Buddy's hangover excuse

Isn't it amazing what kinds of weird things you run across when you aren't trying? I was just looking for a clean sheet of paper to keep up with my radical feminist critique of the latest James Bond movie (which, for those interested, took over 15 minutes into the movie before ANY woman gets to even SPEAK! - I know, I know, you say, it's James Bond, Prince of misogyny...still, I had HOPED. I mean, Dame Judy Dench is in it!!!!), when I opened an old notebook to this page. I had to laugh. The game was Scrabble. And Buddy's pathetic excuse for the slaughter is a hang-over. Ha! I'm just surprised I didn't get him to sign it for further verification!

I lied. Really, the final Ek' Balam picture.

I couldn't let go of Ek' Balam with just a picture of a plant and a bird. I had to add this final picture. Enjoy.

Nature at Ek' Balam

Ok, so I didn't get too many photos of nature. But let's start with this award-winner that Ginger took of a bromeliad on a stair. I adore this picture. It's just so perfect, I think.
Moving on to the picture of the bird. Can you identify it? It's a big brown bird. That's all I know.

Last Ek' Balam pictures

The last of the Ek' Balam pictures, and we aren't in them! How did this happen?!??! Anyway, the big round building is the back side of the small pyramid that we were on. The one with the sacrifice room at the top. The group of Jehova's Witnesses beside it are giving their undivided attention to a guide who is telling them that ALL people EVERYWHERE have ALWAYS worshipped the sign of the cross because it symbolizes freedom. She was saying that birds in flight have always been the ultimate symbol of freedom and their silhouettes -ta-dah!- form the shape of the cross. Isn't that special? I find it funny that nobody seems to question the idea of personal freedom as the be-all end-all of religious striving. In fact, I was under the impression that christian dogma actually emphasizes sublimating the self for the good of others. Silly me. That only applies to women.

More Ek' Balam

A few more pictures from Ek' Balam. Some of us in front of the big pyramid, one of me in front of the A-frame structure, and one of Ginger beside a tiny house. Maybe a guard shack? Again, it's too small to house more than one or maybe two people.

Ginger and Jenny goofin' at the little pyramid

Here we are at the top of the little pyramid. Having fun. Taking pictures. We struggled to get a good self-portrait. The angle of the sun made the pictures too bright and we had to take a lot. But the view is beautiful. And the pyramid made for a good fake bar, with Ginger as bartender.

On human sacrifice

Here I am pretending to be a sacrificial victim in the tiny room at the top of the little pyramid. There is a channel cut into the floor that slopes toward a small hole in the side, reminiscent of an abattoir. While it is beyond dispute that the ancient Maya practiced human sacrifice, I ally myself with those who decry the representation of the ancient Maya as bloodthirsty heathens who needed "saving" by the merciful, humane, and oh-so-civilized Spanish conquistadores in the recent movie by the well-known alcoholic christian supremacist Mel Gibson. Every civilization in the history of the planet has done the same. So why set up human sacrifice as an ideological justification for colonization? The europeans burned witches, White US southerners lynched Black men, Indians burned widows, and on a daily basis people are murdered by soldiers (from all kinds of armies). All of these are forms of human sacrifice designed to maintain power structures.