Pending legislation will prohibit affordable pants….

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Ffolkes,

“Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.”

~~ G. K. Chesterton ~~

—  Illustrated London News, 9-30-33 —

8-5-14-rose-jpeg

    Upon opening my eyes, my first thought, appropriately enough, was, “Wow. It isn’t every day you wake up to a large, scaly, bright green gecko sitting in a chair by your window!” Then, I thought “Uh oh…. he looks pretty pissed.” So, naturally, I said, “Did you bribe the damn concierge again?”, thinking to put him at an immediate disadvantage by accusing him before he could say anything….

I should have known it wouldn’t work; not with THIS gecko…. “Why should I do that, when I can just pick the lock?”, he noted with what passed for an eyebrow raised high enough, it almost disappeared over the dome of his forehead; fortunately, this, I knew, indicated he was pissed, but, still amused by me…. I decided to work that, instead, so, I countered, “Some would consider it a faux pas to pick the lock on the hotel room of a sleeping guest, you know.” “I don’t speak French,” he noted, then, grinned evilly. “But, I know some French geckos…. they’re dead now…..”

Okay, that’s enough of that…. It’s way too early for so many bad jokes at one sitting… I don’t know what prompted ANY of that. When I sat down to type, I noted my right thumb, besides being about twice or three times as stiff as usual, with a concomitant degree of pain as a bonus, was actually a good 10-15% bigger than my left thumb, which is sort of cool, as it balances out the loss of function, and increased arthritic pain in the left hip and shoulder….

So, any who, all that, annoying as it is, coming so early, isn’t really the problem… the problem is trying to find words that are composed of, oh, I’d say about 65%, of letters from the left side of my QWERTY keyboard, so I could balance out the typing, giving the right hand a little less work, thus, able to last longer…. If you think it’s easy, you try it…. I’ve been at this for, what, two and half paragraphs, and I’m exhausted…. Sheesh…

Most of the words we have in English, flexible as it is about spellings and meanings, are composed of a relatively even balance of letters (the actual percentages of use for each one, you will find, closely resemble those percentages used by a set of Scrabble letters; the relative scores for each letter are based on those percentages….). Finding those with an unbalanced distribution isn’t as easy as it may sound, believe me…. It’s a lot like trying to get toothpaste back into the tube after it’s out…. not in what is done, but, in how frigging frustrating it can be…

Okay, so, what do you think? Have I crammed enough odd shit into one intro for one day? Have I offended anybody? Have you laughed, cried, or shaken your head in either disgust, or disbelief? Were you afraid of the gecko? If not, why not? Have you picked your nose? These are the things that I need to know, if I’m to come anywhere near to how today’s post should end up, wherever that may be….. Okay, well, you can keep what you’re doing with your nose to yourself….

It’s not as if we need any actual maps, but, any metadata at all can help us to find the quickest, if not the simplest, path to our goal…. Of course, I realize, it might be of some help if I would make some attempt to come even a little closer to Reality to some degree…. I’ve been a good distance away from it all morning, thus far….. and, actually, I’m quite proud of that….

I mean, here I am, sitting here, almost completely able to ignore a level of pain most folks, even some ffolkes, would be unable to tolerate at all, and, still able to type, albeit with some strain, and a rise in BP that goes with such stress…. I know, it’s bogus, but, whattyagonnado when it’s age-related? Get younger? Not happening, so, I just push through it the best I can…. which, at the present moment, is about to come to a crashing halt, so the feeling in my left hand can come back to normal…. Fun, eh?….

Okay, we’re good to go, for the time being…. thank goodness for magic cream! That being the case, I think this intro couldn’t possibly take any more, so, we’ll let it die a relatively peaceful death, and get on with the rest of this mess, with a small alteration in the plans, made necessary by ARPID. (Nothing to do with the Association of Retired Persons, except peripherally, in that both are annoying, and both age related….) ARPID is, of course, Age Related Physical Issues, Dammit….. If I go any further into that, we’d be entering TMI territory, so, we’ll just leave it at that….

Shall we Pearl?

“He is nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent.” — Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC), attributed

Oops…. good thing I’m not religious at all, isn’t it?…..

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

Why are many scientists using lawyers for medical experiments instead of rats?

a)  There are more lawyers than rats.

b)  The scientist’s don’t become as emotionally attached to them.

c)  There are some things that even rats won’t do for money.

— Smart Bee

I am compelled to confess, in my life, I have actually met two people, who were/are both lawyers, for whom I do have a significant degree of respect and affection. Of course, one of them I met while still in law school, and his own sense of honor and self-worth caused him years of discomfort until he gave it up to teach…

The other one is, quite simply, a shark, who found a sublimation for his less than stellar urges, by using his predatory instincts, and ruthlessness, to help people injured while working, to get the services and help they need to continue to live, and support their families, in spite of not being able to work, potentially for the rest of their lives….

As far as I can tell, two, out of the hundreds I’ve met over the years, is a fairly accurate representation of the actual percentage of lawyers who have even a shred of compassion for others, or perform the work they do out of a sense of altruism or common feeling…. The majority of them, by far, are predatory, ambitious, avaricious, convinced of their own superiority, (most often, without any evidence for any such belief….), and, far too often, completely amoral…. which is why so fucking many of them ultimately end up as politicians…. For the greater percentage of those I’ve met, or heard of, their primary motivation is either money, or power (control over others….)….

Those qualities, when paired with politics, are a match made in heaven, as the function of government lends itself perfectly to the type of person who NEEDS to control others. Whether they do so primarily for the power, or for the money, is immaterial to the final result, which gives them the means to fulfill their compulsion to steal, and cheat, and perform ANY act, if it furthers their agenda…. without the need to use a device such as “billable hours” to cover their theft…. Taxes work fine for that….

“How can you tell the difference between a dead lawyer and a dead snake on the road? There are skid marks leading up to the snake.” — a joke I heard in high school, in 1966, or so….

I started this rant yesterday, in reaction to the shock I felt on coming across the opening salvo from Smart Bee…. and, now, this morning, find myself unable to finish it properly, as I can’t type too well just now…. So, we’ll go into SB, to find the makings for a pearl that will provide me with sufficient sublimation of my need to express outrage at a section of society, one that well deserves any abuse we heap upon it….

How else to explain the sheer ubiquitousness of lawyer jokes in our culture, or their historical presence for so long? A new one springs up each day, it seems, in response to all the pain and misery in society, for which the actions of lawyers bear responsibility…. Let’s see if we can find some sharp sticks to poke them with, okay?…..

“Am I accompanied by a PARENT or GUARDIAN?” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.” — Eric Hoffer, THE PASSIONATE STATE OF MIND (1955)

And the Lord said, “Thou shalt not leave hairs unsplit.” — Holy Bible, Clarence Darrow version

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” — Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve.” — Pope

“When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.” — Anais Nin

(Aha! Now we know why so many lawyers have that sallow, pasty look, like they never get outside to play….)

“If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I always know when Smart Bee is having fun with a pearl; it starts and ends with an appropriate note from Zippy…. I don’t know about y’all, but, I enjoyed that….. and, it didn’t generate a single billable hour!…. Bonus!

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

This poem has been one of my favorites, of its type, for all the years since I first read it, long before starting this blog….

First posted on 9/4/2012:

A Smile To Remember

we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, ‘be happy Henry!’
and she was right: it’s better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn’t
understand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: ‘Henry, smile!
why don’t you ever smile?’

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on the water, on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

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Since today’s poem came from the post of exactly two years ago, why not do it again?… It WAS a very good Pearl…. If you recall, I used another piece of it yesterday, as well…. I didn’t realize how well it would fit in with today’s theme, until just now… It’s perfect, actually, as it also mimics the life cycle of a lawyer, from pupae (law student), to caterpillar (lawyers who have passed the bar), to butterfly (politician)…. Perfect!….

From 9/4/2012:

So there I am, cruising along in the database, and all these little pieces of observational excellence from Smart Bee keep popping up in my face. I figure that he (Smart Bee) must have something he wants to get across to the readership out there; who am I to argue? If I don’t do this, I could spend years trying to find a new quote there…. Smart Bee is very insistent when he gets a wild hair like this…. So, just follow the bouncing thought ball to the conclusion that is most obvious….

Sex! Lies! Drugs! Money! Power! Corruption! Man, I love Congress! — Smart Bee

Gun Control – the belief that government, with its great wisdom and moral superiority, can be trusted with a monopoly on deadly force. — Smart Bee

It has been determined that most teenage girls lose their virginity during the summer months.  This stands to reason, since Congress is recessed at that time. — Smart Bee

Vote Democrat. It’s easier than thinking. — Smart Bee

Vote Republican. It’s easier than thinking. — Smart Bee (honest, both are in there….)

Congressional National Bank. Ours bounce higher and farther! — Smart Bee

“Crime does not pay … as well as politics.” — Alfred E. Newman

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I forgot to mention: today’s picture is from the web site of Carol Welsh (link: http://radiatingblossom.wordpress.com/ ); on her site she posts poetry, quotes, and other forms of literary beauty, as well as pictures she creates of flowers…. Her photos are the cleanest, clearest, most gorgeous studies of single flowers I’ve ever seen… With her kind permission, I have copied literally hundreds of her photos, all of which became part of the slide show I use as my desktop background, and for my screen saver… each one is yet another example of her keen eye for, and appreciation of, great beauty, in nature, and in life…. And, her photos are my quest, to produce even ONE photo that is as beautiful as any one of hers….

Well! That turned out well, for such an effortful missive…. I’m feeling better, now, a little bit, having pushed through all the obstacles to completing this; no less pain, at the moment, but, now that I’ll stop typing for a while, it’ll calm down…. I’ll be able to apply a few ounces of magic cream to strategic spots around my skeleton, and find a little peace for a time… I hope you enjoy today’s post; it cost me a little more than usual, but, still came out alright…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, come hell or high water….

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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

 

dozer3

Kowabunga


No sweet sorrow today for YOU, slick Willie….

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Ffolkes,

Tidal windstorm
Splits trees and rock,
Yet cannot last a day.
So much less, man’s work.

 — Deng Ming-Dao

not merely weather

    Have you seen this photo? By now, it’s all over the web…. I found it in the Week In Pictures feature, London Daily Telegraph, for the week of 8/29/2014. Taken by one Kristjan Madalvee; he shot this at the port of Vergi, one hour from his home in Talinn, the capital of Estonia….. Where the fuck is Estonia? Brilliant fucking shot, regardless of where it is…. So good, it almost, almost, puts the lie to the quote above it, from the Taoist master, Sifu Deng…. If naught else, the photo shows that we, as humans, with a sense of wonder and beauty, can appreciate that which we cannot fully comprehend, or emulate by the power of our will…

Sounds pretty highfalutin, doesn’t it? Even more amazing, that word, “highfalutin” IS IN MY SPELL CHECKER DICTIONARY! Wow…. I’ll have to use more words from the period and genre it came from…. not bad….. Any who, it’s a bit early, anyway, to start with such a deep, potentially controversial subject, so, we’ll just wander somewhere else in my head, to find a bit more amenable, or, at least, more malleable idea to play with for now….

Hmm…. this looks like an interesting corridor; let’s see what’s down here… Oh, my…. look at that. Over there, against the wall…. Do you see it? Aw, isn’t it cute? It’s a little haiku, missing the last two syllables, just waiting for us to find, so it can fulfill its destiny…. We’ll send it down to section two, where it can go on public display, once I finish it off…. Well, that was nice, eh? I don’t often get so lucky when looking for poems; usually they create such a turmoil inside me, it’s a vicious battle, with lots of attendant blood loss, to get them all the way out of my head…. so, this was a rather more pleasant way to find something I can use for that…. Bonus!

Serendipity seems to be hanging around today, so, I’m going to take advantage of that, and jump into today’s dive for interesting stuff to chew on, or look at, or just feel…. I have a feeling myself, that it could turn out pretty well, according to our usual loose standards, anyway…. I think, in fact, we’ll take the upcoming opportunity I see, right there at the end of this paragraph, to dive right into the day’s search…. Okay, almost there…. wait…. wait for it…. okay, NOW!….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Ignorance can be cured.  Stupid is forever.” — Smart Bee, being logical again….

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

“It is up with you; all is over; you are ruined.” — Terence (185-159 BC) — Act i, Sc. 1, 9, (54.)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/US-military-targets-Islamic-extremists-in-Somalia-5727512.php

Oh… why, look there! It’s us, bombing people again, without a declaration of war from Congress. I don’t know about you, but, I’m getting more than just a little perturbed, not to say infuriated, by the American public’s acceptance of these completely illegal (under our own laws….), immoral, unethical, and fucking useless in any humanitarian, or practical respect, completely unwarranted attacks, on whomever we decide is a threat to our…… our what? What were these, no doubt, evil people doing that threatened us, here in our big houses, across the big ocean, with our big airplanes ready to bomb anyone foolish enough to annoy our corporate masters?….

Oh, right, didn’t I mention? I have no doubt whatsoever that, whomever we’re bombing now, if we examine the expressed reasoning closely, we will find that, somehow, in some way, these people were disrupting the smooth flow of money into the coffers of one, or more, of our corporate masters, er, patriotic businesses… It wouldn’t be supportive of the government to NOT protect the interests of those paying for the bombs, now would it? Of course not…. Naturally, since it costs about $75 million/day to bomb them, at least the arms makers are showing a good profit, yes?….

