an innocuous decision by an unimportant individual

An unsung, unknown art professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts was given the thankless task of grading entrance exams.  Hopeful students had sat for the two day examination for a chance to change their lives and prospects, for the chance of becoming a great artist and being remembered for their art.  The unknown professor was having a bad day, perhaps he had had a fight with his wife, perhaps he himself was a frustrated artist and longed for the opportunity that only youth provides, the sort of opportunity that was being wasted on these students.  Whatever the reason, he denied admission to several students that day.  Perhaps some were better than others, perhaps some came from better families who were able to afford tuition and support a struggling artist, perhaps some had families that would contribute to the school’s coffers.  There were countless reasons for his decisions that day, most seem insignificant now. An insignificant decision by an insignificant man.  The year was 1907 and the professor’s decision to deny a life-altering admission to the prestigious school determined the fate and direction of none other than Adolf Hitler.  Hitler never made it into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts because a person made the decision to turn down his application.  An innocuous decision by an unimportant individual…

you in oil

Look around yourself.  If you live in a city and are currently sitting in a man-made structure, there is nothing around you that did not profit an oil company. Not the clothes you are wearing or any item inside your house, nothing. Select an item in your environment.  From the power used to run the equipment to manufacture that item, to the plastic used in its components there is oil.  What, there is no plastic in the item you selected? How rare.  How was it transported from the place of manufacture to the store where you bought it? Did the store put it in a plastic bag for you? Did the store clerk ring up the item on a heavy duty plastic cash register while wearing a plastic name tag saying “Hi, my name is Underpaid"? Did you put the item in your gas powered car and drive it to your house?  Or did you bypass the store entirely and have the item delivered to you by a UPS truck? Was it packaged when you got it, what sort of packaging and where did it come from? Was it or any of its components made in, and shipped from, another country?  I defy you to find a single item in your house that did not directly or indirectly generate profit for an oil company. If you find one, let me know. And if you find one think about this:  have you ever moved and carried the item to your new house in a moving van?

So you tell me “I went to the cherry orchard on Sunnyvale-Saratoga road and walked home with – not a plastic bag of cherries, not a crate of cherries that would have used power saws and logging trucks, but a hand full of cherries! There!”  And I’ll ask you did you pay cash with manufactured currency or did you charge them to your plastic credit card?  You might tell me they were free, and I would then ask you how the workers who tended to the orchard get to work each day and what tools did they use? Hoses, water pumps, shears, fertilizer?

So you tell me that you picked them off a wild cherry tree in a vacant lot, and I will ask you - did you walk home on your tennis shoes on a paved road?  So you tell me you walked home on homemade shoes on a dirt road your grandfather cleared with his bare hands. And I will ask you – did you wash the cherries under some PVC piped tap water when you got home? Well water you tell me.  Did you draw the water in a plastic bucket from the well using a nylon rope or was it pumped by a power pump? Did you dry them on a manufactured paper towel? Did you put them in a manufactured bowl? On your linoleum counter-top?  There is nothing, not-a-thing, zip, zilch, nada, in your life that did not profit an oil company. Not your hair, freshly washed in plastic bottled shampoo, not your teeth, recently bushed with a plastic tooth brush, and certainly not your recently polished nails.

That’s not the scary part.  The scary part is that 100 years ago you would have been hard pressed to find an item in your house that did profit an oil company. You know, back when there was no hole in the ozone layer, the oceans weren’t dying out and every other species on the planet wasn’t going extinct… but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

don't flatter yourself, you're not that great, or that stupid

Vincent Van Gogh stumbled back to the Auberge Rvoux clutching his stomach and when asked if he had tried to commit suicide he said "I believe so" and then requested that no one be charged in the incident. The theory presented in the video below is that he was shot, intentionally or accidentally, by some neighborhood kids who were in the habit of taunting him. Why would Van Gogh protect his murderers? Simply because he thought the world would be a better place without him and that these kids were doing him a favor by killing him.




