GOING OFF IS GOING ON

My alarm clock went off the other day, and I realized how funny it is that I say it "went off" which means it "went on".

So when an alarm goes off, it goes on.

MJW

A "MIDGE" BY ANY OTHER NAME...

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"

Romeo and Juliet Act II. Scene II
by William Shakespeare

I was struck one day in the high school where I work, that the two secretaries in the main office were named Midge and Dottie. I thought, wow. How PERFECT is that? If I was writing a screenplay with a scene in a high school office, I would name the secretaries Midge and Dottie. Both middle aged women who run the place with motherly smiles and an iron fist.

And I thought, I wonder if going through life with these names, given at birth or acquired as nicknames (Midge = Madge = Margaret) (Dottie = Dorothy), affected their lives somehow? Was Midge destined to be a secretary instead of stripper?

("Donna". I rest my case...)

A good friend of mine has been on a few dates with a stripper named Brandy. And yes, that's her real name. She showed him her driver's license. She joked that her parents doomed her to be a stripper by choosing it.

My old land lord in college was named Dirk. Meanwhile there's a student in my high school named Wilbur. (He goes by Willie. See? Even he doesn't want to be called Wilbur) How varied are the lives of Dirk and Wilbur? If they met in a bar would Wilbur be secretly jealous of Dirk? Would Dirk immediately think, "poor bastard"?

Lets experiment. I Google-Imaged "Dirk". This was the first image on the page:

The Scottish Dirk.

A sleek looking dagger. A weapon of war/utility/survival. The rest of the page was an assortment of large, blond, viking looking men battling it out in various sports. 

I Google-Imaged "Wilbur". Here was the first image, no joke:

(he could use a dirk! i kid...)

This was the second:

Referencing the lead character "Wilbur" in the popular book Charlotte's Web. The rest of the page was an assortment of pigs & people named Wilbur. Could there really be a difference in the lives of the two men by name alone?

And then there's me. "Mark". I feel its plain. Simple. Short. I don't dislike it. (no worries mom and dad)

In trooth its related to Mars, the God of War. Sounds interesting, no? But what if I was Maximilian? Rupert? Rocco? Mortimer, Donovan or Spike? How would I have been perceived differently by the humans around me?

I'll never know, I spoze. But it makes me wonder.

Who would you be if you weren't you? 

MJW

FUEL GAUGE GAUGING INTELLIGENCE?

Using my mother's car lately, I noticed her gas gauge looks like this:

Note the use of marks for quarter tanks between full ("F"), half full (I'm a gas tank half full, not half empty kind of guy), and empty ("E").





 

Then, borrowing my father's car for an errand, I noticed his gas gauge looked like this. (right)

Note the LACK of marks for quarter tanks.

So I was wondering, what does this say about the car manufacturer? What are they saying about us as the owner of the vehicle?

Is the manufacturer of my mother's car (Toyota) implying that she's too stoopid to gauge quarter tanks on her own, so they put marks there for her?

And the manufacturer of my father's car (Honda) is implying his superior intelligence in that he can figure out quarter tanks on his own based on the needles position between Full and Empty?

(Discuss).

HELPFUL TIP - GAUGING YOUR GAUGE: When borrowing a car and you pull in for fuel not knowing what side the tank is on, often there is a tiny arrow on the fuel gauge indicating left or right. (see top photo) Hopefully this will save you some fuel having to flip the car around.

MJW

Publish Post

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DISCO

Heading from the parking lot into a nightclub a while back, my friend and I saw an ambulance parked out front with all its lights flashing. No siren, no emergency that we could see, but I couldn't help but notice the fine line between an emergency vehicle designed to save lives, and a disco dance party.

Observe...

Potential Death (click for video, "back" to return to blog)

Potential Disco (click for video, "back" to return to blog)

Swapping high-pitched sirens for high-tech techno, ambulances are mobile discotheques.

MJW

PEP BOYS LOGO = FASCISM

Nice try Pep Boys Auto-parts company. You almost had me fooled but I've smoked you out. Your seemingly innocent logo featuring characters of the three (supposed) founding owners, "Manny", "Moe" and "Jack"...

...Is really a thinly veiled resurrection of the triumvirate of World War II fascists leaders; Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo (left),  Nazi Germany's Adolph Hitler (center), and Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini (right).

With a few simple modifications, this "Axle of Evil" is exposed. 

Manny - Hair = TOJO

Moe + Mustache Trim & Hair Swoop = HITLER

Jack - Hair = MUSSOLINI

It's not the first time they've been portrayed in cartoon form together. Check out this anti-fascist cartoon from 1942, with the original characters in the same order left to right. (ps - these are real)

Or this one. (note character on the left is Japanese Emperor Hirohito, but it still works)

"Pep Boys does everything for less" all right. Like putting pep in your goose-step, then subduing you and your vehicle to the iron will of fascism.

I may not understand what they're up to exactly, but it can't be good. You've been warned, America. What you do (or don't) from this point is up to you.

Just remember...

 MJW

FROM THE SHORES OF MONTEZUMA TO THE HALLS OF MARLBORO HIGH

In the lunch room of the High School I work at currently, there was a recruiter from the Marine Corps.