Did you detect just a little smarmy disdain in the above? If you did, you got it; if not, you’re not paying attention… Not unsurprising, given the brainwashing from which most Americans suffer; the media has helped the Beloved Ruling Class, and their employers, the corporate snakeheads, to spread their manipulations and distractions… oh, hell, let’s just call them what they are…. the lies they use on a regular basis, to distract the public from examining any true facts of what they’re up to, to manipulate the public and the media into believing those lies, as well as believing the other lies they tell, just because they can’t help themselves… just as if it were true, or legal, or had anything to do with helping the common man….

“I wish everybody would have to have an electric thing implanted in our heads that gave us a shock whenever we did something to disobey the president.  Then somehow I get myself elected president.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

Hmm… the New American Dream, I’d say…. already half-true….

You may be certain of this… whatever spun-sugar the administration, which (who?) ordered and carried out this bombing, (An act which, again, was initiated without informing either Congress, or the public, anything about it beforehand….), in their Olympian fashion, deigns to tell us in this instance, about why we must bomb the Somalians, whatever THEY are up to, (oh, right… the article explains, they are “extremists”…), will NOT be anything resembling the actual truth, or anything that would help to resolve any real issues…. It will merely be whatever their information spin doctors have told them will fool the public into backing them, and fool the media into reporting all of it as if it were legitimate in any respect…. Count on it….

“The NY Times is read by the people who run the country.  The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.   The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country…” — Robert J Woodhead

You may also count on the fact that, most likely, this is all about somebody’s profit line, and protecting a small group of “corporate persons”, aka “the men who would be kings”, who tend to feel that the money flowing into their pockets is theirs by right of entitlement; they firmly believe they are entitled to make a profit, no matter the cost to anyone else… Accept that, believe that, and you’ll have made a start, at finding out the actual truth behind most of what our government does, in any situation that comes to the attention of the public, and the media…. It’s all about covering the corporate ass, you betcha….

Now, you may think I’m being an obsessive conspiracy-monger, but, I doubt that, seriously. I don’t think it is a conspiracy; it’s simply the way it is…. The assholes to whom I refer are the same assholes who have had this country, and, for that matter, the world, in a stranglehold since the dawn of the concept of money…. They are just men, canny, strongly self-centered, and completely amoral, who have made it their habit, and lifestyle, for millennia, to take advantage of the way the system works, which is exactly how they have arranged it to work, with them as the only people in a position to control the whole shebang, from the shadows, where they are safe from those upon whom they prey….

Now, the system has grown to be so ponderous, so huge and unmanageable, that, while still protecting their identities by the very size of the system, it’s getting away from them a bit; a lot of information is now floating around out there on the Web they would rather stuff back into the box…But, sadly, not enough, yet, to make a difference in how things work, or, to change where we are headed, as a direct result of the insane machinations of mankind’s most amoral members… It may be too late altogether, to prevent their deliberate perpetration of the inequities they’ve built into our culture from leading all of us, them included, down that path followed already by so many failed species that have lived, and died, on this ball of mud over the last few epochs, since life began here on Earth….

I have a suspicion that we Humans won’t make much more of a splash, or have any more effect on reality, than did the passing of the Dodo, when Homo horriblus’s (our) voracious appetite for destructive insanity, and our failure to live up to our potential , led us to killing the last of the defenseless birds, just a couple hundred, or so, years ago…. When we have, in our turn, passed into memory, the Earth will, with a resigned sigh, in sorrow for the potential beauty that will never be, shrug its mountainous shoulders, shift around some basic elements, and begin the long slow process of healing the wounds we will have left behind us, in the final cataclysmic throes of our death-song…..

“As Caesar was at supper the discourse was of death, -which sort was the best. “That,” said he, “which is unexpected.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Caesar

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We’re in luck; but, then, you already knew that, as long as you read the intro section today…. Here is the haiku we found while wandering the back corridors of my mind…. along with another haiku, which I found, down another corridor I had entered, in trying to find the way back to the bus….

I love haiku, most likely because they are the only poems that don’t cause me any pain to write… In fact, I always enjoy the process with them…. It’s a bit like building myself a sundae, choosing the right ice cream, the right syrup…. and, with haiku, I can still eat the peanuts!… Yay! Here are the two for today…. Another reason to like haiku, in relation to the rest of this blog…. they aren’t long at all…. makes a nice contrast, doesn’t it? Enjoy!….

Luck at dawn

Swiftly, words float up
to the surface of my mind.
Serendipity.

~~ gigoid ~~

Sailing to Babel

Memory pulls hard
on reality’s anchor.
Anchor’s away, mate!

~~ gigoid ~~

Ah, hell, one more, just because I can….

Uncertainty

Save for the last time,
this time would be the first time.
Maybe, maybe not.

~~ gigoid, dubiously ~~


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The Pearl that was posted on tomorrow’s date two years ago, in 2012, was a very good Pearl…. In that post, there was an excellent photo, found on Facebook, that I thought was hilarious…. I had posted it a week or so previously, then challenged my readers to come up with their own captions… This time, I know how to include their links, to the blog sites they have, all of which are well worth a visit, or many….. Enjoy!…..

From 9/4/2012:

I have collected the captions submitted by readers, and they all are so good, I’ve decided to list them all…. or most of them…. some were submitted by ffolkes with a strange look in their eyes; those were deemed inappropriate for a general audience, and were left out. Actually, I burned them, as the mental equivalent to toxic waste….. But, these are funny…..

bird & mad cat

“So what if they say we’re a strange couple! Just ’cause we like different food doesn’t mean we can’t eat from the same table….”  ~~ Carolyn of ABCSpirittalk  

Link: http://abcofspiritalk.net/

“I’m sorry, how was I to know it was a gay bar. ” ~~ Willowdot21  

Link: http://willowdot21.wordpress.com/

“Ned’s friend, Murphy, has struck again… in the form of a feathered companion. ”  ~~ Carol Welsh 

Link: http://radiatingblossom.wordpress.com/

“Cat, are you sure we’re going about this the right way? I distinctly remember the saying being ‘as the crow flies’, not ‘as the cat,walks’.! ~~ odie mama  

Link: http://eyesofodysseus.wordpress.com/

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Some days, when blogging every day like this, it is necessary to accept the gifts we are given, without questioning why…. that’s why they’re called ‘gifts’…. In that spirit, today’s Pearl is hereby declared to be finished, complete with a number of gifts from whatever gods are currently on duty, fulfilling the universal requirements for serendipitous activity in this galactic sector….

gigoid has spoken…. so be it. ….  See y’all 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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!


Pulsating filigree in short pants…..

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Ffolkes,

“Cogito, ergo sum presupposes “I”-ness.” — Smart Bee

“Damn straight it does! And that’s my hat, too!” — gigoid

8-30-2014 002

    Yep. It’s the same flower as in the photo that opened yesterday’s Pearl of Virtual Wisdom, this time in a shot of how it looked on my hat…. In my less than humble opinion, the flower makes the hat look a lot better than it does without, though it IS a handsome hat, to be sure…. The flower just adds the correct touch, to give the hat, which can be seen to appear, at best, merely functional,  a touch of real beauty, so great, it makes whatever it touches more beautiful for its presence….

Gosh, you’d think I’d never taken ANY lessons in how to be a curmudgeon, to listen to me babble and gush over a flower, nice-looking as it is…. I suppose it just goes to show how little of a fuck I give, for any such labels that might be applied to me, under any circumstances…. Labeling people, (to the practice of which I confess full guilt, like everyone in this plane of existence), is a habit, hard to break, that constantly reinforces itself, as it just plain works sometimes…. but, it also tends to highlight, and thus make too important, the differences between people, allowing us to objectify and dismiss people for all the wrong reasons…

So, yes, I study, and practice, how to be a curmudgeon, but, that isn’t ALL I am, and never will be; I also like…. no, I LOVE flowers, and beauty, and the softer side of life that I often set aside, in order to deal with those harsher parts of reality that insist on making themselves such a nuisance in Life…..

How did we get here? I was going to talk about the two quotes, but, once again, went in a different direction than originally planned…. if what I do when I write could be said to be so organized as to lend itself to such as actual, real planning…. I look at this process in action, and realize it  resembles my mental image of what some would call Chaos, mostly, more than anything else in reality…. But, then, I don’t try to analyze it at all, either, as I also look at it like sand… If I hold on to it too tight, it slips away, and I might not find that part of it I need ever again…. Silly personal fears, not even based on real stuff, I suppose, but, hey, what do you want?… I’m human, and therefore, a bozoid personality, at best…

At worst…. well, perhaps we should talk about that another time… Oh, look it’s getting close to the end of the intro section…. I wasn’t paying attention, and it crept up on me… We’ll have to discuss my shortcomings later, I’m afraid…. no time now…. Oh, look, it’s a bunny, AND a dinosaur!…

Right, so, I guess we’ll be off now, into the depths of the ocean of knowledge that is the Web, throw in some Smart Bee, some personal smarm, er, charm, and find some pearls worthy of note….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Don’t teach your children what to think; just teach them to think.” — Tannenbaum

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

“The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.” — Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Dispossessed”

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Law-enforcement-employers-still-view-private-5722229.php?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech

I have but one, coined, word…. OUTFUCKINGRAGEOUS…. Though, not at all surprising, the information, and quotes, in this article are, to say the least, FUCKING INFURIATING, and, oh, I don’t know…. it makes me want to take one of these ASSHOLES by the lapel, and just BITCH-SLAP them, to see if THAT might get them to HAVE A FUCKING CLUE…..

Whew!… Okay, I feel a little better… Sorry to have shouted at you, or, in your apparent direction; none of it was aimed at y’all, or anyone I’ve ever called “ffolkes”… No, my anger, nay, my outrage, is confined to the bloody idiots, who, unfortunately are typically in positions of authority in our police departments, such as the one in the article who said, and I quote, directly from the article, “Obviously, when hiring someone who will serve as a public servant in law enforcement we do a thorough background check,” Corney said. “We turn over every stone. … Even now, it’s not a perfect system. So why would we want to restrict it?”

Do you hear it? The subtext in what he states here? “why would we want to restrict it?” Well, maybe, I thought immediately,  because the law says you are supposed to?. Or, maybe, your “interpretation” of the law makes the (unwarranted) assumption that police forces shouldn’t be restricted by the same laws the rest of the populace is required to follow?… Perhaps he feels they are ‘entitled’ to not be restricted in their efforts to…. what? To know everything there is to know about everyone?

It seems to me, if they were really concerned about the relative trustworthiness of their job applicants, they would have them examined, thoroughly, by a psychologist, or even a psychiatrist, to determine their reliability, their moral and ethical strengths and weaknesses, and the suitability of their persona for this kind of important work…

A psyche evaluation makes much more sense to me; it gives them the information they SHOULD be considering in their candidates, not just their weak, stupid moments, but their tendencies, their decision-making skills, their flexibility, their courage, etc…. All of that, and more, would be much clearer, without having to invade their privacy, which still should be sacrosanct….

If all those who wished to be police officers at ANY level were required to undergo psyche evaluation, I think we would see a much different, much more intelligent, more efficient, and less violent institution, whose members would, once again, be viewed as they were in the past, as the best examples of integrity, honesty, courage, and, compassion for their fellow man, that our society can produce…. Instead, in today’s society, most police are seen, by the people they are supposed to protect, as examples of arrogant, racist, entitled bullies, flaunting their immunity from the same laws they enforce upon a fearful populace, teeming in destitute poverty, in so many inner city communities across this nation….

Unfortunately, in the minds of today’s modern police, and the mentality of most of those who end up in that field, the laws being enforced should not have to apply to them, or anyone in their position as the “guardians” of society…. In short, the field tends to attract those who need to be regarded as special, and important, just for doing the job they’ve chosen to do, no matter their motivation, or their talent for the job…. Being large, aggressive, and able to follow orders is more highly prized than compassion, judgment, or intelligence, in today’s culture of militarization, a process affecting of all of society….

I gotta take a break…. On Memorial Day, (today) this was the first news item that drew my attention, after finishing all the steps in posting the Pearl for the holiday (as per policy, and practice, I don’t recall mentioning it at all… I never do remember it IS holiday, until I’m done… Well, most of the time, if not never….)… When I read it, and saw the incredibly asinine quote you see excerpted above, I felt like a cherry bomb firecracker went off in my head… I damn near fell out my chair, literally, when I read those words “why would we… etc.”; I was so astounded my whole body gave a big jerk, throwing me off balance, and almost out of the chair…

Any who, break-time…. I’ve been writing straight for twenty minutes, in a rage, and need to settle….  As Arnold said, playing the Terminator, in the greatest acting performance of his life, (and, just for a second, think about THAT….)…..  “I’ll ….”, well, you know what he said….

I am. Back. But, you knew that, didn’t you? I can always count on y’all to see what is necessary…. Now that I’m back, I’ll tell you…. I’m still mad as hell, and find myself wishing very badly I could justify typing the word “fuck” a few times more, just because it releases the anger so well.

