Monthly Archives: September 2013

Flavor so rich, sour becomes savory….

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Ffolkes,

Yesterday, according to the WordPress statistics bots, I posted my 821st post on this blog…. (funny, I first typed “blob” where it says “blog”, then went ahead and corrected it, but, I see now it might have been better to leave it in, as it fits nicely…. oh well, another opportunity for humor lost…. It happens a lot around here….) I’m not sure whether to be impressed at my persistence, or dismayed at my stubbornness. Only my audience could tell me, which is terrifying, to say the least….. so, I’m not going to even ask, as it really is a moot issue…. I’m going to write as long as I have something to say, and since I kept my innermost thoughts to myself for many years before starting this blog, I’ve got a lot of stuff stored up….

That being said, we can go on to more lucrative, or more interesting material…. that, of course, is the plan. The plan undergoes a number of alterations, usually, before we reach the end of any particular Pearl, so, those kinds of alterations are not unexpected, or hard to manage…. It’s the weird stuff that gets thrown in by my whimsy that tends to make things strange. So far, though, I’ve managed, at least in my own mind, to keep from posting anything that might offend anyone who isn’t an asshole already…. If I have, well, I’d have to consider that a personal problem, as I post enough disclaimers to warn off even the most idiotic of readers….

The stuff I write here is all my own…. if it isn’t, I say so clearly. If I find a quote in Smart Bee, unattributed, I will first Google it to see if it is out there where it can be found; I find an author for these unknown statements about 50% of the times I look for it. If I can’t find it, I give the attribution to Smart Bee, which put the onus for identification back in their court (the software’s authors, that is….). Otherwise, what you see is me, or it is other folk’s stuff, clearly marked, being used by me for the purpose of discussion and/or clarification, and it’s what you’ll get, every day….

I won’t claim what I do here is the best literature you’ll ever read, but, I will say to you that ALL I say here, especially those items that poke fun and ridicule at the BRC and the priestly hierarchies (to wit: church and state….), are my own responsibility, and I stand behind them 100%. If you disagree with any of it, comments are welcome, as long as they are intelligently written, and don’t get into flaming….

Unwarranted criticisms are cheerfully ignored, but, should you take your best shot here, at me or at what I say, in a way that crosses over the line into personal issues, then the consequences that will surely follow, are on your head, and so be it…. I’m not going to be nice to an idiot; it only encourages them to let that nonsense out on someone else…. No, I’ll do my best to put such in its place, and I guarantee, that place doesn’t smell real nice….

In my two-plus years of blogging daily, I’ve been very fortunate not to come across any trolls; everyone who has commented has been very appreciative, and polite; in fact, I consider several of my serial commenters to be new friends, people who, someday, I would enjoy meeting in person. That’s saying a lot, because I don’t keep many friends; I only have a few, whom I’ve known practically forever, of the kind who, when you see them, after a week, or after a year, will immediately take up the conversation from the point where it was left, without any need to make up the time between those conversations, because the connection was, and is, always there….

I see now that, once again, I’ve managed to blather for almost a thousand words, none of which got me to any particularly valuable place, or even one where we might conceivably take off on a literary adventure of some kind…. It’s enough for an intro, though, and that will have to do….. In the main, this is because I just don’t have anything more, of any relevance, to say; I’ve found, in these cases, it’s best to just get on with the normal course of events….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“What you would seem to be, be really.” — Ben Franklin
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Since I went a bit overboard in the intro, I will forgo subjecting y’all to a rant today…. I’ve done quite a few of late, of some great length, and can see how reading all of what I write can get to be a chore, depending, of course, on how fast one reads, and how quickly the material can be assimilated. Hopefully, it takes a bit of time to follow the arguments, which are not always simple. Though it may seem otherwise, I do try to simplify things a lot when I discuss them, but, sometimes it just isn’t possible to make a point without displaying a modicum of subtlety, or of complexity, either of which can slow the process down….

Rather than rant, I decided to go with an old Sesame Street game my kids and I used to like, when we watched it together many years ago…. It was called “One of these is not like the others….”, and usually consisted of four concepts, one of which was diametrically opposed to the others…. Here, I have upped the ante a bit, to five items… but, they all are of a type, but for one…. I shouldn’t have to explain any further, and I trust the perspicacity of my readers enough to not ask me to do so….

Just note which of these tells a different kind of story than the others, and all will be well…. At the end of it, you may have a bit of a headache, from delving so deeply into the human well of experience…. but, the sheer difference of the fifth wheel in this group is sure to uplift your spirits, at least a little…. I find it helps to use a 10 point scale for rating these….

http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2013/09/19/ron-paul-more-women-should-sacrifice-career-to-homeschool-kids/

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/House-votes-to-cut-4B-a-year-from-food-stamps-4826559.php

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/19/pope-francis-the-church-needs-to-mellow-out-on-abortion-and-gay-issues/

http://www.walmartgreenroom.com/2013/06/tom-cruise-on-how-walmart-helps-people-live-better/

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/19/pay-gap-between-men-and-women-still-huge-except-in-oakland-really-look/

My own scoring on this one went like this…. #1 I give this a ten on the ‘idiot’ scale… #2 This gets an eight on the ‘asshole’ scale, but applies to the whole group involved…. #3 Got a negative 3 on all scales (hint: negative numbers are positive in the real world) …. #4 With both TC and Walmart in the same article, this one gets a 20 on both the ‘idiot’ scale, and the ‘asshole’ scale…. #5 got a 7, on the ‘disappointment in society’ scale….
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This morning, I’m feeling both nostalgic, and somewhat lacking in motivation. I guess I’m suffering from cruise withdrawal, knowing my next time on board a ship is still four long weeks, plus a day, away in the future…. When this happens, I turn to the classics for a bit of surcease…. This one needs little introduction, as most of it is familiar to just about anyone alive, who graduated from an American high school in the last 100 years, and paid any attention at all in English class…. Enjoy!….

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkn’d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

~~ John Keats ~~

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Oh boy! I’ve ranted, approximately, and found a really great poem, so, at this point, I get to go old-school, which just makes my day…. I love this process, as it makes me use my head just the way I like, with both discipline and randomness, all in a good cause…. Well, it’s a cause, anyway…. good and bad are distinctions I prefer to avoid, as they tend to rope one into certain positions, and I don’t like to let myself get trapped like that…. Any who, whatever the rationalization used, this one should come out well, as I’m going to use very loose reins, and allow Smart Bee to do most of the work…. What better way to start the day, as long as one has sufficient coffee as a prophylaxis against any undue conceptual manipulation.?… Let’s see what that little devil has going today, shall we?…..

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes:
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle i, Line 123

“Everybody gets free BORSCHT!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Don’t lose your head to gain a minute.
You need your head, your brains are in it.

— Burma Shave

“Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool.” — Smart Bee

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.” — A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

In looking back at this group, I see it would be possible, perhaps, even, advisable, to stop here, and use this as a five-star pearl, with a pretty good point to it, if one is slick enough to trip over it…. But, it just doesn’t feel done to me, so we’ll see what more SB can come up with to bring this to its full potential….

“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.” — Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)

“He is able who thinks he is able.” — Buddha

There you go….
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Well, I’ve gotten to the end of another fine mess, and still feel as if I haven’t begun… Does this mean it’s going to be a long day? Hmm… You may be right, it’s probably too early for such depths of potential disaster; depression and paranoia are hovering right around the corner, should we follow that distraction….. So, let’s just go proof, and see if it all hangs together, or needs a few edges sharpened….

Okay, so the edges were fine; oddly enough, so was the rest of it…. In fact, all in all, this is quite good, and I don’t feel a bit of a qualm about letting it go out, as is…. Y’all may feel differently, but, guess what? It’s a done deal, and it’s too late for anything but a comment….   🙂       See ya….

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

dozer3

Saving pennies for post-apocalyptic discount sales….

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Ffolkes,

Thankfully, the massive outbreak of pain I experienced yesterday is but a memory today…. so far. I’ve become accustomed to having my assessments of this condition undergo rapid changes, almost as if Murphy were involved. Whenever I make the mistake of commenting on its absence, it will rush back to assure me it isn’t gone altogether, but was merely hiding from me, in order to make itself more…. noticeable? Shit, what a crock! I’m not buying that, with or without credit cards….. Besides, it doesn’t matter much what I say or do, it seems to pick its own time and place to attack, always the most inconvenient it can find, of course….

I’m not sure how much y’all have had pain in your life; we all have it to some degree. My own experience with it as a constant companion tells me, it has a number of faces and body types, each of which affects our own in different ways. The “why” of that escapes me, but, since it’s one of those things that we cannot change or affect in any way, it’s useless to worry about it. Suffice it to say the different appearances it may adopt make it possible to at least describe how they may differ, and how they can be dealt with, if at all…

The kind of pain I had yesterday is such that can’t really be affected much, without resorting to drugs that turn me into a zombie…. My doctor tried me on methadone once, which, it turns out, is a pretty powerful drug…. One ten mg. dose, and I would have needed no makeup, or acting ability, in order to play the part of one of the newly-popular undead…. I couldn’t smile, or frown, or formulate any emotional response beyond a simple “oh?”…. I had no connection to my will, and found myself sitting in my chair at work, staring at the monitor, drooling, and wondering if I would ever be able to move again…. There was no pain, but there was also no life, so, I decided that a small amount of pain was preferable to being essentially dead….

Most of the time, my pain recedes into the background; the hydrocodone I take to control it has worked fairly well, so far, at putting up a wall between the pain, and my conscious mind’s awareness of that pain. As long as I can keep from increasing the number of pills I use to get that effect, I am fairly well set to live life relatively normally, if I’m careful not to overdo my physical demands on my body. If I do make that mistake, and “tweak” my back, or hips, then the pain goes to a level that the pills can’t handle, and I have to take an extra dose or two,  get myself prone in order to remove gravity from the equation, and hope that over time, the pain will lessen….

Thus far, it always does grow less, so, as long as that is true, then I can look forward to a fairly normal existence…. Once the pain reaches another level or two higher than it is now, I’ll have to make a decision, as to whether or not to start taking stronger medications, such as the methadone, or oxy-contin, or morphine…. all of which are highly addictive, and ultimately lead to a state that I really don’t want to contemplate as one I may have to enter. Life is tough enough right now, without adding in more complications due to drugs; I already feel like I’m a walking pharmacy when I travel, with the minimum of eight different drugs I am taking each day, at various times…..

