TRAGIC MAGIC

Amateur magician and time machine enthusiast Skip Scallion learns hundreds of magic tricks.

He builds a time machine to wow, then rule, medieval Europe.

He arrives. Wows them.

And is burned alive for witchcraft.

MJW

STRAIGHT UP

Ever see an elderly person who's spine is bent like a number "7" and you immediately straighten your posture?

(And then let it slack again?)

MJW

CIVILIZATION BASED ON FECES TRAVEL

I have a theory that you can judge a cultures level of civilization by how far human feces travels from it. Let me drop it to you like this:

In less civilized cultures, one defecates on the surface of the planet and leaves it. In slightly more civilized cultures one will bury it, thus increasing the distance between feces and human. Some cultures will both leave feces or bury it, but do so at a location distant from their homes. Even more civilized.

Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.

Granted, it IS possible for uncivilized cultures to poop in a river and have it travel hundreds of miles on the Mississippi, Yangtze, Amazon, Nile or Danube. You would think this implies civilization. It does not. I must stipulate that the distance traveled by said feces must be facilitated by humans. Not nature. Pooping in a river is clever, but not civilized. (something the village down-river is bound to agree with)

That being said, some cultures have sewage systems that remove the feces from the home and channel it into a river. This is more civilized than just pooping directly in a river, but not the supreme measure of human civilization no matter how far away the waterway.

Now, I live in America in the year 2,011 AD and when I "go", I press a lever on a porcelain chair that sucks waste down a tube that passes under the floor, out of the house and under the front lawn to the street where it travels under traffic into a larger tube that takes it downhill, across town and toward larger and larger pipe systems that connect and connect and connect to sewage treatment plants that process and de-crapify it so that it can be disposed of properly.

Chart needed? Civilized.

Imagine the massive metropolis of New York, all the toilets in all the apartments, hotels, skyscrapers, on all the floors, depositing human waste down the spines of buildings then underground, gushing under the city as people walk blissfully above, channeled to massive pools at waste treatment facilities.

Truth is the system is so advanced I have no clear idea what they do or how they do it nor do I care. Everything is so worked out we don't NEED to know how the heck they do it. We pull a lever, push a button, or in some instances, a computer sensor does it for us, and we're back in business. No fuss no muss.

And our feces travels far. Kilometers. Miles. All engineered by man.

Signs of true civilization.

MJW

SUBURBAN MAN GIVES 1/2 ACRE OF LAND BACK TO AMERICAN INDIANS

American Burt Smink heard the song "Beds Are Burning" by Australian band Midnight Oil and passionately agreed, "The time has come to say fair's fair, to pay the rent to pay our share. The time has come, a fact's a fact, it belongs to them let's give it back. (Even though they meant Aborigines)."

Entire tribe relocates to freshly mowed lawn and parties like its 1399.

Neighbors pissed.

MJW

"THERE IS SIMPLY THE ROSE"

There comes a time in ones life when you realize you're not as young as you once were. And when you hit that point in life, you also realize that there's no going back. You can be surrounded by young people and feel their energy and become so entranced by it and part of it that you feel you are as young as them. But you're not. They know it and see it but you don't. You'll look in the mirror and see you, and you see what you've always seen, though maybe you acknowledge, reluctantly, that you've changed and continue to. And seem to faster these days.

If I could say anything about life after 35 is that aging speeds up. I feel from 25 to 35 I didn't change that much. Weight would go up or down sometimes, but "I" stayed the same physically. But that's changing now. And how do I feel about that?

Well, I guess I realize I can't be lazy anymore if I want to take care of myself. And I have been lazy. I have been blessed (thank goodness) with a pretty healthy existence here on planet earth. (knock on wood) I have heard SO many horrible stories of bad health problems assaulting people and laying them low. I know people who have been killed by them.

There's a girl in the summer theater camp where I work who's mother passed away years ago from some crazy brain issue. I don't remember what. Some kind of growth or disease that withered her and put her in her grave in a short amount of time. A rare thing. Out of the blue.

I performed with her mother two times in my life, in the musicals Camelot and West Side Story with a local community theater group. I always liked her. She was always sweet, funny and friendly, and was a talented actress, dancer and singer. Her husband, a man I've performed with in the same shows, and who has been my director in another show, has never remarried. Their daughter is now 10 or so and I met her today for the first time and she said her father told her about me. She seemed to like that I knew him. I don't know why but I felt some kind of connection with her. Or felt one from her to me.

I didn't know if I should mention her mother or not. That I knew her too. She was 3 or so when her mother died and so I guess she doesn't even remember her, though I know full well she's been well informed about her. I eventually told her I performed with her mother. I'm guessing I'm not the first person she's met in our area who's said that to her. Her mother performed with so many people. She didn't seem saddened by that and just nodded her head with a smile. For some reason I wanted her to know I knew her mom and enjoyed spending time with her. I guess as she grows older and maybe wants to know more about her as she becomes a woman herself, the number of people who knew and spent time with her mom will grow smaller and smaller.

