Ffolkes,
Yesterday, I corrected Time, so we are all caught up in that respect; the missing day has been banished, and no longer exists, for our purposes. This has, unfortunately, allowed Murphy a whole new 24 hour period in which to plan his persecutory activities, and I’m a bit timorous about diving right into a day where he’s had so much leeway for setting up potential chaos. I don’t even have a clue as to where he might strike…. my head seems fairly clear, but I have yet to examine or test out Smart Bee. He could have messed with the program somehow, as I don’t think geeking is beyond his skill set; I’ve been hit too often with little glitches that only could have come from him….. Ya never know, with Murphy….

I suppose one of the reasons I make such a good target for him, and his minions, is that I really, really hate his guts. I don’t care how often he claims it’s his job; I don’t care that the universe HAS to have someone like him, to maintain balances. He’s an asshole, plain and simple, and I don’t care how important he is to the universe. He could figure out ways to fuck with people less than he does; it is obvious to the most casual, and causal, observer that he goes above and beyond the call of his job to create special pain for people. To me, this is unacceptable, and unforgivable…. to have the choice, to make pain for innocent folks, or to mess with them, just because you can, is completely the work of an asshole, and is deserving of the disrespect of every honorable man alive….

If you can’t tell, I’m still angry at Murphy from his actions on Friday morning…. Having the Social Security case worker call me at 0801, to suggest I might wish to WAIT LONGER to get my benefits, was a  brilliant stroke on his part, if one considers such acts dispassionately. Nothing could have ruined my day, and my month, any better than that simple call. I did make the analyst pay, after a fashion…. Since his question had to do with my PTSD, I treated him to a full-on episode of emotional breakdown, at flash speed, complete with blubbering, shouting, and pressured speech, with the particular added bonus of my erudition at full out attack mode…. the man definitely got an earful in a short time….

I don’t know if that will help or hinder, and since the lawyer has yet to return my call (they’re a bit lax about that…. we’ll have to have another word or two on the subject, I can see…..), I am not sure how to think about it. I’m hoping I made it clear to the analyst that any further delays in awarding my benefits would only have a bad effect on me, and that their intransigent dallying is causing me no end of problems, both physical and emotional. Not that they care, particularly, that I can see, but at least I’ve made my position clear to them…. I can only hope the lawyer agrees…. and if not, well, they are the ones who are supposed to be guiding and controlling this process; they should start doing that, to my way of looking at it…. As may be apparent, my patience with the entire process is getting a bit thin…. and if something doesn’t break soon, I’m going to start looking for targets for my angst, which, I can assure you, is building up to a nice, big explosion….

Since I’m up and writing, and it’s only 0710 (bounced up at 0635 for some reason…. might have been the falling asleep at 2100 that did it…. but, hey, how ’bout them Giants, eh?…..) I suppose I’d best get started on today’s Pearl. Once again, I’m starting with zero material…. no quotes yet, and no incipient poetry, at least not at this juncture. Ah well, it’s been worse, for sure…. Shall we Pearl?……
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“Why does this magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us so little happiness?  The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.” — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended, civilizations are built up, excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down.” — C. S. Lewis

Sometimes it takes two to make the correct point….. Between these two quotes, we are given a glimpse of both the problem that mankind suffers from most, and the solution to that problem. Of course, the solution is one that, so far, has been unpalatable to most people, but, it is at least visible for discussion…. Most simply put, the whole problem that our species confronts can be ascribed to our spiritual deficits, as they pertain to both our treatment of each other, and our treatment of the world in which we live…..

In the first case, there are still too many people who think it is acceptable to seek power over others; in the second case, that spiritual flaw translates into a sense of entitlement that extends to how we utilize the resources of the planet, to wit: without proper or even minimal restraint. In the sphere of interactions between people, this deficit leads to misunderstandings, cruelty, slavery, and war…. in the case of planetary resources, it leads to strip-mining and unsustainable industry, unchecked pollution, and ecological suicide…..

I could spend a long time detailing just how far along the path to extinction our species has come; in fact, I’ve done so many times in the past. Such detailing is to little effect, however, so today we will assume it is already done, and we have established the fact that we are further along the road to perdition than most folks want to admit. At the same time, it is necessary to admit that we are also no closer to finding an answer to the question of how we are going to persuade the majority of mankind to make major internal changes, to their beliefs, their spiritual compass, and indeed, the very foundations of their entire existence, if they wish to live, and to give their children an even chance of the same….. This is a difficult proposition, as most folks won’t even admit to the necessity for change, much less what they themselves need to do…..

The depth of ignorance, you see, is not the only problem. For many, that ignorance will keep them from ever realizing just how bad things are, right up until the Grim Reaper comes knocking on their door. But, there are many, many people out there who know exactly what they do that is wrong, and they don’t care, because they believe it will have no ultimate effect on them, only on others…. To be so uncaring as to the fates of others, it is required that one be disconnected from reality, including the reality of one’s own motivation. These folks, who live for power, will not even examine their own motives, because they already know that they are flawed; they chose to be flawed deliberately, because it serves their own self-interests, and they are incapable of understanding that they will be as affected by the end game that is coming as everyone else…. and, in this case, one can see how deliberate ignorance becomes its own justice, eventually….

I wish I had an answer…. I wish I knew a way to convince those who need to know that what they, and the fools they allow to control the world through their own inability to see clearly, their own choice to remain ignorant, cannot continue to expect to live if they do not learn to open up their minds to a new way of seeing life. These fools are rushing into oblivion with their eyes closed, believing they are blessed and protected from harm by their faith in a mirage, when in reality, their faith, and their ignorance is guaranteeing their extinction…. and unfortunately, mine along with it… So, yes, I wish I had an answer…. but, I don’t, so I’ll have to make do with my plans to wreak severe havoc amongst the philistines when the time is ripe…. If we are all marked for extermination by the universe, I’m making sure some of the guilty are going down with me…. Trust me….

