Tidy bonuses on a tiny table….

Posted on December 28, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overleap them.”

~~ Metternich ~~

Avenue of the American Dream

Note the two signs….

Hajime…. No, don’t worry; I’m not going to start off with a rant. In fact, I looked below, & there’s already a good long one down there, so, no worries… the intro is safe…. I remember this one; it leaked out a few days ago, & I’ve been waiting to the right chance to use it…. It’a relatively long, but, it’s on a subject on which I feel strongly, so, I don’t care. Y’all, as always, have the choice to read or not, but, I hope you do, because it’s all stuff that needs to be heard, by more than just y’all…. so, spread it around…. Just the subject is fine; I became a bit phantasmagorical at the end of this one; I got so worked up over the subject, I indulged myself with some dreams, so to speak….

We all have dreams; mine, like all else I do, are pretty strange, I’d guess, in comparison to many others; these are probably fever dreams, but, nonetheless enjoyable, on a private, personal level, for all that…. Now I’ve successfully told you nothing, about nothing, in more words than are, not merely necessary, but, desirable, by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing new there, right?

Hmm…. not much else to cover…. I did have a great time, yesterday, with my kids and grandson; I’m feeling the price today, physically, but, every minute is worth anything I must go through later, so, no complaints….. Can’t share pix, naturally; too many weird people trolling the Net for photos of children, especially good looking kids, to share with other perverts…. I may not LOOK cynical, but, believe me, I’ve seen the worst of human nature (I’ll speak of that below….) and it’s victims are NOT going to be from my family, if I can help it….

Enough blather, I think. I’ve wandered around, saying little to nothing, to little purpose other than to bring us here. We’re here, so, my work here is done…. Damn good thing, too, as I’m now fresh out of any ideas for what to do next…. I think Id best go find a video for today…. See y’all at the oyster beds; you’re on your own today for getting there…. You can just follow me if you like…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” — Edward O. Wilson

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Image from guitarplayer.com via Google Images

I feel like rocking out today…. Nobody can help with that better than this performer…. Enjoy, ffolkes….

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Stevie Ray Vaughan
Live at Montreux ~ 1985

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https://youtu.be/dIhVJnYaRX4

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This rant, a long one, didn’t just leak out; actually, it was all I could do to keep it this short, as I tend to get a bit worked up about this…. It’s fresh in the last week, and probably could use some punching up…. But, what you see, today, is what you get…. If you become uncomfortable when asked to think, or feel about injustice, well, better skip to the poem….

Plague of Evil

In this blog, I speak of a number of issues which are a part of human society/culture, most of which are discussions of how poor a record in embracing human rights, and/or, living up to the twin concepts of kindness and compassion, our species has exhibited throughout history…. One subject, which often gets neglected, for reasons we will discuss, is the abuse of women, and children, and, even some men; in short, the continued presence in our society of the abhorrent practice of human slavery, generally for the purposes of the sex-for-sale business, but, often enough, just plain slavery.

I refer, of course, to a huge number of corporately sponsored factories, farms, or other businesses, in various places around the world, who force children, women, and men, to work for pennies a day, to provide shoes, clothing, and/or luxury items, none of which any of them earn enough to afford… Hell, they don’t make enough to pay for much of anything on what they are paid for working 12 to 20 hours a day…. This, believe it or not, is the sole purpose of “Free Trade Law”….. That, however, is a rant for another day…

To my mind, the abuse of women and children in the sex trade is, perhaps, the most significant, as well as the least apparent, (certainly the least ‘admitted issue) of all the forms of slavery practiced by that portion of humankind. In my mind, these people are subhuman, without any trace of any of the higher ideals, or evidence of ethical/moral beliefs of any kind, which are embraced by most of humanity…. In essence, these human predators, who have a completely false sense of their own importance in the universe, are without any morals, or ethics, and have given up their souls for the sake of an illusion of adequacy, unfounded, yet, enforced with violence which is never admitted, or, held up for approbation by society…. Pond scum is the nicest thing to call them, in my estimation.

These men (though there are women who subscribe to these sick, illusory beliefs as well…), believe women, or any other human they can intimidate and place under control, are property, less-than-human, and not worth any guilt or any sort of disapproval from a conscience; they have none. In my mind, this places them in MY category of those humans whose death, at the hands of another human, is NOT an unethical event, in any fashion…. If they die, screaming in pain and terror, so much the better, for they are completely without any redeeming value, as a human, or as a member of human society…. In fact, death is, in truth, too good for them; to give them a taste of how they treat others would be as satisfying for me, as long as that taste ended up poisoning them, slowly, so I could watch them go through the agony they deserve, in this life, or any other….

I’ve been writing about this subject for some time, after coming across a couple of blogs, written by women who had miraculously freed themselves from a life of such slavery…. Both had been abducted, or forced into prostitution at a young age, not being able to break free before the age of at least 30, spending more than half their lives as slaves to a series of evil men and women, forced to debase themselves on a daily basis for years, and years, and years….

For some time after coming across their stories, I felt so much rage, at the misogyny coating every level of or society, I began to plot ways to start removing the ‘snakeheads’ (the commonest term for those at the top of the chain in that trade….) from this plane of existence, one by one, personally…. In short, I began to dream of killing men who spend their lives abusing the rest of humanity, especially women and children, both of whom are their prey…. Using all the weapons at my disposal, I would stalk the streets of the cities, removing them from life, until it became an underground certainty that pursuing such a course of business was a sure path to death….

Of course, to fulfill such a vengeful dream, I’d have to become like them, and give up certain of my ethical standards, in order to complete my chosen duty…. Y’know what? It took me a very long time, and is still not a settled question in my mind/heart; the urge to kill pimps and snakeheads is just as strong today as it was four years ago, when the depth and breadth of the problem, (which covers the entire world; every city, every country is guilty of NOT doing ANYTHING significant to address this issue….) first came to my knowledge, and understanding. I still argue with myself often; I must, as there are times I feel so strongly, it’s all I can do, to NOT tuck away my five knives, three ropes, my bow, and staff, then, toddle off to Oakland, or San Francisco, to go hunting men…

Believe me, I really, really want to… I have two sisters, and if either of them had been taken in such a way, I’d still be out there, killing. As it is, all I can do is write about it, to help vent enough of the rage so I can keep from losing control…. But, I have to say, I often wonder why I DO stop myself; nobody else even THINKS about it, as far as I can see……

At this point, even writing isn’t reducing the anger; I’m THIS close (holds up thumb and index finger, touching…) to just saying, ‘fuck it’… I’m 65 and NOTHING IS BEING DONE to either stop the trade, or, rescue its victims…. which is a part of how our misogynist society works, and has, for 10,000 years, and more, back to when the first asshole with a dick bigger than his brain, raped a woman, and nobody cared, or looked away, or watched in approval…. Even the stupidest idiot in the world cannot deny the evidence of this issue, yet, no one ever does anything but talk…. as I am limited by age to doing….

Moreover, not only does government, composed primarily of, and for, men, NOT act on this, or even acknowledge it unless confronted, but, even the churches, the so-called proctors of morals in society do less than the government. In fact, they are worse, for they pretend to care for their constituents equally, especially for the weaker and more vulnerable, such as children, women, and the elderly…. Here is what a former US President, who was, without doubt, the most devoutly Christian of all our elected leaders, ever, had to say on the subject…. I figure he ought to know, having studied Scripture, deeply, through his entire life….

Nor is the hypocrisy of these Dogma Dogs (as I like to call them) limited to women; what group in society, by clear evidence, as reported in the news for all my life, as well as by my own observations, and conversations with many of those who teach the delusions held by most of humanity, has made a consistent, centuries-long practice of abusing children, as well as women, to a degree no other organization, or entity of any kind, has ever approached… not even within shouting distance?

