history is written by the winners (but who the hell is gonna bother reading it?)

i like historical irony.  

there's a bunch of new VW commercials and the key element is the spokesman.  which isn't a man at all, it's a 68 VW bug with a man's voice.  i know you've seen the ads and i know you thought they were cute.  who hasn't.  but, that voice....  close your eyes when you hear it and what do you see?  (assuming we're still in time here and you haven't permanently linked that black VW with it.)  really?  you do?  you see a typical german?  someone who could pass for colonel klink with those sharp, precise T and K consonant sounds that he had?  the clockworks cadence?  hmmm.  or do you see someone else in that accent with heavy, nasal Gs and a particular sing-songyness that leaves you waiting for an "oy vey"...

yeah, i didn't think so.  it's not a "german" german accent.  i don't mean to seem discriminatory, but to me, it sounds like a jewish person.  at least, the last few times i've heard this accent-as-stereotype, it was used to depict jewish immigrants in the US.  someone who had to escape germany around the middle of the last century.  one who yes, did live in germany and was a german, and who spoke german perhaps as an outward extension of an more private language.  one who extended the extension and learned english as a necessity when he left germany...  to get away from misery, persecution, and death in prison camps. camps that were invented and run by adolf hitler as technological advances to benefit the german people.  people who would also benefit from another of his inventions ("his" invention by association only, probably--but still).  that invention being, of course, the people's wagon, the volks wagen. the VW bug.  

(my apologies if i unwittingly insult anyone here.  my intent is to ponder if these commercials can be seen as insulting to jews or history.)  

sometimes what i like is a secret

like when i secretly enjoy seeing filth and furious children, because i like knowing just a little bit more about the photographer than the photographer thought to show when he so carefully aimed his camera and took this picture of a car stereo he'd like to sell on ebay.  it doesn't just let me know about his life, where it takes place, and maybe his reason for needing money, it also lets me know that perhaps the visual is not always a universal language.  or, i mean, that it's not a universal language because it's not always read the same.  if this were a movie, surely the background would inform the sense more than the radio.  but if this photographer were watching that movie, would he see the deep, convoluted biopic or would he think, "i guess i shouldn't have sold that radio till after Beckers started getting such good product placement."?

where secure websites meet safe sex

and it does make sense. aren't the same people that are involved with making the web safer to use in these virus-ridden times also the people the code porn sites to make sure their passwords work only for those who pay for them? and if it's the same person who does both, does it maybe also make sense that he or she might confuse a little between parts of one job and parts of the other?  especially when working on an image for google's small but tight department of analytics?

enter to exit

it's just that simple.  you're at the ATM, you've paid your surcharge, you've received your money, you're all done. but you want to do something to make sure the person behind you in line doesn't go on with the remainder of your transaction. you want to --what's the word?-- exit. but how to do that?  if only there was a self-evident way...

and if we want to understand how far along jargonism has come in this, our beloved english language, to reach a point where we will look at two words that are in no way not contradicting antonyms but we at first and further glances read them fluidly understanding what they mean without ever squinting at the unpunctuated imperative suspecting that something, maybe, is wrong, we will begin here.