Ffolkes,
~~ Doctor, The Time Warrior ~~
No, the picture has not been Photoshopped, nor is it touched up in any way…. according to the report I got it from…. It’s an official NASA photo, taken as a matter of course for the records they keep; in looking them over, as is their habit, to look for potential problems in the lift-off sequences filmed, they noticed the frog, which, according to its trajectory through the photos, fell into the picture from the sky…. So, this means the rocket took off while it was raining frogs…. According to the report, this was NOT part of the day’s weather forecast….. which goes to show, I guess, that the Doctor is speaking with the confidence of experience in dealing with Reality…. and, I might add, doing so with an admirable, and considerable aplomb….
Of course, using a picture such as this, while opening a number of potential directions for exploration, in truth, leaves me in a tight spot, in terms of, how in the world can I follow THAT? It’s interestingly weird, offers the opportunity for developing a discussion in several potential areas, hits the ECR approved standard for strange, while still providing the Gentle Reader with an amusing and comfortable entrée into today’s post…. which makes it, for this blog, completely unique in its degree of efficiency AND effectiveness…
In short, I’ve already done all that needs to be done for the blog to go on….. But, if you look more closely, it becomes clear that we haven’t actually said anything particularly significant, or gone anywhere that approaches the places we need to be… wherever that may be; as you may know, that’s always pretty much a crapshoot here, and the odds aren’t with the house. Hence, my confusion, although, to be perfectly honest, that’s nothing new, or out of the ordinary, any more than it is unusual for me to be lost in space and time…. Especially when dealing with this introductory section….
All that being said, to little purpose, I’m sure, now what the hell am I going to do? I’ll have to think about that…. (Between these marks, witness the passage of a vast, seemingly unending stretch of TIME…. hour upon hour pile up, one upon another, bludgeoning the sensibilities until all thought ceases, to fall into the black hole of the universe’s apathy, never to be found again…..until, at last, off in the distance, growing larger, and larger, we see salvation…. Finally, TIME once again speeds up, to deposit us softly, back in our original space, once more, ready to Pearl…..)
I believe I’m starting to feel a bit of Fall in the air…. The sun is setting earlier, and it’s getting cool more quickly once it has sunk below the horizon, after the nightly colorful show the sky puts on for us, with colors never before seen by anyone…. That’s because the chemical composition of the air has changed over time, as we humans have pumped a dizzying variety of them up into the atmosphere over the years, in quantities never before seen on this planet… thus, when we see the sunset, it is with a filter of chemicals that is all new, changing every day, showing us shades of the colors we are accustomed to, that not only have WE never seen, but, have never been seen before by the eyes of man, in all our history….
Amazing, isn’t it, how I can turn a simple discussion of the weather into a rant? I think so; it’s a bit inconvenient at times, such as here, in the intro, but, sometimes, I am so concerned, and so angry, it slips out at times when I’m not ready for it….. I figure it could be worse; I could be one of those folks who actually thinks anyone cares what I think…. Most people, me, you, and everyone else I can think of, don’t really care much about others; we are all naturally self-centered, to some degree. That is normal, and necessary, as otherwise, how would you be able to tell yourself from anyone else? Not so easy, is it?
Stop…. That is an instruction to myself, not you…. I’m typing away, here and now, making up nonsense, and my hands are falling asleep, the precursor to becoming extremely painful due to the arthritis flaring up…. I’m having to stop ever few words to shake them back awake…. This will NOT do…. How am I going to get all this stuff out of my head, if I can’t type? The voice recognition software available isn’t quite good enough to consider switching over to completely, not yet, so, this is a conundrum of a different color, to be sure…. Time out….
I’m going to have to shift, shuffle, and dance my way to the end, now….. I declare this intro done, and we’ll get on with the rest of today’s Pearl. The poem is already in place: I found a good one yesterday. The rest, well, I’ll have to figure that out, but, you may end up seeing something from the archives today, so, be prepared for that… For now, I’d best be on my way to the next section…. I even have the closing lines of this done, also from yesterday, when I found an appropriate set of closing pearls…. So, before my hands fall of the end of my arms…..
