I don't watch a whole lot of television. I don't have cable and do not miss it, except for the occasional soccer match that I cannot catch unless I stop in at the pub. In fact, the majority of television shows that I watch are on public television. Below are the television shows that I do watch and enjoy.

Globe Trekker: This is the best travel show ever. Hosts Ian Wright and Megan McCormick are my favorites and never cease to hold my attention as they travel through some of the most beautiful places on Earth. My favorite episodes were Bolivia and Columbia, two places I would love to go. What sets this apart from other travel shows is the affordability of the activities and the backpacker element the show has. Hardly ever staying in hotels, the travelers instead prefer family run bed and breakfasts and hostels where they spend time talking to locals. Also, their off the beaten track adventures and fearless attitudes to experience new things (like eating bats) can make any location seem like Eden. My best Globe Trekker moment when I was traveling would have to be diving into the cenotes outside Coba, Mexico. Standing three stories above the water makes your adrenalin flow and after you jump if takes forever to reach the water.

Simply Ming: Ming Tsai's public television show. Owner of restaurant Blue Ginger, Ming takes us into his own personal kitchen and reinvents the master recipe theme for cooking shows. He selects two ingredients, one from the east, one from the west and makes three delicious recipes and then pares them with wine. Also, he has a guest chef from around the country each week who also use the ingredients that Ming has chosen for that specific episode. While most of his recipes are not vegetarian, the techniques and recipes can influence even the strictest eaters. All you would need would be a little imagination and creativity in the kitchen.

Coupling: British sitcom about a group of six friends, three male, three female and their unique views of sex and relationships. Yes, I know, this sounds like Friends, but trust me, this one is really good! The series ran for four seasons, and the first three seasons are guarenteed to keep you laughing out loud. The fourth season is still entertaining, but with the absence of the character Jeff, the episodes lack the ackwardness that made the series great.

Dr. Who: I don't need to write too much about Dr. Who. What else can I say other than it is one of the best shows I have ever seen! Hopefully my public television channel starts airing the episodes again soon. If not, there is always Netflix.

The Sopranos: HBO can really make wonderful television shows. I used to watch the show Oz every week and I didn't think that a show could get crazier than that until I first saw the Sopranos. The best part of this drama is that it doesn't take place in a hospital! No seriously, the cast make their roles so believable and the writing is great. Plus, I always enjoys movies, books and television shows that aren't afraid to kill off big characters (see A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin for more of this).

Extras: From the man who created the Office, this show is amazing (Are you having a laugh?). The show is centered around two friends and their attempts to break away from their extra roles in films and make it big as actors and actresses. Ricky Gervais plays the lead and is just as great here as he was in the original Office as David Brent. One of my favorite parts of this show are the cameos form some of Hollywood's biggest names, who play mocking versions of themselves. Ian McKellen and Kate Winslet's appearances are my personal favorites. It is just too bad that just like the original Office, this series only lasted for two seasons. Well, I guess I would rather have two seasons of gold than an entire run of crap.

Tags: television

One of the most exciting parts of my trip to Mexico was seeing the wildlife. The crocodiles at Coba were amazing and very scary!


 
A wild boar in the jungle at Aktun Chen. We had the opportunity to see a pack eating later in the day and I was shocked to see how violent they are.


A crocodile in a lake by Coba. For a dollar we were able to go out on this very shaky dock and get within a couple of feet of the crocodiles. This crocodile has been named Ola by the locals.


Me with a crocodile


Kristin with a crocodile


Parrots


Monkeys


A bird


Pelican


A small lizard


An iguana at Tulum. The beach at Tulum was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

Tags: travel

 
Coba, Mexico


Coba, Mexico


The observatory at Coba, Mexico


Nohuch Mul, the great pyramid at Coba


Hiking through the jungle


Me climbing in Coba


Ruins in Coba, Mexico

Tags: travel

 Michael Vick is arguably the most hated man in America. Even the day after President Bush compared Iraq and Vietnam and spoke badly of the latter war’s withdrawal (a war in which he supported but did not want to fight in) the mainstream media and families across the country are more angry and disgusted with Vick. We are hearing everyone take a stand against dog fighting and saying how cruel it is, how Vick is a murderer and how they should lock him in a cell and throw away the key. Vick is about to plead guilty to, after all, of fighting and killing man’s best friend.