Okay, I think I’m done with the bitch-fest for now. The pain has receded to a manageable level, and it promises to be a nice day, weather-wise; what more can an old man ask for from life? Not much, I’ll tell ya, because, more than just that can be hard to pin down; wishing for more is generally a waste of everybody’s time and energy, since the universe pretty much ignores anything we may want, and goes about its business without considering our needs or desires at all. Just as well, I suppose, or we humans might get a sense of entitlement, and think we’re the lords of creation, or something….

Oh, we do? Well, that’s pretty stupid, isn’t it? Oh well, people are strange, of that there is no doubt….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“I can’t think about that.  It doesn’t go with HEDGES in the shape of LITTLE LULU — or ROBOTS making BRICKS…” — Zippy the Pinhead
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“A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.” — Alfred Alder

So, I was going to forgo a rant today, giving my back, and your brains, a bit of a break, but, when I went to peruse the news, I saw the latest discussion of what is happening in the House of Idiots in Washington, D.C., regarding the budget resolutions being discussed, wherein the possibility of a government shutdown is threatened, if the Retardicans and Demobutts can’t come to some kind of compromise.

(What a wonderful dream! No government to worry about… can we get that in writing, please, in perpetua, or whatever the legal term for “forever” is?)

It seems the Retardicans are still upset about Obamacare, and the notion of helping the middle class, as well as the lower classes (gasp!), to obtain medical insurance coverage at a reasonable cost. This idea, of being fair and ethical, seems to have struck them in the wrong place, and they have been whining and complaining ever since it became law, frantically searching for ways to undermine the whole program, with the ultimate goal being to stop it altogether….

The entire issue, of course, is just smoke, to cover up the simple racism that these assholes won’t cop to…. It is STILL stuck in their craw, after over five years, that they somehow allowed a BLACK MAN to get elected to the highest public office. They have looked for, and desperately latched onto, every possible way they could find to block every piece of legislation the White House has espoused, no matter how much such legislation would help the public, ever since Obama was first elected.

The publicly stated goal of the Retardican Party in 2008, right after the election, was to make Obama a one-term President; having failed at that, their new goal became the eradication of ANY laws, or any beneficial reforms, that were accomplished during his administration…. Hence, the campaign against healthcare reform, which, ultimately, is not in their, or the country’s best interests, but, hey, who needs common sense?….

I’m almost too disgusted with the entire bunch of them, Retardicans and Demobutts both, to even continue this rant….The right wing continues to shoot itself, and the public, in the foot with their intransigent inflexibility, and their unreasoning paranoia about the POTUS, while the left side continues to wander around with a vacant expression, letting whatever the administration says or does go without question or review, as if somehow a man who was politician enough to get elected to the Senate, then the Presidency, all of a sudden became the world’s most truthful man…. Sorry, folks, it just doesn’t follow….. such trust in ANYONE who is an elected official in this country is plain silly, and doesn’t show much real common sense….

I see NO ONE in the public venue whom I would trust to make decisions for me, on ANY subject, much less those that can affect my life, and the quality of same…. Sorry, I just don’t see ANYONE who seems to be honestly interested in anything beyond their own agenda, and those agendas have nothing to do with mine, or what I see as beneficial for everyone…. They just don’t…..

I also, unfortunately, don’t have any viable solutions, which is why my rants often are short…. I mean, I do know what would help, and that is for everyone in the world who does have common sense to get together, join forces, and tell the assholes to stop…. But, they have guns, which they are practiced in using to get their way, whereas, most of US aren’t willing to contest matters on that level, so, that probably isn’t ever going to happen…. Not until more of our side are willing to use force to get our way, just as they have always done….

Since I don’t see it happening, we may as well just kiss our asses goodbye, because the eventual outcome of such idiocy is death, and I don’t mean individually, but rather, as a species…. Stupid is as stupid does, as somebody once said, and when I look around the world these days, stupid is pretty much all I see…..

Hell is the place of those who have denied;
They find there what they planted and what dug,
A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing,
And wander there and drift, and never cease
Wailing for substance.

— William Butler Yeats, Responsibilities and Other Poems (1916).The Hour-Glass
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I know it is a dream, even a pipe dream, but, if there is any poet in the world I try to emulate, it is T.S. Eliot…. His poetry, to me, is like the music of the spheres, sounding forever through the darkness, bringing beauty, light, and peace, where it is most needed, and little known…..

Sweeney Among The Nightingales

Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.

The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.

Gloomy Orion and the Dog
 Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees

Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;

The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wisteria
Circumscribe a golden grin;

The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.

~~ T.S. Eliot ~~

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Okay, so, having no clue as to how to finish this one, I’m going with a weird version of old-school…. I’m not even sure whether it’s legally a pearl, but, I DID find it in an oyster bed, so….

:bozotic: /boh-zoh’tik/ or /boh-zo’tik/ adj.  [from the name of a TV clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald] Resembling or having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously wrong, unintentionally humorous.  Compare {wonky}, {demented}.  Note that the noun `bozo’ occurs in slang, but the mainstream adjectival form would be `bozo-like’ or (in New England) `bozoish’. — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

(While all the above is mostly true, it lacks complete information… In 1966, I, gigoid, first wrote down, in one of my first journals, my Theory of Bozoid Tendencies, a psychological/philosophical treatise that gave some of the thoughts behind the assertions made in the Theory, and which can be seen as a prelude to Peruaosophy, the Philosophy of Pearls, which came to me ten or twelve years later, after more observation of humans, more cogitation about their behaviors, and repeated analysis thereof…..

The theory basically states, “Every human has an innate knowledge of, and ability to, garner the complete attention of other people by the commission of a really stupid (or, “bozoid”) act, in a public venue, and, in fact, tend to CHOOSE to do so on a regular basis.” This, of course, was based on my observations of humanity up to that time, and colored by the odd assortment of literature I had consumed…. but, it works, and has been clinically proven… In addition, the term “bozoid” was more commonly known and used, than were “bozotic”, or “bozoish”,  West of the Mississippi River, especially in Northern California, around UC Berkeley (“Berzerkeley…), since the early 1970’s…..)

(“It irks me when people use the character’s name in a demeaning way.” — Larry Harmon, AKA ‘Bozo the Clown’ — after his stage name was used for political purposes by Bob Dole, 1996)

Okay, it seems this pearl has jumped the tracks, and won’t be coming back toward reality anytime soon, so I’ll have to apply emergency technique number twenty-nine, which simply involves denial of current reality in favor of the one we now will enter, just as if we meant to be here, now….

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

So, I’m bored, but, SB can usually help…. Here is a pearl, whose parameters are…. well, your guess is as good as mine, right? Right…. Don’t worry, they’re all tax-deductible….

“Shall I show you the muscular training of a philosopher? “What muscles are those?”–A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Wherein consists the Essence of Good, — Discourses, Book ii, Chap. viii

“Reality is only as the mind perceives it, where yesterday will never arrive and tomorrow has long since gone.” — Smart Bee

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901

“In the midst of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus

“If This Is Hell – Where Are the Lawyers???” — Smart Bee

“Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.” — Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), Musician, the Grateful Dead — Rolling Stone magazine, (November 30, 1989)

Dharma: “What is the greatest mystery of all?”
Yudishthira: “That each day, death walks the earth, and we continue to live as though we were immortal.”

— The Bhagavad Gita
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My goodness, but that was an ordeal!…. I had no idea when I got up what an epic effort I’d be making this morning. I’ll be right back, after I see what sort of damage I’ve done…..

Incalculable, in current market conditions…. which proves, at last, I am certifiable. Nonetheless, it’s done, and I’m still upright, so, we’ll call it a win, thus giving denial of reality one more score…. Until next time….

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

dozer3

Since when do laxatives count?….

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Ffolkes,

At this point in the proceedings, it may be noted that I have heretofore previously stated my lack of appreciation for the aging process, at least as it applies to my own case. Most of the time, I feel inside like I’m still 25, and I can do anything I wish to do, from a physical standpoint. Of course, I’m not 25 anymore, and wishing it so won’t do, so, I just piss and moan about it, and I feel better….. Well, not really…. but, it sounds like fun. No, mostly I complain here, in writing, and dump it all on the blogosphere, where I’m sure people turn their heads away in embarrassment for me, and try not to snicker….

I don’t much care if they do, as long as the end result has me in less pain…. Take today, for instance… I wake up, and come out to my coffee machine, which has graciously gone off at the correct time, and provided me with coffee upon my arising. I pour and fix the first cup, and try to sit down to enjoy it…. whereupon my lower back explodes in pain, letting me know that it intends to make my day a living hell, if I let it….

I have no intention of doing so, however, but, it won’t be pretty, as, I can tell from the way the pain began, this episode is going to do its best to put me in bed for the day…. I hate when this happens, as it makes the production of this Pearl a struggle to complete…. Hurts some, too….

Given that information, I think I’d best cut today’s intro section short, and get right into the main events of the day, while I can…. Watch your step, as the drop-off may be quite steep…. I’m going to apply the take-off acceleration now, so, please, be careful, or at least hang on to your cabin-mates, and keep your safety lines untangled….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Everything that goes up must come down. But there comes a time when not everything that’s down can come up.” — George Burns (1896-1996)
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Yesterday, a new reader was gracious enough to leave a nice comment, and to offer a couple of articles for my perusal, as possible subjects for a future rant…. Both articles are definitely rant-worthy material, so, I’ll oblige his suggestion by starting here….

I talk a lot about the BRC, (Beloved Ruling Class….), and the thievery they commit daily against the public, but, I don’t always provide a lot of examples, preferring to allow ffolkes, and/or folks, to seek out their own evidence…. This is because there is just so damn much of it, and it is so easy to find, I find it a better way to drive the point home, for people will believe it more when they come across the proof themselves, rather than having me provide it for them…. That way I can’t be accused of making it up, or coloring it…..

