Ffolkes,
~~ Smart Bee ~~
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the Lagoon Nebula, an object with a deceptively tranquil name. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
The Lagoon Nebula
Image by the ESA/NASA Hubble Deep Space Telescope
Good morning…. Thanks to the machinations I’m compelled to use in order to get any sleep at all, I was up for almost three hours last night, (in the middle of the damn thing, at that!), then fell out so hard I overslept my usual time for posting…. SIGH…. So much for the best laid plans, eh? Ah well, it’s a good thing I had some time yesterday, & got the rant done then…. That saves almost half the available time, right there….
So, I’ll use my newest grand technique to explain myself, thus,
There, we have now regained at least a modicum of our dignity, while simultaneously saving a bunch of time…. It also, to my intense relief, reestablished to some degree my aplomb, without which I feel naked in public…. Ah, that’s better…. Okay, Luigi, hit it!….
Shall we Pearl?….
~~ Aristotle ~~
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Image from melauspartners.com via Google Images
To find a different mix for y’all, I went back several pages in the You Tube search, and found a perfect batch…. It’s advertised as over 3 hours of classical music for babies…. Probably better for them than anything but mother’s milk…. If the expression on that babies face is any indication, it’s pretty damn good, for sure….That would be my guess, anyway…. Enjoy!…
Classical Music for Babies
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Morning Muse
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
~~ Genesis 1:1 ~~
See, now, THERE! Right there! The very first time I heard that, as a child, I remember thinking to myself, “The beginning of what?” My second thought was, “Did anybody SEE that? Must’ve been cool.” Well, okay, the second one I just made up. But, the first one is still clear in my mind, and, still pretty thoroughly unanswered in any meaningful way, by anybody I know, or have heard about. Since then, of course, a number of other thoughts and comments have occurred to me at various moments, but, they’re mostly sarcastic, sardonic, or downright cruel, so, we’ll just go on…
The absolute uncertainty I perceived as inherent in the statement, clearly obvious to me even at that age, at that precise moment, was thus established in my mind as the prevailing tenor of all such proclamations, before those telling it to me could reinforce it as something I was supposed to accept as true…. I believe this revelation, which occurred at the age of about 4 or 5, if I recall correctly, is primarily responsible for having saved me from so much of the anguish and trouble I observe in so many of my peers…. In short, it set off my crap detector, and, I listened…
In the intervening 60 years, I’ve made a fairly wide, thorough study of religion(s), as much as possible for an overly literate layman. Whether my conclusions based on my studies are correct, or not, is for me to decide; y’all can make up your own, if you’ve a mind to (Little joke there….) I guess it’s obvious by now, I’m going to tell you some of those conclusions…. See how sharp y’all are?….
It seems to me, from all my studies, the only reasonable conclusion I can make, basing my reason on my extensive reading, is this: all the major religions were created…. They are all just fabulous stories, thought up by unscrupulous sociopaths, more interested in other people’s morals than their own (or, possessing an even greater measure of fear of Life than the average insane person…), who wished to manipulate the others of our species, who were also too afraid of life to face it directly.
All they saw around them, this large, terrifying, UNKNOWN universe, full of strange noises and powerful elements they did not comprehend, caused them to retreat in fear into their own minds, rather than screwing up their courage to go out into the world, to try to find out what it all meant, or how it worked, and, most importantly, to understand, and to see what else there was to see…. It’s easy to give in to fear like that; I know it, you know it. We’ve all felt fear at the unknown… But, one has to make a choice, to face it like a human, with curiosity, and courage, or, like a sub-human, running for his mama back in the cave….
Rather than THINK about what they heard, and about what they saw, these unfortunates, many of whom were brainwashed before they had a real chance to learn how to reason, accepted the first thing they heard to explain what they feared, the first one to offer surcease, most often hearing this from a person who had been brainwashed the same way at the same age, never questioning what they were told, thus removing from them any responsibility to ever make up their own minds about anything.
It’s a harsh reality about Reality; once one gives away their right, or willingness to make their own personal decisions about what to believe, one may as well fasten a slave’s collar around their own neck, willingly…. Better yet, through the nose, for that is how they’ll be led around for the rest of their lives. The saddest part of this is that such people will never break free, for, to do so, they would have to give up believing what they’ve always held to be true…. and, we already know how they feel about facing their fears. They’d have to first admit they were wrong, then decide to do what they’ve NEVER done…. which is to have the courage to take responsibility for their own actions….