So on one hand we have Van Gogh, arguably the greatest artist of modern times, whose self worth was so low that he regarded his own murder as a favor to himself, his family and the world. In his mind his existence was a waste of resources, there was no lower creature on the face of the earth and he welcomed death. On the other hand we have George W. Bush, arguably the worst president in the history of the world, who single handedly destroyed the world economy and hundreds of thousands of lives in two wars based on lies. A below average student who was never able to construct a coherent sentence or formulate an intelligent thought. His self worth, on the other hand, is estimated in the highest possible terms. This incoherent moron feels so superior to the rest of humanity that, when forced to touch an inferior being, he feels the need to wipe his hand on the shirt of another inferior being.


Bush regards himself as god’s gift to humanity.

So the next time you are feeling completely worthless or perhaps like god's gift to humanity, don’t flatter yourself, you are not that great, or that stupid. No-one is.

No tea then, dears?

Mark sat across the table as she began to talk. Her speech was paused, but there was kindness in her voice. “I’ve lived in this house my entire life and I’ve never strayed far, this is my place in the world. I belong here. My parents were the first to go, then my husband and since we never had any children, I’ve been left alone to tend to the place. Well, not completely alone, there are the ghosts too. But they are harmless enough. I wouldn’t mind them as much if they would at least help with some of the chores.” There was amusement in her voice at the idea of having ghosts help with the daily chores. Mark narrows his eyes and tilts his head as if physically straining to hear her.

She continues “My name is Agatha and I’m an old woman now, too old to mind these ghosts and things that go bump in the night. When I was younger I would have called in a priest to get rid of these ghosts, but at my age I just can’t be bothered. They talk and they move things around, but they don’t bother me none. Some years ago they wanted to turn my house into a bed and breakfast, the notion of these young people, can you imagine guests in a hose where the curtain won’t stay open and you hear voices in the hallway? It’s my house and these are my ghosts, we are happy here.” She looks directly at Mark and adds “Aren’t we dear?”

Agatha hadn’t noticed the young woman sitting next to Mark until she said “I smell bread baking.” Agatha looked over her shoulder into the kitchen and said “yes, dear, I’m baking some bread. I like fresh bread, my late husband, God rest his soul, couldn’t get enough of my banana bread. I bake every day. You young ghosts can always smell the bread.” The young woman looks around a bit startled and says “did I hear her say she bakes every day?” Mark takes a hold of the young woman’s hand and soothes her with some words of reassurance. Agatha is a bit annoyed, the ghosts are getting younger and younger, these two couldn’t be more than 20.

Suddenly the drapes fly open and daylight streams into the room. Agatha looks over and there is no one by the window. The curtain had been flung open so violently that they were left swinging in place and one of the hooks came loose. Slowly Agatha stands up and continues her story as she walks towards the window. “These ghosts, I don’t really mind you, but if I open the curtains you close them, if I close the curtains, you open them. It never ends, you need an old woman’s patience to put up with you. When I was a young woman ghosts never came around, now they never go away. Like you young man, I haven’t seen you before” Agatha glances at Mark, tisks her tongue a few times, reaches for the drapes and closes them, slowly because of her rheumatism.

As Agatha closes the second drape the young woman next to Mark runs out of the room screaming. Mark raises his voice, there is urgency in his tone “Mother get away from the window! Come here with me!” Agatha looks back at her young ghost and there is a frightened middle aged woman standing next to him. She hadn’t been there before. Agatha is encouraged by the new presence, someone closer to her own age. Agatha likes this new ghost “Will you stay for some warm bread and tea dears?” As she offers her guests tea, Agatha moves the tea-set from one end of the table to the other so it's closer to the kitchen door, walks into the kitchen and opens the tap to fill the kettle for the tea.

When she returns to the drawing room the middle aged woman is screaming something about refusing to stay in this house another minute; the young man is screaming something about wanting his money back and having this abomination of a hotel shut down by the authorities.