 

This is not hard to be angry about. Dog fighting is a violent and disgusting activity to be involved in. Even though hundreds of thousands of people are involved with the “sport” people view it as something that only happens in the backward South with people who are morally bankrupt with no sense of compassion. I saw a local newscaster this morning say that China was going to try and get it in the 2008 Olympics. He was being sarcastic of course, and what better way to make America laugh by not only attacking Vick, but also tossing in a joke about those crazy Chinese. I cannot think of a time when all of America was this outraged about the same issue. So my question about the situation is this: What if America took the same anger it has towards Vick and apply it to when people are being killed?

On August 22, 2007 the state of Texas executed Johnny Ray Connor. Conner was the 400th prisoner to be executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. In the days that led up to the execution the European Union stepped in and asked Texas to put a moratorium on capital punishment citing "There is no evidence to suggest that the use of the death penalty serves as a deterrent against violent crime and the irreversibility of the punishment means that miscarriages of justice, which are inevitable in all legal systems, cannot be redressed."

The response they got from Robert Black, a spokesman for the governor was “Two hundred and thirty years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe ... Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”

To put it bluntly, don’t mess with Texas!

And if to add salt to the wound, Texas also has executions scheduled for the 29^th and 30^th of this month. One of these executions is to be a man that the state of Texas admits did not kill anyone. So I guess that the quote from Robert Black that the death penalty is reserved for the “most horrible crimes committed against our citizens” isn’t the case after all. Still not outraged? Keep reading.

In 1996 Kenneth Foster Jr. was a getaway driver for Mauriceo Brown who had just committed a robbery. During the robbery Brown shot and killed Michael LaHood Jr., the son of a prominent white lawyer. Foster and Brown both admitted that Foster had no idea that a shooting was going to occur. In fact, Foster was 80 feet away sitting in the car when LaHood was killed, but Foster was tried along with Brown and both were sentenced to death. Brown was executed in 2006 while another defendant in the case, Julius Steen testified for a lesser charge of aggravated robbery and was given a shorter sentence. How can one man who didn’t pull the trigger be charged with aggravated robbery while the other has a date with death in one week’s time? The answer is Texas’ controversial “Law of Parties” which states that just being at the scene makes you responsible for the crime. This looks like it could be one of those “miscarriages of justice, which are inevitable in all legal systems” that cannot be redressed.

Kenneth Foster Jr. hasn’t been silent about his case or the death penalty either. He is a co-founder of the DRIVE (Death Row Inner-communalist Vanguard Engagement) Movement which aims “To push forward and initiate a change in the conditions first, that will then set the conditions that will lead to the abolition of the Death Penalty.” He has also said that he will not acquiesce in his own execution. He will be going on hunger strike on August 23, 2007 along with John Joe Amador who is scheduled to be executed the day before Foster.

In a letter brilliantly written by Foster and Amador titled, “Stand with Us for Human Rights! How We Will Protest Our Executions” they proclaim that they are “committed to a protest of passive non-participation in our executions. Together we have decided to go on a spiritual mission to oppose our systematic executions in the hopes to open the eyes of people that think this horrific process is ok.” They add, “If we are to be unjustly taken then we do not want to go silently. We will not walk to our executions and we will not eat last meals. We will not give this process a humane face.”

Now imagine what would happen if the reporters and sportswriters whipping up the frenzy around the Michael Vick case focused on the case of Kenneth Foster Jr. or any other inmate for that matter. Could you imagine Jim Rome with his designer shades and stylish goatee broadcasting about the heroic final push of resistance in the last moments in the game of life for Kenneth Foster? Or the men on Sports Center comparing it to the final drive in the famous Ice Bowl played between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys? What a show that would be.