I am willing wager anyone at all, any amount, or deed, or, third-born child, if they wish, (Just kidding, ffolkes… only had 2; no more coming, ever….)(maybe I’m calming a bit; that was almost funny), they care to bet, if they can prove, or even suggest any evidence that can be confirmed, that the clergy, especially that of the perverted “celibates”, (What a ridiculous idea! How can anyone, with more than 3 neurons to use, even THINK such an act/habit/intentional lie, is either natural, or, healthy for any creature, much less one claiming humanity?), who claim the title of Priest, is NOT guilty of crimes against their own flocks, more than any other entity you can name…. It’s not only children who are abused by the church in such fashion, either….

It disgusts me; all of them. Pimps, snakeheads, priests who molest or break their vows (which they usually treat as ‘suggestions’….), politicians who lie so often it has to be a congenital issue, and is certainly a mental issue, known as sociopathy…. They’re all assholes, they’re all shitheads, or, any other vulgar name you care to suggest; scum of the earth is nearly right, but, doesn’t give an adequate feel for just how evil these wastes of DNA actually are, in reality…..

I’m not done, but, I’m through for now….. In closing, I will merely say, if you start seeing headlines, of a mysterious number of deaths associated with people, primarily male, who are known to be active in the sex trade, or, a strange number of men who had been convicted or accused of rape, or other abuse of women, but, walked free…. Well, it’s entirely possible that, shortly before the reports began, I stopped writing, and disappeared from sight…. & you’ll know I lost control….

It will be either that, or, the NSA, or some other fascist, paranoid group of assholes, caught me off-guard, & disappeared me…. Or, more likely, came looking for me, and found me already gone….

It makes for a good dream, anyway…. and, if it happens, I may lose my ethical standards in one area, but, in another, I will be completely content with my karmic account…. Duty is as we choose it to be; I choose honor, which is rooted in compassion, and, when carried out with the proper attitude, as confirmed by reason, and experience, in kindness.

So be it…..

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Today’s poem is one written not long after ending my 35 year hiatus from trying to write ANY poetry…. It’s not bad; I was in a rather tough state at that point in time, with lots of pain & anguish due to living on the edge of poverty, for the first time in MANY years…. so, it get a bit fusty & hopeless…. No worries, it all passed, & ends on a good note…..

A Seasonal Approach

Absolute stillness grips a frozen field,
anticipating dawn with such patient yield
morning burgeoning in dark winter’s hold
brings promise of tales yet to be told.

Lengthening days of pale sun unto night
slowly tell of time’s subversive flight
bringing such original songs of natural fire
with melodies complex in casual attire.

The months are certain they will always win
it is just the way it has always been.
None may argue, nor yet slow life down
Nor dim the eternal beauty of nature’s gown.

Winter evolves from fall into spring,
sending flocks and hearts ever awing.
Summer follows suit, t’other way ’round
Spring into fall, often without a sound.

Life is meant to be lived, beginning to end
choices abound, and change can be a friend.
Yielding with grace to reality’s compelling ploy
fills our plain existence with clean, honest joy.

~~ gigoid ~~

10/2/2012

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Naked Pearls

Observations on Life at Large

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“To try may be to die, but not to care is never to be born.”

~~ William Redfield ~~

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“I haven’t a clue as to how my story will end.
But that’s all right.
When you set out on a journey and night covers the road,
you don’t conclude that the road has vanished.
And how else could we discover the stars?”

~~ Unknown Bee ~~

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“YES… LOVE IS A CONTACT SPORT…”

~~ il NOEGO ~~

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“Euripides was wont to say, “Silence is an answer to a wise man.””

~~ Plutarch — Of Bashfulness ~~

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“It isn’t so astonishing the number of things I can remember,
as the number of things I can remember that aren’t so.”

~~ Mark Twain ~~

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“In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”

~~ Frank Zappa ~~

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“Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear.
Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together.
Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated
deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them.
No matter how “pure” their motives,
they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”

~~ Robert A. Heinlein, “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” ~~

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“Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished:
if you’re alive, it isn’t.”

~~ Richard Bach ~~

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“When learned men begin to use their reason,
then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.”

~~ G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, 11-7-1908 ~~

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“A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility”

~~ Aristotle ~~

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“There will come a time when you will discover a thing called loneliness.
But remember life’s cruelest irony:
The time you feel most lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.”

~~ Douglas Coupland ~~

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It’s done. Today, that’s the best I can say about it, as I haven’t gone back over it to look at how it hangs together…. As they say, in some places across the big pond to the East, c’est la fucking vie…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, most likely with a bit more pizazz…. whatever that is….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
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

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

All you can do is all you can do….

Posted on December 26, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“… denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du musst dein Leben andern.”

“… for there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.”

~~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~~

~~ “Archaic Torso of Apollo” ~~

A Small Congress

A bit of housekeeping… Yesterday, when I wrote the lines wherein I wished all my Gentle Readers a happy season, I, apparently, was not completely mindful, as I described my words as a Winter Wish…. It SHOULD have been a Winter/Summer Wish; by forgetting the Nature of Reality’s Duality, I inadvertently withheld the wish for the many (read: several….) Gentle Readers who reside in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is NOT winter, but, summer….. (thanks to the 23.4º tilt of Earth’s axis, in relation to the plane of the ecliptic)…. (Trust me on this…. It’s true….)….

To all of those wonderful friends, in India, Australia, or, wherever you live south of the Equator, my bad…. Sorry ’bout that; everything I said yesterday was sent to you as well… Believe it….

A few days before Christmas, I went back in time, as suggested by a link below the day’s Pearl, at the bottom of the page, to July 26, 2013. I re-read the Pearl for that day, & I liked it well enough to use it today, in toto, but for the poem, which was used a short time ago here. Below this paragraph, written today, you’ll find the Pearl from that date, as it appeared, but, with a different poem, so as to refrain from repetition too often…. Pearls at that time didn’t have a video section, which evolved later, in 2014, so, no video today; sorry…. Not many quotations in the pearls, either; it’s all pretty serious/somber material…. Nevertheless, I hope y’all enjoy it as much as I did….

Plus, posting this gave me a whole extra day to work on the next Pearl(s) you’ll see…. Bonus, for me, and you, as I’ll have more time to make it right…. Here then, is my version of a re-blog, but, of my own work… Works for me…. See y’all at the bottom of the page….

From 7/26/2013:

Ffolkes,

As some of y’all may have noted, yesterday’s Pearl was disrupted by Reality, whereas today’s will be characterized by Fantasy, or a reasonable facsimile thereof….The most pertinent item I recall seems to be the unexpected increase in planetary gravity that hit about 2 PM yesterday…. Didn’t you notice? It seemed quite significant to me; I had been struggling all day to keep upright, as the normally severe sucking power of our planet pulled at me constantly, no matter what I was doing…. sitting, standing, walking, typing, driving, all of it seemed harder, as if I were swimming through heavy syrup, or wearing extra bags of sand or something…. By eight o’clock at night, I was exhausted from the effort to remain a simian of the modern variety, standing upright like a true hominid….

And, then, I woke up…. t’was a new day dawning, turning the blues and grays of the morning sky to a pale pinkish blue, lifting spirits along with hopes, unbidden. All the bad, mad stuff that filled the last days was gone, banished to wherever such things go when pinned with the light of day, and I am once again filled with piss and vinegar, so to speak, ready for whatever the new day will bring. Of course, being an inveterate planner, I already know what will happen today, at least, according to my schedule, but, Murphy has a tendency to ignore my schedules in favor of his own, with mine usually ending up in the trash, while I adjust to his…. the asshole….