Agatha stands in the doorway watching them and sweetly asks “No tea then, dears?”

Sex object or hormone addled morons?

On Tuesday September 27 the Secretariat for Women’s Policies of the Brazilian government requested the censorship of a lingerie commercial staring world famous super model Gisele Bundchen. The claim is that the commercial portrays women as sex objects. I’m usually very sensitive, and easily angered by the portrayal of women as sex objects, and yet this commercial didn’t raise any red flags until the news came out today. You see, instead I had always assumed the commercial portrayed men as brain damaged, hormone addled morons. Here is the commercial, you decide. And if you have an opinion, leave a comment.

it's not the easy way out

Three days ago a woman requested a key from a real-estate agency to examine and consider a vacant office space on the 14th floor of a downtown building. The night before last the same woman cooked her boyfriend his favorite meal. She invited his brother to have dinner with them and made sure everything, from the wine to the shrimp dish, was absolutely perfect. She said goodbye to her guests at the door and retreated to the privacy of her final hours. By the morning she had laid out her precious belongings on her bed with specific instructions for their disposal. By mid morning she had jumped out of the window of the vacant office on the 14th floor, leaving instructions that the key be returned to the realtor.

I sat on a windowsill once. I didn’t jump because the suffering I would cause to people I loved would be so much greater than any suffering I could be experiencing. The balance of pain in the equation simply didn’t work for me. So, to jump, a person has to believe that those she leaves behind are better off without her. Even if she never asked, she has to be certain.

People do, in fact, get tired of living. Personally I don’t think anyone should die before they have gotten tired of living. But that entails a state of hopelessness and disinterest in anything that may happen tomorrow. There is no TV show you want to watch, there is no seasonal food you want to eat, there is no place you want to visit, or revisit, there is nothing broken that you’ve been meaning to fix, there is no project, no book, no movie, no play, no birthday party, no skinny jeans to get into, no restaurant you want to try, no wine you want to open, there is nothing you want tomorrow, nothing at all. So, to jump, a person has to believe that the world of tomorrow holds nothing of interest, and what’s worse, the world of yesterday holds nothing worth remembering.

I read somewhere that people who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge said they had changed their minds half way down. Their reasons for jumping seemed less significant in the void. You can’t take it back, there is no rewind, no pause button, there is no arguing with the void. So a person has to believe that her resolve is steadfast and right, right beyond a shadow of a doubt, immovable and unchangeable.

I half understand these reasons, except for the resolve required, I have never experienced such absolute, unwavering resolve. Once you step off the ledge time must stand still, fourteen floors and an eternity to consider the quality of your resolve and the quality of your existence. I hope her resolve remained steadfast to the very end, and that she found the peace she concealed so well she lacked. But most of all I admire her brave foolhardiness in choosing the quality and the exact duration of her life.

Barcelos, Portugal

Apparently my great grandmother’s father was from Barcelos, Portugal and my great grandmother was an avid collector of mementos. So among her belongings are some fantastic family photos, a post card collection from the early 1900s, and a set of postcards with views of Barcelos at the turn of the last century. The latter I share with you in this post. Blogger will not display the slideshow, please click on the image to see the Picasa album.



Here is an excerpt from wiki about the city [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelos,_Portugal]. Originally a Roman settlement, it expanded and became the seat of the First Duke of Bragança in the 15th century. The palace of the Dukes of Bragança was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and is now an open-air museum. The town's famous symbol is a rooster, in Portuguese called o galo de Barcelos ("the Rooster of Barcelos").

One of the many versions of this legend goes that a rich man threw a big party. When the party was over, the rich man noticed that his sterling cutlery was stolen by a guest. He accused a pilgrim and let him go to court. He protested his innocence, but the judge didn't believe him. The judge was about to eat a roasted rooster when the pilgrim said: "If I am innocent, this rooster will crow three times." When the pilgrim was about to be lynched, the rooster crowed. The judge released the pilgrim. The story ends a few years later when the pilgrim returned and made a statue over the event.