It’s a tough world out there; I think it’s really too bad so many ffolkes have such a hard time with a) understanding what they perceive, and b) understanding themselves…. I find it sad, that so many people miss out on most of the real beauty in life, which comes from connecting with that understanding, and making it connect yet again to the real world…. Believe me, the rewards are much greater, and much more tangible than promises of immortality one cannot help but disdain; immortality is not just an Illusion, it is also Reality…. Two sides, one coin, ffolkes…. No God needed…. Actually, I just thought of a way you can see God, right now…. Go into the bathroom, turn on the light, and, look in the mirror…. There you go….
Hah! Gotcha! The funny thing is… you think it was a joke, when, in fact, it’s the absolute gospel truth…. Dig it.
Gosh, look, ffolkes! It’s a pearl, without any pearls…. I guess we’ll have to fix that before we get to today’s poetry section, which I think you’ll find says much the same as I just spouted off, but, in a slightly different scansion….
First, let’s see what SB has to say about this subject…. Usually, when I ask for this, I have to be picky…. we’ll see….
“Let’s leave religion to the televangelists. After all, they’re the professionals.” — Smart Bee
“John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he temporarily died to save it from himself. But none of that really matters because most people will be tortured for eternity anyways.” — Matt Miller
“If you follow the flock, you step in shit!” — Darkwisdom
“Anyone who can’t laugh at himself is taking life too seriously for my taste.” — Smart Bee
“Things don’t bug you if you don’t think about them.” — Calvin
(Think about it….)
“The common dogma [of fundamentalists] is fear of modern knowledge, inability to cope with the fast change in a scientific-technological society, and the real breakdown in apparent moral order in recent years That is why hate is the major fuel, fear is the cement of the movement, and superstitious ignorance is the best defence against the dangerous new knowledge. When you bring up arguments that cast serious doubts on their cherished beliefs you are not simply making a rhetorical point, you are threatening their whole Universe and their immortality. That provokes anger and quite frequently violence.” — G. Gaia
“It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it’s a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.” — Voltaire
“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.” — Stanley Milgram
“Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth — but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”
Okay, nine is probably enough…. However, I couldn’t resist two last thoughts provided by SB’s largess in this subject; one is a question I’m fond of asking priests/preachers, the other is my usual response to those twenty-two year old ‘elders’ the LDS bozos send around to my door…. I promise, then, I’m done with this…. for today.
For the priests, when they ask me if I believe in God….
~~ Janeane Garofolo ~~
And, for the traveling side-show carnies, when they ask me, “Have you been saved?”….
~~ Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM ~~
Naturally, as soon as I considered this done, Smart Bee presents me with the absolutely perfect pearl to finish off this religirant….
Hobbes: “Nah.”
Calvin: “Oh, I do.”
Hobbes: “Really? How come?”
Calvin: “Life’s a lot more fun when you’re not responsible for your actions.”
— “Calvin and Hobbes,” Bill Watterson
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Rejection
For the Bible tells me so…”
I’d be crying a river, I thought
if ever such crap I bought.
Sorry if it hurts your sense of style,
but, hypocrisy always gives me bile.
Being lied to accidentally is okay,
but, deliberate lies make me angry, and fey.
Oh, God, hear what I pray!
Keep me from your followers today.
Having to listen to so much that is wrong
makes me puke, before it makes me strong.
I don’t know why it isn’t clear to other folks,
which is alright, you know, different strokes.
But, why should that mean that they must
force me to believe, or fail in trust?
Spare me the lies, and the make-believe,
fairy tales are easier to hear, and to weave.
They give us a lesson which we can feel
but don’t pretend at all to be real.
Reality can scare us, that’s a given fact,
still, met with care it will leave us mostly intact.
Met without fear, standing tall and alone
Life will allow us to make it our own.
Folly beckons, and so many follow
mass delusions seem to me most hollow.
I’ll have to stick to my own chosen way
while so many go so sadly astray.
It’s lonely at times, it may seem sad,
but really isn’t, and I’m quite glad,
that knowledge is always stronger than fear,
year after year, tear after tear…..
~~ gigoid ~~
Written 3/18/2013.
