We’re all having Lorenzo do our taxes….

Posted on January 21, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I find myself again, sitting, alone and slightly awake, staring at a screen whose sheer expanse of unrelieved white stretches infinitely before me, a vision which, though it represents another in a long line of daily challenges to my perseverance and toughness, no longer fills me with trepidation…. In fact, it’s kind of nice, to sit here looking at it, WITHOUT shivering in abject fear & loathing of the task ahead…. Only in the last few weeks have I learned not to stress over the intro, though I really haven’t come up with anything particularly helpful to show me how to get it done efficiently on an everyday basis…. I’m still floundering in that respect; I just don’t fear it as much….

I suppose it could be the fact that I’ve now done this almost a thousand times…. (this, plus two more posts will bring me to the even, first of the 4-digit numbers….) About twenty or thirty of those were reblogs of the posts of others, but, in the final analysis, I’ve done this for almost the full millennium of episodes…. That, in and of itself, is somewhat of a milestone, though I’m not sure now just how significant it may turn out to be…. I just don’t know yet how it will feel to have produced that much over time….

I’ll probably be compelled to do some math on it, using statistical estimates, or even actual counts, to determine just how much material that all is…. I’m sure it will show I’ve written over a couple of million words, so, I’m content with that, knowing that my relatively life-long self-imposed silence, about most of the stuff we see in the news, is now completely done…. Being a firm believer in “better out than in”, it makes me proud, as well as seriously relieved, to have all that stuff out there, instead of in here, where it has always caused me more trouble than it was worth, from being kept inside and allowed to ferment…..

Fermented angst becomes a very potent mental beverage, one that I can assure you belongs in the category of adult beverages, a group of drinks, and/or ideas, best kept out of the hands of the weak and uninitiated…. If that isn’t clear enough, well, too bad, I’d hurt too many feelings if I said it otherwise….

Okay, okay, but, remember, you made me do it…. The stuff in my head isn’t for the Stupids, because it makes their heads hurt trying to keep up…. Most of what I tend to say, especially in the old-school pearls, but, also in the rants, isn’t for anyone without basic intelligence, as it is always based upon rational arguments seemingly beyond their comprehension, and, certainly beyond their ability to accept…. I am forced at this point to say, strongly, that I no longer care what those people may think about that…. There, I’ve said it, now I can get ready for the hate mail….

That’s okay, I’m no longer in a position where I need to care about that, either, nor would I if I could…. Like any such criticism, I can cheerfully ignore all of it, if I wish, or, I can stuff it back in their faces with a few well-crafted insults to add incentive to the idea of them hurrying along. I don’t care which I do now, as either one is acceptable to my curmudgeon training, and my sense of justice…. I’ve kept my mouth shut, to, and about the Stupids, for many years, and I’m done with it…. If they don’t like it, well, to put it just as simply as I can…. too fucking bad….

Now that I’ve amused my regular ffolkes (me, too!…), and annoyed any visiting Stupids (y’all know who you are…. folks….), we can get on with today’s effort…. This intro, obviously, though a bit chatty and intimate, does meet all the legal and structural requirements for the beginning of a blog, so, we’re going with it, crusty as it may be….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Every event that one would master must be mounted on the run, and no one ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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If you would please read this article, the following will make a lot more sense; if you don’t, it may take you a bit longer to figure out the gist of it…. 😉 Plus, that way, you’ll know, for sure, I’m not making this stuff up, just so I have something to write about….

http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-help-from-russians-193641893.html

In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase “Ipse dixit” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Pythagoras, xxv

Ipse Dixit. [Latin, “He himself said it.”] An unsupported statement that rests solely on the authority of the individual who makes it.

And so it begins….. All of a sudden, many months AFTER the fact, several high-ranking officials all come out with the same story-line, IMPLYING that Eric Snowden was influenced and/or helped by Russian spies to do what he did…. This statement by Mikey-boy Rogers, U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman, R-Mich., Senator Feinstein’s cohort (she’s his counterpart in the Senate, who put out her office’s lies about this issue yesterday….), is the newest step in the ongoing attempt by the administration to paint Mr. Snowden’s actions with the brush of treason, when, in fact, they KNOW he is not a traitor, but, rather, a patriotic American, caught in the web of intrigue THEY created with their clandestine, illegal activities….

As soon as I saw this headline today, my highly-trained, delicately-honed, automatic political crap detector SCREAMED at me….. “LIES, LIES, MADE UP LIES!!”, it said, without much doubt implied (accuracy factor of the detection meter said it was 99.9% likely to be lies…. which makes it pretty certain, as I’ve programmed it to never say that it is completely sure; it defaults to that number when it is…)….. This is SO obviously a campaign to smear Snowden, it positively REEKS! They are introducing doubt of his character into the dialogue, which, come to think of it, is only a monologue, because, hey, he’s not here to defend himself, is he?

This, of course, is typical political posturing, reminiscent of any other campaign, such as an election run, when they need to direct the public’s attention toward certain areas, away from others, so they can control the conversation…. In his speech, Obama admitted to responding to a public dialogue called for by the leak of information, while never admitting any wrongdoing for having committed the spying initially. Yet, this conversation, this debate, has only shown them to be more secretive than we knew, and they are pulling out all the stops to stop any further investigation into, or outcry about what is REALLY going on…. Naturally, since they are politicians, they will approach this as a campaign to be won; the first step in any campaign is to decrease the viability, the believability of the opposition…. Hence, unproved, unfounded, and untrue accusations, out of nowhere, to try to demonize Eric Snowden….

They say first, it’s beyond his abilities to have done this…. Well, hell, even the most thick-headed fool can see this is a total fabrication…. If this is true, would it mean that the NSA made a habit of hiring programmers that couldn’t understand what they were being tasked to do? Doesn’t make any sense to me….

This man was part of the program, a programmer, and KNOWS how to read data, as well as write the programs that would do so…. Hell, I’m only a high powered user, and I understand what is being done, and what WAS done…. This statement is an obvious lie, an attempt to demean Snowden, so he looks more like a villain, or, at best, the dupe of master spies….

The second thing to note about this claim, is that it is introduced by a politician, who obviously is NOT capable of judging what a programmer is capable of doing with a computer…. Mikey-boy probably has to ask his admin how to use his smart-phone, which is, arguably, smarter than he is, technically speaking… Yet, this idiot, in his power suit and tie, makes this claim unequivocally, thereby implying that one of the most competent programmers alive (look who hired him to begin with!….) isn’t capable of doing something he was trained to do, but, had to be helped by a foreign power…. A pretty far-fetched stretch, to my way of looking at it….

The one professional spy they quoted, from the CIA, it should be noted, said, in his statement, right off, so he couldn’t be accused later of any prevarications…. “I don’t have any particular evidence”, but, then goes on to agree with the outrageous claims made by a politician, one with NO FUCKING CLUE about the glaringly obvious untruth of what he proposes, or, indeed, of how much truth any of what he said might have contain….

Rogers’ job, which he performed perfectly, was to put in the minds of the public the single idea that Snowden was made to do what he did, by coercion, by trickery, or by duplicity; they don’t say which, nor do they have to…. They merely imply, without directly accusing, so that the lies they intend to bring out later, as seeds for further doubt, will find fertile soil in the simple minds of the public….

None of the truth, or any actual connection to reality of the claims he was making concerned him; he was strictly a talking head, on a major TV show; his mission was to plant in the public awareness the idea that Eric Snowden didn’t act alone, and that the very act of his doing what he did, regardless of ANY evidence to the contrary, should be viewed as proof of his having had help from another country….

The fact that this isn’t remotely true was not an issue; the message was delivered, and supported by the other actors in the play…. Throw in the claim about him being technically unable to do what he did, and you’ve got some juice to keep the story going, even though all of it is a complete fabrication….

Ffolkes, if you can’t see that this is true, that you were deliberately lied to, and manipulated in an attempt to make you think what the government wants you to think, well, I guess I should just use THEIR justification and tell you…. You’re an idiot, and the fact is, if you believe any of what this man says about this subject, that, in itself, can be considered as PROOF of your idiocy….. incontrovertible, undeniable PROOF. (After all, that’s the same method of proof they’re offering for THEIR assertions…..) If the timing, and the words themselves, don’t make your crap-detector go off like it was on fire, then I’m afraid there isn’t much hope for you in the real world….

These statements were merely the latest tactic to be applied by the White House political strategists, all without having to bring out their big gun, the president, with his down-home, I’m-so-sincere, boyish face, and, the now-famous, good-ol-boy, aw-shucks grin, both of which are political tools of great value to him….. Right now, they’ve got a few of the sidekicks out in the limelight, after his speech over the weekend, making up stuff and carrying on with all the talking points and deliberate manipulations, all orchestrated in Mr. Snowden’s absence….. which, I hope he continues to maintain, as it is the ONLY hope he has of surviving the future.

(….Oddly enough, in a case of Life imitating Life, this is a problem ALL OF US are going to have in the very near future…. that of running out of any hope of surviving the future, when the very air we breathe will be toxic to us….)

After seeing this story, and taking into account the other stories in response to the president’s speech about the nonexistent changes he claims he wants to make to the NSA mission (I mean, look closely at what he said…. He isn’t changing ANYTHING of any significance…..), I think it would be safe to predict that in the next few days and weeks, we will hear more fabrications and implications without any evidence about Mr. Snowden, as the administration continues to distract and defuse, hoping that if they stall long enough, something else will come up to take the public’s awareness from their spying, and put it back in the closet, or sweep it under the rug, where they keep all the other stuff they don’t want us to see or know, about what they are REALLY doing behind our backs….

You can bet on that, ffolkes, for sure…. They’re not going to stop lying, just because they’ve been caught at it…. They’ll only get more bold with it…. It’s the way they’re built, they can’t, and won’t, help it…. There’s no profit in it for them to give up, is there? And, profit is what they are all about, when it comes down to the bottom line…. Profit for their self-interests, which are, to them, more important than the whole rest of the human race…..

As Lily Tomlin’s character, Edith Ann, used to say, when she was done making her brilliantly simple observations of people’s foibles…., “And that’s the Truth! THPPPPT!”

“Plausibility is the morality of fiction.” — Edith Mirrilees
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I’m not sure when this was written, but, it expresses an emotion all of us feel at one time or another…. This is probably why it has such an appeal to almost anyone who reads it….. I suppose one could say the author tapped into a Universal truth when he had the inner vision that led to this poem…. or, one can just enjoy it… I particularly like to read this aloud, when I can, to get a good feel for the rhythm and cadence, that mimics the natural motion of the sea….

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

~~ John Masefield ~~

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The rant in section one today is one of the better ones I’ve created, I think, and I may publish it in another spot or two on the net…. Hell, I might even use it to comment right on the news site where I found it, to try to start some dialogue in the mainstream, get folks thinking about how badly they’re being lied to, not to mention how much condescension is shown, by their own government….

Since the rant was seemingly effective (for MY purpose, not necessarily yours, and definitely not for their purpose, or comfort….) I’m going to go old-school here…. I’m also going to TRY to change the mood a bit, to lighten things up with a smile or two… I know I could use one right now, and if I share it with y’all, then you’ll have one, too…..

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples’ weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate.” — Mike Hermann (hermann@cs.ubc.ca)

“The first thing in the human personality that dissolves in alcohol is dignity.” — Smart Bee

“Instead of striving to be like Jesus most Christians would rather presume that Jesus was just like them.” — Callan Williams

“If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.” — Smart Bee

“It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.” — Henry David Thoreau

“There ain’t no devil, there’s just God when he’s drunk.” — Tom Waits, Heartattack and Vine

Hmm…. Well, it’s not quite as light-hearted as I’d hoped, but, it’s all pretty good, considering how well the last line tied it all together…. I like it, which, as we know, is the critical, and deciding, factor for any pearl….
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Most of the rant was written yesterday, right after I saw, and read, the article under discussion, and the poem is another serendipitous find in my inbox…. As a direct result, this morning’s post is done, now…. “Wow”, he said, in amazement…. Maybe I can actually get some planning done for the day, and actually accomplish something constructive out in the real world! What a concept!….. 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

Tiny, torn pieces of once proud menu items….

Posted on January 20, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

With a last, silent slide down the slippery sky, the nearly-full moon fell behind the mountain to the west, filling the valley below with darkness complete….. Instantly, twelve silent shadows moved as one, filing through the forest, to pass the edge of the clearing where they had lain hidden, near the darker line of trees, swiftly making their way to where the moon was last seen. No curious animals stirred in the now Stygian night, as the line of warriors, weapons in hand, passed through, below the silent nests of sleeping birds; no rasp of scraping leather, or clack of loosely packed arrows escaped the troop, no wheezing breath betrayed their position….. The twelve warriors moved like ghosts through the forest night, making their way to their destined fate.

As they made their silent way toward the mountain, their destination loomed, a darker mass against the bulk of trees…. Massive, with small twinkling lights at the highest corners of the crenelated walls, the castle spread itself higher and higher up the mountain, to where sentries could just be made out, marching past the lights as they worked their way around the castle’s outer walls. At a hand-signal, the troop stopped, looking to the front of the line to where the leader, gazing up at the walls, stood at the edge of trees leading up to the castle’s moat, and bridge gate…. Discipline had them standing silent, waiting for the next step to be ordered…. Before this night was over, the world would change; many innocents would die, and a new world would greet the surviving few….