I’m up at my usual hour, and intend to write as usual…. Intentions aren’t always enough, though, so we’ll see how it goes today. It has to be better than it was the last two days, which, even sans the kind attentions of the Murph, I spent in the dumps, thanks to the gift that keeps on giving (PTSD). I’m all better now, having thrown off the unreasoning sense of anxiety that pervaded my conscious mind, and gone beyond whatever it was that triggered the episode…. Once more, I am completely in the dark as to what that might be; I do wish I could figure it out, as it is a pain in the ass, and if I knew how to block its ascent into my consciousness, I would do so in a heartbeat…. Until I do, I am at the mercy of whatever it is, destined to fall into despair in an instant, never knowing why….

Ah well, so what else is new? Life with PTSD goes on, as I said, yesterday, sort of, if we don’t hang on to it too tight, and I’m determined NOT to grip it tightly enough to hold it in its place…. If you see me doing so, please tickle me, or throw some water, or something to let me know, as I’m done with feeling bad for no good reason…. It’s a waste of time I could use to be doing something more constructive….. Of course, writing this blog may or may not fall precisely into that category, but, it’s what I do, so deal…. And, speaking of what I do….

Shall we Pearl?…..

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“One of the merits of democracy is quite obvious: it is perhaps the most charming form of government ever devised by man. The reason is not far to seek. It is based on propositions that are palpably not true — and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true.” — H. L. Mencken

With this statement, Mr. Mencken has put his finger on the pulse of America, that is for certain. It goes a long way toward explaining why so many people in this country are so willing to believe the outright, egregious lies that are told to them every single day by the officials they elect every year at the polls that characterize our republic…. They do lie, you know, with almost every statement that comes out of their mouths…. They begin with the most important lie they tell, from which all the others spring, and that is the lie they tell when they tell you that they want to be elected so they can work for YOU! Each and every politician learns early in their career, if they are at all to be successful, they MUST portray themselves as a public-spirited, honest, and tireless worker whose only purpose is to make life better for their constituents….

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth…. NONE of them are at all concerned with any of that nonsense; they are there to carry out their own agenda, which has very little to do with what is good for the general run of mankind…. No, they are there to serve the interests of the men and women who pay them, those lobbyists and special interest representatives who run the businesses of the corporate masters. The people on the street cannot provide them with the perks, or the cash, that the clandestine rulers are able to come up with, other than peripherally, by electing them in the first place…. Once elected, their true colors come out into the light of day, and it can be easily seen how their actions are never congruent with what they have promised to the people who elected them….

It’s all about power and money to these folks, not service. In my entire life of observing politics around the world, I have yet to see a single elected official who could be shown to be honest, not at the national level. The one who came the closest was Jimmy Carter, and his presidency was marked by how little got done, because he was so honest that the true politicians in Congress blocked every reform he tried to institute during his time in office. His actions during that time showed him to be the exception to the usual rule for politicians, which is why, I believe, he was so ineffective as a legislator….

“Invest in America — Buy Japan!”– Smart Bee

Other than Carter, I have seen concrete proof that EVERY President of this country has lied to the American people, not just once or twice, but continuously, about nearly everything. Time and time again, public outcries are heard or seen in the news about some new revelation regarding something some politician lied about, just like it is breaking news or something, when it is actually the normal state of affairs….

I don’t know why it is, but if a man on a TV set, wearing a suit and tie, makes a statement to the public, the general public will believe it, sometimes fanatically, without ever examining it for whether or not it is true… Then, when it turns out they were lied to, they get all upset and vocalize their displeasure, never once admitting it was their own cupidity that allowed the lie to occur in the first place…. It makes me wonder what happened to people in this country, to make them go soft in the head….

“Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.” — Anton Chekhov

Did you ever notice how many politicians were lawyers, first? Most of them, as it turns out, for the simple reason that learning to be a lawyer gives a politician two advantageous types of training… One advantage is that law school teaches the student how to lie in every imaginable way, in order to ascertain which kinds of lies are legal…. The other advantage is their primary motivation…. I

f asked, a very large percentage of lawyers will tell you their reason for becoming a barrister in the first place is that it is a good way to get rich, ( without mentioning, of course, that this is true only as long as one doesn’t give a shit about other people, and what that might do to them)…. In other words they make their money by taking advantage of people’s misery, holding them as hostages against their own destiny, in order to gain resources, i.e. money, and its sidekick, power…..

Then the lawyers realize that their training is perfect for politics…. The ability to lie with facility comes in very handy to anyone who wants to be in the public eye, as that is how one gets elected in the first place…. Tell people what they want to hear, and they will vote for you, every time, coming back to the same trough to eat, even though they get screwed, time after time…. Having the facility to ignore what happens to others, due to their own actions, is the other skill so important to the political set, and the training one receives as a lawyer fits right into that category….

“Watching the democratic party in a presidential contest is like watching a washing machine with a defective bearing: It starts up smoothly enough, but soon, it begins to wobble and shake, jumping violently from place to place, until it tears itself to pieces, spewing dirty laundry all over the room.” –Smart Bee

Some people will say that there ARE some good lawyers out there, and I won’t argue that…. but, they’re still lawyers, not politicians, aren’t they? They’re doing what they can to help ffolkes find their way through the morass of our legal system to get what they need, even occasionally finding some justice….

But, they aren’t going further, and going into public service, are they? They’re still in place, where they can help, but, they are so few and far between, they are hard to find, and so are very busy, seldom having the time or resources to work against their less honest colleagues. Plus, they really are very few in number, as altruists seldom become lawyers in the first place….

I can see that this has evolved into a full scale rant, and we’ve just begun the day, so I’ll call a halt here. I often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir, anyway, when I go through this stuff again…. It’s all familiar material around here, so it isn’t as if I’m presenting new ideas for your examination…. No, this is all old stuff, and, sadly, doesn’t seem to ever create the outrage that I feel in very many other ffolkes… which is too bad….. I forget who said that “if you keep on doing things the same ways as you always have, things will always be the way they’ve always been….”, but, they were absolutely correct…. We are on a path to our own destruction, clearly, but, nobody seems to care…

Nobody, that is, who seems able to DO anything about it, and they are the ones who will need to make the changes….. The people in authority over the rest of us are wearing blinders in this respect…. The idea that what they are doing is wrong, and will eventually kill us all, doesn’t fit into their world-view, so they won’t believe it, and will continue to refuse to make any of the changes needed to re-direct our steps onto a path less dangerous.

It is up to the rest of us to get it done, and that may entail overthrowing the current crop of rulers, either by the vote, or by the less agreeable option of using the necessary force, while making sure the new crop will act in OUR best interests, rather than their own…. If it does happen, it will be the first time in history, which is fine with me…. just as long as it is not the LAST time in history….

“… democracy is not something you believe in, or a place you hang your hat, but it’s something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles and falls apart.” — Abby Hoffman
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Today’s poem was not originally used in this Pearl; that one, “A Dubiously Soft Morning”, was used just a few days ago…. I’ve replaced it with a poem from the same year, but, of a different tone altogether…. I hope you enjoy it; it’s actually one of my favorites of those I’ve written, because it speaks of my father…. Abondanza!

Ah Ain’t Sho, but Mebbe So….

Fried eggs got nuthin’ on me
Ah’m not even sure of mah name,
or how Ah come to be;
no idea from where Ah came.

Ah does like a mystery tho’,
puzzlin’ things out so’s Ah knows,
good from bad fo sho,
Ah sho don’t want no rock pillows.

If’n Ah cain’t figure out what’s best,
Ah just falls back on mah Daddy’s words,
seems he knowed just whut’d stand the test,
‘n how to gentle the scaredest birds.

‘Course, he’d lived a good long time,
‘n had lots of stuff go on by;
Went to a war, n’ lost a piece or two,
never once used it fer an alibi.