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Today’s final old-school pearl is a true nine-star gem, with some really good ideas of how to live Life, not just in a way that brings honor, and peace of mind, but, with also with Love, and respect for Life’s other side…. Death…. Enjoy!….
“When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.” — Chinese Proverb
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” — Robert A. Heinlein
“A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.” — Buddha
“After the verb “to love,” “to help” is the most beautiful verb in the world.” — Baroness Bertha von Suttner
“One kind word can warm three winter months.” — Japanese proverb
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” — Lao-Tzu
“Don’t SAY things. What you ARE stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
— Social Aims
“After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” — Albus Dumbledore, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
They give a man a taste for death.”
~~ Housman ~~
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Not too shabby for panic mode… I hate being late, as I’ve related previously, so, I’m happy to have (apparently) saved this Pearl from the shit pile… Oh, sorry, too gross for this early…. Ah well, chalk it up to a bit of left-over curmudgeonry, from arising late…. Hey, nobody’s bleeding, or missing any major body parts, right? All is well, then. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, as long as I continue to elude the authorities….
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch
À bientôt, mon cherí….
gigoid 
Eagerly awaiting the next great adventure in an entirely new planet😀
Me, too… all I have to do is live long enough…. We’ve been dragging our feet on the way to the stars….
Glad you enjoyed today’s mess….
gigoid
Christ is coming…..(pause here for that to sink in)……..and boy is he PISSED!
Morning my friend…..good post today…..sleep is over rated….LOL chuq
😆
Easy for YOU to say; you’ve been doing it for years…. I just started this a couple months ago…. and, boy am I PISSED about it, as there’s no goddamn reason for me to be going through any of it, but for the ignorance and cowardice of my doctors….
SIGH… I often wish for the blissfulness of ignorance but, alas….
gigoid
I understand…….my grandfather use to say……..”when you think you are smarter than everyone else…..time to eat a bullet”…….
I wish I could sit back and let ignorance run rampant…..but alas I would “eat a bullet” at that point…..chuq
Aye, I’ve been thinking of late, it’s about time to admit H.L. Mencken was right, and our time has come…
“There comes a time in every man’s life when he must hoist the Black Flag, roll up his sleeves, and start cutting throats.”
gigoid
I agree……..
Hello Yee Old Men……lol
Just listen to you 😉
Sigh…
I have to commend you Lord Gigoid…grin
Having rolled it was very profound….double grin de oreja a oreja
Also my 2 fave photos
Not to forget the rest….
Aren’t I a lucky girl ?
You must be…. 😉
Which makes three of us… lucky, that is… I’ll leave the girl part to you…
😈
Hahahaha well said…..
How do you know I am a ‘girl’………
I cld do gender bender….
Multi talented……grin
Also true enough; I’ll take me chances…
Remember the bar scene in NYC in the movie “Crocodile Dundee”?
Got a talent or two meself…
*sly grin*
Idiot! 🙂
“Aren’t I, though?” — Peter Wimsey, Have His Carcase, by Dorothy L. Sayers…
Said in response to Harriet Vane, who had said to him, “Oh, Peter! What an idiot you are!”….
😉
Do you eva shut up? grin 😉
Well, obviously, to answer at all is to enter the realm of irony, so,
No.
Yes.
Sometimes…
🙂
Reblogged this on gigoid and commented:
Ffolkes,
Day before yesterday was St. Paddy’s Day, as most will remember. Personally, my memories of the day are a bit fuzzy, which is not surprising, given my consumption of a significant amount of Jameson’s finest, with a Guinness or five as chasers. Suffice to say, yesterday was NO fun at all, & today, I find myself still a bit under the weather…. Ah, well, such is the price we pay for our foolishness…
It’s probably also not a surprise, therefore, to note I haven’t worked on a fresh Pearl yet…. (though the new poem did grow a couple new stanzas…). Since I’ll again be hanging about here at the house, trying to recover some physical equilibrium, I’ll try to work on getting one ready for posting in the relatively near future. Maybe, if I can, a few of my Gentle Readers will return to read it…. As we have previously noted, hope springs eternal….
Meanwhile, be well, be happy, and be strange…. all are of more importance than you may know…. I’ll be back, as soon as is feasible….
See ya soon, ffolkes….
gigoid, the dubious
😎
“Friends are the flowers in the garden of life.”
~~ Smart Bee ~~
As Long as they are Fed and Watered..:)
“Education is the best provision for old age.”