This article, supplied to me by a reader, is a perfect example of what I’ve often said about the news, to wit: it’s chock full of evidence of the chicanery and nonsense being perpetrated by our beloved rulers, and I don’t even need to point it out, for it’s right there for all to see…. Please, take a moment to read this one, about the governor of Louisiana, that fine old den of corruption in the southern US…. Try not to let the lack of hard evidence presented by the author to support the assertions made influence you, at this point…. just accept it as true for the sake of the argument they make, and worry about the actual paper proofs later…. It’s all there, believe me….

http://grist.org/news/bobby-jindal-to-axe-officials-who-took-on-big-oil/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&sub_email=dlw38%40sbcglobal.net

What is amazing to me in this article is the sheer effrontery shown by Governor Jindal…. He has no compunctions whatsoever in showing his corruption for all to see, blithely firing people who are trying to make his special interest supporters toe the legal line for their actions, and, in the process, help the people of his state. No, he just ignores any and all cries of outrage, and continues to stuff his pockets with the money they’ve poured into his campaign coffers, while the people of the state, and the state’s environment, is shredded by the corporate assholes who caused the entire problem….

This article shows exactly how far the issue of corruption has progressed in society, as the leaders we have elected are no longer bothering to cover up most of their machinations, but are showing their colors bright and clear in the public eye, deliberately firing people who might have made a difference, with no thought or regard for what his own constituency may want. His loyalty is all with the companies who have raped and pillaged the coastal marshes in their search for sources of oil, because they are the ones who are paying him, and the people can just go to hell, as far as he is concerned….

But, as I have pointed out previously, the people of Louisiana have only been given exactly what they deserve, for they are the ones who believed his lies during the election process, and elected him to office, knowing full well he was going to screw them over…. I sometimes wonder how these people manage to dress themselves, or feed themselves without help….  I am not particularly surprised by the situation there, though it saddens me to see it. Those marshes and coastal waterways are an important ecological formation, with a lot of animal life that depends on it to live, and I hate to see that get screwed up….

The other article sent by my friend Dave is one that, though also not particularly surprising, is even more disturbing, as it shows just how pervasive is the extent of corruption in government…. Canada has the reputation of having one of the most responsive governments in the world, one that seems, for the most part, to care about the people for whom it is working, and tries mostly to do things in a way that promotes societal well-being…. That is their reputation, anyway, even if not fully deserved….

It seems, however, that the madness that infects all the other states in the world seems to have found a place to germinate in the Canadian bureaucracy as well, causing its members to begin to follow the path to madness all the others have been flying down for many years….. This article describes a new policy being promulgated among the Canadian bureaucracies that will easily qualify them to join the ranks of those governments that have given up hiding their paranoia, and are busily pursuing insanity as a way of life….

Scientists, whether employed by universities, or private industry, or the government, are notoriously touchy about being told what to publish; this is an issue that is well-established in history, with the outcome always coming down on the side of the scientists…. In other words, history has shown us, many times, that it is counter-productive for society to muzzle researchers, for they always find a way to get the knowledge out, and all attempts at squashing it are a waste of time…. They keep trying, but, they don’t seem to learn from the past, a sure way to find oneself extinct, as Reality has a way of enforcing its will that is quite unstoppable by any human intervention…..

But, stupidity will have its way, so, they keep trying…. Read the article ffolkes, and realize just how far the world has gone toward piling itself against the wall of reality….. I mean, really….. snowflakes? They’re afraid of snowflakes?…. No, they’re afraid of knowledge, and it makes the BRC nervous to think about the public having all the facts…. Hence, their commitment to blocking the spread of knowledge at every turn, and trying to confuse and distract the public from seeing what they are up to behind the scenes…..

http://grist.org/climate-energy/canada-bans-researchers-from-discussing-snowflakes-findings-scientists-protest/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&sub_email=dlw38sbcglobal.net

The proof is there, ffolkes, for anyone to find…. The supposed leaders of our society, at all levels, are corrupt, not to mention clinically insane. They lie to the public in order to get elected, then continue to lie, cheat, and steal for as long as they are allowed to do so. They reward their constituents with more lies, and now have the nerve to show their true allegiance right out in public, as soon as they are sworn into their offices, laughing in the face of the public….

Isn’t it about time we all looked at our own complicity in this situation? How long are the people of this country going to allow their public officials to act, not only in ways that don’t benefit the public, but in ways that are actually dangerous to them? How long will the public ignore the unprincipled acts of liars and cheats, whom they have chosen to be their leadership? I’m afraid the answer is all too obvious, to anyone who is able to see, and think about what there is to see…. My own answer to those questions is, too long….. I haven’t seen any indication, in history, or in the present case, that would show that the public was able to throw off the yoke of the unseen masters of society, those super-rich, selfish assholes who determine just how events will transpire….

There is no point in history where mankind has been free of the influence and control of those in society who control all the resources. None…. If anyone can look back, and point out to me any time when that isn’t true, please, do so, and I will discuss the ramifications of that with great pleasure…. But, I’m a fair student of history, and I don’t find any place in all that time where our species has been free of the control of these silent rulers…. nor do I think we’ll ever be able to do so, not until a much greater percentage of the public is allowed to see the evidence of their handiwork, and realize just how badly, and how long, they have screwed the rest of us….

But, hey, it DOES give me something to rant about, whenever a new piece of evidence is allowed to be published…. Even if the stuff that we see isn’t any real threat to them, it’s encouraging to see that there is SOME degree of resistance to them, even if it is doomed to failure in the long run…. The people who run the world, for real, have had a long time to practice staying out of the public eye, and running things from the shadows….. and they’re very good at it, so, don’t expect any large revelations, or any huge lights being thrown on the shadowy limits of their existence…. They won’t allow anything that has any real chance of doing them harm to occur, you can be sure of that…..

Including shutting up people like me, should they ever feel the tiniest bit threatened by my words, or my attempts to make known just how deeply their control extends into our lives….. If I was doing them any real harm, you can bet they would have shut me down by now, so, it’s clear that, for now at least, I’m just another voice, shouting in the wilderness, without any real hope of harming them, or even giving them a moments discomfort….. But, I’ll keep trying, because, hey, that’s who I am….

gigoid has spoken…. so be it….

“A form of open-mindedness is the pathway to wisdom. Close your mind and you open the way for ignorance to flourish, but you will never even know it.” — Smart Bee

Whoops…. Sorry, thought I was done. But, then, this pearl dropped into my lap, and it just MADE me add it in here, to make the point, finally, and completely…. The following paragraph is unattributed in Smart Bee, my quote database, so I don’t know who said it first… Nor, I think, do I WANT to know, for they are evil, evil, I say…. This is a perfect statement of the attitude of almost every human being alive today, at least, every one of them who is involved in the governing of countries….. Read it, think about it…. this is EXACTLY the way they view the world, and it is sick, sick, sick, ffolkes…. no other word fits so well…..

“It is not possible to find morality in struggles for power. Your enemies view you as you do them and likely regard themselves as virtuous in their attempts at mayhem upon you. In struggles for power, your judgments should be based entirely on self-interest and finding as direct and economical a route to your goal as possible. If that route is bloody and barbaric, so much the worse for those who oppose you.” — Smart Bee, channeling a politician, or other card-carrying member of the BRC….
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On a day like today, I am compelled to use only my own material, making it legal for me to call this Pearl “fresh”….. Hence, the following poem, which is the one that most closely fits with the above rant…. Enjoy!…..

Intelligent Crimes

The value of wit is often said to cause harm,
for those who think, such is its greatest charm.
The new and the bold cannot be fulfilled
if innovation and change is left unwilled.

Society behaves at its base as a mob
conformity and submission its primary job.
Any sign of rebellion against the mob’s rule
is met with resentment, naming such rebel the fool.

Intellect and talent are looked at askance,
expressing artistry stands nary a chance.
To stand out from the rest of mankind
is fraught with danger, for body and mind.

Often I stand to watch in solemn dismay
as beauty and joy are left by the way,
ignored and reviled by the unwashed masses
who prefer darkness, and acting like asses.

With shouts of derision the normals make known
their fear of intelligence, greater than their own.
They hope to stop all semblance of progress;
for thoughts and ideas, they couldn’t care less.

The world struggles on in spite of all opposition,
managing to maintain its advanced position.
Pulling the foolish along in spite of reluctance,
helping each to learn the survival dance.

Hard though it may be to keep up with the future
genius manages its plans to develop and nurture.
In the final analysis, those who live by reason
enjoy life the most, season to season.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Oh boy! I’ve ranted, and rhymed, so now I get to go old-school, and nobody can say anything!…. Well, not legally, anyway…. I don’t think anyone will mind, actually, as it MUST be time for a bit of humor after all the seriousness above…. I know I could use a good belly laugh, or even a few mild chuckles…. Let’s see what Smart Bee can find today….

“…Or, I may not feel that my belief-system needs to be self-consistent in a post-Goedelian epoch.” — Dan’l Danehy-Oakes

“We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” — Will Rogers

“You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything.  So I thought, once.  So did we all.  And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower:  until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he _must_ do.” — Ursula K. LeGuin, _A Wizard of Earthsea_

“Everyone, I think, remembers Voltaire’s famous line about freedom of speech. The version of it that you are familiar with is actually based on a faulty translation. What Voltaire actually said was this: “I do not agree with what you say, sir, though I will defend to the death your right to say it. But for now … shut up!” — Steve Allen

“The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…. This and no other is the root from which tyranny springs.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.), “The Republic”
(Oops, how did that get in here?…. Oh well, it’s too pretty to throw away…. Just consider it as a late addition to the rant in section one….)

“Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce?   No, that’s too grand, too considered a process.  History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.” — Julian Barnes

“The reality you have dialed is not in service. Please check the value of pi or consult your local deity.” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

I’m not sure how I did that…. The last couple of hours is all a blur, miserable moments of grinding pain in my hips and back, interspersed with furious typing spells, and cursing at Smart Bee in as many languages as I can remember…. It’s done, though, and I’m definitely not doing it over….. Let’s see if I can sit long enough to read it all; it grew to a point where it’s a bit intimidating…..

Well, it’s long, but, it’s not the worst I’ve ever done, for sure…. Plus, as I said, it’s done…. I’ll take it, and not count the change…. See ya, I’m gonna go take a pill, and, hopefully, crash without burning for a while…

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

dozer3

Forlorn remnants of an exemplary poltroon….