But, I also typed so much on this already, my thumb is screaming, so, instead, I’ll inform you that I went to look for some pearls to go with this diatribe… One for the top, one for here, in the middle, to solidify the concepts under discussion, and provide the impetus for the remainder of the rant that is just waiting to burst out onto the screen…

Rather than take the chance of overdoing it, I’ll finish off these thoughts with the pearls I found… In fact, an entire seven-star old-school pearl, with parameters set to find whatever seems appropriate to the theme of the now-aborted politirant…. You can thank me later for sparing y’all from the rant itself…. I’ll just go sublimate, by going out into the Big Blue Room, & finding some poor officious bureaucrat to torment…. Sounds like fun!….. Y’all enjoy the pearl, and the pearls that make it special…. Hmm…. Since the poetry is next, I think I’ll format this into the center, to blaze the path….

“Earthmen like Ramses, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Lee Kuan. 
Your whole Earth history is made up of men seeking absolute power.”

~~ Spock ~~

Patterns of Force, stardate 2534.7.

`Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’

~~ Charles Dickens ~~

A Christmas Carol

“People seldom improve, when they have no other model but themselves to copy.”

~~ Oliver Goldsmith ~~

“I don’t know WHY I said that..  I think it came from the FILLINGS  in my rear molars..”

~~ Zippy the Pinhead ~~

“Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.” — Thornton Wilder

“1935 will go down in History!
 For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration!
Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead to the future!”

~~ Adolf Hitler ~~

 (1889-1945), prior to confiscating all civilian firearms

“Between the vision and the act lies the shadow.”

 — T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)


Here’s a link I found, AFTER finishing the above…. It’s perfectly appropriate humor to serve as the final word today on this subject; it’s only here to lighten the mood a bit…. Enjoy!

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/slideshow/Who-were-the-most-hated-presidents-92564.php

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

While cruising through old Pearls, I found this, which was written over a two day period, sometime a couple years ago; I forgot to write down the date, and can’t find it now, offhand…. But, it’s a nice poem, I think, and matches the sort of mood I’m cultivating right now….

Serendipity Morning
My mind wants to fly,
   my soul wants to hold close, the source,
strong, the moments of time;
   each as precious as golden thread,
binding together such elements of longing desire.

Love hovers, always patient,
   seeking the open heart,
reaching for the promise of tomorrow…..
   only for one, only for now, only what is real….
Dreaming, the morning calls,
   heavy with mordant belief,
replete, and eternally alive…..

~~ gigoid ~~


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

“Once I belonged to a group that really had THE WORD.  I fought like hell for them.  But another group came along and exposed the word of my group as shallow and degenerate.  They had a better word.  So I quit the first group and lost all the friends I had made and I joined up with this new group.  I fought like hell for them.  But another group came around.  They exposed the word of my group as false and materialistic.  Their word was very much better.  So I quit the second group and lost all the friends I had made.  And I joined up with this new group.  I fought like hell for them.  Till this one guy came along and proved that there wasn’t any word at all. That I should go off as an individual and grow!  So I quit the last group and lost all the friends I had made.  And now I sit home alone all day and all I do is grow.  It would be nice to join up with some others who feel the way I do.” — J. Feiffer

As the beginning of a pearl, this quote from Jules is perfect, whether to lead into a rant on human nature, or, just as easily, a five- or seven-star pearl of the old-school variety…. Since I ranted today already, y’all get to reap the benefit of that; we’ll make it an old-school pearl, and be content with that…. Besides, I used up all my angst complaining about assholes in badges…. We’ll start our search with no parameters, leaving the results to Smart Bee to determine the pertinent train of thought to board…. Enjoy….

Mythology, n.: The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.” — George Eliot

“Curiosity is a lust of the mind.” — Thomas Hobbes

“A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: “Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.” When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, “The one I feed the most.” — George Bernard Shaw

Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.

~~  Alexander Pope ~~
(1688-1744)
 — The Iliad of Homer, Book ix, Line 412 —


“A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.” — Aristotle

“A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.” — H.L. Mencken

CARTESIAN, adj.  Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, _Cogito ergo sum_ — whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence.  The dictum might be improved, however, thus:  _Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum_ — “I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;” as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“And never think about the past. No regrets, ever.” — Robert Heinlein

Okay, so, it seems clear that Smart Bee has trouble counting; probably just gets distracted…. In this instance, I think the nine-star pearl that turned up is one of the most powerful ever, in some ways…. With two entries from the Devil’s Dictionary, and a closing thought from Bob Heinlein, (not to mention Pope holding the middle ground like a rock, bonded to the center of reality….), how can it lose? Abondanza, ffolkes… Smart Bee done good….

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

Yesterday, Memorial Day here in the US, the temperature here in the North Bay reached 91 bloody Fahrenheit degrees, about 36 Celsius, with the humidity natural to a city right on the edge of the Bay… in short, miserable, especially for us ffolkes with no A/C…. Too hot to go out, unless to find an air-conditioned environment that is comfortable enough to stay in…. hard for me to find, with my issues with being comfortable, at all…

It’s usually best to just stay home, lie on the floor in front of my little personal vortex fan, and pant like a dog, seeking the oblivion of the trance-like state one can sometimes find in high heat, which allows us to take our minds elsewhere, where it is icy cool, with sweet, cool air to breathe…. I lived through it, as always, and not too uncomfortably, & today looks to be better, with a promised 12-15 degree drop in the high temperature…. If the Weather Channel got it wrong, they’ll be getting a visit from me, personally….

Alright, let’s go over the checklist for the day, shall we? Okay, quote, picture, reasonably coherent intro (standards set at their customary lenient level), check… Section one, one link to an article demonstrating the latest outrageous statements of a brick in the “blue wall of police solidarity”, one decent, if a trifle abbreviated rant, complete with seven-star pearl and a bonus link for humorous contrast, check… Original poem, from the past, but, not too shabby, and quite romantic, if I do say so myself, check…. Section three, one fine nine-star pearl, with excellent balance and wit from some favorites….check… Closing remarks, check… Okay, I guess that means there’s nothing left for me to do, other than, maybe, beat on this dead horse a little while…. Okay, maybe not…. Instead, I’ll be good, and just say, see y’all 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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!


No, no, not the taffeta!….

Posted on by
3

Ffolkes,

“Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go;

it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow”

 — Alice M. Swaim

8-30-2014 003

    Today’s picture, which goes well with the opening pearl, is one of my own. The flower is one I found while out walking, picking this one to put on my hat for the day, as is my habit whenever I go out. When I got home, the gorgeous thing was still fresh and beautiful, so I laid it on the black surface of the couch, and took some shots of it, in addition to a couple others, including one of how it looked on the hat….. I am very pleased with this shot; the colors are both vivid and delicate at once, and the background black makes it almost glow… Not bad for an old curmudgeon, eh?

Now that my shoulder is back in the socket, after getting thrown out by patting myself so hard on the back, I think I can continue to type… not that it seems to make any difference in anything. It’s a good thing I don’t do this for money, or for self-promotion; I’d be starving, big time. I’m pretty sure the sobriety and deeply controversial nature of most of my ranting, along with the length of what I write, has been striking many of my usual readers with its repetitive qualities, such that not many are stopping in very often of late to read…. Oh, I’m getting readers, and have had some great dialogue in the comment section; just not a lot of traffic overall….

S’okay by me… I write to stay sane. I also figured out something the other day, as I sat one early evening, thinking about, well, stuff…. I do that a lot…. just sit, and think. Always have; it seems to provide me with the time alone in my head that I need to feel as if I’m keeping up with things in there; you know, sweeping out old bullshit, programming new stuff, planning for future events, examining new ideas and stuff learned for validity, truth, and/or flaws in reasoning, stuff like that…. If it were a computer (my head) you could call it file maintenance, or defragmentation, or maybe running a registry cleaning software program…

Any who, while sitting and thinking, I realized that the routine I’ve developed over the last three years has been my mind’s adaptation to retirement, which it accomplished in order to keep me young…. All my life, I had routines that I built to deal with the demands of life, all of which involved getting up early in the morning, to get a jump on the necessary thinking, organizing, and just plain waking up that can make the difference between a good day, and a bad one, no matter what kind of work I, or anyone, is involved in; good planning makes for good outcomes…. Now that I have no real reason to get up in the morning, my mind decided to give me one, and made it necessary for me to write….. otherwise, I would certainly have gone mad…. stark raving mad, rather than my current level of mild anxiety mixed with unpredictable, intermittent emotional fragility, easily handled…

So, my job now is to write each day, in order to keep the demons from staying too long, joining up with their mates, and giving me REAL problems to deal with… If in the process, I can write something that makes someone smile, or think, or burn with outrage, or fall on the floor laughing, then I’ll be content…. Money isn’t necessary to make me feel satisfaction; I get mine from a well-turned phrase, or an apt insult to someone who deserves more than I can hit them with…. it’s enough for me….

Why look! I’ve meandered and blathered again, mostly about stuff that means little to nothing, and have again arrived at a suitable jumping-off point just at the right moment, when I’d finished my egotistic drivel…. This means we don’t even need to use one of the emergency methods, though, we did go a bit long again…. S’fine…. it’ll all come out in the wash, right?

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!” — Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

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

Since the intro went so long, even without ranting, I’ll go old-school in this section, to try to keep from scaring anyone away this early…. Here is a pearl with parameters set to poke at our Beloved ruling class, and the public morality that allows them to keep on keepin’ on with their unruly shenanigans…. Hopefully, today, we’ll see some blood….

“Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an ‘inconvenience.’ We have opted instead for an authoritarian system *disguised* as a Democracy.  We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.” — Frank Zappa

“A man that expects to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic and is locked up. But a man that thinks people can be turned into angels by legislation is called a reformer and allowed to walk free.” — Mr. Dooly

“A pig ate his fill of acorns under an oak tree and then started to root around the tree.  A crow remarked, `You should not do this.  If you lay bare the roots, the tree will wither and die.’ `Let it die,’ said the pig.  `Who cares so long as there are acorns?'” — Smart Bee

“Nothing links man to man like the frequent passage from hand to hand of cash.” — Walter Sickert (1860-1942)

“And the Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns.  Hell, this country was FOUNDED by religious nuts with guns!” — P. J. O’Rourke

“Sure we’ll have Fascism, but it will come disguised as Americanism.” — Huey P. Long

“Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything?   If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.” — Will Rogers

Not too shabby at all; there’s some sharp sticks in there, ffolkes…. hope they caught one of the bastards right in the eye….. I love starting the day with some good red, American politician blood flowing…. It keeps all of us on our toes to see that shocking red color, and to know it’s our own fault if we let it continue this way…. Besides, they breed like flies, and there’s always another one ready to step into the old one’s shoes, bloody or not…. Sometimes, I swear, shooting politicians is like trying to stem the tide…..

Oops…. sorry, all you folks over there at the NSA…. I used the words “shoot” and “politician” in the same sentence; it’s a figure of speech. We’re only shooting insults, not bullets…. Bloody idiots…..

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

Here is another new poem, just bled out yesterday, that speaks for itself….

Retrospective, defined in folly….

Yesterday
I wrote a poem.

It bled out of my head,
like I’d been struck with
an axe,
right through the artery,
in the neck,
spraying blood around
everywhere,
like a pulsing garden hose….

It hurt, at first,
then came the feeling,

of quick relief,
of timeless beauty,
 
of pain avenged,
of lust aroused,

of outrage aflame,
of deep compassion,

of endless empathy,
of truest love….

Now it’s gone, cast away
like pearls before twine.

(Grin…)

You thought
I was going to call you
a pig,
didn’t you?

Hah!

Well, you’re not.
You’re a person.

I know, because
you’re reading this poem…
if that’s what it is.
I think it is,
so,
maybe it is.

Or, maybe,
it will be,
someday, when it
grows up,
and learns to rhyme.
Whew…
Just in time…..

That’s all.
Reality often sucks wind,
y’know?

S’okay, though….
It keeps us busy,
and out of some of the
mischief,
so much part
of our
nature.

We all can do
only what we
do.

Or, don’t.

Two sides, one coin.

~~ gigoid ~~


Hmm…. well, that was…. is…. something different, for sure, and for certain….

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

“I was brought up in the other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend.  I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only from fear.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “The Devil’s Disciple”

It is possible, if one reads with intelligent absorption, and open perception, to hear the echoes of sardonicism in Shaw’s words; for my own part, I can almost SEE his tongue, firmly lodged in cheek, while he wrote this, struggling with all his might not to burst out into maniacal laughter….. This may have been the single most satisfying phrase anyone has ever had the fortune to write; it pokes the entire Western culture, with its overbearing elitism, its incredible arrogance, its pompous, stuffy demeanor, and its sheer insane insistence on basing an entire society based on a set of delusions fostered upon them by insane fanatics with no other morality than the dictates of their own perverted fears of the unknown, right in the proverbial eye….

It’s wonderfully antagonistic, too… I like that. Shaw had a lot of fun with this one, for, by it’s nature, his contention sets itself up in direct opposition to every point of morality favored by those in Christian society; since his own philosophical structure is NOT based on delusions, it is simple for him to see, and point to all the nonsense in the dogma that is supposed to act as the guide for his behavior…. which only enrages them, as they have no hold on him, or any way to shut him up, without showing themselves as the lying, or at least, misguided fools they are….

