Death and Windows Vista

A middle-aged woman sitting on the beach watching the sun set. The beach is completely deserted on a windy winter day. Seemingly out of nowhere a dark figure appears and sits next to her. She is not startled, only people who feel hope and have something to lose are startled, that was not her case.

She glances at the new arrival and immediately recognizes him. His presence annoys her, he's early. She breaks the silence: "Seriously, a black cloak and a sickle? In this day and age isn't the sickle a bit much?"
"Well, perhaps... but I've had it so long I've grown accustomed to it."
This annoys her even further ""Accustomed to it?" What are you Henry Higgins now?"
Death is a bit flustered by her annoyance, he could handle fear and terror but he had never been merely annoying. "It's tradition you know, and It makes a handy toothpick and backscratcher, er...you have to be careful with that though."
In full blown annoyance mode the woman demands "what are you doing here?"
A little more defensively than he would have liked death explains "well, you were planning to walk into the ocean and swim until you drowned..."
"I was, but I haven't yet! Aren't you supposed to wait until I'm dead? Fetch me in the middle of the ocean or something?"
"The water is cold, and my work order says that in just a few meters out you get dragged under by an undertow and drown. I figured I would be saving time if you came right now."
Her annoyance had reached new levels and she was almost yelling now: " Saving time? You can't save time, what's wrong with you? You're death, time is meaningless to you!"
"Well, I'm just a reaper... I work for death"
"I don't care what you are!" She paused pensively, "did you say you have a work order?"
"Yes, I do." He replied as he held out a single sheet of printed paper, which flapped in the wind. "I have a quota to meet, I have to fill three more work orders by the end of the night, so can we move this along?"
Her annoyance, now subsided is replaced by curiosity. "Why do you feel you need to save time?"
The reaper sighs deeply: " The system is slow, it was down for two hours and now it's just crawling along. All the jobs are late."
"The system?" she asked now in a calm voice.
With a sense of urgency in his voice the reaper explains "we used to have a manual system, you got a booklet of vouchers and filled in the name and situation on the fly, during the job. It was easy, we had plagues, famine, natural disasters and the job ran smoothly. In China they still use the voucher system, lucky bastards."
"What system are you using?"
"Well, we are still running Vista... There was a request for an upgrade to Windows 7, but there isn't much money in death... it's just not in the budget."
The woman was feeling much better now. "I've changed my mind"
"What?"
"I've changed my mind, I'm not walking into the ocean."
"You can't change your mind, I've already issued the work order! I'll drag you in if I have to!"
"Does your work order say I was dragged into the ocean and drowned?"
"No, I would have to change that in the system... Shit, that would take all night"
The woman reaches over and slowly grabs the work order out of the reaper's hand, he watches with a depressed look on his face. She tears the paper in four and tosses the bits into the wind and smiles at them as they fly away.
The reaper is almost in tears now "I'll have to cancel the work order, it will take days!"
"You can tell them that the system froze while you were generating the work order and you only got a partial print, and that you need a new work order."
The reaper now has tears in his eyes: "Are you sure... couldn't you... I mean, it would really help me out..." as he points to the water.
The woman stands up "Sorry, no! I'm going home. At least I have Windows 7... that's something. Not much, but it's something."
The reaper gets up and slowly walks towards the water.

a modern problem

"The wedding is off!"
"What?"
"The wedding is off!"
"You can't be serious, the guests are sitting in the pews!"
"The - wedding - is - off!"
"John! Helen is in the next room getting ready to walk down the isle, are you insane?"
"I'm perfectly sane and the wedding is off!"
"You love her, you've been planning this for over a year, it cost her father over 40 thousand dollars! Stop joking around. Buck up, let's do this!"
"I got a note from Helen a few minutes ago. She wrote it on perfumed paper... she says she loves me... "
"Of course she loves you, your parents love her, her parent love you, everybody loves everybody, let's get out there!"
"You didn't see the note... you don't understand!"
"Let me see it - It's a lovely note, what's wrong with you? I understand that you are insane! Her father will kill you if you're late."
"She had never written anything to me before... you see? In the five years we've known each other, this is the first thing she wrote me. Did you see it?'
"John, buddy what are you talking about? Did I see what?"
"Do you remember Kathy Conner from high school? Remember why I broke up with her?
"Well, she was annoying and whinny as hell!"
"Yes she was! I broke up with her because she kept drawing smiley faces on my notebook!"
"Smiley faces?
"Yes, didn't you see the yearbook?"
"John, are you insane?"
"I mean, we've texted and emailed, we posted on Facebook, she keeps a blog! Did you read about the wedding plans on her blog?"
"I did, she writes very well, the note is beautiful, what are you talking about?"
"She never wrote me anything by hand...I mean, everything was typed, or posted or e-mailed!"
"You're scaring me John!"
"The 'i's!!! Did you see the letter i's on the note?"
"John, get a grip, sit down! Stop pacing around the room!"
"She dots her i's with little hearts, I never knew that about her! I can't marry a woman who dots her i's with hearts! The wedding is off!"