He tol’ me once Ah’d best learn to learn,
school’s only cool if ya ain’t already a fool.
Yer own good measure you can earn,
by startin’ yer learnin’ with the Golden Rule.

Always seemed to me as Ah growed up,
he mostly only spoke if it wuz true,
‘n by doin’ that clued me to what’s up,
kept me from stuff that’d a made me blue.

Without ever sayin’ the word itself,
Ah learned ’bout honor, ‘n helpin’ others
not some fake stuff from some shelf,
but, knowin’ whut’s right, ‘n that we’re all brothers.

Ah’ve been around long enough now, Ah think
to get around the block at least two times.
I s’pose long as my head don’t shrink
Ah’ll keep on doin’ right, ‘n makin’ these rhymes…..

~~ gigoid ~~

4/6/2013

Last posted on WP 9/6/2014
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“The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.” — Max Born, physicist

I like this, mostly because of its clarity and brevity of expression…. It’s perfect no-frills wisdom, with no ups and no extras, all you need for enlightenment in one short, pithy phrase. It also exposes the basic untruth of the mindset against which Thomas Aquinas warned, when he cautioned us to “Beware the man of one book.” I often wonder how the Church scholars managed to rationalize that statement into their set of dogmatic rules, and still canonize Saint Thomas as one of the icons of their faith; this statement is so diametrically opposed to all they teach, how did it become his entry into sainthood, with all the perks that involves, like, I don’t know, what, a better seat at holy dinners?

Any who, all sarcastic smirking aside, it doesn’t make sense, but, then, most of what I have heard and read about the more popular Christian religious sects doesn’t make much sense, either…. People seem to find it compelling, though, and manage to invest a lot of time and energy fulfilling whatever agenda items having those beliefs will engender.

“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” — Lazarus Long

These, to me, are the folks who find it easier to go through life allowing what other people believe determine their own thoughts and feelings, as it is less troublesome for them to have someone else do it for them, than making the effort to understand the world on their own…..

I suppose it’s okay, for them, to allow this, but, for me, it would drive me crazy in no time at all to try to believe some of what they would have me believe, because A) It doesn’t make any sense, and B) the assertions made, aside from the fantastic unbelievability of their nature, are offered without any evidence of their veracity, no proof of their actual truth. Given just those two requirements of mine for accepting something as true, none of what I heard in church makes the slightest bit of sense…

But, for well over two thousand years, this church, along with two or three competing churches, with slightly altered versions of the same set of beliefs on the same subject, has attempted to dominate human existence, saying it has the ONLY answers to the eternal questions, to wit: Is there a God? and, if so, What is He/She/It like?…. Simplistic, I know, but, an accurate paraphrased summarization, I think…. Honest, anyway, right? I mean, when one strips down the basic ideas to their bare bones, they sound ridiculous; then, when one sees there is also no real, incontrovertible proof of any of it, beyond logical constructions based on assumptions not proven, they become simply unbelievable, to my way of thinking….

Of course, one must actually THINK about this stuff, and not just assume it is true…. even what I’m saying should be examined for its own veracity…. I think all I need to do to offer proof of most of my assertions is point to either some part of reality, which generally proves without question what is real, or to something in the news that demonstrates the fallibility of what the churches offer as their dogma, which is legion. T

hen, once the information has been presented, it must be examined for it’s connections to what is real, in order to be able to determine for sure that it IS or IS NOT true…. Sadly, in my experience, most people skip that last step entirely, preferring to go along with what they’ve been told since they were little, because to examine it, one must first accept the possibility of being wrong in the first place…. and, that they are not willing to do….

That is the simple truth folks, no matter how much anyone tries to deny it. Reality determines what is true, not belief, or faith, and nothing anyone can say or do will ever change that simple fact of reality. There are no magic bullets, so, if we want to have magic in our lives, we have to make it ourselves, which leaves out the possibility of depending on anything in nature to do so for us, no matter how much we want it to be so, or how strongly we maintain our faith in what is unreal…. As some other philosopher has stated, “Just because a million people believe something is so, doesn’t make it so…. A lie is still a lie, even if a lot of people believe it…….. or, more colorfully…..

“If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does the dog have? Four. Calling a tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.” — Abraham Lincoln

So, spare me, please, the sermons, and pitying looks, because, quite frankly, the concept of Heaven bores me to tears; it sounds as if the Angel Satan throws a better party, and doesn’t expect his acolytes to curry favor…. plus, they never expect him not to lie to them, as he is right up front about it….

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” — Jack London, Jack London’s Tales of Adventure
_____________________________

Such an outburst! I can see that I am right to write every day…. This stuff tends to build up if I go too long without letting it out, and there’s no telling what kind of harm THAT may cause to the space-time continuum…. Let’s see if it reads half as well as it flowed out….. Hmph, well, I think that the Pulitzer committee may want to stand down, but, it’s better than most Pearls, all in all, and it’s all freshly made stuff, so, so be it…. WYSIWYG, today, anyway…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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 ~~

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Approaching mundane bogosity, captain….

Posted on August 29, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.

~~ Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1816-1841) ~~

~~ Life a Duty ~~

Supermoon, July 2015, Madrid

Image from an article on Space.com

Good morning…. I’ve decided to throw out the last two days; there doesn’t seem to be much point in remembering such an extended period of misery. Oh, not that it’s been exactly Hell; Hell’s probably hotter than 94º, the average for the last 48 hrs. But, the roller coaster ride of pain, from extreme highs to complete absence, and back again, over the course of an hour or two, every couple hours like a damn clock, sure makes telling the difference a distinct challenge. Faugh! Basta! Begone from my mind!

Please?

Ah, me. Such is Life in the Big City, I suppose. If I didn’t like it, I’d probably move. Hey, wait! Is that….? No, sorry, it’s not her; it’s just the arrival of our delivery of indigestible parables. Not to worry, Luigi will sign for them. Okay, where were we? Ah, yes, about to consider emigration to the wilds of Northern Cali, due to the massive influx of insanity here in the Bay Area. The level of bogosity present out in the BBR is becoming more than merely annoying; it’s getting downright dangerous for us curmudgeons; the act of obtaining one’s bagel in the morning has become a challenge of major proportion…..

Not that there’s anything up with the bagels; it’s the mundanes one must wend one’s way through to get it. They’re everywhere, spreading their ignorance and cluelessness wherever they walk, confusing themselves and others, as they try to understand a world in which they cannot comprehend the rules of engagement. It makes the effort to remain non-homicidal VERY hard to repress; they’re EVERYWHERE, asking dumb questions, making dumb mistakes, honking their horns, walking into light poles as they walk down the street obsessively gazing into their phone…. It’s enough to make an old fart regret not carrying his gun… or, a nice, big, sharp knife….

Oh, gosh. I guess it IS a little early for homicidal impulses, isn’t it? Okay, I’ll quit now. It’s just being indulgent, anyway. I’ve sworn off killing mundanes for at least another month. If I hadn’t decided on a hiatus, I would have reached my legal limit before October. It’s too expensive to get an extension; maybe next year they’ll up the limit….

I reckon that’s enough. I can’t expect y’all to take it forever, can I? Nope. Let’s go see what kind of trouble we can get into down below…. If Luigi ever gets those parables stowed away, we can…. Oh, good, we’re ready. Let’s get on with it, before it’s too late, again….

Shall we Pearl?….

“If the average man is made in God’s image,

then such a man as Beethoven or Aristotle

is plainly superior to God.”

— H. L. Mencken

Ipse dixit!

Q.E.D.

So be it.

gigoid has spoken.

