Ffolkes,
It is never a good sign when I start leaking tears within a few seconds of sitting up in the morning; it is a bit disconcerting to find oneself immersed in depression first thing in the day, even pre-coffee…. or especially pre-coffee….. So disconcerting, I have had to take some time to recover my equilibrium. Took a shower, had a smoke, and went back to bed for a bit….. and still feel like hell…. I’ve got to say, when my ex-boss perpetrated the bureaucratic blitzkrieg that forced me into retirement, I’m betting she had little idea just how effectively she was damning me to perdition, or at least poverty and misery….. so, to make myself feel just a tad better, I made a quick phone call, and asked her secretary, (my FORMER friend….) to pass on to her just how happy she could be with herself….. a little passive aggression always helps, ya know?……

Two hours later, and equilibrium is still just beyond reach…. but, life must go on, balance or no, so I’m casting my fate into the wind for the time being, and just going with the flow….. perhaps some time in the library will settle things; it is one of my places of power, so there should be something here to pull me out of this hole I’ve dumped myself in….. and if not, well, at least  I tried….

All of that being said, or whined, as the view may be, I think it’s time to get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Writing is HELL!! Every word is like giving birth to twins.” — Andy Shedlock, May 12, 1998
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“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” — Eric Hoffer

I am occasionally amazed at how one short phrase, well-turned, can be applied to such a huge range of human activity; this one from Mr Hoffer is one of those. This little idea gives one a perfect way to understand the phenomenon currently being played out on the public stage here in America. The election coming up in a little over a month illustrates very well that many, many of our countrymen spend their lives in fear of things they do not want to know, and will go as far as cutting off their own noses to keep from having to look at reality without the aid of rose colored glasses….

Take, for example, the millions of middle class IDIOTS who have decided that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are the answer to their fears of having not only a BLACK man as President, but a progressive-minded one at that. They shut off their brains whenever news of something going right is published, and listen instead to the lies and misrepresentations being mouthed on a daily basis by the Republican candidates. Even when the lies are exposed, they just turn to another and start repeating it over and over, sort of like a little kid sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “la la la la, I can’t hear you” in order to shut off the truth that is in front of them.

I watched a short video of Paul Ryan the other day, when he was roundly booed by a gathering of AARP senior citizens while trying to convince them that his party’s platform was going to help them, an obvious lie, considering the platform outlines how they intend to gut Social Security and give all the money back to Wall Street and the 1%. The expression on his face was priceless! He was trying to smile, but his color had gone to an embarrassed shade of red, and his words ground to a halt, as everything he was saying was being booed by the audience, who were not about to fall for his bullshit. It was quite fun to watch, I must say….

I’m also looking forward to the upcoming Presidential debates, when the cool, compassionate demeanor of the President will be set up against the cold, uncaring, obviously prejudiced Mitt the Twitt. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, given Romney’s habit of shooting himself in the foot, if he (Romney) totally lost it, and started ranting and mouthing racial epithets. It is obvious that Mitt hates Americans of any color other than pure white (his purity being one more lie, since his family has no doubt had the same skeletons in their background that any other American family has, and he can probably claim only about 40% pure white ancestors….) and having to try to be civil, even on national TV, may be more than he is capable of being…..

I’m a bit worried about the eventual outcome, as I am fully aware of how deeply stupid the American public has become in the past 50 years, as corporate America has deluged the public consciousness with tons of lies and brainwashing, and there is almost no limit to the number of people in this country who fall for the demagoguery every time. I mean, how else could Ronald Reagan, GW Shrub, and GWH Shrub have ever been elected, if there were not an already massive number of idiots out there susceptible to their nonsense? Yes, there are plenty of fools available….

“Crime must pay, or politicians wouldn’t seek re-election.” — Smart Bee

But, this election, I think the rest of America, the true majority of which is NOT bigoted and racist, has become so outraged at the degree of disdain shown by the Republicans for real Americans that they will come out to vote, and send these fools packing off to their bankers, to soothe the pain and embarrassment of their failure with some malicious business practices…. you know, ship a few jobs overseas, count their money in the Caymans, take a quick trip to Switzerland to check their bank accounts there….

So, join the crowd this November, come on out to vote for President Obama, and help send the false Americans back into their holes, or more accurately, make them crawl back under the rocks they came from…..

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” — Richard Cardinal Cushing
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Cultural Exchange

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o’-Lanterns caper
And the wind won’t wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off going
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whistles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going–
Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa–
Not of her own doing–
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.

Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we move dip to Mount Vernon.

In the pot behind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what’s cooking?
What’s smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.

You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.

Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over–
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power–

Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies–
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!

Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make haste!

Langston Hughes

A comment from me is hardly needed here, but I would like to have each reader ask themselves if they can envision Mitt Romney ever reading this poem, start to finish….. I didn’t think so…..
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I’m tired, and hungry, and this Pearl, though soothing to create, is getting longer than I can deal with well, so I’m going to cheat, and insert here a visual Pearl, which is, no doubt, self-explanatory….. I will note that it is applicable not only to life at large, but also to the subject above, i.e., the upcoming election….

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Well, that was…. something. Exactly what remains to be seen….. I’m broke again, so it will be a couple days until I can publish the email Pearls, so please have patience. In addition, I don’t get a lot of internet time, since I’m at the library until payday, and I only get two hours there…. It will have to do, for the nonce…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.

gigoid