It could be worse

I was reading a magazine the other day and I saw a picture of a park bench. It was a Parisian park bench. It looked so elegant. I could have been a Parisian park bench... but no. Well when I say I was reading a magazine, I wasn't really reading it, I can't read, but I caught a glimpse of it on the counter, and there was that park bench, glistening in the Parisian sun with the Seine in the background.

It was a black and white photograph and in front of the bench there was a woman wearing a silk scarf that fluttered in the wind. It was so beautiful. I could have been a silk scarf... but no. Well maybe not silk, I'm not sure what silk is... but it sure was pretty.

There's the stethoscope looking all smug. I can't stand stethoscopes! They hang around the doctor's neck and brag about how important they are. Ha! I saw a pearl necklace on a patient the other day, now that was important.

Well it could be worse; I could be a stethoscope... or a tongue depressor, ugh. Here we go, it's my turn. I suppose there are worse things than being a speculum... I just don't know what.

A forgotten aspect of privacy

Privacy is extinct. I don't think anyone will disagree with that statement. In today's digital world it is almost impossible to maintain privacy. Every time you use a credit card, an ATM card, your mobile, your GPS, make an online purchase, or apply for anything, your information is being tracked and recorded somewhere. Every time you enter a store, walk down the street, drive down the freeway you are being video taped. What you buy, where you go, your preferences, ethnicity, income, everything about you is public. But there is a minor aspect of privacy, a nuance that is never considered. This fragile aspect of privacy was the first to die and its demised paved the way for the complete obliteration of privacy: etiquette in a social context.

What does etiquette have to do with privacy, you may ask. They have an ancient and unintentional association. Their relationship is subtle, but historically etiquette and social norm have served to protect the privacy of individuals in society. The interaction exists but we have never given it a name, there is no noun that describes this phenomenon and so I will attempt to exemplify it.

For most of human history social norm has dictated public behavior in minute details. This was not done with the intent of protecting individual privacy, but it had that consequence. In Roman times (for a while at least) baths were actually co-ed, men and women bathed communally the same spaces. This might have been the ultimate lack of privacy and invitation to lascivious and salacious behavior on the part of all concerned, but it was not. Etiquette saved the day. There were strict norms for decorum and behavior in public baths and the first rule was that you should always act as though you, and everyone else, were fully dressed. If a man ran into his neighbor's wife, you know, the one he had been coveting for months now, he was to greet her politely, inquire about her health and family, send his regards to her husband and walk away in a dignified manner. Another strict rule, of course, was no staring. He had to do all of this while looking her straight in the eye. If you broke the rules you were tossed out on your fanny and banned from the bath. To quote Obelix 'They're crazy these Romans'. But the point is, even if lack of privacy reached the extreme of being naked in public, etiquette compensated for the intrusion and mortification could be completely avoided. The behavior of the public persona was completely regulated by manners and etiquette, which conspired to protect one's privacy even under extreme conditions.