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

royalty-free-clip-art-vector-logos-of-black-and-orange-floral-acoustic-guitars-by-seamartini-graphics-6573

I’m lazy; big surprise, eh? In this case, that’s a good thing. This collection of music touts itself as the “Best” relaxing classical music on the Beach. You tell me if that’s so, okay?…. Enjoy, please….

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The Best Relaxing Classical Music on the Beach

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https://youtu.be/KHg8wBoj_3M

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☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

First Dog on the Moon: Cybersecurity

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/sep/09/first-dog-cybersecurity

The cartoon was reproduced, without permission, but with full attribution, from the UK Guardian news site…..

I decided to give y’all a break from a down-to-earth, makes-you-think sort of rant, opting instead for a bit of educational entertainment, first, with the chosen graphic from the UK Guardian’s own First Dog on the Moon, followed by a rather smarmy old-school pearl, with parameters set to make us laugh at, or jeer at. the Asininnies, of whatever variety we can find, or, you may choose your own to fill in the blanks…. Enjoy! Where else can you find such interactive fun, eh?…. Okay, so, not all of it is funny, or fun. Some of it’s just Truth…. I think you’ll recognize those without any help….

“Believe 1% of what you see, and none of what you hear.” — Dubious Bee

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” — Thomas Jefferson to A. Stuart, 1791

“I’m all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.” — Leo Szilard

“Crime does not pay. Unless, of course, you get to make, enforce, or interpret the laws.” — gigoid, the dubious

“I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* — I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is ‘prisoners’; i.e., citizens of a provider state.” — Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

“The apathy of the born freeman is worse than the docility of the born slave.” — Grant Singleton (1890-?)

“A special cleaning ordinance bans housewives from hiding dirt and dust under a rug in a dwelling.” — real standing law in Pennsylvania, United States of America

“A kitchen in every pot. I mean, a pot in every — I mean, a chicken in every…” — George Bush, 1988

“The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.” — Charles Macklin (1690-1797) — Love a la Mode, Act ii, Sc. 1

“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.” — Henry Adams

“Keep a very firm grasp on reality, so you can strangle it at any time.” — Realistic Bee

“The higher you climb, the more you show your ass.” — Alexander Pope, “The Dunciad”

I must stop here… my fingers are hoarse. In addition, thirteen pearls of this nature is probably enough; we all know what can happen to the Space/Time Continuum if we go to fifteen…. It isn’t pretty….

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

Penance, Made Simple

After all the dross is sent away
a celebration can begin,
time will face up to space, to stay
willing, to shine from within.

Anger and confusion come in to share
brushing reason aside,
eager to welcome all that is fair,
alert to danger, eyes wide.

Re-gift the wicked with their own pain
stand with the just;
fail to partake of the ill-gotten gain,
living in honor, the only must.

Standing fast in the face of wrong
is its own prize and reward.
Holding on to truth makes us strong,
well worth working toward.

Little is left to chance by fate
our lessons are never free of cost.
Seldom does reality make us wait
only when alone, are we lost.

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 10/23/2012.

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

This one is about being human; the good, the weird, the ugly, the wondrous…. but, mostly, it’s about the duality of nature, and, our own inner nature, with which we constantly battle, inside AND outside ourselves… It’s not easy when the only way to win, ultimately, is to keep battling; if either side becomes dominant, imbalance disallows longevity; eventually, whatever is created destroys itself, whether overbearingly good, or obsessively evil…. Sounds a bit confusing, doesn’t it? Yeah, to me, as well, but, it DOES go a long way toward explaining a lot about most people’s reaction to much of what happens to them in life….

SIGH…. Ah well, if they would only learn to listen to the pearls that live inside them…. If not, well, they could always come read some of these; I don’t see how it couldn’t help things. Nothing much else seems to have done so….

“Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is night hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, iv, 17

“The measure of man is what he does with power.” — Pittacus

“Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“You know what they say about paradigms – shift happens!” — Witty Bee

“To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness,what he has seen in the light.” — Coventry Patmore

“His red right hand.” — John Milton — Paradise Lost, Book ii, Line 174

“Arms are instruments of ill omen… . When one is compelled to use them, it is best to do so without relish. There is no glory in victory, and to glorify it despite this is to exult in the killing of men…. When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe mourning rites.” — Lao-Tzu

“Mongo only pawn… in game of life.’ — Alex Karras in “Blazing Saddles”

“Sometimes I think. And sometimes I am.”

~~ Smart Bee, using Peruaosophy as a koan ~~

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

What the…? How did we get here? Oh, wait; okay, I get it. Sorry, the Tardis was set to put me here at a certain time, & I forgot. Okay, we’re done, right? Right. I suppose I’d better go see what happened up there, before I let this loose on the world….. Hang on….

Hmm…. I think it’s best if I don’t comment on any of that. I’ll just say this; it’s done. That fulfills all the legal requirements, so, I’m going to use some common sense & get us the hell out of here, before Reality is stressed any further…. I’ll be back tomorrow, ffolkes….. Hey! Oh for goodness sake, stop with the wailing and lamentations! It’s not a threat, calm down. I don’t THINK we’ve even made any of the do-not-fly lists yet, so, it’s just another walk in the park. Sheesh…. Besides, what’s your beef? Did you pay for this? No…. Well, not in anything other than a karmic sense….

See ya, ffolkes; that’s a promise…. I don’t make them lightly….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
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

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Kindly inform the sublime Pasha his hot dog is done….

Posted on July 29, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“How could the drops of water know themselves to be a river?

Yet the river flows on.”

~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~~

Europa’s Ice Wolf watching Pluto from Charon

https://europasicewolf.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/smashing-the-final-planetary-frontier/

Good morning…. The odds on that have improved a bit, thankfully…. Mind and body yearn for more sleep; five hours, though welcome, doesn’t quite make up for the weeks of 2-3/day I’ve just gone through. I have to admit, though, more, in this case, is better. Not that I’m a bundle of energy, by any means, but, it is nice to not have to summon my courage just to stand up….

Today’s Pearl promises to be something of an anomaly, though why that should be is still unclear…. It’s a sort of background hum with which we are familiar, from the identical phenomenon in my nervous system; when it’s there, tension reigns, though the underlying reason seems hidden…. It is only when it stops we note we’ve been so tense; the relief is immense. Sadly, there isn’t much that relieves it for my nervous system; for Pearls, I have yet to even identify the root cause, much less figure out how to get it to stop…. So, we end up with weird, which may not seem all that odd, but, trust me, it will be…

Since I can’t seem to find much of anything to say here, and don’t want to completely bore anyone in the intro section, we’ll take this slow on the road…. Luigi! Fire that sucker up, & let’s hit it! Time’s a wastin’…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself.”

~~ Robert A. Heinlein ~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a You Tube video, which I enjoyed so much I’m including it here today. It’s a verbal performance of a W.B. Yeats poem, The Stolen Child, one of the most famous poems in all of English literature. The accompanying original video and music are the perfect enhancement to the poem’s beauty, and though short, one of the most intense doses of beauty I’ve ever been fortunate to experience…. I hope you enjoy it….

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The Stolen Child – W.B. Yeats

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https://youtu.be/g9hnUYV06t4

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Justice is incidental to law and order.” — J. Edgar Hoover

For someone of my ilk, such a statement, with its inherent arrogance and sense of entitlement, is an obvious invitation to rant; one might say, metaphorically, it’s a red flag to my bullish intellect…. But, that would leave me open to too many bad puns on referring to myself as a bull, or with bovine qualities to my thought processes… I certainly hope NOT…. Nonetheless, whichever metaphor we end up with, if any, I’m going to rant…. J. Edgar is just too much of an asshole to pass up the chance to chew on him. He was SUCH an asshole, I am prompted to pearl….