Shall we Pearl….
Today, to close the intro section, y’all get a two-fer, just because they go together so perfectly, as examples of both hacker/geek humor, and, pretty good all-around advice, on how to approach Life at Large….
“Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like manner.” — The First Commandment for Technicians
“Speed kills. Slow just infuriates…” — Smart Bee, in hack mode
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“Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not private enterprise.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)
I collected this yesterday, before I knew my ability to type was going to be compromised, intending to use it as the segue into a formal rant on the privileged elite, the group of Asininnies who comprise the shadowy corporate snakehead category of that group. (A ‘snakehead’, in slang, is a slaver, one who captures/abducts women and/or children to sell on the slavery market, which, in spite of what you may have been told, exists quite comfortably, right here in the USA, and all over the world…. believe it.)
However, due to circumstances which, this time, are out of my control, I’ll not be ranting; not freshly, anyway, until this crap with my hands eases off, and that is completely unpredictable, at least, at this point… So, you get lucky, because that means this will be an old-school pearl, with parameters set to find quotes/aphorisms that resemble the first one, above, or, are wearing similar clothes, thus looking the same…. Enjoy!….
“A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Madison, 1787
“INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary _quo_ given in exchange for a substantial _quid_.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
LAWYER: Someone who can get a sodomy charge changed to “following too closely.” — Smart Bee
“A fool and his money are soon elected.” — Walton’s Law of Politics
“As long as the United States Government exists, there is no real accomplishment being a humorist.” — Smart Bee
“Reagan: He’s not the president, but he once played one on TV.” — Smart Bee
I knew it! Look at that pearl! It’s perfect! It takes shot after shot, each one hitting the net harder and faster than the last…. and, it has Smart Bee anchoring it at all three critical points; it isn’t often THAT happens…. So, I thought, since it looked so good, I’d try centering it, and sure enough, it is also balanced that way; note the pattern it forms visually, looking at all seven at once…. beautiful symmetry…. I’m glad I went looking for this one; it was well worth the effort….
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This doesn’t need much introduction; it is one known to many people, at least, to those who have made any study of poetry at all, beyond the little bit they dole out in public schools… It is only a small part of the epic poem by Pope, An Essay on Man (in several Epistles). That poem, in itself, is very possibly the best ever of its type, due in part to the very deep insight Pope seems to have had, augmented and enhanced by his skill at putting that insight into beautiful verse…. Enjoy this little piece of the epic, and, if you ever have the chance, go read the whole poem; it is well worth the time it takes….
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas’d to the last, he crops the flow’ry food,
And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,
That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n,
Behind the cloud topp’d hill, an humbler heav’n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,
Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky.
~~ Alexander Pope ~~
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As we all know, Life is tough, and it plays no favorites; no coupons, no discounts, and no mercy is given, at all. We deal, or we don’t, it is that simple…. In the face of such indifference, and not lack, but, absence of any compassion, as shown by the Universe at Large toward all Life, not just us homo bozoidus’s…. (Hmm…. on THAT coined word, ‘bozoidus’, it seems I may have to turn the Spell Checker completely off…. it really, really doesn’t like the word, and refuses to add it to the dictionary…. Does your software ever do that to you? Just wondering….)
Any who, here is a pearl, made up of some damn fine pearls, to give the proper tone and flavor to the rest of today’s Pearls…. (a sentence which accurately gives y’all the definitions of all three types of pearls, as I use the terms here on ECR; it might make future references a bit clearer, now that you understand the hierarchy, and their relation to each other as part of the same lexicon of coined words used on this blog….) Whatever the hell they are, or whatever the hell I THINK they are, they’re pretty useful, if given half a chance….. Now, do I have to tell you to enjoy it, or them? Or, can you get there on your own? Ball’s in your court….