Fortunately for us, we won’t be around when they get into the castle…. It’s been quite a while since I began a daily Pearl with a fictional story opening… It felt pretty good, actually, and, from the look of it, might be one I should put away to work on later, as it could conceivably work itself into a nice little tale…. So far, I’ve never finished one, but, hey, ya never know, do ya? Even I sometimes manage to do something right, so, hey, why not? In the meantime, here we are, already a good, solid two and bit of paragraphs into this, and it’s all good, and all fresh…. Bonus!

Of course, now we come to the conundrum of this type of opening section…. To wit: Now what? I suppose I could just jump in and start the dive, but, would that satisfy all the legal issues? Don’t know, & don’t want to pay the fines to find out…. Hmm, I could….. no, better not. Last time I tried that, it didn’t work out so well, and took me three days to recover my chutzpah…. Well, we could always…. wait, no, the automatic blender we’d need for that is broken…. Damn, well, shoot, what ARE we going to do? I can’t recall ever being precisely in this particular position before, but, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been here… I mean, even MY excellent memory has a few gaps in it….

Well, I guess there’s no other option; we’ll have to go back to method #4, which, in spite of its stark, ugly nature, remains the most effective choice to get this process unstuck at times like this…. I suppose if Reality weren’t quite so exquisitely diverse, there wouldn’t be as many choices, and making the right one would be easier…. Since it isn’t like that, we’ll have to go on with this, and hope for the best…..

Shall we Pearl?

“Being normal isn’t one of my strengths.” — gigoid
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Other than the intro section, whose level of creativity needed for production has never been calculated (thankfully…), most of today’s Pearl is from 2012…. so, I’m creating a fresh pearl here, just so we can say it isn’t ALL old and possibly stale…. I’m not sure exactly what the parameters for this may end up as, so, I’d keep my safety harness hooked, at least loosely, if it were me….

“The farther you go, the less you know.” — Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching”

“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. . . . the human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

“Antiphanes said merrily, that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter were articulated next summer.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Man’s Progress in Virtue

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” — The Wizard Of Oz

“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book ii, Chap. xii, Apology for Raimond Sebond

“On with the dance, let joy be unconfined” is my motto, whether there’s any dance to dance or joy to unconfine.” — Mark Twain

“Being about to pitch his camp in a likely place, and hearing there was no hay to be had for the cattle, “What a life,” said he, “is ours, since we must live according to the convenience of asses!” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Philip

This, if you haven’t noticed, is quite possibly a perfect pearl, seven star random style, with a good set of ideas that add up to a pretty formidable lesson, if one has the wit to find it…. If not, it’s all still good advice, or, good thoughts with which to live life, so…. Any who, such perfection requires a finishing quote, one that reflects the useful nature of pearls, while still offering some actually useful information…. In those respects, this is as iterated…. perfect….

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total oblivion. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me and turn my inner eye to follow its path. When the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — The Litany Against Fear (Frank Herbert, -Dune-, 1965)
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To avoid any potential lawsuits, here is one of my own poems, from some time in 2012….

Seeing is Conducive to Belief

Folly sits so comfortably upon my fevered brow
one would easily believe that I would know how
to look at Life with a jaded, weary eye
seeing enough, and more, to know Why.

Such seems the case, as I will it to be,
an open book of a face, it looks so like me;
what’s known to be so, needs no close attention
familiar sights require no minding, nor mention.

The eye is drawn at once to the stark and new,
and sent back to sleep by successful review.
Once we find evidence we feel we understand,
curiosity languishes, dismissed at command.

Ancient sages knew the insidious value of illusion,
preachers and pundits know the power of confusion.
Each pair of eyes contains its own point of reference,
each mind sets its own standards of preference.

Seeing is believing, for those who live in thrall,
accepting what is perceived is all they ever recall.
Unknown to them, reality follows another set of rules,
Deeper, more dangerous, and no place for fools.

~~ gigoid ~~

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Below this line you will find one of my most well-put together, and well-written pieces of work…. It’s a long rant, covering several issues, from way back in 2012 sometime…. I’m impressed, and so will you be…. I’m also lazy, and there’s just no cure for that…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. long as it is, it’s a pretty good read, I think….

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It’s not every day I’m compelled to write about religion, politics, philosophy, and the Unified Field Theory, unless in separate pearls…. Taking them all on together might seem a bit egocentric of me, but I’ve never been one to dismiss a challenge, unless it was one that didn’t interest me…. This one definitely hits all the high points of my particular bent, or bents, so, what the hell, let’s see what happens…..

“Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.” — George Santayana

This idea is one that makes it possible for me to get through a lot of days without becoming homicidal toward a lot of people who bandy their religious beliefs about as if I were at all interested in them. I am aware that there have been a lot of good people throughout history, including current times, who are devout believers in one religion or another; they are sincere in their beliefs, and in their efforts to live their lives according to the precepts of their religions.

Some of them are even preachers, or priests of one sort or another, but the percentage in those categories of sincere belief is most certainly smaller than in the general public…. Let’s face it, most of those who go into the business do it because they aren’t any good at anything else, and the work is pretty easy…. Being a preacher is only hard if it gets taken seriously enough to try to help other folks, but most of the ones I’ve met are more concerned with convincing everyone of their piety than they are with actually helping…. and to most of them, the process of proving their own piety is accomplished by challenging everyone else’s beliefs, and sticking their noses into other people’s business….

One of the most insidious attractions of religion to many people, sad to say, is that it provides such a convenient vehicle for going through life without ever having to come up with an original thought or feeling. Every system of religious dogma, from no matter what cult, or division, or schism, or whatever it maybe called, is designed to give people answers to their questions about life and all the things that happen that they don’t understand, thus creating a sense of dependency. This is very convenient for political pundits, who manage to take advantage every time the preachers pull another scam on the public….

Unfortunately, those answers, comforting as they may be, seldom reflect reality very well, but are based rather on how that particular sect views the issue at hand…. and you can rest assured that those answers are designed to benefit the sect, and the preacher, in rather more ways than they will benefit the person with the questions…. But, I’m sure it is very comforting to know that if you just go along with what they say, you are somehow guaranteed something…. I never could understand that part very well, as there was nobody who could tell me just what was being promised…. other than I’d have to wait until I was dead in order to see it…. (The politicians like this one as well, because it gets people used to being told something, i.e. campaign promises, then having those promises unfulfilled…. )

“There are so many ways that we sabotage our own divinity, our own possibilities. and the mythologies of race and gender may well head the list.” — Callan Williams

Ah yes, the mythologies of race and gender…. Consider this…. each of us who are of the genus homo sapiens is a unique individual, no matter what color our skin, or whether we are male or female. Unique in our own right, beginning with the pattern of DNA that dictates and defines the characteristics of the organism that is each one of us. Unique. This is indisputable scientific fact.

And yet, there are still people who choose to believe that there are characteristics shared by certain groups of homo sapiens that make them somehow superior or inferior to another group. Which of those characteristics they claim as exclusive is always based on articles of faith, and never on any physical evidence. The basis for these articles of faith are outlined in the myths, myths that ignorance breeds, born out of fear of the unknown….

These fears are pretty formless, as the people who have them don’t like to think about them. First, because then they feel uncomfortable, and being comfortable is preferable to thinking, no matter how much it may alleviate the fear. Second, it is also hard to clearly define something that one rejects all evidence of knowing about; the fear is a known factor, and knowledge is not.

These behaviors are a very childish reaction to serious adult issues, but then, a large number of people never learn to deal with life after a certain age; the techniques of denial and avoidance that children rely on are hard for some to give up, especially in matters of emotional or psychological import.

“The ability to accept responsibility is the measure of the man.” — Roy L. Smith

This is very true, and actually would be claimed as their own by many folks who make a habit of refusing to even consider being responsible for anything outside their own little world. The flaw in their world-view is their intractable belief that what THEY perceive is the only true way that the world CAN be perceived; they seem to be constitutionally unable to entertain any idea to the contrary.

This makes compromise with them somewhat of a difficult proposition, as their unfounded, but unshakeable belief in their own rightness gives them a feeling of entitlement, of believing that they can lie to and cheat others without consequence, because the “others” are, as unbelievers, not worthy of honorable treatment. (Hmm, I can’t decide if this sounds more like a fundamentalist Christian, a ruthless business man, or a politician…. since it fits all three, I guess it fits Romney like a second skin….)

“It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.” — George Santayana

This second quote from Mssr. Santayana points out another flaw in the philosophy held by those who follow many religions, under their own interpretations of the scriptures that are used by them. This flaw is obviously based on the relatively inarguable fact that all of them are faith-based philosophies…. grand, well considered, beautifully constructed philosophies, whose basic premise is an entity whose existence cannot be evidenced in the physical world.

There are innumerable thoughtful and elegant “proofs” of the existence of these entities, all of which, again, are constructed entirely of words and ideas. Some use logic, some history, some use hope, some use delusion, and some use an amorphous idea that cannot be pinned down…. none of them have actual pieces of physical evidence that incontrovertibly points to the existence of such an entity. If anyone knows of one, or two, or more, please let me know of it/them; I would be very interested in the information, and its provenance, to be sure….

I have wandered far afield today, indeed, into the most distant realms of human thought, and I’ll bet you thought I’d forget about the Unified Field Theory…. For those unfamiliar with the phrase, let me explain as succinctly as I can; this has gone on a long time, and I’m sure we all have better stuff to do, but, hey, I’m here, you’re here, so….

Any who, the Unified Field theory is a mathematical model of the universe that, in essence of its yet-to-exist-theory, explains and describes all the different types of energy that we know to exist in the Universe; Gravitational energy, Magnetic energy, Electric energy, Electromagnetic energy, Kinetic energy, Biochemical energy, life energy…. All are known to us; we can identify and measure them all, but we do not understand, even minimally, how they interact, or how they are all inter-related as part of the Universe at large…. hence the need for a unified theory, to connect our understanding of them all. It hasn’t been written yet; it is still just a concept for the future of scientific endeavor, though Stephen Hawking is said to be working on coming up with one before he dies…. if anyone can, then, he is certainly the most promising candidate.

In short, we are trying to discover and codify the one theory that explain how it all works, how everything fits into the larger picture…. There are many, including Mr. Hawking, who believe that knowing this can possibly lead us to a closer idea of the answer to the Why it all works the way it does…. by design, or by chance? Did God lose a bet, or win one? Or is there some as yet unknown reason beyond our current ability to understand? Being able to SEE and KNOW how it all works can only give us clues about the origins of it all. Even if it doesn’t give us all the answers we seek, we will have a better understanding of the Universe, and ourselves, and thus, perhaps, a better idea of our true place in all of what we see….

Whew! If you made it to here, you are indeed worthy…. as well as, most likely, tired, confused, and a bit troubled, with doubts as to my sanity…. It’s okay, I understand…. and I don’t blame you. I should have handed out warning notices at the beginning…. Ah well, ’twas fun for me, and that will do…. Stop me, please, I can’t seem to shut up…. wait, don’t pull that pl….
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I’m pretty certain that this one will NOT make it to the Pulitzer short list, but, it’s done, and around here, that’s what we’re shooting for, first of all…. Any issues of quality should be taken up with the literary committee, which meets on alternate leap years in the main library conference room downtown…. Feel free to join them at their next meeting, in January of 2016, I believe…. For the nonce, you’re on your own….. 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

One final set of twins to discombobulate….

Posted on January 19, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I’ve still to come to terms with Reality today; this is a particularly trying issue just now, as it hits right at a very critical function…. Our argument began the moment my eyes opened, at about 0430 or so…. It seems Murphy, or some other iconic force of nature with similar asshole tendencies, wanted me to arise earlier, but, in my blissful ignorance, so blessedly bestowed upon me last night by the gods of sleep, with the aid of some beaudacious drugs, I completely blew him off, from about 3:15 until I finally arose….

He was pissed, (a minor piece of enjoyment for me….) but I was only mildly amused by that, since he didn’t fire off any of his usual fireworks upon my upheaval…. (I think that’s a good word to describe my process of getting out of bed these days…. between the stiff hips, back, generally painful movement, and the usual degree of morning lethargy, the act of arising can turn into quite a little ordeal these days…)

Any who, having gone to ground early last night, with some major pain from a minor back tweak, I wouldn’t have minded too much, but, damn, it sure felt good….. Not only to get to sleep easily, but to be able to turn over and go BACK to sleep as I wished…. The latter is a particularly nice bonus, as that is the worst part of being old and in pain, the not being able to sleep comfortably, or consistently, part….. Not sleeping well, or easily, or often, only adds to all the other difficulties involved in aging, sort of like how synergy flows, and builds up with resonant feedback…. Oh, damn! What’s the word I’m looking for? Aha! Heterodyne!…. That’s it…. not sleeping causes a heterodyne effect in other problematic issues, making them bigger, and harder to deal with….

Okay, then!…. Now that the morning medical issues chat is out of the way, and I’m thoroughly embarrassed by my own inadvertent release of TMI, I suppose I should look for some other, less revealing way to get on with today’s business… It is, after all, my purpose in being here at all…. I hadn’t actually thought about how to open up today at all, and this diving right in, though it seems to have produced a sufficient amount of material, also seems a bit too much like the usual method of getting the intro done, i.e., mindless rambling around the back hallways in my head, until we find our way out into the light of the day….. Not that those intro sections aren’t legal, but, they’re still not what I’d prefer to see here every day…. Until I can figure out some sort of feasible method, though, it’ll have to do….