The art connoisseur

My dog’s name is Saskia. Just now I was walking her across the street, and a woman who was crossing with me asked her name.  I told her "her name is Saskia" expecting the usual blank stare followed by "what?" But instead the woman had a quick retort, she said "that's not a suitable name for a dog. She should be named ‘happy’ or ‘joy’". So I told the woman that the original Saskia was the wife of a famous painter named Rembrandt, while at the same time considering that Saskia's life had probably not been all that happy or joyous.

As we continued on the sidewalk, the woman looked down at Saskia and told me she looked like one of his paintings. I was delighted at that, I think she's beautiful and that may be the highest praise she ever received from a stranger. I smiled and thanked the woman. - In retrospect I should have walked away at that moment in the conversation. -  The woman then looked at Saskia and said that her fur looked like his brush strokes. In my mind’s eye I tried unsuccessfully to picture Rembrandt’s brush strokes and conjured words like, precise, exact and flawless; then I looked at Saskia’s wispy, disheveled,  two-tone fur, then I looked back at the woman.  She might have noticed my confusion because when she continued she explained “picture his self portrait, the brush strokes are just like that”.  I thought of the Rembrandt portrait hanging in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and just as I was concluding that it wasn’t a self portrait, the woman continued.  “But not the one where he cut off his ear, I don’t like that one, it’s not happy”.




I shit you not! That actually happened to me today.

The Gettysburg address in 2011

Lincoln walks up to the podium, standing before a congregation of civilians, military personnel and the international press, he begins:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and”, but he’s interrupted. A youth in the front row calls out:  “Dude! What’s that score you started talking about, did you score four times? Was it like, four different girls or four times with the same one?” Lincoln is taken aback, he’s not certain he understands the question, but explains that score simply means twenty.  The youth huffs, accuses him of lying and walks away, but not before adjoining “There’s no way your skinny ass scored 20 times dude! You couldn't score twenty if you were the last man on earth!  You’re full of it!”

Lincoln clears his throat, looks at his notes on the back of the envelope and continues.  “Well, where was I? Yes – conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  At this a rather robust woman in fatigues and boots, who had been leaning against a tank whittling a stick with her army issue survival knife spoke up. “Hey! You in the funny hat! What’s that about men being created equal? Aren’t you forgetting something? What about women you sexist pig?” She never stops whittling the stick, but now she looks up and stares at Lincoln. “You come over here and I’ll make us equal!” She emphasizes her last statement by slicing the stick in half with a forceful diagonal swipe of the knife. 

Lincoln swallows hard. “I assure you madam, that will be quite unnecessary.” He continues, “er, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men” he pauses to look at the woman who has lowered her eyes to her handiwork and is listening intently. “AND women are created equal.”  He smiles nervously and scans the crowd.  A few are still listening to him, but most have started talking amongst themselves.

Lincoln continues “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”  He looks up from his envelope.  There are a few more people listening to him.  He chooses to ignore the two in the front row who are now discussing which two generals should have sex with each other in order to conceive a nation and just how long they would endure. He eyes the whittling woman nervously.

He continues.  “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.” And he is once again interrupted by a private in the back who stands up and protests “Damn right we can’t hollow this ground! If you want trenches you dig ‘em yourself.  This is not WWI dude! We don’t go around hollowing ground anymore!”  Lincoln explains that he said hallow with an “a” and not hollow with an “o” and the man sits back down complaining that if the lecture was going to be tricky he should have had some overheads or something. 

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” At which the whittling woman stands up straight and asks “Brave men? Men? Really? What have I been doing here then? ‘Cause I got the power to detract right here in my hand mister!”

