“That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,” Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday. ~AP

The “persecution of our migrant brothers”?  Clearly, these folks don’t know who they’re dealing with.  If only they knew just how non-persecutorial Dobleve is, they might reconsider their ritual cleansing and give him a hero’s welcome instead.  There are still the wars, I suppose, so maybe they could purify the land of just those war-related “bad spirits” and be done with it. 

However, in spite of this, I believe that Mr. Bush might be able to find some common ground with the Mayan priests.  It is said of classical Mayan religion:

The life-cycle of maize lies at the heart of Maya belief. This philosophy is demonstrated on the Maya belief in the Maize God as a central religious figure. The Maya bodily ideal is also based on the form of the young Maize God, which is demonstrated in their artwork. The Maize God was also a model of courtly life for the Classical Maya.

If this holds true today, Mr. Bush could make an appeal to Mayan traditionalism by promoting ethanol, as he has been doing all over Latin America.  Sam Brownback really needs to get on the ball with his fight for Mayan rights.  As this would suggest, it would be the perfect marriage of his ethanol pandering and his bleeding-heart need to meddle in the affairs of other countries.