Posted on by
5

Ffolkes,

Now that the crisis has passed in the Middle East, if only for the moment, the news seems to be singularly free of rantable material. Oh, there’s been another shooting, this time in a place where it raises even more questions than it does outrage…. The victims weren’t children, they were Naval workers, both those in the service, or civilians working for the Navy, and the shooter was a disgruntled Navy Reservist (though, in reality, even without firm information, I think we can safely say he was a bit beyond mere disgruntlement….) (Is that a word? Disgruntlement? I guess it is, Spell Checker didn’t even blink….), so it’s a little harder to feel the same degree of chagrin when it isn’t some crazy adolescent shooting back at the bullies….

Not that the victims deserved to be shot; that isn’t my point. It’s just harder to create controversy when the participants were all consenting adults, already engaged in activities that are, in at least one way, bound to bring some danger to one’s existence. I don’t know why this idiot nutted up, or what he was trying to accomplish, but a place where their entire purpose for existing is to create articles of war, is one that might conceivably be used as a logical target for anyone wanting to express their outrage, or in this case, probably anger, based on delusions.

It’s rather like someone who wears a gun on their hip, such as the police…. eventually, someone is going to shoot AT them, just because they are carrying…. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that truth is begging to get their head blown off for no good reason (I guess it has to be said…. IS there a good reason?…. The jury is still out on that one, ffolkes….). I don’t carry guns, as I believe in using weapons that aren’t so obvious, or so limited in usefulness, but, I was raised around them, and taught how to treat them with the respectful alertness that any dangerous part of life should be given. To ignore the realities of using weapons, of any kind, guns, knives, brains, explosives, whatever, is to invite one’s own demise by those self-same articles, and that is the simple truth.

But, Americans, for some reason, seem to think that passing a law will remove this truth from reality. Every time there is a new shooting, especially when children are involved as victims, or even as perpetrators, there is a huge outcry, and those who want to be protected from reality put out plaintive demands for more restrictive laws to control guns. This, in turn, prompts the survivalists and right-wing paranoids to believe the “guvviment” is going to “take away my guns”, so they too create a huge outcry, of resentment that anyone would challenge their entitlement, and their abject fear of facing life unarmed….

In truth, ANY kind of attempted change in morality in society as a whole is bound to fail in its purpose, because, like it or not, society’s morals are not subject to adjustment by the passage of laws. Trying to make society more moral by creating new laws, to control guns, or to reach ANY moral objective, is doomed to failure from the start.

Strange, isn’t it, how lately I seem to be confining my ranting to the intro section? It’s as if whatever I have to say is pushing its way out before I even get any coffee down… This does provide some rather intense emotional pressure to the ranting, I admit, giving it a good, sharp edge,  but, I’m not sure the subjects I choose while still groggy are always going to be the best choice.

Oh well, it’s unproductive to worry about stuff like that before it happens, so, I’ll just take this as a good thing, and roll with it…. Besides, it’s a pretty good rant, even if I don’t offer any solutions…. I’m also not offering any judgments, other than those prompted by observation of facts, so, it all balances out…. If nothing else, it got us this far, right? Right….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“A society without religion is like a crazed psychopath without a loaded .45” — Smart Bee

😆   I can be a funny guy, sometimes, mostly because I laugh hardest whenever I look in a mirror…..
_____________________________

Another advantage to ranting immediately, I find, is that it frees me up to use the old-school technique for at least one of the three sections that make up a Daily Pearl, which always makes me happy… (I’m really a pretty simple guy, all in all; simple things make me happy….)  It also, for some unknown, arguably self-serving, reason gives me leave to use the harlequin method, sans parameters to give SB for the search…. The real reason for that is, it seems to work best for SB’s efficiency level; I go through fewer hordes of quotes to find the right group when I give SB its head, so… Off we go…. I’d suggest you either strap in, or hang on….

“Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.” — Buddha

“Admit Nothing. Blame Everyone. Be Bitter.” — Matt Hopkins

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” — Thomas Paine

“The mind ought sometimes to be amused, that it may the better return to thought, and to itself.” — Phaedrus

“For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.” — Oscar Wilde

“A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.” — Carl Sagan, Contact

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.” — Mark Twain
_____________________________

Today’s poetry selection is also at the suggestion of Smart Bee; while searching out the group of pearls in section one, an excerpt from this poem came up, and I was reminded of how long it had been since I read the whole piece. It is a long poem, forty-two stanzas, all the same length as these two, the beginning two of the epic….. Rather than include all of it here, and making y’all scroll down to see the rest of the Pearl, I’ve included a link to the site where I found this copy of the poem, on PoemHunter.com, a very good site for finding good poetry, from all ages…. If you have some time, take some of it to read this entire poem; it is a marvel….

The Eve Of St. Agnes

ST Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

continued…..

~~ John Keats ~~


http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-eve-of-st-agnes/
_____________________________

I’ve looked, and I’ve patiently waited, to see if another rant surfaced in my consciousness, or, more likely, the same rant, back around for another dance, but, nothing is pushing its way into the light, so, I’ll take this opportunity to go build another old-school pearl, this time with some loose parameters for SB, just to mix it up….

I realized just now I’ve been pretty easy of late on churches, and the whole delusional system perpetrated on humanity by the professional shamans who call themselves priests, or preachers, or ministers, or some such pseudonym for what they actually are (which can be most accurately termed “tricksters”, or, “con-men”, or, most simply, “gay deceivers”…) I mean, think about it, logically, and dispassionately, for just a moment; the shadowy lack of substance of what these tricksters propose as reality blows away in the breeze of reason, whereupon it becomes clear…. these are people whose only goal in life is to tell you a story that will convince you to give them your money, by your own choice…. I can’t use the term “by free will” when people who fall for this aren’t using that particular faculty, at least not in the sense of being free of influence…

Any who, let’s see what Smart Bee has to say on the subject of religion, and churches, and the whole supernatural, metaphysical ball o’wax…..

“Doth not the sun harden the clay? Doth it not also soften the wax? As it is one sun that worketh both, even so it is one Soul that willeth contrarieties.” — Akhenaton? (c. B.C. 1375)

“Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned — I support your right to enjoy it.  However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture or necrodestination.” — Frank Zappa, “The Real Frank Zappa Book

“It is always dangerous to offend the dignity of the ignorant.” — Rene Caillie, 1827

REDEMPTION, n.  Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned.  The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.

We must awake Man’s spirit from his sin,
And take some special measure for redeeming it;
Though hard indeed the task to get it in
Among the angels any way but teaming it,
Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.
I’m awkward at Redemption–a beginner:
My method is to crucify the sinner.

Golgo Brone

~~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

“History records no more gallant struggle than that of humanity against the truth.” — Smart Bee

“knowlege is a polite word for dead but unburied imagination….think twice before thinking.” — e.e. cummings

RELIGION, n.  A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

“What is your religion my son?” inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.
“Pardon, monseigneur,” replied Rochebriant; “I am ashamed of it.”
“Then why do you not become an atheist?”
“Impossible!  I should be ashamed of atheism.”
“In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants.”

~~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

😆
_____________________________

If I don’t stop too long to think about it, this was fun…. It’s done, in any case, so, after a cursory check of the entire piece for obvious typos or errors of structure (can’t do anything now about the content, ffolkes, just deal with it….), I’ll try to get it posted, before I lose my nerve….. Fat chance of that, but, hey, it sounds good….

Well, I’ve seen better, and I’ve seen worse, so, it will do…. For what they are worth, you have my good wishes for a wonderful day….

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

dozer3

Don’t forget to pack a sewage pump….

Posted on by
10

Ffolkes,

Powerful visions often pass through my mind, generally on their way somewhere else, thus making them merely an annoyance, rather than a joy. Such is life in reality, where we seldom get a proper chance to do just as we would like, even though we adjust and flex both our efforts, and our desires, in the quest to achieve whatever it is we are seeking to accomplish. This is because reality is like an amoeba, always changing shape and character, right before us, with nothing we possess that can affect it one way or another before it changes. All we have is the ability to change our minds, which, to those of us who study reality, is our most valuable tool….

This ability is the one saving grace we have in the face of reality, so it is a good idea to train it well. If not used, and guided, this ability, to be flexible in our thoughts, becomes weak, and can disappear altogether if neglected. The people to whom this has happened are doomed, to a life of misery and ignorance, because there is nothing new to learn for them, once they have abrogated the control of their own mind.

These poor folks are unable to adjust to the rapidity of modern society, and constantly yearn for “the good old days”, which in their minds are golden, but in reality are just gone. It’s sad, but true, that the greater majority of this particular country has done just that, and now allows the pundits on TV to determine for them just what they will think….. It’s much easier than making up their own minds, and easy is what they are all about…

Whoops! I didn’t mean to start ranting, but, it’s just so easy sometimes, when I start thinking…. That right there is the whole problem…. I start thinking, and things just get all intense, and I start taking shots at the parts of society that seem to thrive on stealing from the others with whom they live….. It’s all such a waste, in my mind, to see the potential talent and abilities that even the most average person possesses subverted, and/or deliberately perverted into either disuse, or misuse, all for the sake of keeping the BRC in their positions of power over everyone else.

Those who wish to be in charge of others, who want the power over others that goes along with being an elected official in this country, are, in my mind, clinically insane, and I wish sometimes I was more of a curmudgeon than I am, and that I owned a gun…. But, then, if I did, I’d feel compelled to use it, and my targets would be mostly found in one particular environment, a large city on the East Coast where those who are crazy enough to want that power gather to perform their arcane rituals of theft, misdirection, and aggrandizement.

It might take me a few weeks, and a couple boxes of ammo, but, I could make a serious dent in their numbers, given the time and space…. Too bad I’m disabled now, and can’t work up that much angst…. it might be fun….

Of course, then I’d be falling into the same frame of mind they cultivate in themselves, where they believe they are smart enough to actually make decisions for others….. It has always amazed me to see how much these men and women can delude themselves into thinking this kind of crap; it’s like they have a complete blind spot for other people, and what they might think or feel, and believe that what they want has the right to be paramount over what everyone else wants, or needs….. SIGH….. To make it all not just worse, but stupidly worse, they not only believe this nonsense, they are all-too-successful at getting everyone else to buy into it as well, and will use any persuasion they can think of, no matter how immoral, illegal, or just plain untrue it is, to assert control over the rest of society….

