Cultural Homogenization- How Halloween is Getting Even Scarier

Like millions of other people, October is my favorite month. The leaves are turning, the air is crisp and cool and there is a litany of sports on television. And the exclamation point to this month has always been Halloween. Where kids are able to dress as their favorite cartoon character, transvestite or blood-soaked maniac and get all sugared up on Milk Duds.

The Halloween season has even started to eclipse Christmas in terms of pageantry, holiday events and lead time when drugstores start filling the aisles with Chinese made decorations. But it seems that these days the Halloween season is getting scarier for the wrong reasons. No, I'm not talking about Starr Jones dressed as Catwoman. I'm talking about cultural homogenization also known as "living in offensive-free America".

School districts all over the country are replacing Halloween parades and festivals with "Fall Festivals"- that just happen to coincide with Halloween, and where the kids dress up in costumes. The concern is that the holiday has too much of a religious connection as it is technically celebrated as the eve of All Saints Day. So every year, on October 31st, we'll dress our kids in costumes and ship them off to school to celebrate...fall. And this will make it all better, right? Everyone believes in fall, right? Well, maybe not the Mayans.

I can't say I didn't see this coming. Rarely in corporate America do you see office Christmas Parties. They are now Holiday Parties so that we are inclusive of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. This approach is perfectly reasonable as you throw in Thanksgiving, Ramadan, New Years, Boxing Day, Veteran's Day, National Clean Out Your Fridge Day(Nov. 14th), etc., this is truly the holiday season. "Merry Christmas" has been replaced with Happy Holidays when you're not certain of someones religious affiliation. Perfectly fine and a good practice.

Happy Holidays works for everyone, right? Maybe not. Apparently not everyone celebrates a holiday in November and December so some "forward thinking" companies have replaced "Holiday" parties with "Winter" parties. Because, God forbid you offend someone by celebrating something that you believe in. Crap, I just said "God". Sorry, athiests. Crap, I just said "crap". Sorry easily offended people who think that's foul language. And I don't mean "easily offended" in an offensive way.

Can you see the slippery slope of removing our cultures from our culture? With six billion people in the world, there will always be someone who is offended by something. I'm pretty sure if you looked hard enough, you would find a contingent of Americans who are offended by Craisins or Velcro.

So now we have a Winter Party and greet each other with "Happy Winter"? What about our friends from the southern hemisphere? December is summer in Sydney. Scratch winter party as it might offend Australians. How about a December party? "Happy December?" Well, that's great if you follow the Gregorian calendar. There are a host of other calendars still in existence from Chinese to Jewish to Mayan. Can't offend any anti-Gregorians.

And for that matter, can we say "Happy" anything without fear of upsetting manic depressives? So December is rapidly approaching and we can't agree on a non-offensive way to wish someone well during a mutually agreed upon representation of the position of the earth in our orbit around the sun. Maybe that's it. Earth travels roughly 580 million miles around the sun every year, so every "December"- if you believe in December- we celebrate mile marker 540m? "Happy 540". Wait, scratch "happy". How about we just nod with no expression that could be interpreted as offensive and simply say, "540". I can see the conversations now.

--"540"

-"540 to you to, my friend. Are you planning to partake in the competition-less and subdued 540 activities later today after our daily back shavings?"

--"Perhaps. After I pick up my average achievement award and visit my speech therapist. My southern accent is acting up again."

-"Sorry to hear that. Well. Have a day, 18950521052"

-- "You too, 18950596332"

More to come of this topic. In the mean time, "485", friends.

The Not-so-Great Health Care Debate

So I'm running through a crowded city street on my way to the post office to mail my brother a fleece tank top for his birthday when I notice roughly one third of the population of Rhode Island lined up at the local Quickie Burger. My first thought was, "Wow, they're making a lot of dough." But then I paused and thought, "Wow, they're killing a lot of people and unfairly burdening the health care system."

After a brief postal transaction, I started to give this some more thought. According to the CDC, about every 25 seconds, an American will have a heart attack, and about one every minute will die from one. That's over 525,000 people each year. Granted many heart attacks are the result of normal wear and tear, people have to seriously consider how much eating fast food increases the other heart disease risk factors. Fat, salt, cholesterol all contribute to the possibility of people dropping dead while in line for a fat, salt and cholesterol sandwich.

Recently one restaurant promoting a healthier lifestyle has come up with clever names for fast food combo meals such as "Can my butt look any bigger" meal, or the "opposite sex repellent combo". These are cute, probably fairly effective commercials but I'm not sure they really scratch the surface. How about something a little more attention grabbing like the "I'd like to be in the grave before I have grandchildren meal", or the "55 years is plenty for me combo". How about the, "What other bad examples can I set for my children deluxe"?

Obesity rates in this country are completely out of control and it's both sad for the family members who lose someone due to self-inflicted heart disease, and an unfair burden on the health care system. One study suggests that 30% of the health care spending increases over the next 20 years could be directly attributed to rising obesity rates. And yet purveyors of fast food garbage continue to flood the airwaves with happy, healthy-looking actors cramming this waste between their perfect white teeth as if the #7 Deluxe is the path to enlightenment.

All the while we're getting fatter and lazier as a society. In 2009, obesity rates have climbed in 23 states and did not decrease in any. Colorado is the only state with an adult obesity rate of less than 20%. 31 states exceed a 25% obesity rate and four exceed 30%.

In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. In 1980, the national average for adult obesity was 15 percent. Today 66% of adults are considered obese or overweight. Makes you feel good as an American, doesn't it? What's worse is what we're doing to our children. Only three states have obesity and overweight rates below 25%, 18 states are between 25-30%, 21 states are between 30-35%, seven states are between 35-40% and one state is at 44.4%. All told, Americans spend over $160 billion per year to kill themselves.