Oh, goodie…. Look! It’s happened again! Four to five completely worthless paragraphs, chock full of stuff that doesn’t mean anything to anybody…. Well, it could POSSIBLY mean something to me, but, I don’t wouldn’t have it with a warranty…. Any who, it’s street legal, obviously, so we’re going to bail on this whole intro thing, and get on with today’s dive and/or rant…. It can’t be any more difficult than this has proven to be, to be sure….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” — Terry Pratchett.
_____________________________

Today, the order of events has undergone some alterations, and the old-school pearl will be in this section…. No particular reason, other than I pasted the necessary rantable material in the other section without looking first, and I’m too lazy to move it now….. Here, then, for your delectation and elucidation, a harlequin, randomly chosen pearl of lustrous quality, complete with burgeoning hints of wisdom…. Enjoy!….

Better stop short than fill to the brim.
Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.
Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.
Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow.
Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven.

— Tao Te Ching

“Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability.” — Horace

“After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. “Your advice,” said Cicero, “were good if we were to fight jackdaws.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Cicero

“You take the lies out of him, and he’ll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he’ll disappear.” — Mark Twain

“With the neutron bomb, which destroys life but not property, capitalism has found the weapon of its dreams.” — Edward Abbey

“A lot of people voting for Pat Buchanan say they are doing so to send a message. Apparently that message is, Hey, look at me, I’m an idiot.” — Dennis Miller

“While the gentleman cherishes benign rule, the small man cherishes his native land. While the gentleman cherishes a respect for the law, the small man cherishes generous treatment.” — Confucius, Analects, IV.11

Wow…. I guess today’s theme got into Smart Bee’s head, and turned that pearl in a direction that causes it to fit right in with today’s rant, below in section three…. If it isn’t clear, when reading the above pearls, think Beloved Ruling Class, and the antidote for society’s ills, to wit: Reason….
_____________________________

I love it when serendipity becomes subject to the influence of a good plan… I received this poem via email, from a poetry web site… Though I’ve read quite a few of this man’s poems, this is one I’d missed, or not gotten to yet…. My jaw dropped, and I was struck momentarily dumb as a statue, at the sheer, unadulterated power of metaphor (Metaphorse?) displayed, in this poem, and by the author…. one of a long line of crazy Irishmen…

A Coat

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

_____________________________

So, below here, you’ll find a bit of art, which I fell would help to show the point I’m going to attempt to make today…. The first photo goes hand in hand with the first link, which is an article that gives us the patina of lies from Senator Feinstein’s office, a statement that fully supports the mealy-mouthed lies and distortions put out by the President yesterday, in his oh-so-highly-anticipated, and oh-so-disappointingly-asinine speech regarding the leak of information by Eric Snowden that exposed the spying being done by the NSA….

The speech itself was a masterful litany of garbage, from all I can tell, a political masterpiece for its obscurity and ability to ignore completely any real sense of being in the wrong…. He never once admitted any wrongdoing, either by the agency, or his administration, and made no concessions toward any clemency for the whistleblower who began the debate, by making this information so distressingly (distressing for the administration, for having been caught, both in the spying, and in the lies they told about it….) public.

The constraints the president (no capital on purpose; remember, he’s got to EARN it….) recommends do not even go as far as his own self-appointed committee recommended, and, in reality, do absolutely NOTHING to put any REAL restraints on the spying that the NSA is doing, nor on what they PLAN on doing, which is to gain access to every computer on the planet…. Mrs. Feinstein (who happens to be the wealthiest Senator on record, with a net worth of about a half a BILLION dollars….), who is the co-chairman (with the other stone-faced pundit in the photo below…) of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, in her own speech, managed to blow off every bit of public opinion her constituency has shown her, and backed the president right down the line…..

Here, read the articles for yourself…..
(Suggested caption: ” Dianne, I’m a power-crazed psychopath – I don’t WANT inner peace!!!!” )

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/01/17/dianne-feinstein-praises-prez-on-nsa/

The photo below is one of the congressional members who sat to listen to the president’s speech yesterday…. Have you ever seen a group of more self-satisfied, sleekly rapacious, avaricious political pundits anywhere? Not to mention how well it points out how the majority of the Beloved Ruling Class is made up of older RICH, MISOGYNISTIC WHITE MALES, who are, by far, the largest demographic represented in Washington, D.C., even though this country no longer reflects that demographic in any way….

What amazes me about the article below, in some ways, is the media’s straight-faced reporting of this speech, as if it really had any meaning…. The title of the article itself implies that some sort of restraints are to be applied, but, if one really looks at what he has proposed, there really aren’t any changes being made…. Oh, they’re making it LOOK as if there are, but, the system in place is not going to be shut down, or altered in any way from its current format…. they’re only making what appears to be a cosmetic change in the way the paperwork gets done, with no mention at all of any of the real concerns the public has, in spite of anything Feinstein, or anyone else said….

They all look pretty happy about all this, don’t they? That’s because they all know that they’re exempt, (as far as they know….) from being treated like one of the public…. These men, and a few misguided, broken women who join them in the BRC, believe they’re different than the public, and are not being spied upon as we are….. HAH! Let them think so…. Do they really believe that these agencies will stop at spying on just the public?….. If so, they’re even stupider than they look….
(Suggested caption: ” Dianne, I’m a power-crazed psychopath – I don’t WANT inner peace!!!!” )

(P.S. Both captions are the same, deliberately…. think about it….)

(Both photos are from the SFGATE website….)

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Obama-tightens-reins-on-surveillance-programs-5151532.php

Once again, as I have at almost every turn for the last six years, I am disappointed in the president’s response to this issue. Every time I build up some hope that just once, someone in the political arena will show some real intelligence, instead of continuing to maintain the standard government policies of entitlement in their attitudes toward the public, ignorance and denial of the actual wishes of the public, and prevarication as their method for communicating with that public…. In essence, I wish the public would WAKE THE FUCK UP, and get on with the business of throwing these idiots back into the gene pool….

Sorry, didn’t mean to shout at y’all…. I get pretty frustrated at times, looking out at the world, and watching it slowly, inexorably exploding…. A study recently showed that those films of buildings that are demolished by explosions are one of mankind’s most fascinating visions, harder to pull away from watching than pornography…. I guess there’s a reason for that, as watching that complete destruction probably gives our unconscious minds the feeling of observing one’s own future….

The asininnies you see in the picture above have already placed the dynamite in all of the points required to bring down the building in which we all live, ffolkes….. you can bet your bottom dollar that is true. Oh, they have no clue as to what they’ve done, or continue to do…. Evil doesn’t think of itself as evil…. They just refuse to listen to, or look at, any sort of evidence that what they think may not be true…. One can only learn when one admits to not knowing, and they’ll never admit they’re wrong at all…

But, their ignorance and denial doesn’t alter the FACT of global warming…. Of the people you see in that picture, most of whom are involved in running this country, approximately half don’t believe it is real; that belief, or lack of belief, still doesn’t alter the FACT that the temperature of the planet continues to rise, and that the planet’s entire supply of permafrost, a naturally occurring substance that lies in the Arctic, and Antarctic, in conjunction with the ice, and under the oceans, on the sea beds, which contains the most lethal gas we know, is rapidly melting, releasing that methane gas into the air at a rate that will kill them, and us, in a shorter time than any of us want to believe….

I’m tired…. This subject is one I’ve been ranting about for what seems like ages, but, in actuality, is only a couple of years, at least, in print…. I’ve been talking about this for many years, to mostly deaf ears…. Nobody WANTS to hear such bad tidings, so, their solution is denial, and/or avoidance…. Well, so be it…. I hate to say it, ffolkes, but, if that particularly human habit, of hiding from reality when it gets unpalatable, continues, well, then, we are all going to die much sooner than anyone thinks…. plain and simple…..

Whereas: Since our primary source of cultural advice and supposedly wise actions is seen by most people to reside in the churches and religions of the world…., and,

Whereas: no church or religion will admit to global warming, or evolution, or any other scientific FACT that questions dogma…., and

Whereas: almost everyone believes the churches….

Whereas: the churches tell people to respect the government’s authority…., and

Whereas: as explained above, governments are worse than the churches when it comes to ignorance, denial, and prevarication…., then

Conclusion: You may as well just bend over, and kiss your sorry ass goodbye…..

“I’m RELIGIOUS!! I love a man with a HAIRPIECE!! Equip me with MISSILES!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

Well, ffolkes, this one’s got a bit of it all! Links, art, research, rant, old-school, classic poetry, innuendo, nonsense, and, for a kicker, some down and dirty depression….. What more could one ask for, I ask you? Oh, really…. hmm…. Well, I’ll think about that, and let you know…. 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

Subject to random bourgeois scrutiny….

Posted on January 18, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Aha! I have found it! Eureka! as they used to say in Greece, a long time ago… No, seriously, I found out why this whole intro thing has been such a struggle…. Here, check this out….

“The point I have been patiently trying to make,” Godwin said impatiently, “is that you expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.” — Godwin to Danny Deck, Some Can Whistle

See? It’s all because I’m too complex and twisted with age-related mental afflictions, stemming from a healthy, but possibly delusional sense of adequacy…. However, by choosing to adopt the above concept, my entire problem is thus eliminated, with one swift, clear indication of what is needed to put everything aright. My only regret is that it took me so long to find this….

Ah well, serendipity chooses its own time to manifest, and I guess it’s like family…. we don’t get to pick. I’m just happy I finally have a clue as to how to get myself past this section without all the hullabaloo. I swear I’ve spent more time agonizing over these little pieces than I spend doing much of anything else, let alone something as critical to the success of this venture, such as it is….

Of course, in looking over the requirements as set forth above, this may be more of a challenge to me than I knew…. I mean, I can get fairly pedantic, and pomposity comes pretty naturally, too. Keeping to a simple subject, adverb, verb format might be more than I can do on short notice….. I may have to practice awhile before it starts to go smoothly… but, that’s acceptable, if it will get rid of the daily struggle to figure out what direction to take. I’ve had enough of trying to do it on my lonesome, so, I can only tell y’all I’ll give it my best effort….

Hmm, okay, let’s see what happens here…. Subject, verb, adverb/adjective/pronoun…. simple, simple, simple…

“Politicians are assholes.” Whoa, that’s pretty good! Let’s try it again….

“Preachers are busybodies and thieves.” Wow! What a feeling of power! I’m going for it, ffolkes…

“Pimps are sub-human piles of feces….” Damn, and it just flows out so smoothly!

Okay, so where has this been all my life? How could one know how liberating it is to stick to a simplistic style of speech, to just say what needs to be said, and be done with it?…. It gives what is written a definite panache, and power, to express the thrust of one’s ideas with such clarity and simplicity…. I like it, and we may indeed start to use it, in certain situations where such clarity is called for…. such as in the three above sentences, which would, patently, make excellent beginnings for a rant, of whatever sort one chooses…

Not only that, but, just talking about all of this has gotten us through today’s beginning, with no pauses to speak of, and no fiddling about trying to decide anything…. Pretty cool, I think… We’ll definitely be adopting this idea, at least partially…. I’m all for innovation, if it improves efficiency…. Plus, here ’tis only 30 minutes into this, and I’m already at a point where I can say, without any guilt or angst of any kind….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Pfui. More people saying what they believe would be a great improvement. Because I do I am unfit for common intercourse” — Nero Wolfe, “Blood Will Tell”
_____________________________

Below, you’ll find two articles that should be read before joining the discussion below…. The first is a report summarizing President Obama’s speech yesterday, outlining the administration’s plan to address the spying concerns that the public has, as a result of the leak of information by Eric Snowden. The second article is a group of analytical statements about the speech by several New York Times reporters who listened to it live…. Please read these, for informational purposes only…. Oh, you can do whatever else you like with them, but, it will help our efforts here for you to read them first…

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Obama-proposes-new-limits-on-NSA-phone-collections-5151532.php

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/live-coverage-of-obamas-n-s-a-speech/?_php=true&_type=blogs&exprod=myyahoo&_r=0

There, now don’t you feel safer? Aren’t your fears soothed? The saintly president, in the power of his compassionate wisdom, has decreed that he will try to place some controls on the spying by his watchdog cyber agents, although he makes it clear that they’ve done nothing wrong, or illegal at all…. He will now make it necessary for them to get warrants, supposedly before, though it isn’t made exactly clear, mining telephone or other personal data on our citizens.

They must now get these warrants from a “special” court, whose sole purpose is to give them those warrants, and, which is manned by a group of judges, picked by ONE man, (That one man is the Chief Justice of the Supremes, but, who cares who it is? It’s ONE fucking person!…. One person, deciding for ALL OF US….); these judges, as it turns out, not surprisingly, are all, but for one, dedicated conservative hawks from one political party….

I’m sorry, ffolkes…. I know there are a lot of people out there who admire this president (I used to capitalize that word, but, I am a firm believer that the office, and the honorifics that go with it, must be earned; thus, the formerly capital P…. I haven’t seen any truly Presidential actions yet from him, thought I did have high hopes, going so far as to vote for him, again, in 2012…. That time, as the lesser of two evils, instead of in hope of change, which motivated me in 2008 …..

I saw in his first four years that change wasn’t going to happen, as anything he tried in the way of reform (which were, admittedly, pretty much limited, in truth, to his efforts to reform healthcare…. Otherwise, nothing much has been forthcoming in the way of change…. ), was effectively blocked by the other party, who have the numbers in Congress to do so…. So, I wasn’t TOO hopeful about the second term, anyway, more resigned…..especially after he signed the NDAA in that clandestine fashion….