If we had that type of support or focus on real issues instead of whatever pop culture issue is making headlines today, we could move mountains. That is why Michael Vick is in the headlines today and Lindsay Lohan will be tomorrow. To give this case the attention that is deserves is to admit that there are flaws in the system. To review this case would lead to the reviews of other cases and then the system of barbarism, racism and injustice currently known as the criminal justice system would be fatally exposed. That is precisely why we need to focus on Kenneth Foster’s case and tell the people in the media now that Vick is going to plead guilty we should “toss him a bone,” and focus on correcting a real injustice.

After all, these men are giving so much so that one day our society will be a more just one. As Kenneth Foster Jr. and John Joe Amador said in their letter, “We are not doing this for ourselves, but for YOU, the people, to demonstrate to you that we do not agree with this process. We do this for YOU, the people, to show that we are new men today and that we must stand down the death penalty.” They continue, “We will not lift a finger to another person. We will only lift our voices and spirits. We will allow YOU, the people, to be the force that must be reckoned with!”

Tags: politics

 

The Maya first arrived to the low lands of southern Mexico and Guatemala around 1000 BCE (Gugliotta). The height of the Mayan civilization happened during the Classic period (150-900 CE) although the Maya, as a people, still exist to this day (Craig et al. 313). The Maya are most widely known today for their ancient ruins and the advancements they made to the calendar. They had an empire that stretched from Mexico to Honduras and even had sports that in some ways can be seen as an early ancestor to today’s soccer. Although many of the cities were inhabited around the same time, much of the architecture from city to city differs. Today, some of the most well known Mayan sites are in the Mexican States of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, located in the Yucatan Peninsula. These sites are Chichen Itza, Coba and Tulum.

Faced with the very difficult task of settling this mosquito infested land, they built their first camps near rivers and swamps. The Maya cleared away the dense jungle to begin growing crops using the slash and burn technique that is still practiced by the Maya today (Gugliotta). In the generations that followed, the Maya developed more advanced forms of farming, such as irrigation. Irrigation and other farming techniques lead to a rapid rise in the population of their cities as they were then able to feed more people (Gugliotta). These city-states are located throughout the Mexican Riviera and much can be learned from their ruins.

Chichen Itza, translated as “Mouth of the Well of the Itzaes,” is located in the Mexican state of Yucatan and is believed to have been first inhabited during the late Classic period by the Maya. Chichen Itza was originally abandoned in the 9^th century for unknown reasons to be re-inhabited in the late 10^th century. A short time later the Toltecs invaded the area and their culture was mixed with that of the Maya. Along with the new culture the Toltecs brought, the practice of human sacrifice also greatly increased. Chichen Itza was also the capital for the Itza, a group of Mayan descent. What has been excavated of the city today spreads to four square miles, although at its peak it was much larger.

The Pyramid of the Kukulcan, also called “El Castillo,” is about 75 feet tall and is the largest monument in Chichen Itza. As a stone copy of the Mayan calendar, each side of the pyramid has 91 stairs, and including the top, brings the total amount of steps to 365, the number of days in the year. On the spring and fall equinoxes, the sun casts a shadow down the sides of the pyramid that represents Kukulcan. Kukulcan, or “the feathered serpent,” is the name of a god introduced by the Toltecs to Chichen Itza (Swanson). The pyramid was at one point significantly smaller, but at the height of Toltec influence, a new pyramid was constructed on top of the old one, which was common in the Mayan culture.

Chichen Itza is also home to the largest ball court that has been excavated from Mayan sites. While other Mayan cities, such as Coba, have the same ball courts, none compare to the size of the court at Chichen Itza. While historians are unsure of how the game was played, they believe that the point was to kick a rubber ball through a limestone hoop that is located on the two slanted walls in the ball court. No one is sure of how many players were on each side, but it is known that players were sacrificed at the end of the game and that the game had religious and sacred connections. It is still unknown if the players being sacrificed were members of the winning or losing side or how many were killed after the completion of the game.

Tzompantli, or the “Platform of Skulls,” is a large structure at Chichen Itza to pay homage to military victories and to display the severed heads of those who were sacrificed. The Maya also used this structure as a warning to invaders about what consequences awaited them (Swanson). Another place where bodies were placed was the Sacred Cenote, which was used for bathing and religious ceremonies. Cenotes are large underground wells that are found throughout the Yucatan Peninsula and served as an important source of clean water for the Maya. For this reason, most large Mayan cities are located close to cenotes. There are two major cenotes located at Chichen Itza, and even after the fall of the city, they remained a popular place for pilgrimages.