As the perfect example, I give you the attacks of 9/11/01, which the BRC used to perfection. to create fear, and even paranoia, in the public, thereby freeing them to mount their assault on the Bill of Rights. Without even considering the source of the money that paid for the attacks, or who might have had a part in planning it, let us note how the politicos ALL jumped on the security bandwagon, shouting for more restrictive laws to keep the terrorists at bay. They do this, while simultaneously pocketing all the extra money that now pours into the Homeland Security monstrosity of a bureaucracy, where it disappears down the black hole that such behemoths always create, sending piles of money into places where the pundits can more easily transfer it to their pockets…..

Well, I see that I’ve completely lost my way, and fell into a full-fledged rant, before even seeing any headlines, and before consuming sufficient coffee to prevent it….. I’d better take a short time out….

Okay, well, that didn’t help much; I’m still in rant mode, but, now I don’t have the physical acumen remaining to get any more of it out; it’s going to be one of those days, I think, and I might just go back to bed to avoid the worst of it…. Let’s see if I can get a Pearl done first. It should be fairly quick and easy…. I’ve already ranted, so I can go old-school for sections one and two, and I’ll find a good poem for section two…. as long as it all goes smoothly, I should be done, and back in bed within a couple hours…. Yay….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!” — Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)
_____________________________

As noted above, this will be an old-school pearl. I’ve just about given up on giving Smart Bee a set of parameters to use in choosing the pearls for these groups; it seems to work out better when I let it go random, allowing fate, as it were, to determine the best pearls to include. Besides, that way, I can’t be fully to blame for what happens, and my insurance guys are all over that, so…. here is another set of harlequin pearls for your edification and delectation, hopefully….

“All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” — Federico Fellini

“Don’t claim that you know everything- besides not being true, it’s very irritating to those of us who do.” — Smart Bee

“People are the nucleus of great idea that hasn’t come to be yet.” — Richard Pryor, American Comedian

“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.” — Albert Einstein

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” — Dorothy Parker

“Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love for power.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967)

“We all carry it within us; supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed. But it is hidden deep, which is what makes life a problem.” — Huston Smith

Though quite nice, this doesn’t quite make the point it is shooting for, so, I’ll look for one more to include that will bring it all home, I hope….

“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.” — Buddha

Perfect….
_____________________________

Well, it’s one of those days, alright…. I can’t make up my mind between two poems, so, you get saddled with them both… They’re both mine, and both kind of fit with how I’m feeling today, so, bear with me, ffolkes, it will be over soon enough…

Future Shocked:

Weeping, I wake;
waking, I weep, I weep.
I weep for the ages to be lost,
for the children never to be born.

Time comes calling, strident and spare,
nudging us toward the future with bony hands.
No pausing, no waiting, always away,
Frantic hearts unseen, unheard.

Spirits are dark, afraid.
And the Beast hunts, hungry and cruel,
seeking out the weak, and the foolish.

We all weep now…..

~~ gigoid ~~

Funny Bones

Dreaming the way home, lost, unseen,
from the dance, where
he felt so free, and clean.
Sorrow couldn’t find him there.

Waiting, filling up the hours, hoping,
some connection can be found
keeping busy as bees, coping.
Love creeps in, without a sound.

Fat days, skinny nights, passionate
visions of semi-conscious entities,
cannot seem to fully illuminate
or hide our innermost frailties.

Resolute, find the perfect sense, codify
simple rules with every breath
never waiting, anxious to modify.
fear nothing in life, not even Death.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Today’s effort is going quickly, and fairly smoothly, for which I’m grateful, as I really don’t feel all too well, and need to do SOMETHING to make that change…. I only wish I knew what the proper SOMETHING might be… Ah well, I can put together an old-school pearl in my sleep, and often have, so, here is another one, with no parameters to get in the way of something really sharp and unusual…. I can hope, can’t I?….

“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.” — Saddi

“A worm, with very few exceptions, is not a human being.” — from Young Frankenstein

“Once you’ve tried to change the world you find it’s a whole bunch easier to change your mind.” — Smart Bee

“Corruptissima republica plurimae leges.” [The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.] — Cornelius Tacitus, 56-120 A.D., Annals III 27

“A man who carries a cat by the tail is getting experience that will always be helpful.  He isn’t likely to grow dim or doubtful.  Chances are, he isn’t likely to carry the cat that way again, either.  But if he wants to, I say let him!” — Mark Twain

“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger” —  from Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Ever eating, never cloying,
All-devouring, all-destroying,
Never finding full repast,
Till I eat the world at last.

— Swift (1667-1745)

All’s well that ends well, yes?….
_____________________________

Life has just entered a flux zone, and the future has become clouded in my vision; foreboding fills me, and I am afraid. But, I am my father’s son, and there is no question of giving in, so, I’m going to take today to try to figure out how to feel better. I’m tired of not….. Let’s see how this truncated version of a real Pearl came out….

Well, somehow, it all came together adequately, so I’m going to take the money and run…. See ya….

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

dozer3

Such sang froid should be rewarded….

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5

Ffolkes,

A fat moon blundered across the sky, hesitant and pale, as if afraid of the stars. The weak light revealed the face of my guide under the dark hood, throwing shadows like darts, adding to the uncertain terror filling my heart and mind. Without a word, the heavily cloaked warrior, hired to lead me through this den of poverty, moved away from the wall, slipping into an alley, unseen until right upon its opening. The darkness intensified as we moved deeper, silently gliding toward the fetid smells of decay wafting toward us from the alley’s shadowed depths. As we snaked through the narrow way between the buildings on either side, many eyes noted our passage, but no voice rang out to challenge, no alarms sounded…..

Okay, that’s enough of that….. I don’t think I’ll take that one any further, today, or anytime soon; it’s not really my cup of tea, I think, though it’s always good practice to set scenes, trying to make them into clear images that people can easily see in their minds…. Not bad for someone still suffering from coffee shortage…. but, that will soon be relieved, as I am sipping as I type…. Well, not exactly at the same time, but, you know what I mean…. I’ll be fine, soon, as long as nobody talks to me….

Which isn’t to say that all will be well right away; it’s too early to make such unwarranted assumptions. I’m merely going with the odds, which are in favor of no injuries or lethal casualties at this point, always a good thing. Of course, I can’t say for sure the odds won’t change; they often do, especially if we try to depend on them, and bet accordingly…. It’s a better idea to let it ride for a round or two of betting, and chime in when they are a bit more in our favor….. That’s the theory, anyway….. turning it into a proven theorem can be tricky, on the best of days….

No, I really don’t have any more idea of what any of that means, or if it really has any bearing on what we are about to do here today. Since that hasn’t really been decided yet, it would be silly to attempt any lead-ins, or directional hints, as they will just go wonky before I can possibly fulfill them; I’ve seen it happen too often not to know what’s what…. No, all that was just what I call literary bubble-wrap, only there to take up space, and afford some cushioning for the bumps and bruises that can occur when we change directions suddenly. I find it good planning to provide these little head’s-up messages for our passengers, and the insurance folks love it, because we have fewer injuries when people are aware of the hazards ahead of time…

Now that I’ve thoroughly confused y’all, and myself, as to just where in reality we are, I’ll begin the process of trying to find our way back to some semblance of that reality, if not actual normalcy…. Hey, it’s not Masterpiece Theater material, but it keeps me off the streets, mostly….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Happiness is a state of mind.  Not happy?  Change your mind.” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

Golly, Mr. Wizard, how did that happen? We seem to have gotten through the intro without major bloodshed, but only after a twitch in time to complete the poetry section.  Now, ready or not, it’s time for section one, and Smart Bee decides to be all cute and coy, throwing all these strange, and unusable, quotes at me, seemingly with no regard at all for anyone’s sensibilities, much less my own. I’m disappointed, to say the least, but, I’m thinking a fake tantrum will do the trick, and get it back in line, or at least guilt-trip it badly enough to push it into the proper frame of mind…. Before I completely mangle any more euphemisms, and lose my license to use metaphor, we’ll see what kind of pearl emerges after that happens…. Be patient, should only take a moment or two…. Ah, good, here we go….

“If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.” — Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

“Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt.” — Pliny the Younger (61-105 AD) — Letters, Book i, Letter xviii, 5

IMMORAL, adj.  Inexpedient.  Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.  If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent on, their consequences — then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“As one reads history… one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted.” — Oscar Wilde

“Silliness is the last refuge of the doomed.” — Opus

“But pain…seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?” — Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar

“Belief is not the beginning but the end of all knowledge.” — Goethe
_____________________________

Normally, or, as much so as that word ever means around here, I pick poems that aren’t connected to religion, or religious subjects…. It isn’t anything against the poets who write the poems, for some of them are incredibly good poets, such as today’s choice, W.B. Yeats…. The reason is, as you know, I’m not very supportive of the delusional system upon which I believe the entire concept is based, and don’t like to make it seem as if I am encouraging exceptions, or being hypocritical. However, this one, no matter how misguided its author may be on the subject of religion, is too good not to enjoy…. For balance, I’ll include another poem, from a poet relatively new to me, that has nothing to do with religion…… which will assuage my guilt, and give y’all a bonus…. Enjoy!….

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

Personal Helicon

for Michael Longley

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

~~ Seamus Heaney ~~

_____________________________

Once again, my outrage is on hold, while I recover from my travels, and the news coasts along building up levels of craziness for me to see and assimilate prior to commenting on it. While collecting the group of pearls for section one today, these gems kept popping up between usable quotes for that group (the theme of which is left for the gentle reader to define….). They weren’t exactly what I needed, or was looking for, but, they worked, sort of, so I kept them handy, to see if they’ll fall into place for another old-school version of a pearl…. and, they do. So, without further ado (what does that MEAN?….), I offer the following seven star pearl for your delectation….

“In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.” — Mrs. Jameson

“Although it is tempting to resent disaster, there is not much use in doing so… Whether we remain ash or become the phoenix is up to us.” — Deng Ming-Dao

“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.  They don’t mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them.” — T. S. Eliot

“Beware! Your brain may no longer be the boss.” — Firesign Theatre, Everything you know is Wrong

“As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.” — Diogenes

“I drank WHAT????” — Socrates (470?-399 B.C.)