That act, all by itself, should have acted as a warning to the American people that Obama isn’t anything other than another slick politician, who is in office to achieve HIS agenda, not the people’s….. Believe me, nothing of any significance is going to change on his watch, other than to watch the Bill of Rights slip further and further into memory, as rights we used to have….. There are other signs as well…. His administration has prosecuted more journalists and writers for security leaks than any previous administration, by a factor of 10 times as many…. This from the man who promised to have a “transparent government”….

Now we come to this speech…. From what I can tell, this is it…. This is the best they’re going to offer us (the public)…. They’ll put some minor, ineffectual rules in place to assuage the outcry, rules that will do nothing to change any of what the agencies are doing, as they have already gone light-years beyond any mandate given, and have no intention of stopping until they feel confident of their ability to hack into any computer, any telephone, or any communications device at their whim, to listen in for their “signs of terrorist activity”, and to mine all the information and data they can find, just because they know that knowledge is power….. (Whew, sorry, sometimes, my sentences tend to go beyond one breath….)

In this speech, Obama stated, unequivocally, that the agency “hasn’t been listening in, or reading your emails….”, making it seem as if the very idea were ludicrous, and beneath them…. I want to assure you, ffolkes, that is a bare-faced lie…. The documents already stolen and released prove that simply is NOT true…. He is lying now, he has lied all along, and he’ll continue to lie, just like any politician caught with their hand in a cookie jar, because that’s what they’ve always done, and it’s always worked for them…. They believe it’s going to work again; that’s why they came out with this namby-pamby, not-much-there-at-all, totally superfluous program to put restraints on the NSA’s activities at all…. They had to put out SOME response, so they put out this insult to our intelligence, hoping it would fly…..

I’m afraid I can’t regard this as any sort of rational or reasonable response to what the public is concerned about; it is a complete denial that anything at all was done wrong, and a half-hearted attempt at an insincere promise to do better, when they don’t believe they need to….. The message here is, “Whoa, dudes, what’s the upset? We didn’t do anything wrong, but, hey, since it bothers you, we’ll make some superficial, totally worthless alterations on the surface process, and continue to hide most of what we’re doing where you can’t see it…. Cool, right?” To my mind, what the president voiced in his speech yesterday was even more insulting than that…. I guess I just don’t have the right kind of meanness in me to talk that way with any accuracy of tone…

But, what I said was accurate in detail…. He stated they’ve done no wrong, and that’s a lie, a pretty obvious one….. He also said they would try to put in some controls and restraints…. guess what the odds are that that is a lie as well? I don’t know much about your math skills, but, mine are pretty good, and I’d figure those odds as being extremely high….

Oh, just accept the obvious truth, ffolkes! He lied, he continues to lie, and won’t stop, because he’s good at it, and keeps getting away with it….

All of these assholes whom we have elected to high office are liars; it’s how they got their jobs, and it’s how they keep them. If y’all can’t see that, then I am sorry for you, because you are no more intelligent than an ostrich, sticking its head in the sand to avoid danger….

I’m not asking anyone to do anything other than read the fucking news, and try to see what is written there in the light of reason, not in the light of assumption…. The evidence of the lying is right out there in black and white for anyone with wit to see, so open your eyes, ffolkes, or, just bend over in acquiescence….

Not me, though…. I say fuck ’em, fuck ’em all, hard, deep, and for a long time, in holes where they’re not designed to be fucked….. just like they’ve been doing to me, and the rest of y’all, for my entire life, and yours…..

Today’s rant comes to you courtesy of Barack Obama, and the cast of 544 other asininnies who inhabit the hallowed halls of government, who have finally managed to push me over the edge….. I’ll be back, eventually, with more in this vein…. As a final note, this rant calls for some art…. This one, which I’ve used often, is here as a proclamation, of my intention to never look on and do nothing…. If all I can do is shout and point at the bad guys, then, that’s what I’ll do…. Can you see me pointing toward the halls of democracy?….
_____________________________

It’s one of those days when a poem of my own is called for, to protect the innocent….

Geezer to Congress, with Love

Politicos don’t care much ’bout seniors and their ilk,
except for their money, I thinks;
Though they talk as if they’d cozen them in silk,
what they actually do, it stinks.

“The banks are failing, we can’t allow that!”,
steal from the aged, that’s their plan.
“Their life’s ending, that’s plainly where they’re at,”
lie shamelessly, because they can.

Maybe just once, if we all act together,
it couldn’t miss.
Right on their shoes, no matter the weather,
take careful aim, and piss.

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Having fulfilled the daily percentage of rantable material produced at ECR, having, moreover, done so with some alacrity, I’m happy to find myself in a position to put together an old-school pearl, sans the pressure that generally goes along with that decision…. For a change, I’ve got time, and an idea or two to guide the process, so, let’s see what we can come up with today, shall we?….

ESOTERIC, adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, — _exoteric_, those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and _esoteric_, those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.” — Oscar Wilde

“Any body of men who believe in hell will persecute whenever they have the power.” — Joseph M. McCabe (1867-1957)

“It’s said that ‘power corrupts’, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable. — David Brin, The Postman

“And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm’ without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions.” — David Jones @ Megatest Corporation

“Once you have said that in correlative conjunctions in the subjunctive mood there should be parity between the protasis and the apodosis, you have said about all there is to say on the matter. But you have also, I think, left most of us as confused as before.” — from Bill Bryson’s, Troublesome Words

“Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.” — Smart Bee, channeling gigoid

So, it took some turns that didn’t appear to make sense at first, but, as usual, Smart Bee managed to tie it all together with a nice, pretty bow there at the end…. I’ve used the last line many times, and will do so again, I’m sure, since the concept forms one of the pillars of Truth upon which my philosophy of life is based…. So much so, I’m going to Google it, and if nobody else wants it, I’m taking it as mine…. Just so’s you know….
_____________________________

I think, maybe, this whole idea of sleeping well is a good thing…. It sure feels better than trying to do all this without the boon of even the slightest drop of the soothing, restorative waters of Lethe….. In fact, this has gone so well, I may just go reward myself with a nap!…. Regardless of what happens in the future, it will do; I think this one may just cause a reaction, if not any actual damage, out in the BBR…. who knows?…. Moreover, who can say with any degree of accuracy?….. We’ll see, won’t we…. 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

A very private Bozo in most respects….

Posted on January 17, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Thirty-some minutes later, I woke up, and tried again…. It’s pointless for me to get upset now; the damage is done, and mostly cleaned up, so no further time needs to be spent on this morning’s major flare-up of Murphyism, or in this instance, my own bozoid tendencies interacting with Murphy’s due diligence…. Hmm… that’s even more obscure than I intended, and is perfect proof that this entire process may not be a good idea today…. At the rate things are progressing, by the time I can finish a Pearl, or even a pearl, I’ll have lost a limb, and the house will be on fire….

I can’t chance it, ffolkes…. I’ve just completed the final clean-up task to be accomplished, and reality is up in active arms against me. Every action is being challenged, somehow, by another little piece of the environment, or maybe it’s by the coming to fruition of a long period of ripening potentiality, having been planted and nurtured by Murphy’s myrmidons while I slept. Thirteen years ago, when I first began to send out Pearls, I called what I was doing Gigoid’s Folly; (This was before I decided ‘gigoid’ was NOT to be capitalized… It’s easier to avoid ego-involvement without that kind of reminder each time one types it….)….. I’m thinking, now, perhaps, I should go back to that….

Nope, not necessary, nor is any of the above of any cosmic, or even mundane, significance to speak of…. Not that such matters matter, but, I do try to keep in at least what SEEMS to be minimum contact with at least a small portion or reality…. I also realize that isn’t always possible for me, so, just try to keep an open mind, and we may just get somewhere today….. Or not, the choice is not yet made, thank goodness….

Your guess as to where we might get to is as good as mine…. Take a second or two, and clear your mind…. Please… Now, re-read that last paragraph, without any context to the one above or below…. Now, tell me what it means…. That’s right, ffolkes, you’re correct…. I’ve slipped my moor completely…. My boat is drifting in the current, heading out to the open sea with no one at the tiller…. I’m going to have to resort to some pretty heavy-duty techniques now to get us back on the right path….

I know, we’ll use those time-tested politician’s tools, emotional manipulation and denial…..

I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t know that woman; your lack of faith in me is very hurtful!…. I’m only here to get this Pearl fixed, so quit bothering me, will ya?….. Sheesh, what a man will do for less than minimum wages….

As you can now tell, it’s all gone to hell, and there is no further hope of achieving any sort of coherence now, or even rationality. I may have to send out for some completely outsourced material…. Ah well, at least I’ve screwed around long enough to call this an intro…. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s too long, and it’s almost believable, if one completely ignores the fact of its existence altogether…. Kind of Zen existentialist fundamentalism, you know? Let’s see if Smart Bee is going to be of any help, and get on with this….

Shall we Pearl?

“Wise to resolve, and patient to perform.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book iv, Line 372
_____________________________

“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy of a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” — Hermann Goerring, Reich Marshall at the Nuremberg trials after WWII.

Sound familiar? It should; it’s been a matter of public record for over 65 years, and gets reiterated rather regularly when our government once again jumps into another “police action”, or “aggressive negotiations”, or some other form of what would otherwise be called war. I first saw it during the protests over the war in Vietnam, again for Cambodia, then Nicaragua, then Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the other military action our troops have seen since the end of the Korean Action in 1950.

Funny how that little clause in the Constitution has been pretty thoroughly thrown out the window in that time, isn’t it? We haven’t seen a Congressional declaration of war for many, many years, in spite of the Constitutional decree that our troops were not to go to battle without such a decree…. The presidents from Eisenhower to Obama have ignored any such requirement, and have been supported, both tacitly and overtly, by the Congress, and the Courts, who have completely ignored any and all challenges to those actions….

The above statement, by Goerring, comes up on my computer screen at times, as part of the slide show I use as a background for the desktop…. Almost every time I see it, I am reminded of not only the World Wars, and the Korean War, but of all the “non-wars” that this country has been forced to become involved in since 1953 or 54, after Korea had stabilized into its modern format. In the intervening 60 years, all but two American Presidents have engaged in some kind of clandestine warfare, complete with deployment of troops, weapons, and ideology, forcing that ideology on some other part of the world, and justifying it by saying that we, the American people, were under attack by someone, or something….

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” — H.P. Lovecraft, ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’

“Creeping Communism” was what they were afraid of back then, when I was a kid, but, the people who need to have a war going to maintain their bottom line (I’ve previously called them the shadowy corporate masters…. Goerring just called them the leaders of the nation…) have sought, and found, any number of other targets for their accusations, pointing their panicked fingers at whomever they had on tap for their vitriol….

Mao Ze Dong, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Kruschev, Che Guevara, Al Qaeda, Hussein, Khomeini, Qaddafi, bin Laden, all these, and/or whatever ideological fantasy they wished to cook up, all have been rotated through the public’s consciousness as the various villains of the moment, as the one’s I’ve labeled the Asininnies continue to use them, to direct the fears of the populace, so they can continue to sell arms, spy on everything and everybody without constraint, and, in truth, play their silly-ass game of Risk with the entire world….

Guess who loses at that game? Yep…. you, and me, and all of them, too….

Given the morning I’ve had thus far, I’m astounded I was able to rant at all, much less coherently…. but, there it is…. I hope it helps you enjoy your bagel this morning…. I know it isn’t cream cheese, but, it’s corny, it’s got some juice, and it’s fresh, so….

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.” — Old Testament — Isaiah v, 20
_____________________________

A three-fer, from a twentieth century societal poet, a brilliant man, with too much heart for the world….

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God.
We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” — Charles Bukowski

Nirvana

not much chance,

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

Pull A String, A Puppet Moves

each man must realize
that it can all disappear very
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand –
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha …
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the
kitchen floor, your girl will enter
and you’ll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she’ll ask:
my god, what’s the matter?
and you’ll answer: I don’t know,
I don’t know …

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

_____________________________

I’ve reached this section with a finite amount of time to finish this Pearl before the outside world intrudes…. so, this will be (should be) a quick, random harlequin pearl, old school variety, and I hope it works….

“You did then what you knew how to do. When you knew better, you did better. You are spirit who did what you had to do, but you are not that thing.” — Maya Angelou

“Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth. When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.” — Tacitus

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.” — Hannah Arendt

“If there is happiness on earth, it must be sought in the abode where we live.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French Philosopher

“At present there are such goings-on that everything is at a standstill.” — Sir Boyle Roche

REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“.. Now I think I just reached the state of HYPERTENSION that comes JUST BEFORE you see the TOTAL at the SAFEWAY CHECKOUT COUNTER!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

In posting this Pearl, I acknowledge my own culpability, except to say, the standards usually applied herein were completely absent today, so, use caution in using any of this as either true wisdom, or actual entertainment beyond the 3rd grade level…. Other than that, I think we’re good to go, typos and all…. 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

Cosmic rays are scrambling our emotional states….

Posted on January 16, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Having spent the last 8 or so hours in complete and utter misery, or, as much as anyone sleeping indoors in a warm place can experience in one night, I am up, and ready to Pearl, in my own fashion…. Coffee’s siren call fills my senses as, bravely, I sally forth from the chamber of horrors that comprises my sleeping room, to do battle with the forces of evil one more time….

Not that there are any such nasty forces at play right here and now, but, it sounds more dramatic that way, making it easier to talk myself into this again. Motivation can play a big part in getting a Pearl done, especially in the beginning, when potential is strongest, but, the day has not yet been given a direction, or even a mood….