He was dressed to the 9's in his dress uniform, had a colorful table adorned with many pamphlets and pictures of the Corps and soldiers laying on the ground firing machine guns.

During the lunch periods, many kids went up out of curiosity, (after the one or two bravest went first) and they shook hands with the Marine and many did push ups in pairs or alone, showing what they could do. They would get a bumper sticker or tiny yellow and red foam football with the Marines logo on it, or maybe a poster that had a Marine doing a chin-up, with the words, "We only ask everything you've got. And we'll tell you when you've given it."

I have to say I had mixed feelings about him being there.

First let me say I have nothing against the military. My family have served in all branches since the Civil War. Sure it'd be great for our species to evolve over-night to a place of understanding where not one group of humans feels they need to band together with weapons as a "just in case" form of conflict resolution.

I know we live in a militarized world. There have been armies as long as there have been large civilizations after Man left hunting and gathering behind, staying in one spot and increasing population through agriculture. (some say that was the beginning of the end for our species)

And following World War 2 and the subsequent Cold War, the United States became the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. (use the euphemism "Super-Power" if it goes down easier) And today we have the largest, most expensive, most technologically advanced, and now most combat trained, military on the planet. (our largest export. i kid)

And even if we didn't have over 700 bases in over 130 countries and maintained armed forces just to protect our borders, those forces would involve ships on the water, and each ship needs marines. They keep order on board and can be sent on land to conduct missions in support of the ship. But on a larger scale the Marines have their own combat units that fight on land like regular Army divisions, but with their more intense training and conditioning (including the brain), the Marines are considered more elite and often first into the fray.

And where else you gonna find new Marines but in a high school? Boys in 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade who don't know what the heck they're doing with their lives yet or feel they have no options.

My mother has spoken often of boys she knew when a teenager who joined the army, served four years then came home more mature, responsible and focused than they were beforehand. (this was before Vietnam when just about everyone in her world knew or dated someone who had been hurt or killed there).

And maybe not every American kid wants to sit in a class room studying English and Math in order to be sentenced to a prison-like cubicle for the better years of their lives on earth, instead wanting the adventure, action, discipline and daily immediacy the military provides.

What I have a problem with is where they will most definitely serve if they do indeed enlist. Iraq or Afghanistan, most likely the latter, both of which I feel are blatant imperialist land acquisitions.

I will debate this with anyone who cares to. And I will back everything with as many facts about American foreign policy as possible. Not emotion. Not rhetoric. Don't tell me that our government, both Bush and Obama administrations and Congress', have spent countless billions and tens of thousands of lives both dead and wounded (theirs and ours), to liberate millions of oppressed people in order to keep us free. That was the story in World War 2 and the Cold War and its being forced down our throats again.

If this argument were valid (which seems to be the only reason people come up with when we wonder why we're in either country right now - Iraq in particular), then we'd be invading North Korea, China, most African nations, numerous South American nations, and additional Middle Eastern nations including Saudi Arabia, our greatest regional ally there (and holder of the world's largest oil reserves - accident?) who's human rights record is one of the worst around. The world has oppressed people's-a-plenty. And we ain't spending a dime or a life to liberate them.

So if they're not there for freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (which will come super-sized in the form of the first Baghdad Walmart and Kabul Home Depot), then there are other reasons - like protecting American interests - not YOUR interests or MY interests mind you - but rather the business, banking, energy, and military interests. Corporations who profit from war, conflict, and scarcity. (more to come on scarcity as the necessary root of capitalism)

At least be up front with these kids. Don't give them a John Phillip Sousa song and dance about the ol' red white and blue, apple pie, I cannot tell a lie. Tell them they what they may really be called to serve. Empire.

Then let them decide.

MJW

IT'S NOT THE SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE...

Was looking at the stars and almost full moon while driving home from rehearsal tonight and thought about how the entire universe could likely be a one part of something far larger.

It only makes sense. If you look at the tiniest tiniest object in the universe, which according to quantum mechanics are little vibrating strings of energy, then go up the chain to larger things like (I may not have them in the correct order) atoms, neutrons, protons, cells, and then the things cells create, like the teeny tiny red spider bugs that crawl all over the stone walls flanking my parents driveway, to fleas to ants to spiders to moths to roaches to mice to cats to dogs to sheep to cows to horses to moose to giraffes to elephants to killer whales to blue whales to mountains to the planet to solar systems to galaxies interwoven like DNA strands - the whole thing goes small to big.

So why would we assume the universe itself is the largest in the chain? I know we can't define it or know how large it is or if it just goes on and on and on forever. I know I'm comparing collections of matter with a perception of (seemingly) endless space and that's not a fair comparison. Fair enough.

But I view the universe, both matter and space, to be one process. One living thing. Like the way your body is an entire universe of cells working in unison. In harmony. One purpose. Thus "you" yourself are not one thing at all. A collection of differentiations of one process. Even saying living "thing" is flawed, but I want to get the point across. I feel the universe, and everything of it, (not in it as if placed from an external source) is a verb. Not a noun.

Thus I wonder if the entire universal process may be just one of many processes that are the vibrating strings of the atoms and neutrons and protons of cells of a tiny red spider walking beneath an elephant beneath stars of endless galaxies...  MJW