“In the dark colony of night, when I consider man’s magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.” — Leo Rosten

“Here pigs will fly, lightning will strike twice, hell will freeze over, and eventually, things will get really interesting…” — Smart Bee
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I’ve looked inside, and nothing is turning up in any of the dark corners where they hide, mumbling to themselves until I rip them out into the open air…. so we will have to make do, and settle for something from a proven source…. which shall remain nameless, until I find out who it is today…. Be patient, you will know soon enough…..

Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man

It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,
And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission
and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from
Billy Sunday to Buddha,
And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.
I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as long as,
in a way, against each other we are pitting them,
And that is, don’t bother your head about the sins of commission because
however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn’t be
committing them.
It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.
The way you really get painfully bitten
Is by the insurance you haven’t taken out and the checks you haven’t added up
the stubs of and the appointments you haven’t kept and the bills you
haven’t paid and the letters you haven’t written.
Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn’t as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn’t get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn’t slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let’s all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round
of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven’t done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn’t do give you a lot more trouble than the
unsuitable things you did.
The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if some kind of
sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.

Ogden Nash
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“Don’t ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun — and neither can stop the march of events.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

As with many important truths, this one does not comfort one to know it; a common attribute of remarks by Lazarus, who has a tendency to voice the truth regardless of its potential, or even certain, effect on the audience. And, damn it, it is just so much simpler to let all the bad stuff hold sway on our attention, and give in to the depressive urge to berate and chastise the universe for its lack of tact and consideration for human sensibilities. It never listens, anyway….

My semi-rant in section one today is a perfect example of this principle at work; I do try to maintain some optimism in the face of reality; I even have learned to try to explain away all the weird stuff as being outside the statistical universe being considered. It’s a lie, but it’s my lie, so I usually can buy into it, long enough to allow denial to set in, and thus preventing the otherwise inevitable depression over how bad things have gotten…..

Actually, right now, it is fairly simple to stay completely distracted, as we always have the election, and all the shenanigans taking place on that stage, to draw our attention away from the imminent demise we face as a species, or even, more importantly, our personal concerns of everyday living. It’s easy to deny the inevitability of carbon monoxide pollution when we have Mitt the Twitt’s lies to chase down, or Biden’s latest zinger to admire, or Lyin’ Ryan’s latest example of elitism to watch with dropped jaw….. it’s a veritable circus, and the clowns are in full swing….

It’s not just the candidates providing the entertainment, either…. every Tom, Dickwad, and Mary is chiming in with their two cents, on TV, radio, and, most prodigiously, on the Internet, all trying to get SOMEONE to listen to them during the run-up to the election. Those two cents can get very, very strange, as each commenter tries to make the most outrageous statements and/or claims/accusations about all the actors on stage, and is a whole new package of entertainment for us to have on hand, each one vying for our attention at the top of their lungs, figuratively speaking…..

This is where the metaphor of the circus gains its credibility, although, more accurately, I am reminded by this, most emphatically, of just about any carnival at the County Fairs I’ve been to….. Disheveled, sinister-looking barkers, complete with suspenders and a cigar in their mouth, yelling out the prizes they promise, each one grander than the next, and easy as pie to win: exotic visions that promise endless satisfaction of desires, enormously valuable jewels and objet’s d’art for virtually nothing, and endless illusions to draw the eye away from the seediness and underlying, almost frenetic despair permeating the air….

Yes, indeed, the political scene here in America has always reminded me of a carnival, and the events and activities that prompt my impression of the election as an illusionary device, designed to fool the public into thinking that things will change if they vote, has never been stronger than it is now. I have hope that by voting against the obviously evil side of the campaign, the overall effect on the immediate future will be mitigated to some degree. But, I can find within me very little hope that the eventual outcome is in doubt, and that outcome is not one that anyone is going to like…. at all.

My optimism is fairly natural to me; I’ve always been a hopeful kind of person, and I continue to hold hope that mankind’s future will extend beyond this century, groundless as it may be. My pessimism, unfortunately, has the advantage of having the most evidence in it’s favor right now, even if Obama wins the election, as I expect he will. He is only one man, and the course of human events is very difficult to change once it is headed in a particular direction. My hope is based on the wish that more than just he will learn to make the inner changes needed for us all to survive the storms that are coming…. a slim hope, yes, but hey, it happens to be all we’ve got…..
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I seem to have gotten stuck today, harping on the same general issue in both of the prose sections. This is no doubt the result of the intense mind-control I have now assumed, in order to keep from going stark raving mad….. That severe control is causing some stilted thought patterns, falling into short, but seemingly endless loops…. I suppose I will have to sacrifice a standard or two today, in order to clear the internal censors…. but, that is simple enough. I’m human, and temporarily setting aside standards is pretty simple for us, as a rule….

Besides, I have to decide on whether to write a poem, or find one, and that can be a decision of some magnitude, depending on, well, stuff…. stuff that isn’t always clear, to me, or for me… so the decision is made more tedious, as it were…. and I’m babbling now, so I’m going to put a stop to this, with some ruthless use of the power of will…. just watch me, I’m going to stop typing any moment now, and you’ll see…. keep a sharp eye out, or you’ll miss it….  Oops, there you see, all done…. did you catch it?….. I’m just happy there’s no blood…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Kowabunga!