“I like people better than principles, and I like people with no principles better than anything else in the world.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
_____________________________

I don’t know if the well’s running dry, or I’m just getting dumber; either way, this one turned into an ordeal, so, I feel pretty good to have gotten it done, and without the loss of any more teeth, or more blood than I have on hand to replace. Now, if only it’s typo-free….

Well, the number of necessary tweaks wasn’t too large, and, it seems to be rather more okay than not, so, it can join the rest of the POVW that have been posted for the world to see here…. As is probably clear by now, I have no pride, so, take it as it comes, or let it lie…. Or, leave a comment, and start a dialogue… it’s all grist for my mill…. See ya….

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

dozer3

Wait! Don’t shoot, it’s Bob’s uncle!…..

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7

Ffolkes,

The life I lead now is much different from the one that I had back in the day, prior to the advent of the chronic pain with which I now live. For example, before the pain became a contributing factor, I could pretty much do anything, physically, that I wished to do. Sports, martial arts, camping, driving, cooking, virtually all of the activities I once pursued without a thought to how it might affect me are now proscribed, as being too painful to pursue.

Even activities such as walking are now limited to how long I can go without stimulating more pain, or becoming fatigued, which is the most common precursor to the upper realms of pain, otherwise known as pure agony, a state clearly distinguishable from any ecstasy, let me assure you….

I am not relating this to garner sympathy; thanks, but no thanks. I’ve had plenty of that, and would rather just get on with things, sans any more of it. No, I’m apologizing, in my own roundabout way, for my inability to sit and read the blogs I want to read, which I would very much LIKE to do….. I find, however, if I take that time to read, for more than just a few minutes, the pain takes over, and I have to get up and move around, or lie down until the spasms go away…. neither of which gets it done….. I have been hoarding the time I can spend at the computer for producing these Pearls each day; unfortunately, that is usually about the limit of what I can do, so, I end up posting, then having to shut down, or go do something else, because I am done with sitting comfortably….

Actually, sitting comfortably is what can be called a memory; there is no chair, and no position that can justify using that word, as it applies to sitting. It just doesn’t feel good after a couple of minutes, even with slight position changes every few seconds., and, unless some miracle happens to completely heal, or cure, the torn ligaments that are at the core of the issue, I can pretty much count on sitting comfortably again oh, say, in my next life, not in this one….

I’ve learned to be okay with that; I don’t piss and moan about it all the damn time, as I used to at first. I’ve accepted it as my lot, for having been so damn physically active when younger…. Yep, that’s right….. there is such a thing as being TOO active, according to my doctor…. Anyone who pursues a lifetime of sports or martial arts is TOO active, and, according to him, will pay a price in their later years for going too far when younger…. It’s not in the manual, but, it’s true, nonetheless….. and, if I am a typical case, then, he is right….

This is where the apology part comes in, to all of the bloggers I follow, and can seldom read…. It’s not as if I don’t want to read them, I just can’t sit long enough to get caught up to all of them I wish to get to…. I know there are a few ffolkes who make it by here every day, or nearly, and I really appreciate their custom…. Those who do come by often are also some of my favorite authors, so it burns my ass big time that I cannot get to their sites as often as I wish….. and, for this, I am sorry…. I keep hoping for a clear spell of pain-free time, but, since that hasn’t been fulfilled for over 8 years now, I won’t be holding my breath…. and neither should they…. I do hope they understand, though…

Now that I’ve bared my soul long enough to thoroughly embarrass myself, I’ll get on with today’s post, hoping I can last long enough to get some of it done before having to take a break from sitting…. I’ve been up 3 times already in composing this intro, so, it’s a bit dodgy today…. I’ll get it done, but, won’t be a happy camper for a while…. C’est la vie, reader-san!

Shall we Pearl?…..

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

~~ Emily Dickinson
_____________________________

Obviously, ranting is out of the question when my back is like this; can’t sit long enough to get the outrage out onto the screen. But, Smart Bee has been pretty cooperative of late, so, we’ll let it pick out some nice pearls for your consideration…. We’ll make it a random, harlequin style pearl, with no set parameters, and see what happens….. Good luck, and don’t forget your lobster bibs….

I see my life go drifting like a river
From change to change; I have been many things –
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir tree on a hill,
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
A king sitting upon a chair of gold –
And all these things were wonderful and great;
But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.
Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
Lay hidden in that small slate-coloured thing!

— William Butler Yeats, “Fergus and the Druid”

“All things are the same,–familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, ix, 14

“Half the work that is done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.” — E. R. Beadle

“Rights” is a fictional abstraction. No one has “Rights”, neither machines nor flesh-and-blood. Persons… have opportunities, not rights, which they use or do not use.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

Warning: Politicians can damage your wealth. — Smart Bee

The thief
Left it behind —
The moon at the window.

— Ryokan

“At this precise moment, no reproach proceeding from men or gods can affect me: I have as good a conscience as if I had never existed.” — E.M. Cioran

“The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called “faith”.” — Robert G. Ingersoll

“As God is my witness – I am that fool!” — Gomez Addams

Wow…. a nine-star pearl! I’ve never made one of those before, but,  I think it came out pretty well, especially for the harlequin style…. I hope you enjoy consuming it as much as I did producing it…..
_____________________________

So far today, we’ve had Yeats, we’ve had Dickinson, we’ve had Ryokan …. it must be time for someone equally spirited….

The Loser

Mama said I’d lose my head
if it wasn’t fastened on.
Today I guess it wasn’t
’cause while playing with my cousin
it fell off and rolled away
and now it’s gone.

And I can’t look for it
’cause my eyes are in it,
and I can’t call to it
’cause my mouth is on it
(couldn’t hear me anyway
’cause my ears are on it),
can’t even think about it
’cause my brain is in it.
So I guess I’ll sit down
on this rock
and rest for just a minute…

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

from the book “Where the Sidewalk Ends” (1974)

_____________________________

I’ve just taken a quick look at the news, and nothing outraged me enough to start a rant…. thankfully, as I’m currently not in the condition to do that without more sacrifice than I’m willing to endure…. This means y’all are the winners again today, as I’ll be going with another old-school pearl, which, though less straightforward in their approach to cognitive stimulation and/or attempted thought manipulation than are rants, they are patently less pompous by a factor of infinity; moreover, they’re guaranteed to provide fewer instances of mental heartburn…. In fact, a good group of pearls will actually cure baldness in adult males, given the right amount of faith…. or, so I’m told….

“You don’t fool me!! You’re not really an idiot!!” — Smart Bee

“The improver of knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties, blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” — Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

“I’ll tell you what kind of guy I was.   If you ordered a boxcar full of sons-of-bitches and opened the door and only found me inside, you could consider the order filled.” — Robert Mitchum
(My hero!…. It has always been one of my life’s goals, to achieve this degree of “badass”….)

“I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.” — Aeschylus (525-456 BC) — Suppliants, 453

“After a while he realizes that she is beautiful – he just hadn’t noticed it at first.” — Lazarus Long

MAD, adj.  Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual.  It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane.  For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Half of the American people have never read a newspaper.  Half never voted for President.  One hopes it is the same half.” — Gore Vidal

Some days, SB is just better than others…..
_____________________________

I do believe I’ve done it, Olly!  It’s another fine mess, just rarin’ to get read….. well, ready to be read, anyway. Let’s see how that goes….

Well, it’s definitely a Pearl, and, until someone disabuses me of the notion, I’m going to consider it to be a relatively good one…. I like it, anyway, so that’s something…. Y’all can make your own decision on that…. See ya…..

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

dozer3

Charged with gluttonous stockpiling of salient rationalizations….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

Oh, yay…. I’m home from the wars…. well, okay, from Texas…. and slept like a baby in my own bed, once the travel-buzz wore off long enough to sleep. Now, here I am, only a few hours later, up, and burning to write…. Okay, so I’m not burning up with literary fervor, either; I AM up, though, and at 5:30 AM there isn’t a whole lot else to do but write, so…. Now, don’t take that as putting y’all second-best, or that I’m settling for this; it’s just that my whole reason for being up at all is to write; otherwise, I’d gladly still be sawing logs in dreamland….

A word here about the day…. I always have a good day on Friday the 13th; something about being a triple Scorpio, or something, not that I put a lot of faith in astrology….. But, astrologers, as good con men and women always have to be, are good observers of human nature, and over the centuries have incorporated their observations into their “science” so that some of what they say, especially about how humans behave, is true…. or, at least, sounds true…. Otherwise, they couldn’t convince people that ALL of it is true, which is just ridiculous….. I mean, the basic law of conservation of energy puts the lie to astrology, which claims that the motions of the stars and planets determine the events of our lives, and our personality traits, which determine how we approach life…..

Even if one considers that to be true (a pretty fair stretch of the imagination, logic-wise….), it doesn’t account for the fact that in our Universe, physical law is such that, if it IS true, the opposite concept must also be true, to wit: the events of our lives, and our personalities, affect the motion of the planets and stars, equally as much as they affect us. The Universe exists in duality; symmetry must be maintained, in reality, though not in the human imagination…This is basic physical law in our space-time continuum, and not to be discounted, but, they don’t want to see that part of it, so they just ignore it…. Hmm…. sounds like a politician, doesn’t it?….

Sorry, it’s a bit early for shots at the BRC, especially when we’re still in the intro…. I know I’ve been ranting here a lot lately, but, that really is no excuse for rudeness…. Ah, what the hell, let’s go for it…. It’s not as if they’re not used to it, is it? Nope, and anyone with a thin skin should never go into politics anyway; there’s just too much name-calling and oneupmanship going on to allow anyone without a good, thick, rhinoceros-style epidermis to last for long….  Plus, it isn’t as if they listen much to what the peons say, anyway….

Okay, that’s enough for now…. I’m too glad to be home to be very nasty today, so I may skip a rant altogether…. We’ll see when I look at the news this morning, to see if there is anything new to report on the “spying on their own people” front, or the “let’s all get worked up over some asshole’s newest outrage, and start World War III” front…. both of which have dominated the news of late. I’m glad to see the danger of world-wide conflagration has receded a bit, thanks to some last-minute contortions, and a touch of common sense that somehow got worked into the whole issue, out of nowhere…. It was getting a bit scary there for a bit…. even the POTUS was, and is, leaning toward an idiotic response that goes against everything the public wants him to do….