This continued in different forms over the ages. Through the centuries in Europe's upper echelons, etiquette ruled society and unwittingly protected the individual's privacy. Etiquette demanded that an individual of a certain social standing present a very specific public image. You couldn't leave the house without wearing your public persona. You were expected to dress according to the specific trends, speak of certain subjects and in a contemporary style, behave fashionably and follow social protocol. This resulted in a uniform society of public personas, everyone endeavored to present the same image.
Your manners and behavior determined how society judged you. That public persona was not necessarily who the individual was in the privacy of his home. His private persona was protected by the façade of the public persona he was expected to portray. Take the play Les Liaisons Dangereuses (or movie if you prefer, Dangerous Liaisons), the characters' behavior went against socially acceptable norms. The public persona they were supposed to present became tainted by the private persona they failed to conceal, an enormous breach of etiquette. Again, etiquette operating to conceal one's reality and thus preserve privacy.

Once our numbers increased and our societies became more complex, such strict etiquette became difficult to maintain. It lingered though as a diluted version of itself. In a 1953 episode of I Love Lucy, Ethel and Lucy agreed to go on an errand downtown:
Lucy: Sure, come on let's get downtown and buy all the paper and stuff
Ethel: Ok, I'll get dressed.
Lucy: Ok hurry up
This is what Ethel (left) was wearing when she announced she had to go get dressed in order to go out:


A perfectly good and presentable dress by today's standards. In 1953 there was still some vestige of the public persona, etiquette at the time still demanded that the public persona presented downtown be somehow superior to the private persona in the house. The requirement was "to be presentable" - i.e. the same as everyone else - the unintentional result was the concealment of the expressions that made a person an individual: etiquette preserving privacy.

The artifice of presenting a public persona in order to maintain privacy is still often used today. Star Trek TNG actors for example will answer thousands of questions from fans at ST conventions every year, but will never respond to a question about their private lives. The persona they offer to the public is different from the people who go home after the convention, and if they were to comment on their private lives the two personas would merge and their privacy would be obliterated. This is a conscious decision by people in the public eye; they present a public persona in order to maintain their privacy. It is not dictated by etiquette and it does not apply to society at large. It is a tool rather than a social obligation and so it is different from the extinct concept I'm trying to exemplify.

Some time after 1953 etiquette died. People behaved, dressed, spoke and addressed each other in public exactly as they would in the privacy of their homes. The public and the private persona merged and etiquette died out completely, and with it died that aspect of privacy that was dependent on etiquette and social norm. Privacy, in its broadest terms still endured until the advent of the internet, but the demise of the nuance of privacy that was shrouded in etiquette, a nuance that had endured over millennia, was the first step in our willingness to forgo privacy completely.

This etiquette dependent aspect of privacy never had a name, we never created a word for it, and so when it deteriorated no one complained. It died completely unrecognized. An unknown species that went extinct before anyone knew it existed. I wish we had a noun of some kind to place on the gravestone.

Book-Burning in 2010

The Dove World Outreach Center in Florida

It has always been known that only the most enlightened people practice the ancient and honorable art of book-burning. It is the apex of human tolerance and intellectual stability, there is nothing more glorious and noble than a crowd of people gathered around a pile of burning books. It is an activity we always associate with the most enlightened intellectual elite: Khmer Rouge, Taliban, Hitler, Stalin, Spanish Conquistadors and now, of course, the enlightened members of the church Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. My congratulations to them all. Their parents must be so proud.

My invitation must have been lost in the mail, but I hear they've gone all out! Teeth are optional and if you husband Bubah was your cousin Bubah a couple of years back, you get a spot in the front row!!!

Here is a video of their practice run last week.

Morons Run Amuck

Here's the trouble with the internet, it gives every moronic imbecile out there a microphone. Hold the snide remarks, if you please, I'm not excluding myself from the category.

I came across list of the 20 classic movies you thought were overrated, http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20406056,00.html . And I will grant you that a few of them are in deed overrated, others don't belong on the list. To wit Citizen Kane, here is what the moron had to say about the movie:

Citizen Kane (1941)
I totally agree about Citizen Kane. Maybe it was too hyped before I saw it, but I found it a bit dull. Not to mention I have known what Rosebud was since I was 6 years old. — Ari

If you were to ask this Ari person what Rosebud was he would quickly and emphatically rejoin "It was his sled" because that is what a 6 year old would say, and apparently his ideas have not changed over time.

