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I could see wanting it repealed, and then when it is, wear one anyway.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

NO JEOPARDY IN "JEOPARDY!"

I enjoy the game show "Jeopardy!" but lets be honest. No one's ever in jeopardy.

I understand that if you answer a question wrong you lose the amount that question was worth. That sucks, but hardly constitutes jeopardy. They even use an exclamation point in the title: JEOPARDY! What for? To trick us to watch? Make it sound exciting? As soon as the show starts and someone answers questions about the periodic table, Mongolian history or the Peer Gynt Suite, we know no one's in danger.

Maybe when Merv Griffin created the show he had each contestant stand on trap doors that plunged them straight into a pool of abused alligators if they lost. Or had them launched through the air by catapults or slid through a tube into a gladiatorial ring where they had to wrestle tigers. Now that would be JEOPARDY! But the studio over-ruled him and the advertising was already done so the title stuck.

(Alligators! Tigers! Trebeks! Oh my!)

P.S. - Why is it that people on Jeopardy! are super smart and know things like how many times the Czar of Russia pooped in a day, and yet they leave the show with winnings in the low thousands while complete idiots on other game shows where you just jump up and down screaming and pick brief-cases at random (Deal or No Deal) or stack a few apples on top of each other (Minute to Win It) allow you to win a MILLION?

Maybe when Jeopardy! started the values were a lot of money for that time, and they've stayed the same all these years and inflation has made them seem silly now. Hmmmm..... Have to investigate that.

If at present they made each question worth $10,000, $50,000, $250,000, and you LOST that much if you got it wrong? NOW THAT WOULD BE JEOPARDY! 

MJW

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YA BEEN?

Had a debate with friends the other day in a bar after work about when and how someone can say they've been to a region or state or country on the planet earth if they just drove through it, flew over it or had a lay-over at an airport.

London's Heathrow Aerodrome

My friends said that driving through a state does not allow you to say that you've been there. That a lay-over in a city does not allow you to say you've been to that city.

I however, massively disagree.

You can't possibly tell me that if I, on my way to Paris, had a layover in London, no matter how short, that I have "not been" to London as much as someone who's never left their house. It is completely irrational.

Colorado, USA

If I drove through Colorado from border to border, never getting out to pee or eat, traversing the valleys, forests, mountains and passes, you're going to tell me that I've never BEEN to Colorado as much as someone who never left their house? Nonsense.

Can I say I've "been" to Colorado? Of COURSE I can. I was actually IN Colorado. I had the window down and SAW it with my own eyes.

I would go so far as to say, though it needs a different designation than "been there", that flying over a piece of earth in a jet constitutes a level of experience greater than someone who has never done such a thing.

Photo of Dubai neighborhood by me, who's never been

For example: I returned from India to the United States by flying to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where we had an hour layover and saw the city through the windows of the airport, and once more through the window of the plane. Does this mean I can't say I've "been" to Dubai?

THEN we flew over Iran from bottom to top. Now, while I can't say I've BEEN to Iran, I DID see it with my own eyes, with only a pane of glass between us. That certainly counts in some way more towards "having been", (though I can't say that term exactly) than someone who's never left their house. I'd say the same for Dubai. Landing and taking off revealed an even more amazing experience with that city than looking out the airport windows.

My photo of in-flight map from Dubai to Iran on Emirates airlines

Iran. (photo by me though apparently I've never been there)

I guess the question really should be clearer than have you "been there" or not. But have you "sight seen" there or not. In that case, no I have not sight seen in Iran. But I CAN say I've been there. Or "over it" anyway. Which is still infinitely more "there" than never having left home.

I took a night train from Vienna to Budapest that cut through the city of Bratislava in Slovakia. In the night I was awakened by a Slovak train conductor who asked for my passport, looked at it, looked at me, then stamped it. I went back to bed and woke in Hungary, but does this mean I have to say I've not "been" to Slovakia though my body WAS in the human territory called Slovakia? Have I NOT been to Slovakia as much as the friend I was talking to who's never been?
Insanity.

Did I SIGHT SEE in Slovakia? No. Other than seeing villages and tree silhouettes and stars at night from my window on a couple occasions, I did not walk its cities or meet its people. (other than the conductor) Fair enough. But when I tell people I hit 11 countries on my European backpacking adventure, I do include Slovakia. Get over it. When I go down the list of countries, I DO specify Slovakia was experienced at night on a train.

Know why? CAUSE IT HAPPENED. You know what country I don't include in the 11? Spain. Why? Cause I never crossed the border. Didn't hit Greece either. Thus I don't count it. Simple as that.

So, you can let me know where YOU stand on this issue, as I'm sure its come up in your own life or someone you know. How do you know where you've been?

MJW

RELATIONSHIPS: A DIALOGUE

I wrote the following dialogue based on an actual conversation I had with a high school freshman seeking romantic advice.

(Older character to a high school youth who asks about how to keep a relationship going over time, after wondering if a rough spot means its time to let it go.)

OLDER: Have you ever started a fire?

YOUNGER: Yeah. A camp fire.

OLDER: And when it was burning, did you sit back and let it go out?

YOUNGER: No.

OLDER: Why not?

YOUNGER: Duh. We were making a fire. You want it to get bigger.

OLDER: How'd you do that?

YOUNGER: We blew on it and added more wood and stuff.

OLDER: Did you leave after that to do something else, or did you stay to keep an eye on it?

YOUNGER: You don't leave fire unattended.

OLDER: So you added wood and then you sat and let it go out?

YOUNGER: No. You have to keep putting wood on. Move them around in case is starts going out. You get more sticks and branches from the forest. You make sure there's air flow underneath so it burns better. Stuff like that.

OLDER: Then you've answered your own question.

MJW

NO ALIEN PYRAMID SCHEME

Was watching a show the other night about pyramids in Egypt compared to those in South America and other places around the world.

I know people say that their similarities could mean alien/human interaction - both with construction and design.

"Pyramids built across the globe by humans WAY too far apart to share blue prints? Perfect stone cutting? BUILT BY ALIENS!"

I ask - what shape WERE people supposed to build back then? Circles? Squares? Rhombuses?

Domes of heavy stone were beyond them architecturally, and until the column came along, squares were out of the question as well it seems. At least in the size of ancient pyramids.

What IS visible around each culture or nearby at least are mountains. Why is it so crazy to think they were not building their own mountains? Especially if they felt mountains held sacred energy, which many cultures did. I'm not saying a mountain was the purpose of the pyramids. I'm just saying mountains may have been an inspiration. What better way to prove what an awesome and divine leader you are than saying, "See that mountain over there? I'm building my own. Then bury me under it."

Plus, all pyramids work on the principle of the inclined plane, another thing featured widely in nature. And steps. They all went upward in step fashion. (I know the Egyptian pyramids had facings that made them smooth on the outside, but their construction was stepped).

Steps are the oldest form of changing elevation around. Humans seem to have mastered the stair a long damn time ago. They're rather ingenious. You step once from one flat plane to another flat plane and no matter how high you are, you're still on flat ground. However, going higher from the earths surface but staying on level ground is something that happens naturally in rock formations - I've hiked up many natural stair cases in my day. Something any human could have encountered at some point or they met someone who had. So the stair concept is not revolutionary either.

All these things combined - the lack of architectural sophistication to construct anything OTHER than a pyramid, a basic awareness of mountains and the inclined plane, make the pyramid form, though varied from culture to culture, pretty damned likely no matter where or when they're building it.

It ain't got to mean ALIENS did that shite.

I'm just saying...

MJW