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” — Oscar Wilde

I’m sure Oscar must have been thinking of J. Ed; I think he met him as a child…. I mean, J. Edgar was a child…. Oscar was already nearly dead at the time…. In fact, it’s a little known historical fact the sight of J. Edgar’s face at the age of three, was the event which actually kicked Oscar over the edge…. (Little known = I made it up…. But, imagine it. Remember J. Edgar’s face when he was at the FBI? At three he must have been a truly scary sight; probably never had to buy a Halloween mask in his life….)

Okay, I’ll stop picking on the dead FBI guy. We’ll get back to what he said above, which, as far as I can tell, is just about as far removed, philosophically, ethically, and morally, from the ideas and concepts involved in the US Constitution, as it can possibly get. I don’t believe the framers of the Constitution had that sort of brutal single-mindedness in mind when they drafted the document; it’s completely foreign to the same view of, well, everything…. The intent of Mason, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, and the rest was to secure Justice for the people, not place it in the hands of the faceless myrmidons who have taken over the police forces, not to mention the courts, of this country.

“All I kin say is when you finds yo’self wanderin’ in a peach orchard, ya don’t go lookin’ for rutabagas.” — Kingfish

Yesterday, when I began this rant, I had the firm intention of dissecting Hoover, and the ridiculous, self-centered attitudes he espoused, which have, sadly, become the modus operandi of almost every police force in this country…. The more I think on it, however, the greater is my feeling of futility, as I so often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir when I rant; the people who NEED to see, and think about this material, almost never do see it, as they’re not interested in changing their minds. Hell, most of them aren’t even aware they HAVE a mind….

So, I’m gonna sublimate, to please myself. We’ll find some statements, about politicians, dogma dogs, snakeheads, myrmidons, pimps, and all the other assholes who are dragging us all down to Hell with them…. Let’s see what SB can come up with today to poke a few holes in their misguided sense of adequacy…. Ah, what the hell; we’ll poke a LOT of holes today…. How about, say, oh, 13 holes?…. Hope they bleed a lot…

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children’s circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What’s never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone’s unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

~~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), “Was There A Time” ~~

“I like the way ONLY their mouths move…. They look like DYING OYSTERS” — Zippy the Pinhead

“The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), “Prejudice”

“Our “neoconservatives” are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.” — Edward Abbey

“If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.” — G.K. Chesterton

“Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess.” — Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

“With rank goeth privileges- so it ever shall be. But also with it go responsibility and obligations, always more onerous than the privileges are pleasant.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue” — Bertrand Russell

“Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.” — Confucius

“I’m going to have you wrapped in a U.S. flag and burned personally by the President, in high octane American gasoline!” — The Firesign Theatre movie, J-Men Forever

“Ignorance is Strength.” — George Orwell’s 1984

“Remember: there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.” — Frank Zappa, “He’s got 20 million dollars in his heavenly bank account.”

Ye shall know the” truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”

~~ Aldous Huxley ~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a poem I haven’t re-posted since first written… Don’t know why, as it may be one of my best, such as they are…. I hope you enjoy it…

Dreaming, I wait….

In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.

Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.

Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.

Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.

Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.

When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.

Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night
aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart
Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,
tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art.

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 9/18/2013.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our final pearl is, apparently, a small, if significant part of what makes today’s effort such an anomaly…. Created in only two sessions at the computer, it came together quite easily, which is the first sign of possible oddity. After a bit of rearrangement, I realized it’s actually a pretty good pearl, for a certain type of mind…. The others who read it may find it a bit hard to penetrate, but, s’okay, not everyone likes peanut butter, even the chunky kind…. Enjoy, ffolkes; I think you can figure it out from here….

“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.” — Immanuel Kant

“Remember what the dormouse said… FEED YOUR HEAD…” — Grace Slick

“A good reputation is more valuable than money.’ — Publius Syrus — Maxim 108

“A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.” — Bob Edwards

“The worst deluded are the self-deluded.” — Christian Nevell Bovee

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” — Baltasar Gracian

“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, ix, 16

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.” — Walt Kelly, Putluck Pogo

At this point in the process, you may ask, what the hell was that all about? I have only one response….

[dignified silence]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y’know? Maybe I’ll make that last line my standard response to ALL queries…. Yeah! That’s the ticket!….

Then, again, that might tend to stifle any potential dialogue…. Okay, we’ll continue to use it only when appropriate…. Now we have that settled, I’m outta here, with energy, a bit of the ready in me pocket, and time on me hands. It’s a big world out there in the Big Blue Room outside the place where my computer lives…. I think I’m going to go see what kind of trouble I can create today…. Not get INTO, mind you, just create…. I’ll try not to involve any innocents, but, they would probably be better off staying off the streets, anyway…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if I don’t run into anyone faster than me….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
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

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Honorable thieves of Time….

Posted on July 11, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“I respect your right to make an idiot of yourself.

Please respect mine.”

~~ Smart Bee, speaking for gigoid ~~

Main Street, Skagway, Alaska

Good morning…. That’s what it says on the label, anyway, though, from my viewpoint, I think I’d want a second opinion before committing myself too far. We’ll go with the odds, though, and just get on with today’s mess, for lack of a better idea….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.” — Elwood P. Dowd, “Harvey”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NASA Hubble Deep Space Telescope Anniversary Image

Rather than a video today, I’m including some artwork which demonstrates the extent of humanity’s exploration of our own Solar System. NASA, with some newer entries into the space exploration circle, has a number of projects taking place around the system, of which we will look at three…. The first is an article on the subject of asteroid mining, which I personally believe to be the next goal our species should take on…. Also included are videos, at the Space.com web site, showing some details of the mission to photograph Pluto and its companion bodies, Charon, Nix, etc., and a video compilation showing the journey of the Mars Rover Curiosity, in a time lapse video made of pictures from each day’s journey…. Those two are in reverse order from how the appear here…

Space is Mankind’s destiny; there is no other answer to the question of why our species exists…. It is our fate to either explore to the ends of the Universe, or kill ourselves trying….

So be it…..

gigoid has spoken.

***********************

Moving a mineral rich asteroid to Mars.

http://www.space.com/29864-asteroid-mining-space-exploration-podcast.html?cmpid=NL_SP_weekly_2015-07-08

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NASA Rover Curiosity photo of a sunset on Mars

http://www.space.com/29868-11+-years-of-mars-roving-in-8-minutes-time-lapse-video.html

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Artist’s rendition of the New Horizons spacecraft

http://www.space.com/29856-pluto-grows-in-new-horizon-s-color-lens-time-lapse-video.html

Pluto’s Heart

Pluto, Charon, & New Horizons

Pluto’s Irregular Moon, Nix, as it tumbles around its orbit

New Horizons Path to Pluto, 2011-2015

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I’d planned a fresh rant for today, but, circumstances have prevented it from getting written just now…. This, of course, means a trip to the archives…. Today, we’ll discuss our world’s Plague of Evil, a term I use to describe the most viciously evil practice our species exhibits, to wit: the trafficking of humans, women, children, and men, for the purposes of sexual exploitation…. If I ever do reach a point where I no longer care about society’s rules, pimps, snakeheads, and other participants in this evil trade would be my very first targets…. And, I wouldn’t/won’t stop until I run out of targets, for nothing, to me, is more dishonorable, or more disgusting, than to take part in such abuse….

From 9/6/2012:

Miss, n.: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

While this quote is intended to be funny, it actually perpetuates the discriminatory, proprietary labeling of women in our society, exactly the way this says it does. By using such terms, we “brand” women according to their eligibility to be possessed by a man, to serve as his property, and think nothing of it. Indeed, a person is considered polite and well-mannered when he or she uses these societal forms of address, never even considering the implications of what they are saying.