Ari, my new favorite moron, Rosebud wasn't his sled... it was the symbol of the sudden realization that with his last breath of life the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world realized that he had never been as happy as when he was a pauper and unknown. Rosebud is the sudden negation of an entire life. A life envied by all in the world that in a split second had become one not worth living. If you walked away from the movie saying "Rosebud was his sled" you missed the point and you don't have the mental acuity to judge the movie or even profess an opinion.

One more:
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Growing up, I loved watching old movies and heard this to be epic. Was never on TV, couldn’t find it to rent. Finally came on PBS, commercial-free. I was so excited. I fell asleep 3 times. Every time I woke up, just more walking on sand. — mlk

I can see someone disagreeing with the political bias in Lawrence of Arabia. If you were to tell me that the historic point of view in the story is one-sided and prejudiced and for that reason the movie is overrated, I might consider you opinion. But "I couldn't stay awake through it" is more of a commentary about your own ineptitude than about the movie. Poor baby, did your playstation joystick not work with the movie? How disappointing...

Morons run amuck. Before the internet you had to go to a frat party with more bongs than people in order to hear such drivel, now you need only go to EW.com.

Urban traffic in Pompeii

There are so many aspects of Pompeii that fascinate me, it's hard so choose a single one to focus upon. I choose it not because it first or of any great importance, but simply because in opening a folder it was the subject of the picture that caught my eye. Urban traffic.

Two millennia ago the city stopped -forgive the cliché- dead in its tracks. Today it bustles with tourists compelled by the fascination of times past and origins lost. They stroll down streets, past houses, water fountains restaurants and shops that have been uninhabited and in disuse for two thousand years and wonder, a happy few research and speculate. Any original information will be the fruit of their labor, I can only recount what I have learned and remember.

As you walk through the streets of Pompeii one of the most striking features of the city is the very deep grooves left on the paving stones by heavy wheel traffic.

The streets were very narrow and carts, and carriages had very little room to maneuver before hitting one of the cubs or one of the stepping stones in the middle of the road. The wheels left marks on the stones which help determine the way the wheel was traveling and allows us to determine whether the street was one way, two way and which way traffic flowed. Some streets comported two way traffic but most were one way. Here are some typical streets.




Streets wide enough for four stepping stones were often two way.

That traffic was not haphazard is evident, therefore city traffic was a planned activity, and since there are no surviving or obvious traffic signs I guess that traffic laws were probably enforced by the population. People knew which direction traffic flowed and how to get places and if everyone followed the rules traffic would flow. However, there is no reason to believe Italians 2000 years ago were any more sedate than they are today, and I imagine that traffic disputes occurred daily and involved a great deal of gesticulation and shouting.

When trucks drive into the city of Sao Paulo there are numerous individuals camped on the side of the road offering guide services. These people will get into the incoming truck, direct the driver to his destination in the city and help unload the cargo for a fee. I can't help but imagine that similar services may have been offered at the entrance gates to Pompeii.

An uninformed stranger driving into the city to make a delivery could easily drive the wrong way in a major thoroughfare and stall traffic around the city. There is no room to maneuver an ox cart to turn it around, and oncoming traffic would also be hard pressed to back-up. All one could do in this situation, I imagine, is shout loudly and gesticulate grandiosely.

Stepping stones are allover the city. The curbs were high to keep both traffic and water off the sidewalks. The roads arch in the middle directing water to the curb and the city is on a slope towards the ocean. Water from the overflowing fountains probably flowed continuously in the curb and the stepping-stones were necessary for pedestrian traffic to remain dry.

The stepping stones seem high, but ancient carts and carriages cleared them with ease, the curbs were also very high to contain the water flow. Chamber pots and other waste were often dumped in the flow, not to mention the waste from the horses and oxen on the road, if you ask me the curbs and stepping stones were not high enough.



Modern carts require a little ingenuity to move around the ruins.

Roman law included provisions for road construction, road standards and even traffic accidents.

The few two way roads were often wider than one-way roads. This is a one way road and you can see the width of the groove left by the wheels and gauge the width of the street by the umbrella.


Here is a two way street that is about the same width of the one way street.

There are two sets of wheel tracks, one from the left gutter to the wooden end of the umbrella and the other from the right gutter to the umbrella's hook handle. I think there would have been a great deal of shouts and gestures on this street. Unless it was one way in the morning and the opposite way in the afternoon... who knows (but then why not just stay in the middle of the road?)