SIGH…. sorry, I said I wasn’t going to rant, and there I went, straight into the same old story…. We’d best dive in soon, and start the search for some suitable pearls for today; I have a feeling I was getting lost there, and wouldn’t have found my way back any time soon, so, good thing I caught myself…. Hell, this is already getting out of hand, and, once again, we’re still only in the first section…. Well, I know the solution for THAT, anyway….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“C is for cookie, it’s good enough for me; oh cookie cookie cookie starts with C.” — Cookie Monster
_____________________________

Thankfully, I was right, for the moment…. I checked the headlines, and little of note is happening just now on the world’s stage, beyond some stupid remarks made by our Secretary of State (nothing unusual there….); that’s encouraging in that they are at least talking, and not bombing yet…. To relieve a bit of the heavy-handedness that has been seen, here and everywhere, of late, here is an old-school pearl, with the parameters left up to Smart Bee…. I just told it to look for stuff to make fun of stuffed shirts and closet bozos…..

“Before you have sex you have to be elected to a high government position.” — Zippy

“It’s better the world wonder why you *AREN’T* President.” — Smart Bee

“I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed psychiatrist is our “friend.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

“Truth exists. Only lies have to be invented.” — Georges Braque

“A drill is a tool. A hole is a solution.” — Smart Bee

“The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world.  I want you to know that we know that.” — Ted Turner, media mogul, author, actor, and baseball team owner, — addressing international journalists, 1996

“When in doubt, think.” — Smart Bee

Damn! I love it when a plan comes together…. Hell, I like it when it only breathes hard by itself….    😆     No, really, though, thanks to Smart Bee, this turned out to be one of the best pearls in quite a while…. Well, I  think so….
_____________________________

I find myself lately wondering about motivation when I’m picking poems for this section, mostly because I don’t seem to know just what it is that makes me pick some poems…. Sometimes it is for the power of it, the breadth and width and height, and presence it creates; other times it is because it strikes a chord of beauty in my soul/spirit…. But, often, I just don’t know, and, moreover, don’t care…. This is one of those times, so, just enjoy the genius of this woman’s unique view….

Doomsday

The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans
Atop the broken universal clock:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.
Out painted stages fall apart by scenes
While all the actors halt in mortal shock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans.

Streets crack through in havoc-split ravines
As the doomstruck city crumbles block by block:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.

Fractured glass flies down in smithereens;
Our lucky relics have been put in hock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans.

The monkey’s wrench has blasted all machines;
We never thought to hear the holy cock:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.

Too late to ask if end was worth the means,
Too late to calculate the toppling stock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans,
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

_____________________________

“A promise must never be broken.” — Alexander Hamilton

It’s interesting to me that this statement is made by one of our country’s first politicians…. It was possible for him to utter such a thought, I suppose because, in a very real sense, they were unique politicians, unlike what we know as such today…. You see, most folks forget that most of the founding fathers didn’t start out as politicians…. They only became labeled as such because they took the responsibility for their fate, and went forth to change history….. Today, politicians are more closely defined and described by the Smart Bee quote I often use, from either Daniel Bowen’s Toxic Custarpedia, or Ambrose Bierce’s, “The Devil’s Dictionary”,  (I forget which, and am too lazy to go look…. but, it’s one of the two, for sure….) to wit:

Politics: from the Greek, “poly”, meaning “many”, and “tics”, meaning “blood-sucking insects”…. a most apt definition, if I do say so….

There is a corollary statement to this assertion by Mssr. Hamilton: I would say it is an obvious evolution of the concept of the inviolability of such moral laws. It says, simply, “If you can’t keep a promise, don’t make it.” In light of that, I can only say, not only do today’s version of politicians NOT display any knowledge of the above moral rule, they DO firmly believe in making promises they have no intention of keeping…. If anyone out there has an opposing view of this, please, please, say something that actually has evidence to back it up; it is common knowledge, among the people I know, that politicians will say anything to get people to vote for them, then have absolutely no memory of any such statements, once they are safely ensconced in office….

I’m not going to bore y’all with a long rant today, and I don’t think it will improve your day, or mine, for me to list a huge number of examples that DO provide evidence of the lies told by politicians in this country, or any other….. besides, all you have to do is go read a newspaper to get that list, anyway. Instead, I’m going to go old-school again, this time having Smart Bee look for humorous ways to drive this point home, or at least to a luxurious motel…. Or, in other words, I shall explain this by waving my hands about in an appropriate manner….

“And now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry IV– Act i, Sc. 2
(However, I am nothing, if not an honest man…. unlike SOME people I could name….)

“Anacharsis said a man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 11

“Bush?  OK, he’s experienced, but he’s never going to be a GREAT liar. He can hardly bamboozle Dan Rather.  How’s he going to do up against a bloodthirsty, power-mad dictator, like Margaret  Thatcher?” — A. Whitney Brown

“There is no sin but ignorance.” — Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

“If I could find a way to get [Saddam Hussein] out of there, even putting a contract out on him, if the CIA still did that sort of a thing, assuming it ever did, I would be for it.” — Richard M. Nixon

“Civil liberties are always safe as long as their exercise doesn’t bother anyone.” — New York Times editorial, 1-3-41

“Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) —

I think this is still a bit unclear, so, we’ll add one more, that will bring it all into perspective….

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.” — H.L. Mencken
_____________________________

While searching for the pearls for the above section, the following pearls kept popping up to distract me…. Each of these is a real gem, of highest quality, but, they aren’t necessarily connected, other than by that same universal sameness of being absolutely true, and/or humorously logical…. or even logically humorous…. In short, they’re all perfect, in their own way…. I’m adding them in here today because I can….. It isn’t meant as torture, you know, but as a bonus round…. Regardless of all that, I hope you enjoy them, and pay heed to the wisdom herein….

“May the Forces of Evil become confused on the way to your house.” — George Carlin

“Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything.” — Russell Baker

How To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity:  4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it “in”.

I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater.

“Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

The ruins of himself! now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book xxiv, Line 271

” Again, Again! Again, again, even if we know the countryside of love, and the tiny churchyard with its names mourning, and the chasm, more and more silent, terrifying, into which the others dropped:  we walk out together anyway beneath the ancient trees, we lie down again, again, among the flowers, and face the sky.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
_____________________________

This is what happens when I lose my routine…. I get all blocked up; once it has an outlet, it pours out all over the place. I do hope none of it splashed on any of your good clothing…. There’s a lot here, I know, so let’s see if it’s worth the effort…. I’d say it will pass, though it IS somewhat lengthy…. (I do love understatement, don’t you?….) It’s certainly enough, and he who has enough is rich indeed…. To prevent any more damage to my mind, your mind, or the space-time continuum we share, or, indeed, any danger of same, I’ll stop now….

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

dozer3

Entirely new aspects of unpardonable sins….

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Ffolkes,

Today’s Pearl will be a typical road-based version, with mostly archived material…. The reason for this today is that the jet-lag caught up with me last night…. I fell out at 8 PM, and didn’t finish sleeping until 8 AM…. It’s a glorious feeling, getting enough sleep, but, it happened just in time to take another plane home today, and reverse the lag again…. I guess Murphy found me…

S’okay, since I’m going home today, I can comfort myself with knowing he will have to get back to California on his own, and won’t have time to mess with me a lot…. I know, probably wishful thinking, but, hey, one must maintain one’s illusions, n’est pas? All I have to do is drive an hour, yell at the rental car company folks for their outrageous hidden charges, and catch my plane home…. That alone will be an ordeal, as we fly to Phoenix first, get off, get on another plane, and then fly to SFO…. I’m glad I decided not to take BART home, as I’d probably end up getting lost at the airport trying to find it….

Any who, chatty bilge aside, today’s Pearl is one from mid-2012, prior to the elections in November of that year, so it has some good shots at Romney in it, along with the normal blather I produce at such an alarming rate. Never fear, tomorrow’s Pearl should be a fresh one, with all new material…. oh, joy…. In the meantime, please enjoy this one, a blast from the past….

Shall we Pearl?….

“I’m glad I did it…partly because it was worth it but mainly because I will never have to do it again.” — Mark Twain
____________________________

Ffolkes,
I’m giving up. Or, more accurately, I’m acknowledging that I’ve given up; the actual giving up part was accomplished some time ago, and I’m just now getting around to letting y’all know…. You may well ask “what are you babbling about now?”, and would be within your rights to do so. I’m talking about giving up some of my angst, just letting it go…. the part that I keep around to worry about whether this blog gets done by a certain time.

My sleeping pattern has achieved true randomness, I think; I can no longer tell when I might get sleepy at night. It seems to alternate between falling out at 6 PM on Monday, then being wide awake at midnight on Tuesday. Then Wednesday, I take a 3 hour nap, until 4 PM, and fall out again at 8. It’s absurd, and I can’t get a handle on it…..

I don’t know if this is a functional result of getting older, or if it is because of the medication I’m taking, (or not taking…. there are at least five things my doctor tells me to take that I can’t afford, so I don’t….), or just my PTSD throwing me mental curves and sliders. Whatever the cause, I can no longer count on being up by a certain time, so it makes no sense to get all worked up when I don’t get this Pearl done before 8 or 9 AM.

So, I won’t…. I may be a Bozo, but once I do figure something out, I’m not shy about implementing changes….. Just because one’s nose is big, red, and honks doesn’t mean one can’t be efficient…. We may all be Bozo’s on this bus, but the bus stops now and again, and one must get off and join the rest of the circus…..

That said, we can get on with the process of finding pearls. They may not get published as early as is usual, but they’ll get there. I’m just not going to sweat over it quite so freely….. Shall we Pearl?…..
___________________________________

“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

The political arena has been quiet of late; we are between elections leading up to the main one in November, and waiting for the National Conventions of each Party to take place. The Republican front runner, Mitt Romney, has placed a gag order on himself, having recently acknowledged that thus far in his campaign, his greatest problems have occurred when he opened his mouth to speak. So, he has been watching what he says very carefully, and in the process, is saying nothing at all.

Well, that is, he’s saying nothing if one doesn’t count his normal quota of lies and made up statistics. Why, just two days ago I read where he told a group in the Midwest how Obama’s administration had increased some debt percentage “more than ANY previous administration”. This of course, is completely false, as the numbers show, in fact, that the particular statistical number to which he referred, has DECREASED more than any previous administration had been able to do….. typical.