And it brings me back to the overall passage of time and of life in general. How this woman I knew had a daughter and not long after, was taken from her. And now here is her child, growing up fast and heading towards her own adulthood. The connection and thread of life continuing. They also have a son who was 5 when it happened. And life goes on. Its amazing. Maria, her mother, is gone but they are not. She's part of her son and daughter. And always will be.

I don't know why I went down this road. But it makes me think of my own life and how I'm getting older and I have no 10 year old daughter of my own. I have no children, no thread I'm leaving behind. I have an older brother and a younger sister that have children. My amazingly cute and (also) quickly aging nephews. The oldest is two. They carry the family genes in them and so on that front I spoze my biological duties have been fulfilled by my siblings. I could have another nephew who comes out looking and acting like me. With my quick wit, amazing good looks and unlimited athletic ability. (cue barf)

I guess at the end of the day there comes a time in ones life when you realize you're not as young as you once were. And when you hit that point in life, you also realize that there's no going back. And its an interesting feeling is all. Makes you wonder where you've been and why. Where you're going and why. And how you maybe never thought about it as clearly before. Never noticed. Or didn't want to. Thinking you were still as young as the youth around you. Choosing to see what you wanted.

But I don't mind appreciating the process. Taking time to smell and observe the roses. For they're beautiful in the end. Always beautiful.

"These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower, there is no more; in the leafless root, there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. There is no time to it. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

MJW

WORDS OF FIRST ESKIMO SETTLER

"Oh yeah. This is it."

MJW

GENERAL SEATING

MJW

NO HELMET NO BRAINS

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bare-headed motorcyclist riding in protest of New York state's helmet law crashed, struck his head on the roadway and died from his injuries, state police said on Sunday. 

Philip Contos, 55, was riding among a large group of motorcyclists staging an organized protest ride in western New York near Syracuse against the state law requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets. 

The Parish, New York, resident crashed on Saturday on Route 11 in Onondaga, New York, and was pronounced dead later at a local hospital, state Trooper Robert Jureller said. 

"The doctor felt that the death could have been prevented if he simply had been wearing a helmet," Jureller said. "He hit the brakes, lost control, was ejected and struck his head on the road. He suffered a skull fracture."  

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by David Bailey)

If this wasn't so tragic, it would be friggin' hilarious.

I understand the desire to not have state or federal government require you to do anything. But why wouldn't you WANT to wear a helmet? How does his being dead give him the upper hand in the argument? Are people at his wake going yeah, he's dead and gone, but damn it, no one told HIM what to do!

I could see wanting it repealed, and then when it is, wear one anyway. So this way people know its a CHOICE you're wearing it, not a LAW. Whatever. Absolutely ridiculous.
 

MJW

FROM 13 STRIPES TO 50 STARS TO...

My nations birthday on July 4th. Happy belated birthday, America.

235 years old. A lot has happened since the Founding Fathers said "UP YOURS!" to the British Empire. That took a lot of cajones. (bawls) For when you rebel against the empire, the empire WILL kill you if you fail. They'll cut you up in pieces and put your head atop a wall for all to see and for you to see all.

Our nations history is one of immense, rapid change. From thirteen colonies throwing off the shackles of a global empire to becoming a global empire in just 169 years. (1776 Declaration of Independence to the end of  World War II in 1945, though the U.S. established a global presence much earlier, in particular during the Spanish-American war in 1898, and many gains have been made between 45' and 2011 - see map below). Not surprising if you realize America is the bastard child of the Spanish, Dutch, French and British empires.

And by empire I don't just mean a military presence. I prefer Norwegian Sociologist Johan Galtung's definition of empire: "an unequal exchange of resources" (even within its own borders). A "tetrapus" with four  tentacles;  economic (economic extraction), political (political submission-repression - using the U.N., NATO, IMF, World Bank etc...), military (military intervention), and cultural (cultural cloning).

I feel at present our imperial "tetrapus" is on the rocks, rocks of our own making, and we'll go down in history as one of the quickest in and out of global power in world history. Not out of power or influence completely, just out of global hegemony. That's just my take. Happened to the Romans. Mongols. Byzantines. Holy Roman Empire. The Raj's of India. Chinese dynasties. Japanese Shoguns. The Spanish, French, British empires. All dominant in their known worlds.

Insane to think it won't happen to us. And its happening now.

But not to fear, my fellow Americans! A period of internal blossoming is around the corner. A time for the Republic to flourish. (Galtung predicts the transition in 2020). If you look at more recent former world empires Britain and France and Germany (well, not globally for the Germans, but they expanded well beyond their borders last century), they're all holding their own and prospering for the most part.

Sure you'll lose some GDP (Gross Domestic Product) lacking the direct acquisition of foreign resources you had when entrenched across the sea, (militarily or economically), but with WAY WAY less money needed to upkeep foreign bases and forces, that's more loot to spend coast to coast. ( Hawaii and Alaska too)

Change is a'comin'! But then, it always is. For us, for them, for we all. Change is the one constant. We spend so much of our time trying to fight it. Hold it off. Wear blinders to it. But its there. Might as well go with the flow.

We're not corks bobbing helplessly on the river of life.

We ARE the river.

Happy birthday America. Every precious current, falls and eddy.

MJW