The reasons why Chichen Itza was abandoned still remains a debated topic. The predominant belief is that a civil war broke out after an uprising by the Maya and that the city began to crumble when Mayapan was selected as the new capital. Even though Chichen Itza was still considered to be the religious capital, the upkeep of the city was neglected and shortly after, the city fell to ruin.

Another major Mayan city is Coba. Coba is believed to have been built during the Classic Period and was home for over 40,000 Mayans at its peak. A large city, Coba covered over 50 square miles and is believed to have been a major trade city between Chichen Itza and the other Mayan cities located in what is now Guatemala. Its name translates as “ruffled waters,” and was named this because of the location of five lakes in its vicinity (“Coba Ruins”). Coba was settled earlier that Chichen Itza and has significantly different architecture. The architecture is more closely related to the buildings at Tikal, the largest ancient Mayan city located in Guatemala, rather than nearby Mayan cities in the Yucatan Peninsula. While the reasons for this are still being debated, the leading theory is that these two groups created an alliance with a marriage pact and a wedding, which led to close ties between the cities (Schechter 127).

The city of Coba is connected by a group of limestone roads called “sacbes” that run from each of the structures and were used for commerce and trade, as well as by the city inhabitants who were transporting goods (“Maya Ruins of Coba”). Sacbes were also used to connect Coba to other Mayan sites such as Yaxuna, which is located 45 miles from the city (“Guide to Coba Archeological Park”). One sacbe leads to Coba’s largest pyramid Nohoch Mul (“Large Hill”), which has 120 stairs and stands 140 feet tall. Nohoch Mul is a larger pyramid than the Pyramid of the Kukulcan at Chichen Itza and is the highest point in the Yucatan Peninsula, as it was erected on the top of a hill. Nohoch Mul is also the second tallest structure in the Yucatan Peninsula with only the Estructura pyramid at Calakmul being taller. On the building at the top of Nohoch Mul are two carvings of diving gods which are similar to carvings found at Tulum (Schechter 129).

Coba has not been excavated to the extent that Chichen Itza or Tulum have. With the vast amount of land that Coba covers, archeologists believe that up to 6,500 other buildings are yet to be uncovered in the jungles that surround the main attractions (Schechter 127). People today can see this firsthand when looking out over the jungle from the top of Nohoch Mul. For miles around one can see countless mounds of unexcavated archeological sites that have been covered by hundreds of years of vegetation and growth. The extent to which the ruins are excavated is a hotly debated issue among the residents of Coba, with many being concerned with what will happen to their community if their city becomes as popular of a destination as Chichen Itza.

Tulum was a Mayan City that was inhabited during the Post-Classic period (900-1521 CE), although artifacts and inscriptions found in the area date back to the 500’s (Craig et al. 313). The city was used as a fortress with three sides of the city walled and the fourth is a cliff that drops into the sea. With the center of the city protected by the wall, most of the city’s inhabitants lived outside of the main area, leaving the center for the upper or ruling class. The wall is believed to have been erected to protect the city rulers during a time of fighting between the different Mayan states (Schechter 121). At its peak, Tulum was one of the most important Mayan cities for trade because of its location, and therefore served as the major port for Coba.

The majority of the structures in Tulum have political and religious purposes. The center of the city was host to most ceremonies and many buildings have inscriptions about Kukulcan, the serpent god, as seen in Chichen Itza. Unlike Chichen Itza and Coba, no ball court is located in the city. This could be because of Tulum’s purpose of being a city for trade or because it was constructed later that the other cities, even though trade was common between Tulum and Chichen Itza until the latter city was abandoned.

The largest and most important building at Tulum was the structure known as “El Castillo”, or simply as the lighthouse. This building was the home to the priests in the city and was also used to keep watch of the waters and inform the city of a pending attack. Another use was to guide in boats though the coral reefs that posed a threat in the waters. Unlike the Pyramid of the Kukulcan or Nohoch Mul, the lighthouse is not a pyramid and is considerably smaller than these structures.