Now, I could discuss (rant about) this for a long time, and would enjoy every moment. It’s great fun to think up ways to annoy those hidebound dinosaurs; it IS a bit dishonorable, as it is not very nice to engage in battles of wit with unarmed opponents, but, then, I’ve never been very nice… not about this. But, in hopes of luring perhaps a few of my readers back, I’ll use this opportunity to reproduce an old-old-old school pearl, first posted here on 10/31/2011, when the entire Pearl of Virtual Wisdom was an old-school format…. So, what you will now see is the whole Pearl from that date….. Enjoy, it’s a good one…..

Ffolkes,

Due to circumstances that are completely within my control, I have  lot to do today, so I will be using the old format for this morning’s offering, with just a short intro, and then some mighty fine virtual food for thought. Between fighting off depression, scratching for change, and juggling creditors, I have neglected my homework, which only hurts me, so there ya go. I sleep a lot, probably because when I’m asleep, I feel more in control of my life.

Pitiful, isn’t it? Ah well, life is Change, and this situation too shall pass in time. I’ve procrastinated almost as far as I can with the homework, though I’m sure I’ll come up with at least one or two ways to put it off before I actually get to it. I’m creative in that respect, if in no other…….any who, here are today’s Pearls, all of which can be found in Category “Finest Kind Stuff”………

“To be “matter of fact” about the world is to blunder into fantasy…. and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“All the knowledge in the world is not wisdom”. — Albert Einstein

“Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.” — Steve Ely

(Sound familiar? Has a certain Tea Party ring to it, no?…..)

You ‘d scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don’t view me with a critic’s eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

~~ David Everett ~~
 (1769-1813)
 — Lines written for a School Declamation —


The wages of sin are high but you get your money’s worth. — Smart Bee

“Please come home with me…  I have Tylenol!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, there you go, Ollie, another fine mess…..and in Technicolor too!  Y’all take care out there…..

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

With this Pearl, I declare this blog officially back to relative normalcy; up at the usual time, finished at an appropriate hour, and posted before 7 AM…. I’ll take it.  In fact, I’ll take it as it is, and be done with it for today…. I’ll see you mañana, amigos…..

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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!


Lately, it all seems less filling….

Posted on by
7

Ffolkes,

“Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard — I’m living for today!”

~~ Zippy the Pinhead ~~

Morpheus the koala
“You said you want me to WHAT?”

earthshaking
“FfYou ffhave fNO ffidea ffhow ffGOOD ffthis ffffeels! Thpptt!”

    To begin, let’s get this out of the way…. Both pictures are from the SFGATE.com Day In Pictures photo feature, one each from two consecutive days, yesterday and the day before…. I’m including both, here at the beginning for a couple reasons…. First, I like them. Second, they both go with the excellent outcry from our old friend Zippy, which just happens to coincide with my mood…. my mood now, not when you’re reading this, though it may extend that far into the future…. who knows? For now, though, it’s just right…. Third, I named these two with my own file names, to remind me of the anthropomorphic images that crossed my mind upon first viewing them… The captions you see are what came later, after percolating….

The first one I call, Morpheus the koala… Isn’t he the cutest, sleepiest little thing you’ve ever seen?…. That, of course, is before the second thought that occurred to me, to wit: I wonder what he’s thinking, with that expression? From that perspective, he obviously is a bit suspicious, and not altogether sure of what he’s looking at…. which, given the nature of the koala, isn’t a surprise; plus, I don’t think their vision is very acute…. Logically, their first instinct, when they see anything, is to figure out whether it is predatory, thinking of them as food, or, is it food for them?

The writer who writes the comments under each picture on SFGATE saw the expression yet another way, by, quoting a look-alike from a movie …. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”, quoting, of course, Yoda…. thus, proving they were too lazy to do any research, lacked creativity, or felt compelled to go for the cheap laugh by the pressure of working on a deadline….

The second picture I titled “earthshaking news”, but, my actual first thought was that it must be an Irish squirrel, on his way home from the public house, with a snoot full of rye whiskey under his belt (although “belt” may be a more accurate term for what he did with the rye, rather than where it ended up….). He reminds me of the old saw, that says, “An Irishman is never too drunk, so long as he can lay on his face, clutching the grass to keep from flying off the Earth”…. In truth, the little beastie is probably just cooling off his, well, private parts, on the cool branch…. That, or he’s expecting an earthquake…. hence, the title….

Why look, ffolkes! We’ve come to a point where it is not only appropriate to bring this introduction to a close, we can do so with the knowledge we actually composed something that actually has the look, the feel, and the traditional structure of such a device. Not only that, but, it’s seemingly ambiguous enough to act as a segue into almost any subject…. I sure wish I knew how this happened… I could do it again, if I could figure it out, and get it down on paper, or, at least, in my head with a note to remember it….

Unfortunately, I’ve already used up all the common sense, and typical patterns of behavior for one day, so, we’ll just toss this one overboard with all the others from the past, just as if it had never been exactly what I need, or want…. SIGH…. Sometimes, being odd is not much fun…. but, then I remember the alternative, shiver clear down to my toes, and give myself a happy smile, knowing that “normal” just isn’t for me…. Now, if I could only decide whether I’m serious about that, or not, I’d be able to at least ring it in with a Treble Bob Major, if not a Minor….

Shall we Pearl?…..

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

~~ T. S. Eliot ~~

 Choruses from the Rock


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

“Stupid is as stupid does.” — Mama Gump

Yesterday, during a rant in section one of the Daily Pearl, I made a comment, wherein I accused Bill Clinton of being an idiot, and a husband, in the same breath…. While his persona exhibits elements of both adjectives, neither one fits completely comfortably; if it was a suit, you’d think it was poorly tailored. He IS an idiot of course; letting one’s lust control their actions while in the White House as the President, is kind of a give-away on that…. and he IS a husband; it says so right on the license available for anyone to see somewhere in what, oh, yeah, Arkansas, or Alabama, or wherever it was they got married… Who knows, maybe it was in D.C. after they left Little Rock, or whatever… But, obviously, he isn’t terribly good at either one….

Any who, I wanted to clarify that, while also acknowledging that, in truth, Bill is a VERY smart guy…. I don’t care who you are, you don’t get to be a Rhodes Scholar if you don’t have a few neurons to bump together… He also plays a pretty mean sax, which is also an indicator of superior, or at least multi-talented, intelligence…. All of which goes to prove that intelligence alone has little, if any, survival value. Possessing a high IQ does not give one the ability, necessarily, to USE it in a way that helps one advance, in any respect….

Ethically, morally, or in terms of worldly success, as in being rich, famous, or celebrated in some fashion, smart guys don’t always win against the mundanes, simply because they are often not paying attention to what is important to those with less on their minds… In Bill’s case, he tried to take his multi-tasking to a new level, and failed, miserably…. Common sense often escapes the most intelligent members of this species; they tend to be a little less balanced out on the fringes of the bell curve…. too much going on in their heads, that ends up distracting them from what they’re doing in the real world, and that they are being watched, always…

That’s all…. just sayin’….. Smart don’t mean smart, if you know what I mean…. Sometimes, a little bit of street cred, a little low animal cunning, as it were, can go a long way to being more useful than having a degree, or being able to quote poetry…. Unfortunately, when someone like that learns the law, then turns to politics, there is no end to the harm they can cause…. Witness just about every president in my lifetime…. Most of them weren’t the most intelligent, though smart enough to get through law school; they are definitely the most corrupt, and the most vicious sociopaths, that is for sure and for certain, but, overly intelligent, they were NOT…..

Sorry, but, I just calls ’em as I sees ’em, ffolkes, and that’s the way it’s been for my life; I can count, on fewer than the fingers on only ONE of my hands, the number of presidents I respect, at all, and only one of those is still alive…. That one will go down in history as an ineffective president, because he had the unfortunate quality of possessing both intelligence, and integrity, not to mention compassion…. which are three qualities that no other president since 1962 has possessed. to any appreciable degree, and definitely not together in the same man, other than the one…. If you disagree, fine…. comment, and tell me why, so we can discuss it…. But, please, make it worth my time, because there isn’t a lot of evidence I’m aware of for you to choose from..

Any who, that’s it…. just wanted to make clear why I thought Bill was an idiot husband…. I’ll avoid any comments as to WHY he is uncomfortable as a husband, married to a woman who is just as sociopathic as he is…. a woman completely lacking any sort of real compassion for others, because it is subsumed in the vast furnace of their ambition….

There is no room for compassion in one who wishes to lead a nation, especially one with the power and resources of this one, along with the historically traditional imperative, and true national pastime, of proselytizing democracy, and our twisted versions of Christianity, on anyone in the world who doesn’t have them…. whether they want them, or not….

Sometimes, that interference in the lives and interests of other nations in the world manifests in the guise of business, to spread our capitalist markets, which require constant expansion to prevent collapsing under their own weight…. Or, our insistence on playing busybody is justified with the pretense of humanitarianism, with rationalizations ranging from saving them from godless communism, to fighting the evil of “Muslim extremists, and/or rebel insurgents” who are fighting terrorist civil wars, “killing their own people, including, gasp, children and old people!”

These wars, though being fought over what seem to me to be all-too-familiar sounding, minute, yet firmly idiotic differences of interpretation of scripture, are still CIVIL wars, even if religiously motivated ….  I won’t comment on this scripture, allegedly also “divine” in origin, in the book of collected dogmatic delusions that were  left to guide them by their version of a mortal, yet, somehow, also immortal, and, thus, divine, (by the time-tested use of “ipse dixit” reasoning) prophet of the ONLY god, or Allah, or Baha’u’lah, or whomever they worship/idolize/follow/are enslaved by…. Well, I wasn’t planning to comment, but, I suppose I just did….

However, my point remains valid, despite my opinion of Islam, or Christianity, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other religion…. As far as I’m concerned, they are ALL the possessors of a SMALL piece of the Truth about Reality in this Universe, but, they have erroneously chosen to misinterpret the meaning of their piece, and have beaten their dead horses, killed by that error, into a sad, bloody pulp, unrecognizable, and useless for anything other than making everyone’s life more difficult, and divisive…. I can’t say it much clearer than that, about religion, or politics, either….

Instead I’ll say that it’s a shame there is probably no one to run against Hillary who can win, because she’ll be, unfortunately, as cruelly self-serving, as dishonest as, well, a politician, as unaware of, and as little concerned with the plight of the common man,  and as falsely “transparent” in their actions and words, as any man who has ever held the office…. including Tricky Dicky and LBJ, who were about as underhanded, and corrupt as any politician who ever lived….

The scary part of that, if not the scariest part of the whole shebang we call the future? If there IS anyone who can win against her, things in this sad old country, and, no doubt, the rest of this sad, old world,  will go from bad, to very much worse, in a very short time…. Think about it….

Just watch…. I hate being right in these cases, but, my track record is, sadly, practically unblemished, as I have called just about every election at the national level, for all those years of repetitive foolishness I’ve witnessed….

“It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” — Noel Coward

“…there are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind.  This is one such period, if you haven’t noticed already.” — The Illuminatus! Trilogy — Robert Anton Wilson

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

At last! This bled out of me last night, in a frenzy of typing, editing, and staring off into space…. I feel LOTS better now….

A dream, caught weeping….

“Never a dull moment to spare”, he said
with a crooked grin, and a broad wink.
“Can’t keep Reality hanging by a thread….
what would Chaos, or Entropy think?”

So, we plucked up our dreams of old,
to carry us on, in dutiful, strong arms,
stuffed a candle in the remaining fold,
for luck, and perfect proof against charms.

Storms follow the sun,  but, never stay;
lessons round every corner, all free.
Past fleeting doubts, in a sad disarray,
the journey becomes the reason to be.

Simple kindness manifests untold riches,
in defiance of common cause’s demise.
Bold courage, hanging in stitches,
mends wounds that come as no surprise.

Still, waters run deep, ’tis said by many.
Too much pain cannot apprehend
the salient, sharp points of epiphany,
nor, plainly, to wisdom aspire to pretend.

Folly dogs even the simplest truth,
fumes of toxic ignorance and bile,
alienated as a loose rotten tooth;
it often hides itself, for a long while.

Sought after eons ago, we cried out,
to believe, to suffer no more doubt.
But found instead good reason,
for love, and truth, from season, to season.

~~ gigoid ~~


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

Y’all probably can’t see behind the screens, but, I’m here, late, rushed, but, content…. I bled out that poem last night, then slept like a baby (well, like a huge, hairy, old, restless baby, anyway….) for a good seven hours straight, only awakening twice to turn over…. I feel much better, and can slide right in here, just as if it were all of a piece…. which, come to think of it, it is….

So, here’s an old school pearl, for your reading enjoyment this fine holiday weekend morning…. I have no clue at all as to the parameters; I’m letting SB have its head…. Enjoy!

“By words the mind is winged” — Aristophanes (c. 450-385 B.C.) — The Birds (414 B.C.), line 1447

“There’s more to living than not dying.” — found inscribed on my eyelids this morning…. gigoid

“If 150,000 people do something really stupid………it’s still stupid.” — Smart Bee

“The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the falsehood of report.” — Ovid (43 BC) — Fasti, iv, 311

“A man can only do what he can do.  But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.” — Albert Schweitzer

It is not every question that deserves an answer.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 581

“By letting go, it all gets done.” — Tao Te Ching

Damn near perfect…. So be it….

gigoid has spoken.

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

Well…. I hardly know what to say at this point. It would, no doubt, be for the best to wind this up now, and be on our way. Not being the sort to challenge the dictates of Reality, at least, not when it slaps me right in the ear like this, I’ll go along with that….. See y’all 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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!