Part of the problem is that most people have no clue how many calories they are stuffing their faces with when they decide to hit a drive through. So I've decide to do a little research and create some killer combo meals that exceed the daily caloric intake for an average-sized water buffalo.

I'll call this the "Never Live to See Your Children Graduate" Meal

White Castle Large Chocolate Shake- 1680 calories

Carl's Jr Double Six Dollar Burger- 1520 calories

Nathans Super Size French Fries- 1188 calories

GRAND TOTAL-----------------4388 calories

How about the "I've Given Up on Life" Value Meal

Hardee's Monster Thick Burger- 1420 calories

Dairy Queen Large Chocolate Malt- 1300 calories

Arby's Mozzarella Sticks- 840 calories

GRAND TOTAL-------------------3560 calories

You get the picture. The site below lists 272 fast food items that are more than 700 calories each. Each. The average 35 year old, 170 pound male needs a little over 2200 calories per day. A 140-pound woman needs around 1700. Needless to say, the combo meals above should feed the average adults for two full days. And we wonder why our gym memberships aren't working.

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/fast-food-calories.php#

Yet some airlines will charge me an additional $20 for my checked bag when my bag and I combined weigh much less than many passengers. Go figure.

So who is to blame for our growing health issues? Is it the fast food restaurants or the patrons? Is there really a demand for unhealthy food, or just cheap and easy food? I'm thinking the blame should be spread evenly like special sauce on a sesame seed bun.

Just Bought Next Year's Mayan Calendar and it Doesn't Go Past 2012. Odd.

So I was minding my own business on the airport shuttle last week when I couldn't help notice two people debating healthcare. No, not national healthcare but the appropriate use of cotton swabs. Suddenly another bystander who looked like he fell asleep in 1969 and just rolled out of bed to catch the airport shuttle piped up, "Not sure why you even care about proper ear care. We'll all be dead in 2012 anyway." This was attention grabbing. The bus fell silent and 22 thumbs simultaneously came to a screeching halt on their Blackberry keyboards.

Is this guy some sort of terrorist? Great. Hope he's not on my flight. He proceeded, "According to the Mayans, the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012". Thank God. He's not a terrorist, just a whack job. I still hope he's not on my flight.

For the next 0.4 miles he attempted to explain the Mayan calendar to a bus full of people who were attempting to nonchalantly move their valuables out of his reach. Before I could really grasp what he was trying to convey, it was time to depart the vehicle. But I couldn't help wondering what all this nonsense was about, so I Googled.

In a nutshell, the Mayans have a very sophisticated system of calendars unlike our simplistic, singular Gregorian calendar that resets every 365 1/4 days. The Mayans use(d) multiple calenders simultaneously: The Haab, which is based on our solar cycle of 365 days, the Tzolkin which consists of 13 months lasting 20 days each (260 days total), and the Long Count which lasts approximately 5,125 years. I won't bore you with details about how many cycles known as baktuns, katuns and tuns add up to 5,125. Basically, the Long Count consists of five numbers such as 12.19.13.15.12. On December 21st, 2012 the calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0, which is as high as it goes.

So what does that mean exactly? Well to those who wear the proverbial purple Nikes (see Haley's Comet), it means "Two thousand zero zero, party's over, we're out of time. So tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999" to quote the artist formerly known as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince." Anyone with a book to sell, a basement full of survival gear or over $175,000 in credit card debt is proclaiming that when the Mayan calendar ends, so do we. Right. Like the Mayans had so many things figured out. 10 million of them couldn't even figure out how to ice 500 conquistadors with feminine beards, tights and pointy silver helmets.

Conspiracy theorists are popping up all over with books attempting to link this to science. Theories range from the earth reversing it's polarity due to sun spots, to the "return of Quetzalcoatl (The Mayan god of erectile dysfunction), to the earth passing through the Milky Way's equator causing all sorts of bad things to happen from comets and tsunamis to people paying too much for their mufflers. There is even a movie about the apocalypse due out starring John Cusack in fall of 2009.

Part of the hysteria stems from the fact that this date does coincide with the winter solstice and the fact that Earth actually is passing through the center of the Milky Way. But the truth is that, as smart as the Mayans were, they had no concept of the Milky Way galaxy or it's galactic center. Like most chocolate loving Mesoamericans, Milky Way was a candy bar and it's center was plain old nougat- whatever that is. Mayan Scholars have likened the calendar to an odometer. Once it hits 13.0.0.0.0, it will simply roll over. Other more spiritual folk merely think of this as the beginning of a new age of enlightenment.

So we're more than three years away from this alleged doomsday and the lunatic fringe is already starting to make their case. By December 20th, 2012 they will have worked themselves into a survivalist crescendo selling magic crystals, bottled water, salvation and "I Survived 2012" t-shirts. And when December 22nd, 2012 rolls around you'll be able to buy domain names like Mayan2012.com and 2012survival.org for dirt cheap.

But you know what? Just in case, I think I'm going to start my End of the World to-do list. This won't be exactly like a "bucket list" as a bucket list presumes that you're the only one passing over into the great cornfield in the sky. My End of the World list my be a bit more anarchanistic. In the meantime, here are some 2012 resources where you can learn more about the Mayan culture and protect your family and children from the pending doom for as little as $49.95. More to come as 2012 rapidly approaches.


http://www.2012officialcountdown.com/?hop=gemusli

http://mayancalendar2012.org/

http://www.2012endofdays.org/general/2012-end-of-days.php

http://www.end-of-the-world-2012.com/maya-calendar-2012.html

http://www.amazon.com/2012-Return-Quetzalcoatl-Daniel-Pinchbeck/dp/1585424838