The cities of Coba and Tulum fell after the invasion of Spaniards with many people dying as a result of being exposed to germs and diseases that accompanied the invaders. Tulum did manage to survive as a city longer than Coba because Coba was already in decline. Tulum was also one of the last Mayan cities to hold against the foreign invaders, surviving intact for 75 years after the invasion (Schechter 121).

The downfall of the great Mayan civilization is viewed differently in different parts of the world. To some, it paved the way for the advancement of a new era and marked the beginning of the rise of the new world. To others, especially the Maya still living in Mexico today, it was the beginning of a life of poverty and subjugating to the wills of foreign powers that were invading and occupying their lands. For a civilization that created the concept of zero and developed an accurate calendar, to be completely ruined has been an extreme blow to the progress of mankind. With much of their knowledge now lost forever, current society can only guess at what our cultures and societies would be like today if they had the gifts and knowledge the Maya developed hundreds of years ago.

The ruined cities of the Mayan civilization, especially the main cities located in the Yucatan Peninsula, show us a glance into an advanced society. Sometimes brutal, but also deeply religious, the Mayan were a very complex civilization that differed from city-state to city-state, like many societies that exist today. From the ball courts and pyramids of Chichen Itza and Coba to the lighthouse and temples of Tulum, the Maya are one of the most important ancient American societies.

             

 

 

 

Works Cited

“Coba Ruins.” Different World. Online. 22 Nov 2007.

http://www.differentworld.com/mexico/areas/caribbean-coast/coba/guide.htm

Craig, Albert M., et al. The Heritage of World Civilizations: Volume One: To 1700. Upper

Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007.

Gugliotta, Guy. “The Maya: Glory and  Ruin.” National Geographic August 2007: n. pag.

Online. 22 Nov. 2007 http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0708/feature2/

“Guide to Coba Archeological Park.” Mexperience. Online. 22 Nov 2007

http://www.mexperience.com/guide/archaeology/coba.htm

“Mayan Ruins of Coba: Archeological Park in Quintana Roo, Mexico.”  Loco Gringo. Online. 18

Nov 2007. http://www.locogringo.com/past_spotlights/oct2002.cfm

Schechter, Daniel C. and Ray Bartlett. Lonely Planet: Yucatan. Lonely Planet Publications Pty

Ltd, 2006.

Swanson, L.C. “Welcome to Chichen Itza.” n. pag. Online. 16 Nov. 2007. http://www.internet

at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/chichen/chichen_index.html

Starring:
Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellen (voice), Eva Green, Christopher Lee and Dakota Blue Richards

Based on the first book of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass takes you to a land of imagination, adventure and not to forget, armored bears! In a world not so different from our own, children are disappearing throughout Europe, victims of the Gobblers (General Oblation Board). The aristocracy and the Christian Church (a brutal dictatorship that kills anyone who disagrees with them, but this is left out of the movie for the most part) turn their heads since those disappearing are Gyptions or servants and not members of their own class. After a friend of a young child named Lyra Belacqua goes missing and she realizes that she has met the person responsible, she escapes her Oxford. With the help of her daemon (a soul that lives on the outside of the body) and an instrument called an alethiometer which allows her to see truth, she sets out to the north to find her uncle and the reason why kids are being taken from their homes.

Anyone who has read the book is going to be thrilled and disappointed by the film adaptation. The casting of Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra worked perfectly. Her performance stands out even more than that of Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, who are also brilliantly cast. Not to forget the wonderful Ian McKellen, who is the voice for the bear king Iorek Byrnison, gives the large animal a sense of danger, wisdom and even at times, compassion. The part that makes the movie just another big budget fantasy is the decision to leave out the critiques of religion run amok to make it more family friendly and appealing to the evangelicals, who have a long record of hating anything that the film industry releases. In doing so, they are limiting what they can do in the next two movies in the series as the plot grows thicker and this theme becomes the backbone of the story. Nevertheless, the movie is visually beautiful and is worth seeing, even though it lacks some of the magic that made the books great.

Tags: movies