Motivation today will be an issue of note, I’m thinking, as it generally is on those days when I’ve spent the night NOT sleeping…. well, or otherwise. I mean, I know I’m going to do it, but the energy levels required to get this done are greater than what is available to me without some reason, a stimulus of some sort, a kick in the pants to get the process rolling…. Once I’ve gotten started, inertia is sufficient to keep me going, even when tired…. Plus, once I begin a rant, or begin to edit an old one, the angst flows…. Then, energy is no longer an issue….

However, right now, energy is a bit hard to find…. plus, I can tell you, I’m not in the mood to write much at all, so I’ll be leaning heavily on archived material today…. It won’t matter much, as the subjects on which the old material is based is as valid today as it was then…. The Asininnies are still on the loose, and global warming is still gaining speed, so there’s plenty for me to rail about; in fact, given my usual subject matter, I don’t think I’ll ever really run out of material to write about…. Those assholes are just too good (or bad, depending on where you’re looking at it from, of course…) at what they’re doing to ever fail to find something else they can turn into a pile of shit….

In sooth, I am finding motivation to be a hard thing to corral these days, mainly due to the advanced state of global warming that the latest environmental scientists reported in 2013…. The worst case scenario, which speaks of the meltdown of our planetary supply of permafrost at an increasing rate as the ambient planetary temperature continues to rise, (permafrost contains methane, which is more potent a pollutant than even carbon…. Tons of methane are being released into the air each day now)…. gives us a possible end-time that is only MONTHS away; none of the other, more optimistic theories about what might happen give us much beyond a few years, possibly as many as fifty or a hundred….

But, no matter how long we may or may not have before the air becomes unbreathable, the changes we have caused in our environment are coming to a head, and once a certain point is reached, the rate at which it will occur will jump drastically, becoming a parabolic curve, approaching infinite speed…. at which time, it would be a prudent matter to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye…. More significantly than even this, though, is the fact that it is probably too late for us to even try to find a way to stop it all…. The carbon we’ve put into the air is beyond the point of return; the changes that occur will only get faster, as more methane from melting permafrost joins the carbon in the air….

SIGH…. I suppose you can see why motivation is becoming problematic for me; what I know of science tells me that the scientists are correct, and we no longer have any choice in what will happen. We have removed ourselves from having any say in our own future, turning over our fate to Mother Nature, and She is both ruthless and pitiless in her defense of her own integrity…. We have fucked up, and we will receive no reprieves, no pardons, and no mercy….

There, now that I have thoroughly depressed my entire base of readers, and myself, we’ll go on to the Pearl for today, and hope I can find something to make you smile, or get outraged along with me, or, if nothing else, give y’all a few minutes of entertainment…. while in the process, getting all that shit OUT of my head….. Bonus!

Shall we Pearl?…..

ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians — may their souls be happy in Heaven! — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
_____________________________

As promised, here is a short, mild rant from the archives…. Apparently, 50 weeks ago, the world’s issues resembled those we are witnessing today, and my take on what was going on was, IMHO, not unintelligent, and fairly instructive…. Hence, the inclusion today of TWO pearls from last year, in all their dubious glory…. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 1/29/13:

In difficult ground, press on;
In encircled ground, devise stratagems;
In death ground, fight.

– Sun Tzu, The Art of War (circa 400 B.C.)

The Art of War is still considered by military experts to be one of the definitive books on warfare and strategy, after more than 2000 years. I’m not certain, but would certainly be surprised, if this little tome is not still used as a reference at West Point, Annapolis, The Citadel, and the Air Force Academy, in classes on tactics and strategy used in battle, and in peace time. In the book, which is actually quite short, Sun Tzu gives the basic tenets for success in war; he was so perfectly correct and complete, that all he wrote remains valid today, even though the landscape of war has grown much larger, and more complex. The issues that can decide victory or defeat remain the same….

One of the most surprising features of the book is the idea that Sun Tzu presents regarding the perfect warrior. In his mind, warriors came in a number of types, each of which required a different method of leadership. The surprise lies in his choice of the type of warrior that he considers to be the most valuable; oddly enough, at least, on the surface, he chose…. the Spy….

Not the weapons master, not the brilliant tactician, not the engineer…. the spy, who combined attributes of all the other types. According to Sun Tzu, a properly trained and experienced agent provocateur was, by far, the most valuable type of warrior, for, with the proper application of truth and lies, and the correct timing, battles might be won without loss of life or property, or with a minimum of effort, due to the efforts before the battle by the spy. This choice indicates that Sun Tzu recognized the true battle that is waging at all times when people interact with each other…. the battle between truth and lies….

We see this battle raging in our own society every day, as the politicians vie with each other to see which one can get the furthest from the truth and still convince people they aren’t full of shit. When we have priests telling us that we aren’t the masters of our own bodies or minds, expecting us to not even ask why, we are witnessing the constant struggle for control of our minds… and our pocketbooks….. Control of the former, of course, will always lead to control of the latter, and you can bet your booties that it is the pocketbooks that the preachers and politicians are concerned with, not just our minds, or our souls…. You betcha, compadre…

She was a wight, if ever such wight were,–
Des. To do what?
Iago. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion!

– William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Othello — Act ii, Sc. 1

Normally, or as close as we get to normally, I wouldn’t use a Shakespeare quote, and this one shows why very well…. I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell any of it means, but the last line struck home for this discussion…. Before what I am saying reaches the point where the last line might apply, I will refer you to the book itself…. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu; copies of it are available at any bookstore, or at your local library; nowadays, you can probably find it online in a number of places.

It is a fairly quick read, (though there are points that do require some thought and pondering), with fewer than a hundred pages in most of the versions I’ve seen. As I said above, it’s pretty simply written, but covers all that is needed to get his point across, which has to do with winning, not just at war, but in life. As with many things in Chinese culture, there is more to the subject than may be apparent on first view, and it is worth the time to look more deeply into what Sun Tzu left for us….

But war ‘s a game which were their subjects wise
Kings would not play at.

– William Cowper (1731-1800) — The Task, Book v, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 187
_____________________________

As much as I’d love to bleed out a fresh poem today, I can’t find it anywhere in me…. Hence, I retreat to one of my favorites for respite….

A Dream Of Death

I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:

She was more beautiful than thy first love,
But now lies under boards.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~
_____________________________

This religirant is a bit more pointed than the one above that spoke about the battle in society for the minds of the people; the battle here is the same, but the methods used by the Priestly Hierarchies, and people of the ilk of Billy Graham are different than those used by the BRC, though no less demeaning, and no more honest…. This rant is one of my more potent, and very clear as to the targeted group’s identity….. which, as always in anything to do with humans, includes just about everyone….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 1/29/13:

Delusional material, very dangerous…. Read carefully…

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve;
I was made weak, that I may learn humbly to obey.

I asked God for health, that I may do greater things;
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I may be happy;
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing I asked for but everything I hoped for.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

– unattributed, even by Smart Bee (I can assign no blame to them, for not wanting to take credit for this….)

From the time we are small, our minds are programmed with the ideas and beliefs our parents and families held as truth, regardless of whether or not there is any actual truth to be found in them. We have little, or no, defense against these ideas, as we are naturally inclined to believe what our care givers tell us. While I can understand the way it works, it seems to me to be a shame, that we don’t come with a built in truth detector, to protect us before we are able to reason for ourselves. Until our minds have been trained, we tend to accept whatever someone in a position of authority tells us, which may keep us safe, in a physical sense, when we are small and vulnerable, but is a dangerous habit to keep when grown.

The above is an example of how churches and the priestly hierarchies attempt to befuddle people into obedience and acceptance of their credos, aimed at those adults who have carried over their trust in authority into their adult views. On the surface, the statements seem to imply a certain morality, one of patience, compassion, and beneficence; but, underneath, they are merely designed to reinforce the ideas they wish to espouse, of obedience, humility, and subservience to authority.

If one is to believe the priestly hierarchies, we humans don’t really stand a chance against the universe…. In their minds, God has it all worked out, and it isn’t our place to question any of His prerogatives; we are here only to do His (translates as: their….) will, and to sing His praises (keeps us busy NOT thinking….). We are weak, bumbling, foolish creatures whose only claim to fame is that God loves us…. according to dogma. It occurs to me to ask, “So, which one of y’all is the one to whom God spoke, when he laid down all this specious crap? When y’all talked with God, how long had it been since you last took your medication?”

I know, I know, not very friendly approach, but, sheesh, give me a break…. I mean, these people are responsible for a great deal of the suffering and trouble mankind has endured over the last 5000 years or so, and don’t even have the courtesy to take credit, or apologize. In their minds, all that stuff they do to maintain their status quo is justified by their holiness, or whatever it is they claim makes them special. And, all the time, in reality, everything they do is designed, ultimately, to bring coins to their purses, and food to their tables, at the expense of the ignorant mass of believers….

I feel a nasty rant coming on…. Sometimes, when I write one of these rips at religion, I just get SO ANGRY…. I’m mad at the preachers and priests, and those who support them, for their willingness to prey on the public, using the pretension of religious fervor and worship to justify their narcissism, and for the thousands of years of suffering that mankind has endured at their hand. I am also angry at those people who buy into their bullshit, for not having the courage to use their minds, to blithely accept anything told to them by an authority figure, never even considering that there might be more to life than they are seeing…. It is all such a waste, and my anger knows no bounds….

“Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, it would keep me busy if I could find any…. I had to include this little side-trip from Zippy in order to bring my anger level down. I was feeling the urge to let out ALL of the vulgar curses I could think of, to express how I feel about all the assholes who perpetrate this entire fallacy on the rest of humanity, knowing how gullible they are, and how little effort it takes to fool them into believing the most incredible bullshit.

I mean, how hard can it be to fool someone who would believe that the recent spate of cold weather means that global warming is a myth? How hard is it to fool someone who will gladly trade their freedom in this life for the promised reward in the next life? It’s so damn easy that the fools actually come asking for it, to be made into puppets, just so they can believe they are beloved of God, and guaranteed a spot in Heaven…. I often wonder just how fit to survive our species really is, when we can’t even come to terms with our own sense of self, or learn to accept the responsibility for our own actions….

Most folks are so scared to think for themselves that they gladly surrender that chore to the priests and politicians, apparently not even caring how often they lie to them. Even when the lies are exposed, and even proved, people will hang on to their prejudices, and to the belief in supernatural beings that control our every move; they are quite unwilling to let go of what they’ve bought into all their lives, even when it’s clear that none of it is true. Most of the time, they are unwilling to even look at any arguments against what they hold to be true, preferring the solid comfort of their ignorance. Makes me want to puke, it does…. on THEIR shoes….

Ah well, I’ve spilled enough bile and venom for one morning. It would probably be best to move on, and let this one die a natural death. If nothing else, I got some angst and pressure relieved, for the time being. It is almost a comfort to know that the politicians and preachers will be providing more ammunition in the coming days, as they continue their campaign of oppression against the people of the Earth; that means I’ll always have plenty about which to rant…. Happy Days!….

“Those who won’t think will have it done for them.” – Smart Bee
_____________________________

In spite of the use of mostly archived material, plus a poem by someone else, I’m beat…. Probably not sleeping is a factor in that, but, putting this together took more than I realized it would…. It must be okay, then, because otherwise I wouldn’t have worked so hard on it…. Hey, if that kind of logic and faith works for religions, I can use it, too, right? Sorry, I know, leave the ranting to the rants…. Any who, this now achieves the primary defining characteristic we seek for any Pearl, which is, arguably, it’s done….. 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

Seduced by the smell of onions….

Posted on January 15, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

So much for routine…. Whatever routine I had developed over time is now kaput. (A word old as your granny, yet with a powerful connotation as a word to describe anything that is finished, or no longer in context) And, there I go, getting distracted, going off on a tangent before I’m out of the first paragraph…. Hell, look at this! I didn’t even get to the third sentence before pulling myself into a separate trail of thought…. SIGH….. Being a polymath isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be….

Most of us tend to rely on routines to get us started each day…. Each of us figures out the most efficient methods for us to arise, groom, dress, and head out to meet the day; I don’t know about y’all, but my methods tend to rely heavily on those actions that can be performed without any conscious thought or effort, as it takes me until after several hits of coffee before I’m able to see past the end of my nose, or, for that matter, before I even WANT to see any further…. For me, the coffee, with condiments, of course, is the central issue, the one factor that can screw up the rest of whatever happens, if it doesn’t happen as it is supposed to….

Without coffee, I have no real idea what the world is like, nor do I wish to know. I don’t CARE how anyone else feels about it, either. Until I have downed at least a half a cup, talking with people, or interacting with them in any way, is an activity fraught with danger, for both of us, but, mainly for the other person…. Not that I’m totally dangerous (though I can be….), but, it’s not a fair fight when one persons level of grump is so much higher than another’s….. A certain level of grump is required to overcome it in another, and there’s just no way to soften that reality, so, I just have to be careful not to see, or interact with, anyone before I’ve had my brew….

At this point, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I’ve again lost track…. I mean, I know what I’m talking about…. I just haven’t a clue about how I got here, or why I should continue in this direction, when it so obviously leads nowhere in particular….. Though that is a destination we are quite familiar with here at ECR, it isn’t where I’d planned to end up today…. Ah well, that’s what I get for meandering through my own head for inspiration…. I have to take whatever comes up, and deal with it…. and, in this case, so do you….

To mitigate any difficulties you may be experiencing with that particular issue, I’ll bring this to a crashing halt here…. Getting on with our business of the day seems like the best thing to do now, since I’ve again written myself to a point where I can do nothing else…. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Shall we Pearl?