Metaphoria is no longer a threat…. it’s Reality….

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1

Ffolkes,

“A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side.” — Anne Morrow Lindberg

“When you’ve seen one non-sequitor, the price of tea in China.” — Smart Bee

“Remember – more than three shakes is a wank.” — Written on urinal

“Pulchritude possesses exclusively cutaneous profundity.” — Smart Bee

“A pearl of virtual wisdom gains significance from the ignorance of the bozo on either side.” — gigoid

English

    Hmm…. it seems I’ve decided to start the day with a five star pearl, complete with graphics, to state the underlying premise of the pearl’s meaning/POV/relation to reality….. In this case, it’s all very real, and connected, or, if not, it wants to be… and should be…. We here at ECR are, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, not into the abuse of language, unless needed to ward off the forces of evil, or protect the innocent…. which, in our society, either happens all the fucking time, or seldom, and, never, with any real predictablilty…. I know, that’s just the way it is, but, I don’t have to like it, exactly, do I? No….

Fortunately, though, I do….. Like reality, and English, and, for that matter, any and all languages…. not that it’s ever done me any good. People still don’t understand me, but, that’s one of those, “been there, done that” sort of things, so we won’t go there in the intro; we’d never get anywhere if I start whining too early…. I do TRY to be an adult, even if it doesn’t always work…. Since I have now completely lost my way, with not a single clue as to what I meant to do when I started writing, I’d best begin the long, slow process of casting around for something to actually address…. SIGH…. You are SO strict!…..

Now, don’t you feel better? I know I do; getting that much nonsense out in just two paragraphs is quite a release…. Plus, it gets some of the administrative BS out of the way without letting anyone know it’s even happening, right in front of them…. I’m not even required to tell you what that means, or even costs, as it’s all covered in the forms you signed on the way in…. after, of course, we accessed your account for the entrance fees…. You knew about that part, right?….

No? Oh well, your signature says you did, so, we’re covered, and you’ll never notice the hidden fees, anyway; it’s working like planned, and that’s good. The revolutionary committee can use the funds…..

Let me caution you, though, and remind you; this is all a joke, right? Y’all didn’t sign anything, and I have no frigging idea who is even out there, unless they let me know by commenting, or hitting the Like button…. the Net is still THAT anonymous, anyway, though I’m sure the NSA has a way to know who is where, reading what…. That, after all, is what metadata is all about, and they’ve had over ten years to play around on our internet without most of us knowing anything about what they were doing…. not until Edward Snowden dropped his bombs, anyway….

Since it IS a joke, I’m going to pretend as if we actually had a punch line ready, to bring matters to a satisfactory close…. We don’t, of course, have anything of the sort, but, since we’re only pretending, I didn’t want to pay for a real punch line, so y’all will have to make do with what is in the bag over there…. You see it? Yeah, that’s it, the grimy yellow one with the nuclear material logo…. If you’d just hand in to me….. Thanks… Oh, my, it IS filthy, innit? Oh, but, look, here’s a #4 ending…. we can plug it in right here, and….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“A heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others.” — The Wizard of Oz

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

“Why ask me? I’m just visiting reality.” — Smart Bee, channeling gigoid again….

Okay, ffolkes, your vacation is over….. Below is a fresh spate of ranting, with an old-school pearl at the end, comprised of quotes that jumped up for attention when looking for some enhancement for future pears, and for a specific type of quote for another section…. They fit in with what the headlines had stimulated me to write, I couldn’t resist, naturally, even though the ranting portion of what is here is ample for any section on its own….

I have, apparently, lost all sense of proportion when it comes to this sort of outrage, engendered in me when I observe the crap going on out there in the public arena, because it seems to be the only way to reduce the negative effect on me…. Well, it’s the one I’ve chosen, so, either way, here it is… Like reality, even if you’re only visiting, as I tend to do on occasion, you have to choose, and then deal with the consequences of your choice….

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2014/08/28/cops-cuff-12-protesting-low-security-guard-wages-at-sf-apple-store/?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech

It occurred to me when I was perusing the headlines that, in the recent past, we’ve seen a LOT of headlines just like this one. Without reading the article first, I wanted to note the following thought/question that came to mind…. I was under the impression that, in the United States, protesting was protected by one of the amendments to the US Constitution, as part of the first 10, known generally as the Bill of Rights….

One of them, specifically the First Amendment, (indicating its importance in the minds of the men who created it as our guide to how we would have our government structured, and operated….), guarantees the right of any American citizen to peacefully assemble, to petition the government for a redress of grievances, by specifically stating that Congress, or the States, may not create and pass any laws to the contrary…..

In spite of this, how often do we see American citizens, not merely arrested for exercising their right to protest, but, abused, jailed, and prosecuted for it…. under the guise of “protecting the public order”, which has become more important to many than their freedom…. Okay, now I’ll go read the article, to see what the police and government have to say that justifies ignoring the First Amendment to the US Constitution…. After, I’ll most likely rant to beat the band, so, if you’re going to skip that, now would be the time to read the poem….

So, it seems to be an acceptable phenomenon, at least to the media, for the police in such instances to not even have to comment on why they made arrests, unless they do so with some sort of overreaction, or in an abusive manner than will grab headlines…. They just make strategic arrests of those they believe are the active leaders of the protest, with the intent, and usual effect, of both removing the direction the activists provide, and intimidating and distracting the remaining citizens, er, protesters…..

Hell, you can tell how the issue has progressed, or, if you will, evolved…. All you have to do is to listen to the police, on their radios, talking to each other…. Listen to the words they use to describe the citizenry…. mostly they are words that objectify the people, by calling them names that take away their humanity…. suspect, unsub, subject, male & female individuals, etc…. all are removed from any emotional content, and placed in the arena of battle language….

Enough on those fools…. Next we come to a governor of one of our fine states, his wife, and the corporate asshole who gave them money to give his business a boost…..

“As if the world and they were hand and glove.” — William Cowper (1731-1800) — Table Talk, Line 173

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Closing-arguments-set-in-former-Va-governor-trial-5720480.php?cmpid=hp-hc-nationworld

I can’t even write about this, ffolkes…. In this story, none of us come out looking very good…. Not the governor and his wife, not the man who bribed them, not the state, or the courts, and, most specifically, not the public, as the story unfolds without anyone commenting much, or even actually paying much attention (other than the few media hacks who keep dragging it back into the public eye whenever somebody in the court at their trial scratches an itch…. The media, on this story, seems to feel that if they keep shoving our faces in it, we’ll think they’re cool for kicking everybody when they’re down…. In truth, the whole issue disgusts me so much, we’ll go on….

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Hillary-Clinton-on-Ferguson-We-are-better-than-5719406.php?cmpid=hp-hc-bayarea

Hillary is all about implications and subtext when she talks these days; she knows everything she says is looked at with a microscope decorated with the Presidential Seal…. she REALLY, REALLY wants to be president of this country. You can see it all over her face, especially in the picture adorning the page where you’ll find the article above….. She is shamelessly using the tragic events in Missouri to spread all the lies and innuendo she can,  getting the public broken in, and used to hearing this sort of crap from her, all the while creating an image, showing herself as the thoughtful, compassionate woman, yet, one strong enough to run this superpower country, better than any man, especially her idiot of a husband….

Now, if anyone can point out anything…. anything at all, in what she says, or does, to alter that opinion, please, feel free to bring it up, along with any justification arguments you may wish to add…. I don’t expect much response, as there isn’t anything out there that fits that description, that I’ve been able to find, anyway, and I looked pretty hard…. Hillary is a politician, not a woman, or a man-like woman; she’s one of the psychopathic, mega-maniacal, arrogant assholes who want to control everything everybody else does, for their own aggrandizement and personal gain, not because they are altruistic at all, but, because they are possessed of overpowering ambition, and a complete lack of human connection, that allows them to sociopathically create their own set of rules, where everyone in the world loses, except for them….

Sorry, all you hopefuls out there, with the great desire to see a woman in such a position of power, wrongly thinking it will make any difference at all…. This is not, as I said, a woman, but, a politician, right down to her bones…. And, as per my personal experience over the last 50+ years of observing and analyzing presidential elections, and the candidates who run for that office, has shown me, there is not a single politician at that level of the game who tells the truth, at all, unless it somehow will benefit them, and help them achieve their goals…. It is the nature of the beast; a politician can no more keep from lying than they can keep from acting like an asshole…. which means, never…

And yes, it pisses me off, that they even have the chance to get their fingers in the public treasury, and direct this nation for a period of time it usually takes two decades to recover from, or longer….

Enough for now…. y’all can, no doubt, fill in your own ranting on these issues, so, here are a group of pearls to help keep the outrage simmering, or, at least, allow you to laugh about it….

And finds, with keen, discriminating sight,
Black ‘s not so black,–nor white so very white.

~~ George Canning ~~
(1770-1827)
 — New Morality —


“Riches are the savings of many in the hands of one.” — Eugene Debs (1855-1926)

QUORUM, n.  A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to” have their own way and their own way of having it.  In the United States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly.

~~ Alexander Pope ~~
(1688-1744)
— Moral Essays, Epistle iii, Line 39 —


“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any departure from it, under any circumstance, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.” — Edmund Burke

“Now we are going to set this pile of evil ablaze.  But remember, because these are children’s toys, the fire will spread quite rapidly. So, please stand back and try not to inhale the toxic fumes.” — Minister in “Krusty Gets Busted”, from The Simpsons

What a great finish! Krusty knows how to stick it to the establishment, right in the eye with a sharp, filthy stick…. my kinda guy….

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

In honor of the whiskey I consumed late last night, in a frantic, futile attempt to smother the pain long enough for the meds & chocolate to kick in, so I could sleep, here is one of the poems of the most famous poet of all time…. who never wrote a poem without being firmly drunk…. Enjoy!….

Alone And Drinking Under The Moon

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.

~~ Li Po ~~


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

Above, you may have noted my use of the word ‘futile’ to describe my attempts at sleeping last night…. While forgoing any details, suffice it to say that very little of what I attempted had any success, and leave it at that…. So, what you get here, in the depths of my fatigue and liver-related misery, is the fastest sort of pearl I can create…. Let’s see what Smart Bee has in the way of items to ease me out of here with the least fuss, and noise…. Wish me luck….

“Even in mathematics, the sacred yoni appears in both the shape and substance of 0, the void, while the lingam appears in the shape and substance of 1, the creative lightning, and out of the union of the 0 and 1, all of the numbers of creation can be generated in binary notation.” — Robert Anton Wilson

“What the people believe is true.” — Native American Proverb (Anishinabe)

“Prize that which is best in the universe; and this is that which useth everything and ordereth everything.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, v, 21

“I never like to think of the future. It comes soon enough.” — Albert Einstein

“Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold — but so does a hard-boiled egg.” — Smart Bee

“Only ideas that we actually live by are of any value.” — Hermann Hesse

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro’ the World we safely go,
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.

~~ William Blake ~~
(1757-1827)
Auguries of Innocence, 53


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

Okay, not too shabby, considering the source, and the condition of the source….. Quality, or lack thereof, notwithstanding, it’s done, and nobody can make me do it over…. which is probably just as well…. See y’all 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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!


Dorothy, this is DEFINITELY not Kansas!….

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Ffolkes,

“A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed;

but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.”

~~ G. K. Chesterton ~~

— Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox —

day2 London 012

    It is said that one can find anything, anything at all in Portobello Road, and, if the hour or so I spent wandering there on my stay in London can be considered as typical, I’m inclined to believe it to be true. The photo above, which I took when I was there, shows just one small alleyway market, off the side of the road’s main thoroughfare which, though a street only 20 feet wide from curb to curb, was jammed with market stalls holding what appeared to be every variety of movable commerce known to Mankind…. There was, of course, a lot of modern crap, repeatedly, if not rudely offered by many vendors, but, there were also great deals on antiques, rare books, stamps, and thousands of, well, anything anyone wants….

Now, if you were to ask me why I picked this particular picture this morning, I doubt I could tell you, since I didn’t. Pick it this morning, that is…. I picked it out yesterday, as has been my wont of late…. Now, five minutes after cutting & pasting it in, I no longer remember, and will have even less clue tomorrow morning, when this is actually being written, using notes made by the Time Lord software, about what will, or even what is supposed to happen then…. which takes me even further from knowing anything about WHY this picture is so perfect… but, it is, so, I’m not going to worry about it, or we may never get out of the intro section…

Not that we ever had a real chance to do anything about that; since introducing the rather special and appealing side effects of using the powers of a Time Lord, a number of contradictory, yet, unfathomable patterns of the apparent rules by which the Universe operates have shown themselves to have been altered to a very small, but significant degree… This wouldn’t be any cause for alarm, if it weren’t this particular set of rules…. These are those rules that all of us depend on, like, the sky is blue, and one moment follows the next; you know, the basic structure of the Universe rules….

Anyway, they’ve been changed…. just a little, but, now we can no longer depend on this moment being anchored where it is in Time; it could break loose at any moment, and end up sending us a millennium into the past…. or, it could dump us three days into the future, with events already happening about which we have no clue, with no chance to ever find out what happened…. It could get a bit ugly, if the BRC happens to notice; it may take a while, as they are usually pretty well focused on their own bullshit, but, it’s bound to come to their attention, when nobody is paying any attention to them while watching the incredible light shows that always accompany such alterations to the fabric of space and time….

