird was seen to habitat from the northern part of South America to the middle of Mexico all the way over to Florida. The birds in Florida are left over from that time. 

Also, there is an archaeological article which outlines an investigation of the mound that the bros found. It’s a shell mound, like lots of shell mounds in Florida. It has layers. It looks like steps, but it is steps of shells. There’s a ramp of shells in the middle of one side that leads down to an open area. It could look like a staircase from Lidar.

As to the canoe, it turns out there are a lot of canoes from prehistoric times found in Florida.

Now we get to the Jovan guy. I looked him up. There’s a guy I found with three names. The first name is Jovan. But this guy can’t be the guy, because he’s involved with claiming that he can show that votes in the 2020 election were flipped against Trump and for Biden. Additionally, this fellow is the inventor of The Cricket. A mouse that was declared one of the worst inventions of the year in which it was brought on the market. Then there’s a picture of Jovan with Rudy Giuliani. Rudy is smiling, but he looks uncomfortable while in the bear hug of Jovan, who is smiling widely, too widely I’d say.

But it is the guy. WTF? Jovan is claimed to be a Mayan expert, a techie on vote flipping, an inventor of a mouse declared to be the worst for the year.

He also sells a line of book about treasure hunting in various states and parts of the world.

While I was watching the show I had to wonder how much money these guys had to spend. I mean, wow. They got folks in to talk to them, they hired techies with equipment, they had overhead shots of them going from one place or another. Wow. 

The show ends and the bros are off on another adventure. To Egypt, To I forget where. No Mayan canoe, no stepped pyramid, no birds brought here by the Mayans, no evidence to speak of. And this, is what passes for research? Or evidence? Or adventure? OMG.

PS My picture of Big Foot in my backyard.