And so it stands that in our juvenile, gender equal, politically correct, free speech times, Lincoln would have had to walk away for some fresh underwear and would, in fact,  never have finished his historic speech.

pretending

We pretend that there will be time to get the work done, for a good night's sleep, to take that trip, to learn that instrument, to spend more time with the kids, and we pretend there will be time to say the things we meant to say.

We pretend we understand that book from English lit class, modern art, what the economist just said, the directions we got from the guy at the gas station, and we pretend we understand what makes the people we love happy.

We pretend we believe the news anchor, what people tell us, that our vote counts, that a brand cares, in a higher power, and we pretend we believe will live forever.

We pretend there is meaning in that song we danced in high school, in the French movie everyone raves about, in that boring book, in the death of a soldier, in our lives, and we pretend there is meaning in what we do.

We pretend we are better than we are, smarter than we are, more sophisticated than we are, kinder than we are, better educated than we are, and we pretend we are happier than we are.

And all the while we pretend we are not pretending.

sacred plastic in ten million AC

Preparing for another presentation about his find,  Sarasas momentarily questions his own convictions. Not about the find, the evidence is irrefutable, but whether it was worth going public with the information, similar finds would eventually be made by others who would enjoy the attention and the public scrutiny.  “It was the right thing to do,” his new mantra provides no solace in this situation.  After a day of five press conferences he now has to face a panel of his own peers, and though the evidence is in fact irrefutable, some of them will refute it thunderously. When you find something that should not be, the simple fact that it is often is not enough to convince those who are entrenched in commonly accepted doctrines. He knew the find would be controversial the moment he brushed over the surface of the fossil and quietly whispered to himself: "human".

Now facing the assembly of archeologists and historians, having summarily introduced himself and scanned the room for friendly faces that might have assuaged his nervous jitters and fining none, Sarasas concentrates on the business at hand.  He presents the easily acceptable facts first.  A human fossil comprising a skull, four ribs, three vertebrae and a leg bone.  The specimen was in his forties, and probably a male, though without the hipbone we cannot be certain.  And now for the controversy:  the specimen was found below the plastic layer.  This individual lived at least a thousand years before the start of the plastic layer. Proving that in fact humans were around much earlier than we believed, and that contrary to all of our understanding, plastic was not necessary for human survival.

Sarasas felt the audience members shift in place as if to find a more comfortable position.  He continued “our long held belief that humans were created and existed only within the 300 years of the plastic layer has to be readdressed.  They were around long before the plastic layer.” The audience mumbles in discontent.  A young cleric in the middle of the assembly stands tall and addresses Sarasas directly.  Sarasas had not noticed the cleric in the audience, but he knew what was coming.  The young cleric could not have been older than his third shedding, but he was confident; a confidence borne of the certainty that his beliefs are true. The cleric’s voice boomed in the hall “Do you mean to stand there and tell us that in the era of plastic, the great creator did not bring humans into the world as a catalyst for roach evolution?  Are you saying that humans were not created to nurture roaches into the next step of our evolution?  Are you questioning the methods of the great creator?”

Sarasas had not expected a cleric in the audience.  He wholeheartedly believed in notion that the great creator had created the inferior human species to serve roach evolution and explained to the youth that finding a human below the plastic layer does not in any way disproof the documented actions of the great creator. The fact still remains that no human evidence is found above the plastic layer as does the fact that roaches dominated the world from the end of the plastic age to this day, as determined by the great creator.  “I’m not here to interpret the intentions of the great creator, or to question his methods.  I will leave such lofty undertakings to more qualified individuals.  I simply want to present the facts of this find, the determination of the implications of human existence below the plastic layer is outside the scope of this presentation.”