There are a few clever details that are often overlooked by tourists. The sidewalks and roads leading into the forum are studded with embedded white pebbles that stand out under low lighting conditions. At night someone walking with an oil lamp would have a better sense of where he is by looking at the sidewalk since the frequency of the white pebbles increases a you approach the Forum.

Here similar pebbles were used as a welcome doormat in front of a rather wealthy house. Debate still rages over the "H". OK, fine! Maybe it doesn’t 'rage'...but would you have me say that debate whimpers about the "H"? I thought not.


Throughout the city you will also find holes bored through the curbstones. I was told by a guard that they were used to tie horses. However, some were placed in narrow streets leading into the Forum, these would have been some of the busiest streets in town and rather inconvenient places to run smack-dab into one or more tethered horses. They may have been used to fasten awnings that hung over the sidewalk on storefronts. It's a less likely hypothesis.


If they were indeed used to fasten bridles it only goes to show that traffic in ancient Pompeii was as inconvenient as traffic in major cities today.

my new favorite picture

This is in South Africa as you may have seen allover the news. Truly AWESOME! At this exact second the sailor looks unaware of the whale (you can tell 'cause there's no shit in his pants), what a picture! WOW


here is a CNN interview with Paloma Werner who was one of two people in the boat
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2010/07/21/moos.whale.crashes.boat.cnn?hpt=C2

I wish I could give credit to the photographer but his/her name was not mentioned. If you know it, let me know -thanks

Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan (video)

Extremely rare video of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan.
Keller became blind and deaf at the age of 19 months due to an illness that might have scarlet fever or meningitis. She learned to talk and became a lecturer, political activist and author. She wrote a total of 12 books. She was the first blind and deaf person to earn a BA degree. Her political inclinations were leftist, she was anti war and supported the suffrage movement, workers' rights and socialism. She is also credited with bringing the Akita dog breed from Japan to the US. Her life was portrayed in the movie The Miracle Worker, based on her autobiography.

Eumachia at Pompeii

I was going to write something in my blog this weekend, but lately life has given me very little encouragement to professing my own opinion . Let's see, I've been unfollowed for disagreeing with Brent Spiner's politics and reprimanded for disagreeing with Mel Gibson's ... well pick a problem, he's got an array. So this week I will be foregoing an opinion. Today I will blog about Eumachia. She has been dead for 2000 years now, I doubt anyone still has an opinion about her. Besides I have pictures...

Eumachia was a woman who lived in Pompeii in the first century AD. As you might know Pompeii was destroyed in 79 AD, and since her tomb exists one might deduce when she lived. She inherited a fortune from her father and married rather well to become one of the most prominent citizens of Pompeii. (note that I'm not expressing any opinion on feminism in antiquity). Her money and social position elevated her to become the matron of the fullers, a wealthy guild in Pompeii that was responsible for the dyers and clothing makers/cleaners. One of her benefactions to the city was, what is to be assumed an impressive building on one side of the forum (prime real estate). There is nothing left of the building but the doorway which is breathtaking. The building's function is unclear, but there was a public toilet facing the forum with provides clues. Human urine was collected a public toilets, aged and used in the dying/cleaning process. (personally I always thought they would get a better yield at the stables). A statue of Eumachia at the back of the building also survives, as does her tomb.


Eumachia's tomb at the cemetery in front of Herculaneum Gate



The doorway to her building at the forum



Details of the exquisite carving of that enormous doorway





Eumachia watching over the processes in her building.

Another fact based theory

There is no reason to believe dinosaurs behaved any differently than animals today. After compiling information from an array of experts in the field I have reached the following fact-based, logical conclusion:

T-Rex used to wake up in the morning, uncurl himself, stretch, yawn and then he would shake himself. The shaking motion would start at the tip of his snout and work its way over the body until it reached the tip of the tail. His floppy ears would make a flap flap sound as he shook. He would then look around, yawn again and meow softly.

What? You don't think so? Well I figured that since no criminal charges were brought against GWB and Cheney, Palin and Rand Paul have a political careers, BP can freely state that all of the 5000 barrels-a-day are on the surface and Glenn Beck has an audience... I could pretty much say whatever I wanted and someone would buy it ... grant me it was worth a shot, I'm thinking of having my fact based theory made into a Fox News special...