So, this leaves me little to rant about. I guess I’ll have to go look through the news before writing these pearls, to find something to use as the latest evidence of the ongoing chicanery and yes, illegal activities being acted out on the public stage. Hang in there, I’ll be back….

There, see? Nothing…. no outrageous statements, no news of new idiotic policies. Well, there was one story, about how Romney is now claiming that cutting spending will cause a depression (that’s Democratic cuts, not Republican cuts…. they’re different, you know… sure they are…. trust me….). Of course, he doesn’t bother to explain his reasoning for this claim; he just knows. I guess the information came in via radio, straight into his brain from the Cosmos… Hardly worth picking at, even for me….

Ah well, I’ll just wait. I am certain that it won’t take more than a day or two for the pressure to build up, and Mitt will have to blurt out some new idiotically absurd new statement that demonstrates his complete cluelessness. He’s been in the public eye now for several months, and if they are any indicator, it won’t be long before he opens up and inserts his size 10 alligator loafers…. and I’ll be waiting….

“There are things worse than a public speaker with a three word thought, a three minute vocabulary and a three hour speech, but I have not been able to think of any over the last three days.” — Smart Bee
___________________________________

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” — Rafael Sabatini

A few days ago, I posted a quote from William Yeats, about making our words inevitable…. The above line is the opening line of the novel, “Scaramouche”, and is, in my not-so-humble opinion, one of the best opening lines ever written. With style and wit, and a strong sense of inevitability, it sets the tone for the entire book, and gives a taste of flavor from the feast to follow….. I would recommend the story to anyone who enjoys a well-told historical novel, rich in detail, and with engaging characters living in a time of great change.

The story is set in France, during the same period as Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”, i.e. the period leading up to the Peasant’s Revolt in the 19the century. Love, hatred, political intrigue, revenge, all play their part to paint a beautifully detailed picture of the period, and tell a story that holds one captive to the final page. I won’t bore you with a discussion of how it can be related to current times; you can see for yourself when you read it. But, even without any political overtones, the book remains a great read, and well worth a trip to the library…..
___________________________________

The Day Is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Poetry break…. enjoy!
___________________________________

“At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” — John Keats (1795-1821)

I have previously given my opinion on Shakespeare, and won’t bore you again with more samples of his impenetrable verse; it always gives me a headache anyway…. but it is nice to find evidence that my less than enthusiastic take on Will is shared by others who are not afraid to state an unpopular opinion. The fact that the person who makes this statement is possibly the best poet who ever lived gives me a lot of satisfaction; if anyone is entitled to an opinion about Will’s work, John Keats is certainly one of them.

Keats is acknowledged as probably the most influential poet of all time, not merely during his own life. His work changed the face of the entire genre; one can only lament his early death, and grieve over all the genius that was lost…. And not just genius, but brave genius, to be honest enough to say what he thought about the most revered playwright of all time…. It’s tough to be right, when everyone one else believes you to be wrong…. but it’s well worth it, to my mind…. Especially if it means I don’t have to try to sit through another reading of Will’s nonsensical refuse, trying to find some way to puzzle out what he was trying to say with all the extra verbiage he piled on to his verse….
___________________________________

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.  Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.        Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.                 Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.  But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” — Buddha

Obviously, this needs no adornment, nor comment from me, other than to say it is my idea of the correct path to a full and complete life, based on right action, compassion, and love…..
___________________________________

I’ve said it before…. All you can do is all you can do…. hopefully, it is enough. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here endeth the lesson…. We’ll not tempt fate by commenting here on any of the various characteristics of this piece, though we will acknowledge its age, if naught else. Such as it is, it deserves some respect, if only for that age…. and, for being right about Romney…. See ya back in California, ffolkes….

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

dozer3

Don’t fret, it’s only a faux-artichoke impression…..

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Ffolkes,

Today is, of course, a day of infamy in this country, and though I’ve never really explored the events of that day in depth, I have expressed my thoughts to a small degree in previous posts on this blog. I suppose one could say that my view of the events is rather different than the normal run of reactions, since I firmly believe that, though it may or may not have been ordered by one of the shrubs (probably the senior, in defense of the junior, who was in serious trouble at the time of the attack, belabored by accusations of election fixing and general political malfeasance), was certainly used by them and their cronies to not only cement junior’s position, but to fan the flames of paranoid fear among the populace, in order to continue the assault on the Bill or Rights that has been raging for years….

I realize the intro section is not the place to rant, on ANY subject, but, the day’s significance to the public cannot be denied, and who am I to refrain from using it just like any other journalist or writer, to fuel my own production with emotionally charged material, taking advantage of the hullabaloo to add my voice to the cacophony that will assail our ears today? No, indeed, I’m as unprincipled as the best of them when it comes to using whatever is at hand to write about; I’m not so sanguine as to think what I have to say will sway any opinions, or cause any new conniptions amongst the elite, but, it does keep me off the streets, for the most part….

However, I have to say this…. Most folks, and even ffolkes, in this country, see the attacks that took place on 9/11/11 as military, or at minimum, terrorist attacks on the US, aimed at the people who live here, and seen as a battle in a war that is going on between us and much of the Muslim world….. I, however, see it as merely another example of the extremity of the human spirit, wherein insane, religious fanatics were manipulated by members of the BRC, (specifically one who was formerly head of the world’s most infamous spy agency), into performing what was actually a brilliant tactical maneuver (when viewed dispassionately, the attacks MUST be considered brilliant strategy, as the military objectives were reached with minimal expenditure of effort on the part of the executing team, utilizing materials at hand to cause major property damage, and significant casualties, even if those casualties were civilian, and not military….), all of which was carried out on the world’s stage for maximum effect.

Most of the people who reacted so strongly in the wake of the events of 9/11 did so without ever considering the larger picture. They only looked at what happened from the standpoint of being victimized, and, in the final analysis, are even more ignorant, and more easily manipulated now, than they were on that day. I am speaking of the public’s reaction; I don’t think that much of what we heard from the BRC has any real meaning, as any surprise they showed was pure method acting, and all of their rote responses were straight from the script they were provided when they became working members of the cultural elite.

Yes, ffolkes, I believe the whole thing was a conspiracy, and though I cannot point any fingers at specific culprits, I can certainly identify the main group of them…. Since everything I write here is being scrutinized by the myrmidons employed by the NSA to protect the BRC’s investment in political and societal manipulation, I hesitate to actually name names; once I do that, they have ample reason to come and take me away, to see whether I am holding any real, solid, on-paper evidence, or if I am only relating the ideas my intelligence and reasoning have deduced from the visible evidence. If the latter, I’m no real danger to them; they pretty much have complete control of the routes of perception for most of society, and can shut me down anytime, should they wish to do so.

If, however, I have real evidence, such as that made public by Eric Snowden, the first patriotic martyr of the twenty-first century, who has essentially given up on ever having a life, for telling the truth about the NSA, and providing solid, provable evidence for the public to see, then I am, as he is, a real danger to them, and they WILL do all they can to shut me down, as they have attempted to do to him…. He MAY still be alive (I have no evidence of that one way or another, and don’t exactly trust the news to tell the whole tale….), but, his life is all-but-over, for the political beast never forgets, and never forgives, especially when guilty of what they are accused of doing.

So, if the Pearls of Daily Wisdom ever fail to get posted, and there is no word from me as to why not, y’all will know they’ve come to “discuss” my theories with me, with the full intent of convincing me to shut the hell up…. If they continue to ignore me, you will continue to hear my ideas about the Beloved Ruling Class, and their campaign to take away all the liberties, to which we are presumably entitled, by the sacrifices made by the founders of this country.

Now that I’ve completely screwed up the order of events here, we’ll go on to the rest of today’s effort, little as it may turn out to be…. Shall we Pearl?….

Be what you is, ’cause if you is what you ain’t, then you ain’t what you is.” — Satchel Paige

“We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme.  It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent, nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today.  Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby ulcerous little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to a alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive.  We are sorry if this impression has come across.” — Monty Python
____________________________

When I began to gather the pearls for this old-school version, I intended for it to point out more about the subjects discussed in the introductory rant…. During that process, it turned on me, into the shape and style you see below…. Though it doesn’t exactly match what I’ve said above, it does have a lot to say about the society in which we live, and some of the ideas that can help us to better understand it, and our own position within that structure….. I think….

No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.” — Taoist Proverb

“He who has a WHY to live for can bear with almost any HOW.” — F. Nietzsche

“You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence;you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, you have been told where you could go and what you could do ( and _how_  you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, “You exaggerate.” — James Baldwin,_The Fire Next Time_, 1964

“For himself doth a man work evil in working evils for another.” — Hesiod (c. 700 BC) — Works and Days, Line 265

“All history shows that every man who has authority is led to abuse it; he does not stop until he comes up against limitations…Things must be so arranged that one authority checks another.” — Montesquieu

“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.” — P.J. O’Rourke, _Parliament of Whores_

“Muddy water let stand becomes clear.” — Lao Tzu
____________________________

For most of us, this poem needs no introduction…. It also fits in very nicely with today’s apparent theme….

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz-he dead
            A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
 Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
    Life is
    For Thine is the
   
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

~~ T.S. Eliot ~~
____________________________

“If you can see a thing whole… it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives…But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful a life is, is to see it from the vantage point of death.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, Dispossessed

Ursula LeGuin is indubitably one of the world’s greatest living writers, of ANY kind of literature…. That may be my opinion, but, it is shared by many in the Science Fiction genre, and anyone else who has read her work. This is such a beautiful sentiment that I’m not going to degrade it with any of my own thoughts on the same subject…. There is nothing I could possibly write to make this better, or to enhance it in any way…. it stands alone….
____________________________

Well, it’s certainly a Pearl, so let’s see if it holds up to initial scrutiny….. Wow…. It’s nothing, if not epic, to be sure…. Hopefully, it isn’t so much it will drive ffolkes away when they see what they’re getting into….. Hope springs eternal, does it not? In any case, it’s done, and it ain’t bad, so, it will now suffer the fate of each of the last 810+ Pearls, and get posted forthwith…. See ya tomorrow….. Well, if I’m still free and able to type, anyway…. Ta then…..

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

dozer3