“I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, “Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Superstition
_____________________________

Well, they’ve done it again…. I thought when I began today I would not have a rantable subject, since the BRC’s Asininnies seem to have taken some time off here in the beginning of the year….. But, then I found this article, tucked way down the front page of the news site at SFGATE…. I imagine the story’s placement has a little to do with who the story is about…. The shadowy corporate masters of society don’t like to see this kind of stuff up on the main part of the page; they don’t like to spotlight anything they do, and this one is one they’ll not wish people to hear about too quickly, before they’ve secured the position the ruling below gives them…..

Yes, ffolkes, another federal judge, handily in the pocket of big money, has ruled in favor of Verizon, a shadowy corporate master if ever there was one, on their suit to be able to charge what they want, and restrict what they want, from the Internet services they provide, thus giving them the ability to, essentially, control the flow of data and information that goes over the ‘Net, and charge people however much they want for it…..

This judge, in a ruling that echoes the corruption of the original ruling that gave corporations “personhood”, once again ruled that the corporation was entitled to rights and privileges over their network, even though previously, the FCC had ruled the request to be discriminatory, thus spotlighting it as a proprietary attempt by Verizon to monopolize the Internet for its own use….

“Judges said although the FCC has oversight of how Internet providers manage traffic, its regulations were overreaching considering the agency classified broadband providers as “information services” companies rather than telecom companies, which “exempts them from treatment as common carriers.”

“exempts them from treatment as common carriers.”….. In and of itself, this doesn’t LOOK like the insane viewpoint it really is… I mean, is it sane to define a corporation as a person, and give them not just the same rights, but a version of those rights that actually favors them, as they can now perform actions, as a corporation, that would earn a real person a jail cell?…. NOBODY IS SUPPOSED TO BE “EXEMPT” FROM THE LAW!

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Will-net-neutrality-ruling-make-Web-like-cable-TV-5143669.php

“Verizon, which brought the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argued that because it built its network, it has the right to manage its costs and services as it pleases.”

Here we have the basic statement of purpose, the one that shows just exactly how avaricious these assholes are…. “as it pleases”….. In other words, the company, because it has legal standing as a “person”, is thus given the right to do “as it pleases” with the Internet, or, that part of it that it can control (which, since they own much of the actual machinery over which the Internet users travel, means they would control ALL of it….)….

If that is NOT a statement of outright greed and selfishness, then my parents had no clue as what those words meant, because I was taught the exact opposite of what they are expressing…. As members of a society, we all have certain limits on what we can do “as we please”, limits that are connected to our own connection to other people, and the fact that those people have rights as well…

It seems to me that whenever a corporate person, and a real person end up in court, the ruling always seems to favor the corporation…. Now, why is that, do you think? Would it, perhaps, just maybe, be a result of who has the most money? Why, yes, I believe it would…. and has been that way since the mid-1800’s, when the Federal Appeals Courts first gave corporations their legal advantage over the rest of us…. That decision created today’s imbalanced situation, where it doesn’t matter at all that the agencies who fought against this presented very cogent, powerful arguments; the judge ruled the only way he could, and still preserve his position as one of the flunkies….

Those agencies who fought this suit included the FCC itself, which made this statement telling why it had resisted the suit brought by Verizon…. The agency, even though a federal bureaucracy itself, is well aware of what is at stake, and took the side of consumers for a change…..

“(FCC Chairman) Tom Wheeler said his agency is mulling a Supreme Court appeal, and insisted the FCC will not “abandon its responsibility to oversee that broadband networks operate in the public interest. (The FCC) will not disregard the possibility that exercises of economic power or of ideological preference by dominant network firms will diminish the value of the Internet to some or all segments of our society,” he wrote in a blog post.”

Other organizations with a stake also joined in to resist the suit in court…. The American Library Association said this, in describing the danger of giving up this power to the corporate world….

“Now that the Internet has become the primary mechanism for delivering information, services and applications to the general public, it is especially important that commercial Internet service providers are not able to control or manipulate the content of these communications,” said Barbara Stripling, president of the American Library Association. ”

Other organizations chimed in as well, in an effort to defend the FCC policies at stake….

“Rashad Robinson, executive director of the African American advocacy group ColorOfChange.org, fears that large private companies may start to squeeze out public discourse online. “Our communities rely on the Internet to speak without a corporate filter, to access information and connect to the world, and to be able to organize and hold public officials and corporations accountable.”

The corporation, of course, had their slimy, young, personable snakes out in full force, issuing press statements, to counter any public discourse with assurances that the company wouldn’t make any real changes to internet services…. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the spin doctor who made this statement even believes this, in spite of the FACT that the company has never once shown any sort of morality when it comes to its business practices…. He says, assuring us of the company’s good intentions….

“Verizon has been and remains committed to the open Internet which provides consumers with competitive choices and unblocked access to lawful websites and content when, where and how they want,” a spokesman said in a statement. “This will not change in light of the court’s decision.”

Sure, mister…. all that will be true, at the same moment when the pigs take off to fly from the White House lawn, and the weather notices from Hell are mentioning snow….. How do these assholes convince themselves to say things like that in public, when not only does everyone listening know they’re lying, but, they can barely keep a straight face, due to their own knowledge of just how dishonest they’re being?….

I find it interesting to note, this statement contains 3 assertions, all 3 of which can be shown to be bald-faced lies…. This company does NOT show any commitment to an open Internet, does NOT provide competitive choices, or unblocked access (unless forced to….), and, in truth, you can be very sure they have every intention of changing the prices and controls over their network to suit themselves, and their insane avarice for profit by any means….

Okay, ffolkes, now you know…. The assholes who decide for us how much we are to have, have now decided, and it is, once again, far less than we wanted, or needed…. In fact, this whole issue, to me, is just another good example to show folks about how screwed up the world is, and not have to look far for evidence…. Of course, that assumes those folks have left their ears, and their minds, open enough to hear it, and possess the wit to understand…. Sadly, I’m afraid there aren’t enough ffolkes out there who can do that, or, at least, not enough to make a difference any more….

This decision by the Appeals Court, and the ensuing circus to come when society reacts to it, in my mind, is just another sign, among many, that our world is winding itself down to the end…. The corporations keep on securing all the resources and power over others that they can, never knowing that, by doing so, by continuing the insanity in which they’ve engaged for centuries, they are sealing their own fate….. while the rest of us have only to watch in fascination as the scenario unfolds in all its mad glory…..

In truth, I’m kind of starting to look forward to all of the end-time shenanigans that will no doubt ensue when these idiots finally realize what is happening, and what they’ve done…. The expressions on their faces will be priceless, and their contortions of despair, as they go about dying in agony, will only bring a smile to my own face….. A little something to look forward to, in a situation where such gems are scarce…. SIGH….

People are strange, aren’t they?

“Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can’t make my satellite dish PAYMENTS!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

When I began this morning, I had not intended to rant about anything…. Then, while looking through the headlines, I found the article under discussion above, and my outrage flared alarmingly…. So, I ended up with a fairly long rant, on a subject I will no doubt visit again…. Unexpected as it was, I am now a bit fatigued…. Writing from the position of outrage is not as easy as it looks; the emotional investment seems to suck energy as one types, due to the intense mental effort, and the concomitant emotional content that is connected…. All this is just to say, I got tired, and don’t want to work hard any more today…. Days such as this, Emily is the only poet that will do for me….

The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go –
The Crocus – til she rises
The Vassal of the snow –
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practice bore
Till bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.

Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted from the Sea –
Pinions – the Seraph’s wagon
Pedestrian once – as we –

Night is the morning’s Canvas
Larceny – legacy –
Death, but our rapt attention
To Immortality.

My figures fail to tell me
How far the Village lies –
Whose peasants are the Angels –
Whose Cantons dot the skies –
My Classics veil their faces –
My faith that Dark adores –
Which from its solemn abbeys
Such resurrection pours.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

I’m definitely ready for this…. Below you will find a random harlequin pearl, sans directed parameters…. After a rant, and the rest of this morning’s solitary pursuits, this will be a cake walk…. Theoretically….

“I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.” — Thomas Jefferson

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” — Soren Kierkegaard

“Individuality seems to be Nature’s whole aim — and she cares nothing for individuals.” — Goethe

“That’s right, yes, you’re going, you’re gone for ages, already gone, you’re still here, just arrived, haven’t even met you yet. It all depends on who you are and how you look at it. Strange business, time.” — Doctor, Dragonfire

“We are in no danger, since we have realized we are condemned.” — Andrei Siniavski, Sudden Thoughts

” Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.” — H. L. Mencken

“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.” — Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
_____________________________

All things considered, this one went fairly well…. It’s done, and that’s the primary characteristic we look for around here…. In fact, it’s so done, it’s getting dry…. Before I abuse the language any further, I’m outta here…. See you tomorrow….

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

Looks to be ’bout half-a-bubble off plumb….

Posted on January 14, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Bogus, man! Somebody turned off my clock, or something…. I’d suspect Murphy’s hand at work, but, all I did is get up about an hour and a bit late…. It’s almost 6:30 AM, later, by a bunch, than I’ve been up in a coon’s age, (Okay, I’ll bite: How long does a raccoon live?….), an event not so negative, as much as inconveniently confusing. As much as possible, I’m not going to push for any real thinking, or decision-making, until after the first cup of the morning’s transfusion of blood has dripped into my veins; I have the distinct impression the results would be disastrous, at minimum….

How, then, do I manage to create an intro to this Pearl? If I can’t use my brain, what the heck is it good for? No, you don’t really have to answer that rhetorical question, any more than I have to consider it; I know what it’s good for. I just never get a chance to use it for that…. For what, you ask? Well, honestly, it’s best if I don’t tell you, as it could create difficulties further down the road, for both of us…. Given what I might end up doing the last few months of my life (whether those months are this year, or part of another one, a few years away….), it’s best if you don’t have any idea of my intentions, or my plans…. You wouldn’t be safe, and that would go against the grain of my sensibilities….

Since clandestine actions have been relegated far into the future, relatively speaking, we can get on with today’s effort, provided I can figure out some way to get this intro a bit further along…. I know, it’s probably enough as it is…. Hell, maybe you’re right, and it IS enough…. I know it’s not up to the usual standards we hold, in terms of the amount of crap you generally find here, but, I think the degree of sheer inanity gives it some extra panache, if you know what I mean…. I mean, I could have gone back to those stupid one line jokes I’ve been using here…. Hmm, maybe that’s the problem…. Smart Bee seems to LIKE the damn jokes, so maybe it WANTS the little conversational one-line rim shots I’ve been putting up there… go figure….

Well, okay then…. I don’t have any of the four line rim shots, but, here’s a really old joke, from a British comedian, recently passed away, whose body of work was referred to me by a Gentle Reader as a source for old one-liners…. It’s such an old joke, I had to give it a good dusting off before using it….

“Two cannibals were eating a clown – one said to the other, ‘Does he taste funny to you?’ ” — Tommy Cooper

As a male human being, I am now allowed to guffaw, or, at the very least, give a sardonic smirk for the irony…. You can do as you wish, in terms of your reaction; this site is completely influence free in that regard, as far as we can make it…. It is however, still somewhat strange, all in all, for which we have no apologies whatsoever…. In fact, if I can feel that what I’ve done here has added to the amount and quality of strange in the world, then I’ve done what I set out to do….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.” — Helen Keller
_____________________________

So, having arisen so late in the day, I have to admit, I’m completely discombobulated (I LOVE that word!…) (Well, I don’t love the feeling of being in the state of discombobulation ( 🙂 ), but, the word itself is GRAND, isn’t it?….)….. Where was I? Oh, okay… So, I’m up late, my brain is mush, and a Pearl is required… What’s a boy to do but dive into the archives for something at least partially intelligent, or something that at least sounds that way….

Here, then, is a fairly mellow politirant, with a suggestion, not original to me, (the credit for the idea expressed below belongs to Arthur C. Clarke, from an idea he had in his novel, “Imperial Earth”, set in the year 2776, on the one thousand year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence), for how to deal with the issue of corrupt politicians, or, indeed, how to deal with the whole idea of a professional class of politicians…. I think its a great idea, and completely workable…. Of course, none of the politicians we have now would like it, but, hey, that’s the whole problem, right? Right….

Any who, enjoy the rant, and think about the suggestion… I forgot to write down what day this was posted, but, it had to have been post-November 6, 2012, as it speaks about the election on that date….

Wednesday, 2012:

“Integrity is when what you say, what you do, what you think, and who you ARE all come from the same place.” — Madelyn Griffith-Haynie

Okay, I know we are all probably sick to death of politics, and the election, and everyone would like to have a break from talking and thinking about it…. I know I am. So, I’ll try to make this fairly short, and make it the last political diatribe for at least a day or two. It may be possible, if nothing in the news jumps up to stimulate my outrage (which may be on a short vacation itself…. I hope….. I could do with the emotional space….).

Any who…. here is what I was thinking when I came across this little gem…. What if we devised a test, that in some way would enable us, as voters, to determine the relative status of each of the candidates according to this rule? A way, as it were, to measure their degree of integrity, which is something I think we can all agree would be a good thing to see in a politician, unlikely as it may be to find it there; I don’t believe it occurs naturally…. If we could, say, set up a scale of integrity, and make it law that a person had to score in the top 5% of the scale in order to merely be eligible for office, I think we might see a whole new set of politicians, who had never before been seen in public.