Speaking of rhetoric people believe... is Guantanamo closed yet? (well, I believed that one too)

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When god is busy we get to live another day

God to us is nothing more than a superior being. A being that for whatever chance of evolution or fate has powers that to us seem omnipotent. A being that is able to control our existence to suit his will. But as with everything in life, that is nothing more than perception - to a ladybug I may be god: omnipotent, omnipresent and indecipherable. I'm convinced my dog thinks I'm some kind of deity; this faith is reinforced every time I leave the house empty handed and come back with a roast chicken... An essay written by a friend of my mother's first made me consider this concept. It was written in Portuguese and I haven't read since I had enough youth to ponder such things, but it stayed with me. He described being in the bathroom performing his morning ablutions when he noticed a mosquito on the wall. He thought of swatting it but he was busy at that moment and so the mosquito got a stay of execution until god was ready to leave the bathroom. For at that moment he felt like god; he imagined that for that mosquito he held the power of life and death, he was the supreme being, he had absolute power and wondered if the mosquito knew that it shared a bathroom with god. He was amused by the thought and continued to shave. By the time he was done shaving, the cares of everyday had occupied his mind and the mosquito had been forgotten. He left the bathroom and the mosquito lived. It lived because god had a careless moment.

The thought that we may owe our existence to god's busy schedule still amuses me.

The author of the story that stayed with me all these years was Ibere Camargo, a brilliant man. Sorry I don't have the reference, but the book is in my mother's library and I don't have it with me. I believe it was called No Andar do Tempo.

good manners requires proximity

I'm for freedom of speech, even when the speech is contrary to my own convictions. In life, out in the real world you can't avoid running into people who think differently than you; there are going to be right wing republicans in your workplace or social circles, it can't be avoided. In real life you have to deal with people politely and with civility even if their response to your "good morning" is "wasn't Bush's speech great last nigh?" In real life you can't turn to that person and say "It wasn't, you only think it was because you are a complete moron." Social norm and what has evolved to be our concept politeness and civility don't allow for such interactions. In an office situation you might be fired for such an exchange, and rightly so.

The online universe is redefining our social behaviors. On Twitter the situation I described happens everyday. Instead of politely unfollowing someone they don't like, people often choose to lash out with expletives they probably would not use in the workplace or in a public setting. Frequently it doesn't end there, the offending party becomes offended and retorts in kind. There is something about the facelessness of online communication that brings out the worst in us. Even if your account is not anonymous, you are not face to face with the other party and that somehow makes people more likely to be rude, belligerent and obnoxious. To us distance seems to be some sort of diplomatic immunity.

Long before we were rude to each other online there existed another great example that human politeness is restricted to personal contact situations. Traffic. Yes, before the internet there were automobiles. The lack of personal contact between drivers frequently becomes road-rage. You would never chase down a co-worker and beat him with your bare fists because he cut in front of you or even bumped into you in the hallway. But warp a ton of steel around your ass and that is exactly what you do.

Apparently good manners requires proximity. I wonder why that is?

IQ test for BP executives, do you have what it takes?

Connect the picture to the corresponding description

The best deal in the universe

The Judeo-Christian god has billion of worshipers. All Christians, Jews, Muslims and most of the weirdos on the planet. It has all the worshipers it needs and then some. It can even afford to smite a few every once in a while and never miss them. So here is the best deal in the universe, switch allegiances and start worshiping the gods of Valhalla.

I'm serious, think about it. When was the last time Odin had someone knocking on his door. We create gods and we worship them; we give them existence through our devotion and faith. What happens to them when we stop worshiping them? Well this deal is based on the assumption that once created, an immortal being never ceases to exist. Therefore Odin and his cohorts from Valhalla are right now sitting in a forgotten corner waiting to be worshiped. How many worshiper will they have? You and a hand full of nuts. You are guaranteed all the attention a god can bestow on a mortal. So light a few candles, blast the dance of the valkyries in the back ground and go worship a god that might give a shit. It's a great deal! In a millennium or so, if humans are still around and the Judeo-Christian god is sitting in a forgotten corner maybe someone will cut him a deal too.