~~ Aristotle ~~
As LonG aS Emotional Physical InTeLLigences coMe FirsTNoW..:)
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
~~ Genesis 1:1 ~~
As LonG aS ALWayS NoW..:)
“Let’s leave religion to the televangelists. After all, they’re the professionals.”
— Smart Bee
Like Medicine.. Religion is a Practice..:)
“John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he temporarily
died to save it from himself. But none of that really matters
because most people will be tortured for eternity anyways.”
— Matt Miller
Hmm.. Looks Like God is sTiLL PraCTiCinG As HuMaN…:)
“If you follow the flock, you step in shit!”
— Darkwisdom
True buTT iF one MoVeS A HeaD one STiLL SHits..;)
“Anyone who can’t laugh at himself is taking life too seriously for my taste.”
— Smart Bee
Joy of Stepping iN Sheep Shit EnJoYinG A Slide..:)
“Things don’t bug you if you don’t think about them.”
— Calvin
Computers With Bugs
Dancers With Feet
“The common dogma [of fundamentalists] is fear of modern knowledge, inability to cope with the fast change in a scientific-technological society, and the real breakdown in apparent moral order in recent years That is why hate is the major fuel, fear is the cement of the movement, and superstitious ignorance is the best defence against the dangerous new knowledge. When you bring up arguments that cast serious doubts on their cherished beliefs you are not simply making a rhetorical point, you are threatening their whole Universe and their immortality. That provokes anger and quite frequently violence.”
— G. Gaia
IroNiCaLLy
RaGE aGainST
A Machine For Stories at Hand..:)
“It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it’s a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.”
— Voltaire
Humans Without Shadows
God With Clothes
Putting Lip
Stick
On
Pigs
God Lies
HuMaN MaDE CLoTHeS..:)
“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility
is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”
— Stanley Milgram
Boats With Oars Sails And Motors..
Boats For Sale..:)
“Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth
— but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.”
— Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”
ActuAlly An Original Greek Definition of Meek Means STiLL..
Those Real Men And Or WoMeN Who Are Strong Enough For
No Thing to Prove
iN OTHeR Words.. ‘the’ ‘Anti-Trumps’..
And for all Practical Intents and Purposes of Language
“Jesus” is just another Anonymous Greek Dude iN Rome..:)
“Is being an idiot like being high all the time?”
~~ Janeane Garofolo ~~
No KNoWinG
Be Water
Be Air
JusT
Be WHaTEVeR
‘They’ CaLL iT NOW..:)
“Bite off, dirtball.”
~~ Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM ~~
iNHeRiT aN EartH..:)
Calvin: “Do you believe our destinies are determined by the stars?”
Hobbes: “Nah.”
Calvin: “Oh, I do.”
Hobbes: “Really? How come?”
Calvin: “Life’s a lot more fun when you’re not responsible for your actions.”
— “Calvin and Hobbes,” Bill Watterson
Dance Comes iT JusT CoMeS NoW..:)
“When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.”
— Chinese Proverb
No Break ‘Tween HandS anD SPRouTSinG
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another
person is essential to your own.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
UnBReaKaBLELoVE
“A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections
and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a
secret of hidden treasure.”
— Buddha
Unless one is an Introvert and the other is an Extrovert
Before Folks underStanD what Cognitive Empathy is outside
‘tHeir CuLTuRE’..:)
“After the verb “to love,” “to help” is the most beautiful verb in the world.”
— Baroness Bertha von Suttner
HeLP
LoVeS
HeLP
“One kind word can warm three winter months.”
— Japanese proverb
SMiLeS
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t
compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”
— Lao-Tzu
Hehe.. i’d Rather Be Complex..
Respect or not..
SiMpLY is not For EverYone..:)
“Don’t SAY things. What you ARE stands over you the while,
and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
— Social Aims
Hehe.. i Don’T
GiVEAFucK
i JusT
Do
Do NoW..:)
“After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
— Albus Dumbledore, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Those wHo EmBracE Chaos as Art ‘Are’ Ready For Chaos as ArT AGain.. FoRNoW..:)
“There’s this to say for blood and breath,
They give a man a taste for death.”
~~ Housman ~~
DeatHJusT
PutS aN
ELLiPSeoN
CHaoS ArT aS
PaRaDiSE NoW..:)