There…. I see it only took four paragraphs of almost pure blather to set the proper tone for today’s missive; this is good, as it’s relatively late, according to routine. Since it is, I won’t bother to drive all this home any deeper; we’ll just sort of fade out here, like with a good sound system that uses a good control system that can keep the tone pure as it fades from our perceptions, leaving us ready to absorb all the finer nuances of what may follow…. Nice, eh? Not bad for a low-tech solution to a high-tech issue, especially given the lack of advanced engineering or programming techniques available to us by law….

Shall we Pearl?

(I don’t usually use any pearls that may cause any friction, or feelings of divisiveness between the genders; it’s a fruitless and actually destructive pastime. But, this little gem from Balzac, though it sounds as if it would, is actually a very deep piece of insight into human nature, and into the proper and loving relationship between a husband and wife. In short, it’s deeper than it seems, and requires one to look beyond the surface words to the meaning beneath… which is always good exercise for the mind, anyway…. This COULD have been expressed MANY ways; I like this one, just because it’s got a tone of phlegmatism that appeals to me….)

“He who enters his wife’s dressing room is a philosopher or a fool.” — Balzac

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

The lateness of our start today has resulted in some good luck for y’all…. I don’t have the time, or the inclination to rant; I’d have to go find something to rant about, and while that wouldn’t necessarily be difficult of time-consuming, the ranting itself could easily get out of hand, time-wise…. So, I’ll be nice, and just create a nice random, old-school pearl for this section today, and worry about ranting later….

Have fun, & I hope y’all appreciate this; it’s more difficult than you may realize to hold in what I customarily spit out each morning, and there could conceivably be a price to pay out in the real world, as whatever angst I’ve built up since last letting it out builds up…. If it gets too hard to hold in, it could come out on some unsuspecting bureaucrat, or even a police myrmidon, and that can conceivably be either a good thing, or a bad one, depending on which end of the rant one ends up on…..

Ah well, that’s the chances we all take in life; there’s no way to think of EVERYTHING, and sometimes, Reality is just on its own, y’know? Like today…..

“Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man’s task.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxvii

“At birth we woke to dream in this world between.” — Kan’ami Kiyotsugu

“It is a fundamental law of nature that nothing ever quite works out.” — Murphy’s Seventh Law

Government Intelligence – Another OXYMORON! — Smart Bee

“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1972)

“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.” — Oscar Wilde

“At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul.  At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my
ignorance upon the shore.” — Kahlil Gibran

What an excellent pearl! It showed itself quickly, and managed to take a good poke at government, religion, and human nature, and hand out some good advice for living seemingly, all without breaking a sweat…. Nice!

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

I’m in the mood for a bit of classical poetry today…. Enjoy! In fact, let’s make it a two-fer…. Have a care, ffolkes, these are small, but, they’re filling….

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 ~~

_________________________________

A Crazed Girl

THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved, hungry sea.’

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~


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

This is another of those rare Pearls, which created itself by merely popping up on screen, one after another, in a row…. How can I say no to such persistence and dedication? I can’t…..

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

“All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard; jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side; his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), As You Like It — Act ii, Sc. 7

“I call that a scumhead.” — James Joyce — Finnegans Wake

“The palpable obscure.” — John Milton (1608-1674) — Paradise Lost, Book ii, Line 406

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.” — Erma Bombeck

“Asked from what country he came, he replied, “I am a citizen of the world.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Diogenes, vi

“I’m in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS.” — Zippy the Pinhead

I’ve said many times previously that Shakespeare was overrated, and isn’t one of my favorite playwrights, even though I fully admit he is possibly, overall, the best that ever performed that particular act of literary expression. I just don’t like a lot of it; to my mind, and ear, much of it simply sucks, big time…. That said, he wrote so damn much, some of it just had to be fucking brilliant…. The above quote, known by heart to a large portion of mankind for over 400 years, falls directly into that category, effortlessly. Possibly the greatest soliloquy of all time, it shines with a luster that outshines virtually all other of mankind’s works, to give us the truth about ourselves…..

Maybe that’s why I write so much…. I’m hoping to hit on, and create, at least ONE piece that shines like this, if not quite a match for its degree of brightness…. SIGH…. Well, I guess I’ll just keep trying; I have a ways to go to be that good…. And, in the process, I’ll try to remember this…. which was the last one that popped up; the one after this was so bad, I knew it was done….

“The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.” — Eugene Delacroix

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

Not bad; I’ve shaved over 40 minutes off the hour I got up late… I’ll take it, and y’all, I think, are fortunate that I am. This one is a good pearl, and not nearly as long as they have been for the last few weeks… I suppose even my fertile brain has to take a creative break now and again…. Enjoy it while it lasts, though; nothing I do or see these days is liable to shut me up for long…. Just sayin’….. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, and remember, in spite of how it may seem at times, I love you all…. I can’t claim I like it, but, there it is, so, I deal…. you’ll deal, too, I’m sure….

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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!



Sober reflection is due, to underscore the value of former mushrooms….

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Ffolkes,

“So live that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell.” — Smart Bee
dawg (2)

    Is that not the very face of utter devotion? Is he not completely focused on the next words coming from the person at whom he is gazing with such adoration, and hopeful expectation? This is, to me, the very best way to teach children about the joy and power of love, and the duty that comes with it, duty owed to the one who loves with such loyalty and steadfast purpose. Very few humans, in my experience, ever reach the same level of absolute trust and/or sheer devotion, motivated only by a heart innocent of deceit, or deliberate cruelty… I find most humans can rationalize almost any sort of ethical or moral failure, many do so without any sort of guilt or remorse…. But, not a dog, or any other so-called “lower” creatures in the entire animal kingdom….

Oh sure, there are some who are dangerous, or even, seemingly, harshly violent toward other creatures; but, none of them ever kills for pleasure, none of them ever make a habit of fouling their own nest, and none of them ever CHOOSE to be deliberately immoral. When they do act in a way that seems connected to a dark purpose, it is a learned behavior, and not natural to their innate nature; in fact, when they do act out of character with their inner spirits, most animals tend to display all the signs of illness, or even insanity. It is as if acting against their nature is instinctively proscribed for them…. It makes one wonder about which of the animals is really at the top of the chain of life…. Well, I wonder, anyway….

I’m not sure why I got so far into that, especially this early; I love animals, though, and regard them as better company, most of the time, than almost any human, but, that doesn’t explain how, or why, such an emotionally-charged, yet completely off-the-wall, less-than-earth-shattering subject escaped out of wherever it’s been hiding in my head, & found its way out onto the screen…. Apparently, that face, that wonderful, loving face, got to me, before I was prepared for it, with some thoughts I’d already washed clean of any sappy romanticism…. I suppose it’s just one of those things we closet romantics have to expect now and again, when we let our guard down, or temporarily put aside our training in curmudgeonry….

“But” he whined, ” now what?” After that start, ffolkes, your guess is probably as good as mine, and I have no clue…. I’ll have to put a team on that, & have them get back to me on a rush basis, okay? Let me just text over to my admin, so he can do that….. Shouldn’t take long, so, relax, grab a beer, or whatever is there, and hang for a few…. we’ll be right back with something new to drag lure, um, bring, that’s it,to bring you back to your seats, and back into the grip of our will…. Bwwaaahaahahaha!….

Okay, I’m out of jail now; it only cost me about $5000 in bail, part of which I’ll get back when I show up for the hearing…. That’ll be after the lawyers take their insane percentage for whatever they do…. I once got one of their bills, in which I was charged one quarter hour of the hourly rate, which was, as it turns out, $250.00; the charge, then, for a quarter of that hour’s assigned value, was $62.50, for the difficult, complex, incredibly complicated procedure, known as, and listed as, “opening a new file”…..

Really; that’s exactly what it said….. I asked the lawyer if that meant that they charged me more than $50, for calling their secretary, having them walk to the cabinet to obtain a fresh manila folder, then making a label for it with my name on it? Or, I continued, was there something I’m missing here about how complex it is to open a file?…. I was really kind of hurt when he didn’t smile, or answer the question….

But, then, I’ve found that MOST lawyers I’ve met, at least the ones without scruples, don’t have one… a sense of humor, that is… Me, I’m a Bozo, and I don’t have any choice in the matter….funny crap follows me around….

In fact, I see some now…. let’s go see if we can make it blow water out its nose, okay?

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Hello seeker!  Now don’t feel alone here in the New Age, because there’s a seeker born every minute.” — The Firesign Theater

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

Yesterday I walked…. a lot more than is usual for me of late, though not enough to put me down…. In fact, my recent forays seem to have had a beneficial effect on my stamina, as I slept, and now feel pretty okay…. not bad for this time of day, when massive quantities of magic cream find its way onto my body, to help the morning background of pain from hips and shoulders…. the back waits until they’re done, so that helps some, but, this writing helps as much, to distract me from the worst of it….

I am, though, a bit tired still, so, here is a discussion from a long time ago, on this blog, anyway, back in the early days, before Pearls assumed their current manifestation…. The angst was there, but, it looked different….

From 12/17/2011:

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” — James Madison

“A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.” — Thomas Jefferson

The Homeland Security Act, passed shortly after the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, is, to my way of thinking, the first time in our history that the American people have voluntarily allowed abridgments to our personal liberties to be enacted. The way I see it, quote #1, by James Madison, called that one perfectly. Our beloved ruling class, having decided we have “too many rights” (a direct quote from the junior Shrub, btw) in the Bill of Rights, carefully orchestrated events to provoke an attack on our home shores, knowing they could then fool the public into accepting their abridgments on our freedoms. And, to proceed to Mr. Jefferson’s comment, WE LET THEM DO IT! Anyone who rose up to speak against this vile, manipulative legislation was immediately shouted down as being unpatriotic.

For most of my life, I have avoided guns.  Being a fairly smart guy, I noticed at a young age that most of the folks who get shot were carrying guns; it makes sense to me to reduce the chances of becoming a target in this most simple way, i.e., never carrying this kind of weapon (though it would be a very big mistake to assume that I carry NO weapons; in fact I carry four at all times, all of different kinds, none of which are guns). However, since the PTB (powers that be)  have begun to try to take away my rights, I figure I’d better grab myself a bunch more firepower, before I no longer am allowed to do so.

If worse comes to worst, I WILL fight, if they come for any more of my rights. I will not let the blood and sacrifice of my countrymen and forefathers, and my own father, for that matter, be in vain. I’m about done with putting up with these kinds of issues, and am drawing near the point of acting on my feelings. In one sense, I hope they stop and reconsider trying to further reduce our liberties, because if they don’t, I’m going to REALLY get mad, and they will find themselves with a whole new issue to deal with……I’m a Scorpio, a triple Scorpio, for that matter; I was born under the sign of the God of War. You do NOT want to make me into an enemy…..

The vultures are circling…they have the faces of presidential candidates and carry bowling balls in their buttered claws….

Note from 2014: Apparently, even back then, I was a trifle upset with the Beloved Ruling Class; these days, the same issues arise on an almost daily basis, as the second incarnation of the Homeland Insecurity Act was signed on New Year’s Eve in 2011, by our “transparent” president, who apparently didn’t want any crap from the public or the media about doing so….

Why else do it while the entire country is out drinking away the feelings of fear whipped up by the fanning of the public’s rage over the terrorist acts of that infamous day?….Which, in truth, was an act which entirely ignores our response to that terrorist act, wherein we have killed, many times more than 10 times the number of Americans who died that day, in revenge upon people who had no part in it…. In truth, our country’s response strongly resembled an enraged bull in a china shop, without the dignity of having a valid reason to be there….

I’m done now…. Obviously, this is a mini-rant, which I’ve turned into a full out, extra long rant on numerous occasions…. So, I’ll give y’all a break this time…. Next time we are supposed to go vote, you can return the favor, and don’t…. It only encourages the assholes when we do…..

“We need a president who’s fluent in at least one language.” — Buck Henry, comedian, 1992

“The bad thing about experience is that it teaches you the stuff you don’t want to know.” — Smart Bee

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

Today, only one poem will do to follow that section, and it’s one of mine, from a couple years back…. It speaks directly to the relevant issues discussed above…. Enjoy!….

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,
we’ll take careful aim, and piss.

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid ~~


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

The following pearl, made up of randomly chosen pearls, is, sort of, unique….. Now, you may wonder how the hell something can be “sort of” unique… according to the definition of the word, things either are unique, or they are not unique, period. But, then Daniel Webster had never heard of the concept of diving for pearls of virtual wisdom, or for that matter, even cared…. which goes a long way toward explaining why he might not be the best one to make any final decisions about “connotations”, as his entire persona was hardwired to focus on the “denotation” of words….

Also, in this case, it has no real bearing one way or another, because it’s just a trick, to get you to forget about anything that has gone before….. just in case you might be thinking about a civil suit for damages…. Of course, now I’ve descended into plain silliness, and am once again wasting time and words galore in the pursuit of nonsense…. S’okay, I’m used to it, and, by now, y’all should be as well…. Regardless, we were talking about this pearl…. All of the quotes you see, all nine of them, were spit out by Smart Bee in the order you see, one right after another…..