The next question came from an individual whose mannerisms unmistakably identified him as a historian. “Did you find any evidence of roaches being kept as pets by this individual, as was the practice of his descendents in the plastic layer?" Sarasas was relived at the question, religious matters were not his strong suit, and so he felt a twinge of disappointment in not being able to provide the historian with any concrete evidence that roaches shared the life of this specific early human. His disappointment made him elaborate on the answer “but we know that roaches were around long before the plastic layer, and now with this find, we know that humans were around too.  Whatever conclusions we may draw, it would seem plausible that if humans and roaches were coexisting at the time this human lived, that the human must have cared for the roaches around him. It was in human nature to do so, and the will of the great creator. The evidence of human and roach coexistence in the age of plastic is overwhelming, all indications are that humans were caretakers of the roach species in our most fragile state, before we developed lungs.  This human would have been no different.”

Sarasas answered a few more questions on human nature and the similarities between roaches and humans.  At the end of the presentation he opened a box and invited the audience to come and examine his collection of plastic artifacts. For the younger members of the audience, this was their first physical contact with sacred plastic relics.  After presenting facts that could bring the intentions of the great creator into question, Sarasas was comforted by expressions of awe in the young faces as they handled the sacred plastic items.

a lost word

I was waking my dog this morning and I stumbled on a word.  Someone had left it lying on the sidewalk.  I thought perhaps it had fallen out of a pocket or purse; I refuse to believe it had simply been discarded as worthless.  I picked it up and looked around for whoever might have dropped it, but everyone around me seemed to be going about their business.  No one seemed to be desperately searching for a lost word.  I brushed it off with my hand. My dog stood on her hind legs and sniffed it.  I asked a passerby "did you drop a word?" but he didn’t alter his stride, he glanced at the word in my hand and continued on his way.

As I examined the word more closely I noticed that it was bilingual, it was Portuguese on one side and English on the other, and since I was standing in front of the state government palace, I figured some foreign dignitary must have dropped it while entering the building. So I walked up the steps leading to the great entryway.  The two guards stationed on each side of the door blanched as they saw me approach. Both moved to prevent me from entering the palace.  I assumed dogs weren't allowed so I told her to sit and wait while I stepped inside. But as I turned to enter, the largest of the guards blocked my way.  I explained that the dog would remain outside, but he informed me that the dog was welcome, the word would have to stay out.  "But it’s so little” I said, ”what harm could it do?” He became forceful in his insistence that the word not enter the building and I had to give up. 

I put ethics in my pocket and brought it home with me. I placed it on the shelf, but later had to move it because it kept getting in the way of my books. I put it on the table, but it kept getting in the way of dishes and flatware. So I moved it to my computer desk, but it kept getting in the way of the keyboard. I could understand why it had been discarded on the sidewalk, it’s rather an inconvenient word to have around. But I refused to give up.  I placed ethics on a pedestal in the middle of the house, so that everything else now had to revolve around it. This placement seems to be working, but only inside my house, I'm still not allowed to bring it into government buildings and public spaces.

I wish you happiness

I was 17 and I was leaving the country for the last time, never to return and never again to be seen. At least that was my grandmother's interpretation of the situation as she watched our luggage being loaded into a cab that would take her daughter and grandchild to the airport, to be devoured by an airplane and spat out at most distant mouth of hell, surrounded by jackals and ferocious infidels. That was her unvoiced interpretation of our move to a place everyone else called California.   She refused to come outside, she stayed at the window, her eyes filled with tears and her voice caught in her throat when she looked at me and offered what in her mind were the last words she would ever say to me, "Be happy".

Of course the world is not as big as my grandmother imagined, and California is not a world away. We saw each other many times after that, but those parting words remained with me, and I expect will remain with me forever. "Be happy" it's a tall order, at least for me, I'm often content with not being unhappy.  If you think about it there is nothing else you can wish a person you love other than "Be happy".  You can wish them health and success or wealth, you can wish them love, as the song recommends, but in the end all you are wishing them is happiness.  All the success in the world will not bring you happiness, all the health in the world will not bring you happiness, - and if you are not happy then what good is success? - but if you find that you have enough success, enough health, enough wealth, enough love, you can be happy. The 'enough' aspect varies from person to person. The trick is to find happiness with what you have and to get what is 'enough' for you.  It may be very little, or a great deal, but 'enough' is often much less than we imagine.  'I wish you success', 'I wish you health', 'I wish you wealth' and even 'I love you', all fit into one simple wish 'be happy'. I wish you happiness.