In fact, in thinking about the current crop of those currently ensconced in the houses of government, it is entirely possible that ALL of those elected officials, who are now in office, might not be eligible under that restriction…. I am not excluding the President, out of fairness, though I personally believe he might score in the top 10%…. I still have questions about some of the stuff he has signed that didn’t seem to be very well publicized, as they didn’t exactly fit with his projected image…. The newest version of the Patriot Act, the NDAA, that he signed last New Year’s Day comes immediately to mind….

I don’t care if he did try to mitigate some of the deleterious effects of the law, he still signed the damn thing, thereby seriously endangering a number of the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. Plus, the method he used to keep it from the public awareness was rather suspect, in my mind, and reminiscent of the old days under Nixon, Johnson, Reagan, and the two Shrubs, may they all rot in whatever level of Hell they are destined to occupy…. (I know, I know…. not being a Christian, that curse has little weight, but, hey, it’s a pretty clear indicator of my opinion of all of them….)

As I suspected it might, this grew to be somewhat more than I intended it to be, so I’ll cut it short here. But, my suggestion above, about the test for integrity that should be a given for political aspirants, is completely serious, and I wanted to get that out. Maybe by the next election, we can get the rest of the country to buy into it…. which should be interesting, and fun. I’ll be looking forward to the expressions on the faces of all the supporters of those now in office, when their people gloriously fail to pass the test…. and to the results it will have on society, should it ever be adopted…. I don’t see any way at all that it could do anything that wouldn’t improve the situation….

And so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.

– John Bunyan (1628-1688) — Pilgrim’s Progress, Apology for his Book
_____________________________

I wrote this poem as an expression of thanks, for the friend(s) I have in my life, friends who wouldn’t let me go under, in those times when I was sinking….

Unsolicited Gratitude

Fear becomes familiar when reality bodes us ill
pain assumes first position, no matter our will.
Powerless, we founder, no strength to prevail
anguished and afraid, against unwanted Fate we rail.

Still, a grain of hope deep inside, hidden well against need
gives us reason to survive, our starving souls to feed.
Failure of courage burdens time, of being bested,
until our souls, in submission, become foully infested.

Bitter tears wash through us each day, with little care,
no thought, no feeling, no wish, or need to be fair.
Rendered clueless, confusion falls upon us, as prey,
we surrender a piece of our soul, little as we may.

Yet, always, a bright beam of hope is seen from afar,
no matter how dreary, or dark, it may seem where we are.
None knows, nor would consent to tell, it seems
from whence it hails, or why it so brightly gleams.

Saving our sanity, absolving our unwanted fears,
dispelling the myths and lies that come with the years.
Each man has known the precious gift that hope may give
And gives glad thanks, as long as he may live.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

The following old-school variety will be a unique pearl, put together using a method of timing and selection heretofore untried…. I’m not even sure of my ability to describe exactly what parameters I’ll be setting, as the search for these connected aphorisms has taken place on three separate occasions, none of which were related in any elemental way…. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have no idea how this will turn out, but, usually, when we try new techniques like this, it seems to work out pretty well, so, I’m confident this will do the same…. Enjoy!..

“The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith.” — Roman Congregation decision against Galileo

“To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover.”– Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

“Kids, the seven basic food groups are GUM, PUFF PASTRY, PIZZA, PESTICIDES, ANTIBIOTICS, NUTRA-SWEET and MILK DUDS!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Okay! That, I think, will give you a clearer idea of where we are headed with this, so, make sure you’re safety harnesses are fully fastened, and you are hanging on for dear life to the soft, fluffy stuffed animals provided by your friendly flight attendants…. Hang on, ffolkes, these last four could get rambunctious….

“All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot gain. Hence that common opinion seems to be very true, “the rich man is unjust, or the heir to an unjust one.” Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, than by his predecessor.” — St. Jerome (340?-420)

“Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Iliad of Homer, Book xv, Line 157

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games which it is most attached is called, “Keep tomorrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.” — Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

“History is a lie commonly agreed upon.” — Nietzsche

I rest my case…..
_____________________________

“These things are fun, and fun is good.” — Dr. Seuss

Ted was right, you know, about all of it…. (Ted = Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss….). Especially this part…. I don’t know about y’all, but I had fun today…. which is odd, as it started out really badly, and seemingly went downhill from there…. I guess my topographical perception is as skewed as the remainder of my mind’s now dubious qualities…. In looking back over what I’ve done here this morning, I can only agree with that assessment, and will now fade quickly into the background, disappearing right before your eyes…. 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

Tattered remnants are all that remain….

Posted on January 13, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Hey, buddy!”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t feel so good…Would you call me a doctor?”
“Sure, no problem…. you’re a doctor.”

Now, I’m sure you’ve heard or seen that particular joke at some point in your life; it’s too old, and too common to have missed. I kind of like these, even though I’m beginning to have a bit of trouble coming up with new ones…. I’ve run through almost all the really OLD jokes that would work, so I’m guessing it will take a bit of creativity to keep them going…. I’ll see what I can do about that; creativity is a finite substance here, so I have to ration it out with that in mind, or I run out completely….. Nobody wants that, as these Pearls could become distressingly pedantic, aka, BORING…

I’m having a hard enough time not going there already; I don’t need to spend more of what little I can spare for creativity on stuff that’s boring and unreadable…. But, what’s a poor daily blogger supposed to do when the well runs dry? I’ve used archived material, and I’ve gone back to fictional openings; both are okay, but are not the type of material that can be used every day, without further input of creative innovation….

I’ve blathered, and wandered, and meandered, around nowhere in particular in my own head, verbalizing the vague journeys endlessly, until finally finding my way to the next section… Those seem to work relatively well, but even my almost unlimited store of nonsense and piffle is getting stretched to the point where it’s complaining it can’t find anything new to pervert…

SIGH…. I don’t wish to complain, or seem like a whiner, but, it goes so well with the cheese plates! Oh, golly, no cheese plates? Boy, it’s getting hard to find good help these days; there were supposed to be cheese platters, with some savory crackers to go with, right there on the side table in the parlor, and, sure enough, there’s nothing there but some coffee, and a couple of stale croissants…. chocolate chip croissants, my absolute least favorite when stale…. (buttery golden flaky becomes crumbly greasy old baked flour, with stale chocolate chips….). It’s getting so I’m going to have to go back to a one-man operation, if I can’t find anyone with any common sense, some basic work ethics, and a memory longer than their nose….

Since there is no cheese, we can’t break out the whine, either….. Damn! Circumstances being as they are, it becomes a matter of critical importance to get this moving, requiring us (or, more accurately, ME….) to resort to another emergency method for getting past the intro section…. Hmm, which one shall we choose today?…. #4 is efficient, but we just used it last week, I think…. #7 always does the job, but the mess to clean up afterward is more than I want to deal with today…. We’ll have to go with #11, I guess, and just suffer the indignity that goes along with it….

Okay, ffolkes, since we’re using #11, I’ll have to ask you to fasten the extra set of restraints to your ankles and chest, and place the oxygen masks over your faces BEFORE we start to move, okay? Once the acceleration hits, G-forces won’t allow you to get it on, and the possibility of building up some significant brain-damage is high, if you don’t have that mask in place…. Everybody good to go? Okay, Captain Marty, fire that sucker up, & let’s go!….

Shall we Pearl?….

“We are the protagonists and authors of our own drama. It is up to us; there is no one left to blame. Neither the system, not our leaders, nor our parents. We can’t go out and hang the first amoeba.” — Rebecca McClen Novick

What is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place

— T.S.Eliot. ‘Ash Wednesday’ (1930)
_____________________________

My original thought for this section involved a rant, but, I changed my mind (you wouldn’t believe how many words I just saved you by summarizing that thought, from what it was to, “I changed my mind”…. we might have been stuck here for days….). I was going to rant about the religious hierarchies here, just because it’s their turn, and I’ve been giving them a break of late, with only one rant on Billy G. so far this year (I think… I do lose track easily….), and that one was a blast from the past, itself…. In trying to pull together my thoughts, and in searching for an opening quote to use as a springboard for the discussion, I just got tired….

Maybe I’m old, maybe I’m burnt out, maybe I’m just lazy…. Whatever it may be, I don’t care, and I’m going old-school, no matter what you say…. Not that anyone cares much, or anything like that, but, hey, a man’s got to stand his ground, right?…. Any who, I decided, since I’m so damn lazy, I may as well just put together an old-school, and be done with it….

Since it’s my blog, and I’m the “decider”, as Shrub Jr. used to say, repeatedly…. (as if the more times he said it, the better chance of ANYONE believing it….), that’s the way it’s going to be, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it….. Then again, why would they want to?…. Any who, here are some pearls, that might just save this from oblivion, or, at the least, from the Recycle Bin….

“A Senator, speaking of our current Vice President, whose name shall not be mentioned (we don’t like hate mail written in crayon!): “I think if you put his brain on the edge of a very fine razor, it would be like a BB, rolling down the middle of I-70.” — Smart Bee

“Faith is never identical with piety.” — Karl Barth

“As for the wealthy business owner and whether he ‘needs’ the extra dollars, I’ll simply relate the old adage of the man who said ‘I’ve never had my paycheck signed by a poor man’.” — Ron Paul (U. S. Representative from Texas, 2003)

“Give me a lever and place to stand and I will move the world.” — Archimedes (c. 287-212 B.C.), Pappus, Synagogue, VIII, 10, xi

“If the answer to crime was bigger prisons,and harsher sentences, then today the United States of America would be a Utopia.” — Canadian Justice Minister Allan Rock

“Administration maintains the status quo.” — Thomas L. Martin

Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?

— Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) — From Anacreon, ii, Drinking

On a scale of 10, this one scores about a 7 for obscurity…. that’s good, though, because the point, though subtle, is very sharp, and one should approach it with caution, as befits one so obscurely powerful in scope…. Or, conversely, it could all just be a figment of my own fevered imagination…. I’m afraid that’s been known to happen, too….
_____________________________

Today’s Pearl is one that I’m not sure of, on ANY level of judgment, so one of my poems will have to do, because I don’t want any of whatever backlash might be generated to splash on anyone else’s reputation….. or their clothing…. So, here is one from MY past efforts, such as it is…. Actually, this is one of my latest poems, created in October of last year, and is probably one of my best…. Again, such as that is….

After the odyssey….

Portraits of iconic symbols, crashing, singing, forgotten;
evolving into mature innovation, as yet pale, and rotten.
Still water justly breeds, impenetrable primal verses resound;
unholy moments tarry, emotion swirls in passion unbound

Spiritual ovulation precedes each pregnant pause;
gravid, time moves on, following destiny’s cause.
Cast adrift on waves of confusion, to a final, damp landing;
salvation beckons sweetly, fed well on understanding.

Dreams directly fall, in night’s grey bower, unbidden;
lingering flavors in simple taste, lovingly, cleverly hidden.
Childish laughter sounds, joyful, bright, and clear;
no need ever to hide, no more monsters to fear.

Temper most foul arrives under unregistered mail;
forgotten taunts live on, lashed by an ancient flail.
Plain dealing delivers such lasting specks of honest hate;
savage in retrospect, never hasty, always running late.

Forever, cries an ambient lover of the pending night;
his pale, weak issue forms its own failing light.
Still, fortune favors such as those who apprehend;
Sweet love of Gaia, let it never end.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Okay, so, the gun control issue in this country is one that is never going to go away, not as long as there are laws that give the common man the right to have them…. The Powers That Be get too nervous thinking about having so many weapons NOT under their direct control, and continue the campaign they’ve waged for the past 200 plus years to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least gut it enough, it has no power to protect….

This campaign will continue until either the guns are under the control of the Asininnies, or the world comes to an end, whichever comes first…. I’ve given my take on it previously, but, it bears repeating now and again, because if no one else does, the Asininnies need reminders that we still have the means to keep our own rights intact, and we are still alert to the efforts they make to take them away…. All of the following remains valid, and true to the best of my knowledge…..

From May 16, 2012:

“Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the _real_ object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” — Patrick Henry

Here is the question that those who would get rid of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution would like to convince us to ignore. There are a large number of people, otherwise nice, intelligent folks, who have decided that the American people shouldn’t have guns available to them. Because they’ve been indoctrinated to believe that they are incapable of protecting themselves from random violence, these weak-minded, cowardly individuals fall right in with whatever some pundit on TV says to play into those fears….

Their apparent justification is that too many criminals have access to more firepower than do the police forces in each community, while their preferred solution is to make it illegal for anyone except the police and armed forces to carry weapons of that nature. Hell, it’s already illegal to carry a knife longer than 3 inches, because the PTB are afraid someone might stab someone. GASP! You mean there are bad people out there? People who would be less than nice to everyone else? What a surprise!

In case it wasn’t clear, those last three sentences, or queries, should be infused with heavy sarcasm if read aloud. Sarcasm is one of my natural responses to being taken for a fool, especially when it comes to human nature. I have discovered a couple of things about human nature in my time on this planet, things that may come as a surprise to some, though I don’t see why…. All I’ve done is look around me, and see what there is to see….. Anyway, I have some news for those who want to deny the truth….

Humans are violent. Period. It is in their (OUR) nature. Anyone who cannot acknowledge that fact probably still believes in the tooth fairy, and is a sure candidate for early Alzheimer’s disease, because they have a very strong sense of denial. Guns are NOT going to go away; they just aren’t. Believing that banning the public from possessing them will stop violence from happening is the same sort of logic as refusing to breathe because there is smoke in the air….