I’ve witnessed the million monkeys, ffolkes….. they have produced the works of Shakespeare, in its entirety, right here on this blog….. The odds of what you see approach the same level as the odds of the Earth falling out of its orbit in the next five minutes…. they are astronomically small…. That said, I’m going to let them speak for themselves, especially since I know the perfect pearl awaits you at the end, in the final entry, to make it all clear….. Enjoy!…. It isn’t often you’ll see a nine-star pearl, especially one that essentially was gifted to us by the Universe…..

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you- Nobody- Too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise-you know!
How dreary-to be- Somebody!
How public-like a Frog-
To tell one’s name-the livelong June-
To an admiring Bog!

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

“Adversity makes a man wise, not rich.” — Romanian proverb

“I don’t think math is a science. I think it’s a religion.” — Calvin

“Be on your guard against a silent dog and still water.” — Latin proverb

“Almost all reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.” — Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946)

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” — Albert Einstein

“A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.” — Eric Hoffer

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

~~ Alexander Pope  ~~
(1688-1744)
— Essay on Man, Epistle i, Line 289 —

“MERYL STREEP is my obstetrician!” — Zippy the Pinhead


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

Well, that was something…. I’ll try hard to figure out what, but, later; for now, it will do….. Since that is the case, I really have no excuse to hang around any longer, so, I’ll submit to the demands of reality, this time, and be on my way into the day…. Should be a good one, I think, it it doesn’t get too hot…. See y’all 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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!



Are you sure? Forever and a day is a long time….

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Ffolkes,

“The velocity with which time flies is infinite, as is most apparent to those who look back.”

~~ Seneca ~~

 (B.C. 3-65 A.D.)

potd-starry-night_3005698k

    Today is a day pregnant with possibilities…. I have high hopes that when I return from my outing today, my life will have undergone some significant alterations, at least in one or two respects, and, all I can say is, it’s about damn time….. I feel as if I’ve been stuck in a rut for months, and have an opportunity to break free of whatever it is that has been keeping me from LIFE….

Hence, the quote from Seneca seems to me to be most appropriate, encouraging us, as it does, to look forward, to see what there is to see, and to learn, rather than wasting precious time trying to hold on to something in the past, expressing the advantage of keeping our eyes on the road ahead…. The most excellent photo doesn’t hurt, either, if only to please the senses with its incredible scope…. thus highlighting the quote by showing us a view of infinity, stretching through time and space, from the ancient stone dance, to the endless array of galaxies and stars….

Besides, who knows when I’ll actually find another pair of pearls, of different media, to fit together so well…. I’ve been putting these together now for a few weeks like this, and it works really well for its purpose, which is, essentially, to save my sorry ass from having to come up with something new to start with each day…. My brain informed me some time ago it was very close to becoming a completely dry hole, no oil, no water, and no more creative images or words…. I had wracked my brain too many times, and it was about to revolt….

That’s when I started adding the pictures up top, which had a dual purpose, of eliminating the need to find and/or include attribution for those pictures that I didn’t take, and to get me out and about to practice my photography skills, with the intent, naturally, to get better at it, as well as to increase my ability to walk around for greater distances…. A win-win-win situation the way I see it….

Hell, it even works on a day like today, when I just needed the intro to complete the Pearl, which I have worked on ahead of time, in order to be sure I don’t get held up today, heading out to my day full of potentially wonderful events….. I mean, there is always the chance the day won’t live up to my hopes (which I’ve been pretty successful at not allowing to become expectations….), but, I’m thinking that my odds are good enough, it’s well worth whatever risk of that there may be…. Murphy can’t be everywhere at once, can he?

Regardless, the new method has also allowed me the space and time today to sort of wander around like this without ever really getting into anything…. That’s okay, I got into plenty down below, believe me…. All good, of course, but, if not, well, I’ll refund every penny you paid, okay? Can’t say fairer than that…..

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.” — Aristotle (B.C. 384-322)

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

In keeping with the promise made, in the pearl that is now in section three, below, this section, and the second section, for poetry, will be kept to a minimum, to balance the weight of the last pearl…. I hate breaking my word, so, I’ve chosen to include only the two links, to different articles, below in this section, without adding any ranting, or any discussion beyond this introduction…

The first one is an EXCELLENT discussion of the events now taking place in the Middle East, concerning the war being fought, on several fronts, as the radical Muslim group, known as ISIS, attempts to form a caliphate, with their own interpretation of the Quran (Koran) as the basis of their laws, and directing their political identity…. Mr. Carroll gives us some intelligent perspective, and even more intelligent analysis….. It’s a fine read, with some very good points that often are overlooked in much of the coverage in the media…. I think you will enjoy it….

You won’t enjoy the second, I guarantee, though it is what I would consider to be essential reading; it’s a report, about a report from the UN, on a subject about which I’ve been ranting for a couple of years now, climate change and global warming, a report that demonstrates how nothing is happening at all to make any needed changes…. It’s a report that I am certain will achieve the self-same results as all my rants, in terms of what it may cause to change out in the real world, i.e., none… Nothing has changed, and this article makes it abundantly clear, it is most likely too late to do anything about it… Well, not this article, the second one….

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/Upon-further-re-reconsideration-5711550.php

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/UN-panel-Global-warming-human-caused-dangerous-5713478.php?cmpid=hp-hc-nationworld

 In the beginning, God created the Earth and he said, “Let there be mud.”
 And there was mud.
 And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done.”
 And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. 
Mud-as-man alone could speak.
 “What is the purpose of all this?” man asked politely.
 “Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.
 “Certainly,” said man.
 “Then I leave it to you to think of one for all of this,” said God.
 And He went away.

~~ Kurt Vonnegut ~~

Between Time and Timbuktu


Uh, oh…. too late…..

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

“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross an infinite sea and so make it finite… The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” — G. K. Chesterton “Orthodoxy”

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility’s temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints’ slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


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

Today, I’m extending the scope of the recent additions to section 3 with some old pearls from 2011, when each pearls is what we now call an old school style pearl… After that format got old, I changed to accommodate my desire to produce more, and practice different styles and techniques of writing…. so, I changed the look of each day’s Pearl, to include five sections, each with its own short pearl, and discussion based on that pearl… It’s an example of what I went through to evolve what now become my rants…

Each of these sections, as you see them below, in today’s format, would be treated with a more thorough discussion, but, for today, since together the five pearls make it long enough to stifle anyone’s enthusiasm for reading, we’ll just put it here in section one, then pick a short poem, and a short pearl for section 3, to save y’all some time & energy…. It’s the least I can do, considering I’m subjecting y’all to such a long foray into my my mind’s indubitably odd twists and turns…..

Obviously, we’ve had a change of plans…. it’s okay, though, as I managed to do so without adding any extra ranting, or long, involved discussions to the mix… As promised in the paragraph above, written BEFORE the change, unlike this one, I kept sections one and two to a minimum of material, though both of excellent quality… All of that notwithstanding, here you are, about to finish up for today, and didn’t even know it…. Funny how that works, isn’t it?…..

From 12/27/11:

Ffolkes,

In my wildest, most disturbing dreams, I never thought the world would come to this juncture. We stand once again at a fork in the road ahead. Down one road lies extinction; it’s actually the road we are on now, but we have come to the last possible exit, onto a road that continues on into the future, bright with promise. On this road, humanity has new forms of transport, sustainable and clean. The air is clear, the ocean is blue, and all the creatures who share this planet have been welcomed into the circle of Life, wherein we now reside. Everyone is treated the same, and there are no more distinctions drawn between one man and the next. Resources are husbanded and shared equally, and economic manipulation is a dim memory.

Sounds pretty nice, eh? I think so too. I’m just not terribly convinced that the rest of humanity is going to come down that road with those of us who take it. I’d much rather we all went together, but I refuse to choose to continue on the road we have been traveling, just as I refuse to consider killing myself.    It’s all so clear to me, I have a hard time understanding why others cannot see what I am seeing. If we don’t stop what we’re doing, we’re going to pay the consequences; that’s not a guess, not a theory. It’s truth. I hope y’all can deal with it….

I think I lost my mind.  Please watch where you step.

(Note from 2014: Note the last line in the second paragraph…. then, remember what I said above, about having ranted for two or more years on that subject…. It seems it’s been even longer than that….. gigoid…)
___________________________________

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there ‘s nobody at home.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Epigram

A gen’rous heart repairs a sland’rous tongue.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book viii, Line 432

Pope, living and writing in the 17th &  18th centuries, is apparently channeling Homer Simpson, 300 years in the future….. Doh!  Even wonderful poetry can be turned into low humor; here is solid proof. These two short pieces of pieces were just irresistible, as they immediately brought to mind a clear image of Homer slapping his head. See, I can be whimsical!…..
___________________________________

“Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.” — Josh Billings

“I’m a man of my word. In the end, that’s all there is really….” — Avon

Tough to argue with these; they both are basic elements of my own philosophy. It’s a shame, really, that society in general doesn’t buy into this more. Strong, silent men are in short supply in today’s world, and the twin pillars that hold up our culture, Duty and Honor, have fallen into sporadic use at best. Not enough children are being raised under the moral aegis these concepts provide, and the results are as predictable as they are ugly. Too many young men and women are reaching the age of reason with no inner strength, no strong morals to guide their way; rather than cloaking themselves in honor and duty, they are approaching life armed only with an imagination whose scope has been severely limited by their moral shortcomings. It can be a tough world out there, and it’s only going to get tougher at time goes on, unless society can find a way to shore up the shaky underpinnings of our culture, before it’s too late to try…..

“Cowardice” and “self-respect” have largely disappeared from public discourse. In their place we are offered “self-esteem” as the bellwether of success and a proxy for dignity. “Self-respect” implies that one recognizes standards, and judges oneself worthy by the degree to which one lives up to them. “Self-esteem” simply means that one feels good about oneself. “Dignity” used to refer to the self-mastery and fortitude with which a person conducted himself in the face of life’s vicissitudes and the boorish behavior of others. Now, judging by campus speech codes, dignity requires that we never encounter a discouraging word and that others be coerced into acting respectfully, evidently on the assumption that we are powerless to prevent our degradation if exposed to the demeaning behavior of others. These are signposts proclaiming the insubstantiality (sic) of our character, proclaiming the hollowness of our souls.” — Jeffrey R. Snyder, Fall 1993 _The Public Interest
___________________________________

A crucifix?  Oy vey, have you got the wrong vampire! — Smart Bee

In my diving for pearls, over the years I’ve gone past this one several times (sometimes the randomness generator doesn’t quite live up to its’ name), and have just smiled and gone on. But today, for some reason, I finally got it…….and it’s fucking hilarious! What I wouldn’t do to see this character in an episode of Twilight (though I have to confess I’ve never watched it), or Buffy, the Vampire Slayer! They could call him Simon, pretender to the throne of Satan, master of Guilt, who bores his victims into a stupor, leaving them at mercy to his dark secret, a fetish for the blood of sons and daughters of mothers of the Tribe. If nothing else, the media frenzy  in the religious world would be fun to watch….. You may be asking yourself, is nothing sacred? All I can answer is, “Nope.”………
___________________________________

“The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.” — Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Siggy had his moments of clarity amid the nonsense of a lot of his assertions exhibit. This is one of them. Part of what makes a man civilized is to be able to accept this part of his nature, and deal with it in the only honorable fashion; each morning a man must awake and make a conscious decision that, “Today, I will not kill.”, and then abide by it as best he can. Nothing else will work as well, and though it takes no small amount of courage to keep his word, a man of honor will do so, no matter the cost.

I think one of the most disheartening aspects of today’s culture is the lack of honor most people exhibit. When I was brought up, in the 1950’s, it seems like everyone believed in the concept of Honor, and it was just assumed that one could expect others to behave in light of that. As time has passed, I have seen the concept fall further and further out of the public consciousness with each passing year, and selfishness and avarice have assumed the central position in most folk’s attitudes. SIGH……I really do miss it……
___________________________________

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” — Bertrand Russell, Autobiography

These are wonderful sentiments, and I can only hope that when I die, I can have put on my headstone some indication that I had fulfilled all three of these passions. The ability to share love, the passion for learning, and compassion for the weak and troubled are the highest expressions of the human spirit, and pursuit of them is an honorable task to take up as one’s Duty. No man could ever hope for a more fulfilling existence, acting in service to those he loves, which includes all living creatures. One can only wish that this attitude was more prevalent in society at large; we might have avoided some of the troubles we’re having. No sense crying over spilled dairy products though…..you just have to hang on to your hope…..
___________________________________

Now I understand how the little piece I found yesterday fits in to the puzzle. Not to replace the sig, but rather to join it……..yay, me….y’all take care out there….

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


(Note from 2014:  See? We can learn something new every day…. Apparently, this is the Pearl in which I first used this particular part of the closing signature (sig) lines…. I did not remember that…. Huh….)

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

Incredibly, it’s done…. not only done, but, done early, using the famous, or infamous, powers of a Time Lord, which we managed to steal acquire some weeks ago, through some rather subtle, clandestine wand work…. For now, suffice it to say, damn, we almost pulled it off! See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, possibly in a completely new/old state of mind…. I know, that’s a bit unfair, but, hey, if the big studios can hand out teasers, so can I…..

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, the dubious

(Today’s picture, of the stone dance under the stars, came from, I believe, Space.com, from a group of award winning astronomy photos…. a group I also saw at another site…. so, it’s probably not a copyrighted piece….  If you wish any further information, copy the picture, then paste that into the search box on the Google images page, so it can find it for you…. it will…. & I’m too lazy….)