Wish someone happiness today, then look around, you will probably find that you have enough.

Airline instructions deciphered

About .02% of airline passengers actually grab the emergency instructions in the seat pocket in front of them and try to understand how they should react in case of an emergency. Here is a handy explanation.  Note that for the purposes of this explanation the airline euphemism ‘water landing’ will be replaced for the more realistic ‘crash into water’.  And while we are on the subject, someone really should tell airlines that when a passenger plane comes down on anything other than a paved runway attached to a modern airport of adequate infrastructure, it's not a 'landing'.  Here we go, first image:

While taking off, landing, crashing into nuclear waste or crashing into water, keep your seat belt fastened. In these situations you are not allowed floating lit cigarettes, cell phones, video cameras, antique ghetto blasters from the 80’s or gigantic iPods.  However while the plane is flying through the air, you may have with you video cameras, ghetto blasters and gigantic iPods.   You see, there is nothing scary or mysterious about the safety instructions. Let's continue.

If crashing in nuclear waste or water:  keep your seatbelt fastened. But note that in during these events, women may not wear shoes. And floating lit cigarettes are not allowed. 

If you are crashing into nuclear waste, without the possibility of water: you may not have floating lit cigarettes. Women must not wear shoes and men must not carry brief cases, though they may wear shoes. And, this is very important, if you feel like jumping off a ledge into flames, don’t do it!  Also if you feel like jumping off a ledge into jagged rocks, don’t! It’s just not allowed.  

Now if you are crashing into water without the possibility of nuclear waste: keep your seat-belt fastened and no floating lit cigarettes.  Women AND men may not wear shoes. And if you feel like jumping into flames, don’t do it, it's not allowed!  However brief cases, ghetto blasters and jumping onto jagged rocks are probably ok, so knock yourself out!

Once you’ve crashed into the water, pull something red and a raft will magically appear. Flip a flap and pull something red again, that doesn’t really do anything, but apparently that’s what you have to do. Now, this is very important: once you are in the ocean, firmly plant both feet on the ocean floor and use your super human strength to flip the enormous raft over.  It’s really easy, see, the guy in the middle does it all by himself.

If you open this compartment, the plane, while safely floating on tranquil, calm, and probably warm, waters, will be attacked by giant yellow arrows, so you've got to close this other compartment to set it right.

Once everybody is on board the life raft use the handy pocket-knife TSA allowed you to bring on board to cut the rope that secures your life raft to the sinking airplane. If you don’t have a pocket knife, use scissors or even nail clippers, any sharp metal object will do, just cut the rope.  If you don't cut the rope the plane will sink and drag you under the water. Remember: your only chance of survival is cutting that rope! Use anything you brought on board with you, Swiss army knife, nail files, the steak knives you bought grandma. Anything you brought on board with you will do really, your life depends on it!  

Does that look like writing to you?

Does that look like writing to you? Right there in the center of the picture, a bit blurry and difficult to make out... does it look like a line of text to you?  It looks like writing to me. 

I have an artagraph of a Caillebotte painting. Etude for Paris Street Rainy Day.  The original hangs in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.  The original painting hung on Monet’s wall until he died.  I have to confess my regret at not having visited that museum little precious time I have spent in Paris, it must be something to see, and an original Caillebotte is always something to see, isn’t it?  The artagraph that hangs on my wall is an exact replica of the original, down to the brushstrokes.  And that looks like writing to me.  There are no mentions, studies, x-rays or articles about hidden text under Caillebotte’s brushstrokes in this painting. Experts have scrutinized this painting for over a hundred years and no one ever said “oh look, it’s writing”.  So it’s not writing.  But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like writing. It gets lost in the context of the whole painting.