Men are either Mister, or, as boys, Master. That’s pretty indicative of the mind-set that using these terms puts the speaker in; men are assumed superior, merely for being male. Women are either Miss, Mistress, or Missus (Mrs., probably a shortened form of Master’s Mistress… or some such….. ), automatically placing them in the subordinate position to the males.

In the last part of the 20th century, society began to use the term Ms., pronounce mizz, to indicate a woman not married, and not to be automatically considered as a candidate for marriage, in an attempt to mitigate somewhat the restrictive mental attitudes that accompany such terminology, and it has had a fairly positive effect, though in no way complete or enough.

This small change is merely one step in the direction society needs to go, and the journey is not a short one; these attitudes have been part of society for thousands of years. It will take a concerted, sustained effort to change the way people think, even partially. But none of us, men or women, can consider ourselves truly free , free to be, and free to become who we CAN be…. which makes the effort the only rational choice…..

All of this does not even touch upon how these attitudes open the way for the trafficking in human beings that continues to take place all over the world. Because of the assumed male superiority, it becomes a very short step to assuming that men may do whatever they please with women. This includes the rape and abduction of young girls and women, taking them to far away cities where they are forced to work as sex slaves by unprincipled men, who hide behind the laws that protect them; laws also written by men.

This has been going on for centuries, and continues right here in this supposedly advanced country. The public does not pay any attention to the sex trade, as long as it isn’t right in their faces; the unscrupulous, misogynistic men, and women, who run these businesses talk of “victimless crimes” as if the women involved were willing participants, while in reality, most of the women are trapped there by abusive, terrorist men who rape them repeatedly until their will to live is gone, thus making them pliable and docile.

These men, and the women who sometimes join them in their depredations, are sick, disgusting scum, and society needs to excise them from the tree of life. To my way of thinking, a long, drawn out period of torture and pain before death is what they deserve, but I am willing to settle just for death. This trade in sex and the slavery that supports it are a scourge upon society, and should be dealt with just as if it were any other type of threat against the species, with swift and complete justice, and no mercy…..

Free our sisters, free ourselves….

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Momentary Terror

Absently casual, memories pester endlessly
leaving only bleeding remnants, amiable and loving.
Coming awake, I cry to still the pain, shamelessly.

Elsewhen, time gives surcease, if only to live,
shoring broken pilings, worn and gray.
Passing on, I laugh at the pain, accept all it will give.

Time will build a shelter, warm and ever safe
save for Fate’s busy hands.
Enduring, I follow the pain, knowing it will chafe.

Fixed against a darkened sky of starry black
such beauty brings us to our knees.
Entranced, I welcome the pain, ’tis all I lack…..

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 2/4/2013.

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The Dalai Lama

Image from boingboing.com via Google Images

Today’s final old school pearl sees us taking a look at some of the ways we can all improve our lives, if only to make ourselves more comfortable about all that happens around us, by showing us how to change ourselves from within, the only true change we can make in this Reality…. If that wasn’t clear, perhaps the words of some of history’s most beloved sages will help, as they have done for thousands of years…. Enjoy!….

“My teachings are very easy to understand and very easy to practice. But no one can understand them and no one can practice them. In my words there is a principle. In the affairs of men there is a system.” — Lao-Tzu

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

“Even if you don’t follow a formal meditation program, it is good to sit quietly for a little while every day.” — Deng Ming-Dao

“Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?” — Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“Ours is a strange world, in which the vast majority do not know what it is they want, but are willing to go through hell to get it, and once they’ve got it, they don’t know what to do with it because it was supposed to make them happy and didn’t.” — Don Marquis

“Dope will get you through times of no money better that money will get you through times of no dope.” — Freewheelin’ Franklin, “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers”

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.

If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

~~ The Dalai Lama ~~

(Note: If the most modern example of common wisdom seems out of place, stop a minute to consider what it actually means, by replacing the offensive, yet perfectly apt word, with almost any other object of human need/desire, to obtain an example of the universal quality of the concept… Try the word, “love”, or, “air”, or, “food”, for example, to see the meaning remains valid…. )

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It’s done. Thank goodness, too. Rather than fuss with it, I’m gonna post it, and be done with it. Jeez, one would think I was organized, if one didn’t know better. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, attitude adjusted, or not….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
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

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Five counts of lewd acts with a WHAT?….

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

The usual blather isn’t going to cut it today; I can feel the need for something more organized, or, at least, more apparently organized, which is often the only viable alternative we can find…. You see, none of what you find here at the beginning of these Pearls has ever been scrutinized for any sort of naturally symmetrical or patterned structure, or, for that matter, any sort of structure at all, aside from the number of sections used for a pearl…. That has always been deliberate on my part, as I didn’t wish to stifle what little creativity resides in my being, by forcing it to assume any pre-determined shape or format….

Whether or not that is the right way to go about this, I’ll probably never know; plus, it’s too late now to go back and start over. So, I’ll have to keep on with what little organized formatting I’ve managed to scrape together, while continuing to torture my mind each morning in the search for something interesting, or compelling, or just plain funny to put here at the start of all of this….

I mean, it’s not as if it has to show any dignity, or class; I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to not raise any hopes in that direction, with the tone and timbre of what has gone before; you can’t tell me that anything I’ve posted here has displayed more than a minimum of dignity. I know for a fact that I’m not capable of much of it, so, I don’t worry about much of it contaminating what I produce…. What good would dignity do me, when the shit hits the fan? None at all, and it won’t keep any of the government’s myrmidons at bay, should one of them take offense at my ranting at them in a specific manner, but, that’s okay, I’m covered….. a .12 gauge over & under works wonders in that respect….

How did I get here? I had no intention of ending up anywhere where I needed to resort to guns, especially not when I had no clue as to what was going to happen today…. I guess my tendency toward ranting has become so habitual, I don’t even have to consciously decide to start in on the BRC; it just happens naturally as I type….. Whether or not that will be an advantage, evolutionarily speaking, I can’t say; it does make it simple for creating Pearls, though, doesn’t it? No having to search for the angst, or build up any resentment; just sit down & start typing…. Handy….

Of course, it doesn’t tell me how I’m going to find an intro that will consistently get us down to the first section without…. hey! Look! Look where we ended up! Here we are, in the fifth paragraph, pre-editing, and I hadn’t noticed, again, that we’ve reached the legal limit for blather in an intro, and may now, legally, if not morally, go on to our next chosen task, should we decide to accept the assignment….

(And doesn’t THAT sound typically American in nature…. meeting legal, if not moral, requirements….)

We are aware, as always, that if caught, we are on our own; the government will claim no responsibility for what we have been asked to do…. which is fine by me, as they always manage to fuck things up, anyway….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“It is my misfortune – and probably my delight – to use things as my passions tell me. What a miserable fate for a painter who adores blonds to have to stop himself putting them into a picture because they don’t go with the basket of fruit! … I put all the things I like into my pictures. The things – so much the worse for them. They just have to put up with it.” — Pablo Picasso

Good attitude! I like it…. and, it goes right along with all of what is written above, if you just listen to it with that same attitude, as expressed by Pablo, in his little self-exposition….

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“In practical life, the woman is judged by man’s law, as if she were a man, not a woman.” — Henrik Ibsen

I’m experiencing a minor motivational crisis here today, caused in part by an embarrassment of riches, in one respect, and, by my own laziness in another….. I have a lot of material that I COULD write about….. The news of late has had some very interesting subject matter for my perusal and examination for discussion…. not all of which is enough to get me started on some subjects, as they require a bit of emotional preparation before I can settle in to write….