The tendency for humans to react with violence to what they perceive, or experience, is a FACT; trying to deny it, or even trying to pretty it up, by calling it a “tendency” just makes those people who indulge in expressions of violence that much more dangerous, because it means there are so very many idiots, out there running around in the world by themselves, who are NOT EXPECTING the violence that can happen at any time,…. And yet, the scariest part of the whole gun issue for me is the insistence, on the part of the police, and those Asininnies who want the guns taken away from us, that THEY can be trusted to use their guns rationally, and ONLY with honorable intent….. They assure us these sterling characters, who wear the uniforms of the trusted myrmidon, will always act within the limits of law, whereas the general public cannot be trusted to do so….

Now, I will ask you to think about that for a moment…. Don’t hurt yourself, but try to hold those ideas in your mind without judgment for a moment or two…. Now, can you think of any historical period, or any culture anywhere in the world, that demonstrates any sort of support of that assertion? Has there ever been an entirely trustworthy group of policemen, or politicians, or generals, anywhere? If so, please name that group for me, and I will add that information into the discussion.

I feel compelled to warn you, however, I’m pretty widely-read, having studied world history and culture most of my life, if only informally part of the time…. Yet, for all my study over the years, I cannot think of a single time in history, up to and including today’s world, wherein the police, or the government that controls them, (This include the armies, who are merely police who serve nations rather than cities….), could be considered more trustworthy than the populace. In fact, most of history proves the exact opposite, with most records providing evidence that the mere act of becoming a politician, judge, or police officer tends to corrupt those who are accepted as such…. Having such positions in society is a form of power over others; as such, they are guaranteed to attract those who are drawn to power for its advantages.

No, I’m sorry, I can’t place any credence at all in the assumption that the police, or the government, should be considered trustworthy, much less to believe any of them, just because they are what they are, are MORE trustworthy than the average man…. I can’t do it, not when there is NO evidence anywhere, or any when, that would indicate any such thing. The facts of the matter, and the evidence of recorded history, provide innumerable examples to show how UN-trustworthy most police and political armies are, and trying to say otherwise tends to give me cause to place that person squarely in the camp of the unmitigated LIARS who are always looking for ways to take advantage of other folks.

Our country’s founding fathers spent their time, their energy, their blood, sweat, and tears to ensure that we would not have to put up with that sort of situation, and anyone who tries to get rid of the Second Amendment, for whatever reason they claim as justification, brands themselves a traitor, in my eyes…. I believe the law calls for traitors to be shot, if I am not mistaken….

“Wars kill people. Governments cause wars. Let’s ban government!” — Smart Bee

There, I’ve ranted…. gigoid has spoken. So be it….
_____________________________

I suppose this means there is hope for me yet…. I’ve finished, and in excellent time. How’d it come out? Dunno…. I’m not sure how, or why, but, not bad, not bad…. Good enough to get done, and be gone…. 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

Primarily, we rely on palliative measures, not prophylactic….

Posted on January 12, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Hey, you!”
“Yeah?”
“Pull over!”
“No, it’s a cardigan, but thanks for noticing!”

Though that line is probably about as old as the hills in County Wicklow, I think it’s cool…. I first heard it, or a remarkably similar version of it, of course, many, many moons ago, but, saw it again recently on the internet, as the accompanying text to a picture…. of what seemed to be very drunk baby…. Most likely wasn’t, (drunk, that is….), merely good timing with the camera, to catch the baby with the silly expression, smiling, with eyes half-mast, wearing a cardigan, while standing on a picnic bench, with a pint of Harp in front of him…. I crack up hard every time it rotates through on my screen saver….

Any who, now that the most simple of old jokes are becoming viral internet memes, once someone’s perverted sense of humor combines with some geek juice, (hard to resist Photoshop and babies….), it’s hard to know when or where some old piece comes from, or what it once meant…. Not that I care, or anything like that, but, sometimes I think about that kind of stuff…. Pretty boring, eh? SIGH…..

I do sometimes wonder about word origins, though, which really isn’t a boring subject…. for some. I forget my own love of words sometimes can make things interesting for me that others don’t see at all, but, hey, we all tend to become self-centered when it comes to our own preferences…. I mean, that’s why we call them “personal” preferences, right? Now I’m defending self-centered behavior, and we’re only two and bit of a paragraph into this mess…. What the hell happened in that short amount of time? How did I lose control so quickly?…. Who’s in charge here, anyway? Because it’s apparently not me….

It’s tough to be me, on days such as this…. I know there is a certain level of quality I expect from myself when I write, so, I really have very little choice about how to approach all of this…. It takes ALL of my focus and concentration to make it come out right, so, my inability to sit for long, due to the unfortunate intrusion of physical discomfort of one sort or another (back and/or joint pain, stiffness, gas or abdominal bloat, arthritic swelling, etc…. without even going into PTSD symptoms that may manifest at any time….) makes an ordeal out of getting these done each day….

It’s weird, too, because there is very little I can do EXCEPT sit…. walking causes pain and/or numbness after a short distance anyway, and trying to do ANYTHING such as cooking while standing turns my back into a mahogany, two-by-four piece ofhard wood, complete with concomitant levels of pain…. Attempting to do any sort of kitchen work, as I used to do when I was a chef, can put me in bed for a couple hours if I push it too hard past the very short limit that now exists for me…. I can bear no weight at the end of my arms without straining the lower back, and causing it to react poorly…. In short, I’m a mess…. I’m merely 63, but my back and skeleton is 85 or 90…. according to one doctor, anyway….

But, I’m not alone in any of this, and I’m not really complaining, other than as a side note to what I’m trying to say here…. Of course, we also need to remember about moments like this, when I come to the realization that this intro has reached a point of viability, and I don’t have to keep on rambling incoherently about nothing much, just to fill up space…. In looking over what is above, I can only shake my head in chagrin, offer my apologies, and extend my assurances that the rest of today’s Pearl will be different…. I won’t say it will be better, because that sort of value judgment must come from the Gentle Reader…. I just hope I can write something that won’t make me nauseous, or want to hide….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.” — Jane Wagner, _The Search For Intelligent Life In The Universe_ — [Performed by Lily Tomlin]
_____________________________

Below you will find, I hope, a pearl of virtual wisdom, random harlequin style…. I’m not setting any parameters for this one, since that seems to work pretty well for us…. My head is a bit off the exact center, and I’m having a bit of trouble connecting some of my neuronic pathways, because, hey, where are they?…. Nevertheless, we will continue, as I can use my new Acme Pathfinder to seek out new trails through the labyrinth of my mind; this should allow us to find our way, to somewhere in the vicinity of where we need to go, thus confounding the forces of evil that would keep us from our appointed tasks…. Or something like that….

“To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.” — Confucius

“Ignorance is not bliss — it’s oblivion.” — Phillip Wylie

“I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” — East African Proverb

“There is no difference between theory and practice in theory, but there is often a great deal of difference between theory and practice in practice.” — Chuck Reid

“Whenever doubt can be called into question, do so.” — Smart Bee

“We find it hard to believe that other people’s thoughts are as silly as our own.” — James Harvey Robinson

Not bad for pot luck, eh?…. Onward, with new enthusiasm… Oh, wait, that’s not enthusi…. what the hell IS that?…… EEEEUWWW!! Yuck…. Oh, well, see you at the next section…. I’ll catch up to y’all after I clean this off…. I have no idea where THAT came from…
_____________________________

Now that we’ve dealt with the obligatory episode of induced hallucination, let’s see if we can find a poem that won’t cause any real harm…. Better yet, lets go for something really good… Okay, here you go…. this fits that description exactly….. It’s a bit longer than is comfortable, perhaps, but, whoever said this would be easy?…. Not me….

On the Pulse of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveler, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot…
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours- your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

~~ Maya Angelou ~~

_____________________________

Perception is, perhaps, the most elementally intricate quality we possess as living creatures. Through the five-plus senses we bring to the process, we receive information from the universe that gives us what we require, in order to be able to interact with Reality, (another term for the Universe… for the purposes of this discussion, anyway….) in some sort of way that is meaningful to us.

This information comes to us in a variety of forms, and our minds must utilize the complex, yet subtle qualities of imagination, reason, logic, and all those mental functions that our minds have discovered to organize the information, functions whose etiology are basically unknown to us, as part of our basic nature. We don’t think about, or feel in any way, the process of seeing, or smelling, or touching, except in the context of the sense itself…. We just DO it….

Yet each sense is such that it works WITH all the others, in ways we don’t really understand, to give us the pictures in our heads that show us how our minds perceive the world outside us…. We, being the imaginative creatures we are, have evolved all sorts of ways to organize and utilize our perceptions, all of which are again connected (remember that complexity part…) to another facet of Reality, which is our motivation for what we do, an outgrowth of our judgments of what we perceive…. We perceive, we judge, we act on that judgment, all according to our basic outlook on life, and how we choose to accept, and use, what we perceive….

This subject, I know, is a bit esoteric for such a venue, but, I’m leading up to a point, which is this…. We all perceive the world differently, but, that doesn’t mean the world takes that into any account…. It’s one of our hardest lessons to accept when we are forced to admit that the Universe, in all its majestic glory, couldn’t give a tiny little crap for us, or for what we think of the way things are…. If we choose to interact with it in such a way that we are breaking the basic rules that everything works by, then we will have to pay the price, in the only way that the Universe uses to exact payment, to wit: extinction….

Now, given that, it seems to me that my ranting about all of this*** is a bit like that ant crawling up the elephant’s leg, with belligerent intentions…. In short, it’s not really a productive way to achieve whatever it is I’m trying to do, as I can see only one possible outcome, which, the odds, and logic, would tend to dictate doesn’t include any need for any worry on the part of the elephant….

All that is a long winded, pedantic way of saying that my rants, while satisfying on a personal level for the release they provide, are mostly a waste of breath, in a practical sense…. Nothing will change because I rant, in spite of the need for change being the whole purpose behind the rant…

The major part of that reason, I think, lies in the fact that I’m preaching to the choir…. None of the ffolkes, or folks, who read my blog, (with the possible exception of any bored NSA drones who may be assigned to do so merely because of my anti-government stance, shown by the use of key phrases indicating my opposition….), are in any position to make any of the changes themselves, even though many of them would be willing to do so, I think…. But, the people who inhabit the halls of our government in Washington, and in other capitols around the world, DON’T read my blog, nor do they agree with most of the things about which I rant….

Why is that, do you think? Why don’t the people who govern us agree with any of what I say in my rants? It’s all stuff that can be proven, and is certainly important enough to all of us to warrant discussion… But, they don’t agree… They have their own agendas, which don’t look like anything that anyone in the great unwashed masses could come up with, even though they supposedly represent US…. These are our representatives, ffolkes…. I found this short comment in an old Pearl, which I think sums up most of my point pretty well…..

(From May 12, 2012):

“Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?” — John Milton (1608-1674) — The History of England, Book iv

Did you ever wonder why a group of crows is called a congress? I didn’t. It makes perfect sense to me…. Dark, sinister looking creatures who act in odd ways, even for birds. Their behaviors tend to lean toward stealing shiny objects from wherever, or stealing the food of people or other animals and birds. When they speak, it is in a voice that grates on the ear like fingernails on a slate. In groups, they mill around, cackling and grumbling and jostling each other, until they all fly off to different areas to carry out whatever nefarious schemes they have hatched among themselves.

No, I have no problem envisioning a congress of crows; in fact, I believe they are in session, now, in Washington, D.C. …. Why, look! Here’s a list of them now!…..

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/01/10/congress-is-mostly-full-of-millionaires-but-who-are-the-richest/#19551101=0

Them’s some affluent crows, ain’t they?…. That’s what happens when any politician is given the keys to the treasury….. One last query…. Who gets to say how much money members of Congress get paid? Answer: They are authorized to set that themselves…. Okay, one more… Who authorized them? Why, they authorized that themselves, of course….

I’m tired now…. I’ve managed to spout off now about the Asininnies, or, at least, about the 545 of them who inhabit the top levels of OUR democratic bureaucracy, for a good, oh, thousand words or so, and once again, it will end up being read by those who mostly agree… (I’m making the assumption, reluctantly, but, with confidence, that if they DIDN’T agree, they’d leave a comment to say so…. I know MY Gentle Readers would do so….), so, I’m perfectly aware that no changes will happen because of what I’ve written….

I don’t feel any better, either, damn it!….. 😦

*** It must be noted that “all of this” should be understood to include: global warming, and the impending ecological disaster, overpopulation, criminality of the Asininnies, most especially the egregiously selfish actions of the Beloved Ruling Class, the Shadowy Corporate Masters, Snakeheads in general, (human predators…. pimps, slavers, pedophiles, and the ilk…), Priestly Hierarchies, and the Ignorant Paramilitary Myrmidons….. Oh, yes…. Also, on the rare occasion, we like to expose Shakespeare, and Pooh’s evil twin….
_____________________________

The afterglow that generally accompanies the completion of a Pearl just isn’t happening today…. Maybe if I just get on with the posting part, and stop fussing with this any more, I’ll start to feel a bit more in tune with Reality…. Can’t hurt, I guess…. See you tomorrow, ffolkes….

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

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

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Monthly Archives: January 2014

We’re all having Lorenzo do our taxes….

Tiny, torn pieces of once proud menu items….

One final set of twins to discombobulate….

Subject to random bourgeois scrutiny….

A very private Bozo in most respects….

Cosmic rays are scrambling our emotional states….

Seduced by the smell of onions….

Looks to be ’bout half-a-bubble off plumb….

Tattered remnants are all that remain….

Primarily, we rely on palliative measures, not prophylactic….

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