“To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy.
It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought,
and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.”
~~ Oscar Wilde ~~
“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.” — R. I. Fitzhenry
“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
“In comparison with heaven and earth, man is like a mayfly.”
But compared to the great Way, heaven and earth, too, are like a bubble and a shadow.
Only the primal spirit and the true nature overcome time and space.”
~~ Lu Yen ~~
(fl. 800 A.D.)
“Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
“To survive, one must be able to adapt to changing situations.” — Tyrannosaurus Rex
As noted above, pearls are often different; thank goodness…. This one, as far as I can see, defies explanation…. Thus, I shan’t try to explain it, but, rather, I’ll just play it as it lies, so to speak, and be done for the day….. How ’bout THEM apples?….
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Apples or no, I’m done, and, just in time, before taking the computer, and Smart Bee, and all the rest of it, with me as I throw myself out the window, in an attempt to get away from the pain in my hands, shoulders, and hip(s). However, rather than whine about it, and make you witness my grand finale, we’ll call it a draw, and just go home…. or, in this case, off to the medicine cabinet, to find SOMETHING that will put me back to sleep, where my hands won’t bother me for a while…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, provided I don’t opt for excision of the faulty parts…..
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
gigoid 
Picked up Time Enough for Love this week. It is in line after one I am reading for a friend.
Speech recognition has a long way to go. Apparently, mine is too stupid to listen and too stupid to read when I type in what it should know. Plus, its vocabulary is severely lacking. Spell check is another brilliant one. Mine knows how to spell gazillion but cannot spell millennia. o.O
How sad the soul in Pope’s tale. Living in the crumbling shadow of a life not yet come.
Got a new board, so the lower rise keys are taking a bit of getting used to; however, the touch screen is terrific for my carpal tunnel. I say well-$pent.
Smart Bee and I are in agreement today. Rest your hands and other parts. I am going to attempt to see what I missed with the Dalai Lama this weekend… even if what I am looking forward to doing is to which Jefferson alluded. *cheers*
xxx
Red,
It’s nice when it’s easy to tell the person not only read the whole post, but had no trouble with any of the references I made…. bloody nice to experience, due to its infrequency of occurrence….
You are in for a real treat, with Time Enough for Love, so I won’t spoil it with any spoilers…. But, I might recommend you read two books of Heinlein’s prior to that one, as they contain material you will see in that one that will explain a lot of references… One is Stranger In a Strange Land, the book I read at age eleven, and changed my life, in which the philosophical background for Lazarus’ beliefs is laid out, not purposefully, but, in the process…
The other is the first book in which the character Lazarus Long appeared, at a point in human history, supposedly in about 2236 AD, when Lazarus was 234 years old, or so. That book is called Methuselah’s Children; as Time Enough for Love begins, Lazarus has just turned past his 2325th, or so, birthday…. It won’t spoil Time Enough if you don’t read them first, but, it may save you some head-scratching at references that you’ll miss at first… and, both, put together, are shorter in length than Time Enough for Love…
In Time Enough for Love, you’ll meet Dora, the AI computer that controls Lazarus’ interstellar yacht, whom you will love at first meet…. When speech recognition software approaches her kind of reliability, I’ll consider using it; until then, it is only of a little help in composing texts…. and even there, I spend as much time fixing its errors as I save by using it….
To me, the amazing thing about Pope was his insight into human nature, which he was so skilled at putting into such gorgeous verse, which is still clear to even the most simple of English speakers… thus, making it accessible to even the least advanced of students…. plus, he could rhyme like no one else; a true master of the heroic couplet….
Thanks fer stopping by, and have a good one, milady…. Currently I’m stalling my departure, as I must go deal with taxes…. SIGH…. I HATE not carrying weapons when I go out, but, if I do, I’d be tempted to use them today, so…. oh well…
xxx + 000 (BIG hugs…)
Ned, aka, gigoid
😎