I would like to be able to rant more often on a subject that is very important to me, as well as to the people who are involved in dealing with it…. This subject is the world-wide plague of immorality, a plague of evil, that exists in every level of society, often with the implicit sanction of that society; I’m speaking, of course, of the abuse of women, and children of both genders, in the sex trafficking trade…. This issue is one that prompts extreme emotionalism in my psyche, causing me to get really worked up, as I contemplate the perversity, the sheer ugly evil, and the lack of humanity necessary to even contemplate such acts, much less to carry them out in reality….

Ranting on this subject tends to put me in a state from which recovery takes a good four to six hours, to work off the adrenalin that starts to flow, whenever I start to think about the (asshole) men who perpetrate these crimes all over the world, just because they can…. It makes me want to buy a gun, go down to the streets, find me a pimp or two, and start blasting away…. Unfortunately, though it would make me feel a lot better, there are too many of those assholes for merely individual acts of moral correction to make any real headway…. Of course, if I did fulfill my little fantasy a couple of times, the word might get around, and the situation might improve minimally, but only in those places I could actually get to, physically, to plant the seeds of fear in the snakes who inhabit that particular patch of grass….

The biggest problem with solving this issue is that society, being run by males, tends to ignore the issue, as it doesn’t apply to them (they believe, anyway…. which is ANOTHER issue for another time….)…. Often, to provide lip service to morality and ethics, they will pass a law, one that has no teeth to prevent any actual crime, or they’ll find some way to minimize the issue in the public eye, so that nothing is ever done…. Typically, men will attempt to distract, or defer, the attention of anyone questioning their business in this arena, by suggesting that prostitution be taken off the streets, to make it safer for the women…. No, that’s a lie, and a deliberate misrepresentation, because, actually, it just takes it out of sight, and, thus, out of mind….

My adrenalin is starting to flow, so, I’m going to defer any further ranting, and just give you the article I read that stimulated my ire…. This article points out quite clearly how male society attempts to minimize the impact of such acts as rape, by putting disturbingly realistic enactments into a TV show, thus giving the impression that watching such an act falls under the concept of “entertainment”. The men who wrote it, produced it, and put in on air, actually believe doing so legitimizes the act, removing it from the realm of a crime to that of “boys will be boys”…. thus, by association, further legitimizing ALL of the acts of perversity and violent sexual predation that men carry out upon women, and, in some cases, girl and boy children….

Read the article….. then, look around you, and see just how pervasive this plague has become in our society, as it has been embedded in the fabric of our society since the beginning of recorded history, and before….

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/24/rape-game-of-thrones?CMP=ema_565

I guess I DID rant for a while, even if it’s a bit disorganized, so, I’ll end this here, and just hope you get the picture…. because if you do, and you are anything like me, you’ll want to do something to help…. The issue needs all the attention we can give it…. not to mention needing all the ammunition we can stock up, to use on the pimps, snakeheads, and other assholes who display their inhumanity in such egregiously vicious, cowardly acts…. It’s better than they deserve, but, it is the kind of final judgment I can get behind….

“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Just in case this has stimulated your ire like it does mine, here is a link to the blogging site of a woman who survived being kidnapped and made to prostitute herself for many years…. She writes very powerfully, and is the perfect way to get a TRUE picture of that issue, without any of the nice coloring and soft, fuzzy tones of the picture the politicians and snakeheads would have you see, when you look at prostitution and sex trafficking… The picture she draws with her words are powerful, full of pain and hard-won wisdom, as she draws the most accurate picture of the effect that the process has on those trapped in it…. Her site is at:

http://rebeccamott.net/2012/04/27/are-we-not-human/

This link takes you to a post that is extremely powerful, and one of the best ways I know to give you a complete picture of how serious the issue is, and how pervasive it is in our world….. It’s hard reading, but, life’s tough, and this issue requires our will to be exercised…. I regard it as a duty, and so should any male who is made aware of it…. I believe that firmly, because only we MEN can stop it, my brothers….. WE must take responsibility for the actions of our peers, or it will never stop, and that’s the simple truth….

“Brother, brother! we are both in the wrong.” — John Gay (1688-1732) — The Beggar’s Opera, Act ii, Sc. 2

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Again, simply a poem…. such as it is….

Dreaming, I wait….

In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.

Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.

Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.

Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.

Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.

When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.

~~ gigoid ~~

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So, here we are, such as we are…. I ranted above, though I had no intention of doing so…. This, unfortunately, used up most of my angst, which I had hoped to use to discuss these two articles, from two different sources, that speak to the same relative issue, to wit: politics is poopadoodle…. I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to put out another long diatribe today, (Okay, hold it down…. y’know, when you cheer like that, it kind of hurts my feelings…..NOT…), so, I’m going to cheat, just a little bit….

Here are the links to the aforementioned articles, which, though mainstream, and thus, rather soft-ball in terms of hard questions, still manage to put some heat on those assholes who inhabit the halls of government, showing them up as the blatantly dishonest, self-serving gobshites they actually are in truth, no matter how brightly they like to paint themselves in, rational, helpful, patriotic colors…. Assbites, every one of them….

Below the links, you will find an old school pearl, whose parameters will be apparent right from the start…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. take today to go out, find yourself a politician, and make everybody’s day by putting him/her out of their misery…. We’ll have one less to worry about come the revolution, right?…. I know, a bit harsh, but, my ass is tired of getting worked over by these idiots…. Enjoy the pearls, and stay alert, ffolkes, the world needs more lerts….

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Boogeymen-and-shady-deals-define-spin-for-Senate-5423023.php#page-1

Don’t forget to go wash up after reading that one, ffolkes. Senators, Congresspeople, and many of their BRC lackeys, much like chicken and salmonella, usually carry a nasty viral infection, easily transferable to the listener, if they forget basic cleanliness habits….

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-studies-that-show-everything-republicans-believe-is-wrong-20140423?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

See? Clear, without being hurtful, rational in the face of ignorance, and not a false word to be found anywhere within its borders…. an excellent breakdown of political reality here, in what much of the rest of the world considers to be La La Land…. not that they’re in any better position; they’ve just been aware of the flaws in their political denizens for much longer…. As is obvious, knowing doesn’t always help….

Activity is the politician’s substitute for achievement.” — Smart Bee

“It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.” — H. L. Mencken

“As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

“You can’t use tact with a congressman. A congressman is a hog. You must take a stick and hit him on the snout.” — Henry Adams

“Imagine, if you will, that I am an idiot. Then, imagine that I am also a Congressman. But, alas, I repeat myself.” — Mark Twain

“Guns are generally pretty robust, their only enemies are rust and politicians.” — Jeff Cooper

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” — Chinese Proverb

I’ll tell you, ffolkes, some pearls are just better than others…. and so is this one….

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I know I’ve created a mess, but, I don’t care…. I am barely sane at this moment in time; it’s taking all of my will power to keep typing long enough to finish this before I break down completely, & start gibbering…. Since I won’t be getting any treats if I let that happen, I’m going to go medicate myself thoroughly, & go take a nap…. Maybe the world will be a bit saner when I wake up…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise…. I know, I’m an agnostic, but, it still sounds cool…. Okay, I’m gone….

Y’all take care out there,
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

gigoid

Ned Moore, aka gigoid, is a 70 year-old, (!!!… When did that happen?….), retired dilettante, who would rather read than eat, most days. His first blog, "gigoid’s folly", has been emailed out to folks he knows for about 18 years now. He still considers it his best defense against angst, and the ever-present specter of sheer insanity..... Due to rigorous curmudgeon training requirements, he has discontinued his Facebook presence, but still indulges in the occasional Twitter session... In essence, he's socialized, but, not overly sociable; all labels and stereotypes are forbidden in his presence... and he doesn't care what anyone thinks about that..... In fact, he doesn't want to talk anymore.... If you feel you MUST contact gigoid, his email address is: alphagigoid@gmail.com You can go read now.... Go on, beat it.... gigoid, the dubious

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gigoid

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