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!

 

Offer them a pastille, and be done with it….

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1

Ffolkes,

“Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger.   Have we not eaten  while another starved?  Will you punish us for that?  Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate?  No man earns punishment, no man earns reward.  Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and you will begin to be able to think.”

 — Odo, The Prison Letters —

~~ Ursula LeGuin ~~

The Dispossessed

August 23 2014 010

    In the recent past, these introductory sections have relied upon either the quote at the top of the page, or the picture just below it, to help me find a direction in which to set out for the day’s journey into the labyrinth I call my mind, to anywhere in the vast unknown territory in which the day’s Pearl may be hiding…. As a result, I have experienced what might be called an ambiguous reaction, to the reduction of stressful indecision over this process. One side of that reaction is pleasure, a feeling of contentment and relief, at not having to work so hard at it; the other side has been an unfortunate tendency to rant, massively, if not magnificently, here in the opening comments….

Now, while that may be advantageous from one standpoint, it does, in what echoes the casually cruel way of much of the Universe, ignore my routine, as it blithely destroys it…..

Hmm…. we interrupt this introduction to bring you this mildly important bulletin….. Here where I live, in the Bay Area at the top of the Bay, we just had another small earthquake…. most likely an aftershock of the good-sized shaker that occurred day before yesterday, which registered 6.0 on the Richter scale, and knocked down some good-sized pieces of the downtown area…. This one didn’t knock anything off my shelves, though the house did a little dance for about 5 or 10 seconds; it never reached the intensity of the one the other day…. Oh, well, I guess we’re done for now…. back to whatever it was I was talking about before mother Gaia interrupted with her latest little shocker….

Now, where were we? Oh, right, obliterated routine…. This daily alteration of the routine has also seemed to stimulate me, and Smart Bee, which has been coming up with some excellent pearls for ranting…. So, the rants have not only been, often, earlier in the day’s post than is usual, but, longer than is probably wise, or effective…. Hence, I think, the recent drop in the number of readers stopping by…. I have to admit, my blog is probably more work than most, what with the seriousness of much of the subject matter, and my tendency to become pedantic, pompous, & long-winded….

All of this, while, no doubt, interesting to me, is also, no doubt, boring most of you to tears…. So, I’m going to make an executive decision, to bring this to a close at this point, using one of the more efficient emergency methods I’ve acquired over time to help to overcome the seriousness and pomposity that is now threatening to get out of control…. You might recognize it, if you’ve been here before…. it’s number 4, and it works fast. Watch this….

Shall we Pearl?…..

And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium

~~ T.S. Eliot ~~


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

And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
  The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
  T’ enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
  May come refin’d with th’ accents that are ours?

~~  Samuel Daniel ~~

(1562-1619)

 — Musophilus, Stanza 163 —

I’m afraid I’ve gotten a little out of hand, again…. I have yet to see how long this section has grown to be; it isn’t done as I write this. I’m doing so as a warning to my Gentle Readers, to give them the option of skipping to the poetry section…. Those unfamiliar with the extent of my ramblings at times are advised to read on, to gain a clearer picture…. of what, is, as always, up to you. You are the one who is learning whatever lesson there is to be learned, aren’t you? I can merely offer my own thoughts; you must do with them what you will…. as long as you don’t try to hurt anyone with them…

This pearl has meandered, though originally, it had a specific design that didn’t include such a lack of focus…. But, as I read the news yesterday, I saw so many disturbing stories, I kept adding them to the end of what I’d already finished, several times, before even beginning to collect the pearls to make the old-school pearl at the end, which I intended to use in lieu of formal ranting….

In other words, there is so much crap going on in the world, I had to collect a bunch of it in order to get it out of my head, before it sat in there & rotted…. There will still be an old-school pearl, comprised of five, or seven pearls of virtual wisdom, that will provide, hopefully, some order, and some insight, into possible ways to deal with such an incredibly humongous pile of dross and drivel…. Wish me luck….

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life.  It goes on.” — Robert Frost

When Robert Frost made this statement, it was made, naturally, in light of the knowledge of his own life experience, which, at the point in history when it was uttered, had led him to believe this, with good reason…. I am sorry to say, however, that conditions in the world have drastically changed in the intervening years, and this belief is in danger of being made irrelevant, as no longer supported by the evidence…. When he lived, the world had not yet come to the crisis point which we now face, in which our history, quite conceivably, may come to a final ending…. with no more chapters to follow.

There is a specific reason for my pessimism when it comes to the subject of climate change, and Mankind’s responsibility for the pollution which has been PROVEN to be the cause of our danger…. Scientifically speaking, there is no longer any room for doubt about that; the evidence is just too overwhelming to either ignore, or minimize, or, as some still do, deny….. We, as a species, and as a member of the circle of Life on this planet, are in significant and imminent danger of dying off, the same as the dinosaurs did, millions of years ago….

The difference here and now, between what is happening to us, and what happened to the reptiles who once roamed the Earth, is that they had no choice in the matter…. The large asteroid/comet/big rock, that slammed into the Earth in the past, created an instant climactic catalyst, so powerful it caused the entire world’s balanced climate to change overnight…. This eventually led to the demise of most of the life then present on the surface of the globe, in a cosmically short time, over a couple thousand years or so….. until the diversity of life here reestablished itself, and the mammalian age began….

What is happening today is not a huge world-wide explosion, or cosmically significant instant impact, by a swiftly moving boulder the size of, oh, say, Texas?, that is causing the changes…. It has been conclusively proven that the millions upon millions of tons of chemicals, specifically carbon monoxide, along with a host of others (none of which are helpful to the air….), that are unceremoniously dumped, every day, into the atmosphere we all breathe, are responsible, in a direct-line, logical, evidential progression, for the changes we are now witnessing on a world-wide scale….

All the strange weather patterns, the melting of the polar ice, at both poles, causing the level of the oceans to rise, the rise in the overall temperature of the planet, and all the other cataclysmic events we are seeing now, are OUR OWN FUCKING FAULT, for refusing to halt the idiocy, even though our culpability has been relatively common knowledge, now, for over 50 years…..

Yet, according to the article below, after all this time, and all the evidence, there is still so much resistance to the issue in the ranks of the ignorant, fundamentalist assholes who control the House of Representatives in this country, any piece of legislation that acknowledges that danger, or tries in any way to put a stop to the idiocy, is blocked automatically in the GOP controlled Congressional House of Representatives, by these same fundamentalists who categorically refuse to even LOOK at the evidence that is killing them, and their entire families, without them even knowing it….. It makes me sick, to realize these fucking idiots are in a position to block any attempts to rectify the situation, thus, unwittingly (as they do EVERYTHING in their life….), strengthening my impulsive urge to buy a gun, almost immeasurably….

Read the article, and after you’ve calmed down, (Okay, so that’s just me….), you can do what I did…. Look through the old-school pearl(s) I’ve collected & placed  below the link, shrug phlegmatically, then, start practicing the unpalatable act of resigning yourself to the most likely outcome, to wit: In about a hundred years, or possibly less, unless we make immediate drastic changes to society, and the way we approach LIFE on this planet…. well, if we don’t, we are all,  most surely, going to die, painfully, and without hope of any deus ex machina, from a imaginary supernatural force that, reportedly loves our undeserving, sorry asses, so much, they will change reality to allow us to live….

Sorry, ffolkes, that just ain’t going to happen…..

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/08/19/valley-dems-take-issue-on-climate-change/

I don’t know about y’all, but, I’m really impressed at the depth of ignorance in our Beloved Ruling Class that is implied by this article…. simply massive stupidity at work here, ffolkes….

Oh, yeah, and then there’s this…. Below is another link, to an article about Señor Rick Perry, who is one of the “fundies” mentioned above (He is on record, as believing the idea of Man being the primary cause behind climate change is a “question that hasn’t been answered to his satisfaction”…), Consider this, ffolkes…. This man, for the moment, at least, is one of the top contenders for the GOP presidential candidate at the next election, in 2016…. Well, one of the most visible, anyway…

Don’t worry, though, he is confident the suit against him for abuse of his office’s power, )brought against him by people in his own state bureaucracy, for threatening to refuse to sign a bill, that provided funding for corruption investigations in his state), will be dismissed as baseless…. He is confident of this, in spite of having publicly stated, beforehand, he would veto the bill, if he didn’t get something he wanted from a Democratic opponent…. When it was refused, he vetoed the funding bill, thus firmly allying himself on the side of those who are corrupted, and those who believe their lies…. and, in the process, making it harder to investigate HIM…. Hmm, what do you think?

I think Mr. Perry is very slick (this is after I get control of the nausea prompted by having to think about him at all….); his whole attitude is one of skillful denial, and Alfred E. Neumann-like obliviousness (In recent months, he has adopted the wearing of some studious looking, nerdy black frame glasses, to give him a more intellectual look… In reality, he doesn’t realize that it gives him a striking resemblance to Alfred, the iconic image of Mad Magazine, and a logo for all that is crazy in life…)…. I can just hear him, talking to reporters outside the courthouse, “What, me worry?…. No corruption here, ffolkes, keep moving, no need to even look….” Remember now, this is a man who wants to be president of this country….

(No capital for “president of the United States”? What’s up with that? Oh… I stopped capitalizing it when I lost all respect for the office, back about the time of Nixon, followed by Johnson, then the sheer hell of the Reagan years, and Shrub the First, and the vacuum of time that was Jerry Ford…. Oh, yeah, and that other guy…. what was his name…. oh, right, the Junior Shrub, George the Blithering Idiot….)

So, maybe Perry is what the GOP, and all the fools and idiots who bought into the lies that have inundated the public’s consciousness now for most of the time since World War II, (that’s when the worst of the reliance on clandestine activity in the government became habitual, and the almost automatic denial and lying to the public sector has its root…. and, in many cases, is used as the justification for all of it…. Falsely, of course. but what has ever stopped a politician from lying when it suits their purpose? Nothing known to man or science, that’s for sure…), has been looking for all this time…. Maybe he will get the GOP nomination, & we’ll have him as a daily target for our barbs in the 2016 election…. One is allowed to hope, anyway….

Any who, here’s the latest on Ricky Bob…. THEN, we’ll get to the pearls….

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Defiant-Texas-Gov-Perry-coming-to-New-Hampshire-5699362.php

Okay, so, these articles just keep jumping up at me, barking and howling until I let them get on board this train wreck…. But, this one may help…. Over the last couple of days, I’ve written several pieces on the militarization of the police all over the world, and especially in the United States…. One of my favorite columnists, Mark Morford, who writes for the SF Chronicle, and SFGATE, an online outlet connected to the Chronicle, has written his piece for this week on the same subject; he has produced his usual brilliant take on the matter for us to share….

He gives a complete and accurate summation, of the background, and the roots of the current situation in Ferguson, Missouri…. He also analyzes a lot of what is NOT generally considered, with some actual positive points of hope for a creative solution it may be possible to find…. sort of…. It’s a great read, and will, perhaps, add to your comprehension of the issues at hand…. I know I enjoyed, anyway, and, it adds to the overall picture that shows the damage to our culture, so prevalent today….

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/08/18/tear-gas-for-the-huddled-masses/#26011101=0

Okay….. Now, the pearls…. centered for visual balance, which encourages the same in one’s thoughts….

“American elect Democrats to Congress so they’ll be given what they want and Republicans to the White House so they won’t have to pay for it–neither one works.” — Smart Bee

“As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.” — Dick Cavett, in “Playboy”, 1971

“And the people bowed and prayed, to the neon Gods they’d made.” — Paul Simon

“In any country there must be people who have to die.  They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.” — Idi Amin Dada

“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends on whether you are at the right or the wrong end of the gun.” — P. G. Wodehouse

“Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.” — Horace (65-8 B.C.)

“A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.” — Smart Bee

    Well, that was pleasant…. I guess. Perhaps if so many of them weren’t so true to life, the overall effect wouldn’t make me so uncomfortably nauseous…. This is one strange pearl, but, for a rant like this, it works, I’m thinking…. I wonder, though, maybe I should go eat some worms…. At least I’d have a reasonable reason for the nausea…. I need a little something to take the edge off before we go on…. Ah, this will do…. A little reminder the politicians, etc., aren’t the ONLY f___-ups who bear the responsibility for this whole mess…. You and I have played our parts, remember….

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility
then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

 — Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 29


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

To try to make up a bit for the extreme length of the previous section we’ll go with something short, and classic….. How about this one?….

Adventures Of Isabel

Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear’s big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I’ll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry.
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.
Once in a night as black as pitch
Isabel met a wicked old witch.
the witch’s face was cross and wrinkled,
The witch’s gums with teeth were sprinkled.
Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,
I’ll turn you into an ugly toad!
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry,
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry,
She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.
Isabel met a hideous giant,
Isabel continued self reliant.
The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,
He had one eye in the middle of his forehead.
Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,
I’ll grind your bones to make my bread.
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry,
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.
She nibbled the zwieback that she always fed off,
And when it was gone, she cut the giant’s head off.
Isabel met a troublesome doctor,
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.
The doctor’s talk was of coughs and chills
And the doctor’s satchel bulged with pills.
The doctor said unto Isabel,
Swallow this, it will make you well.
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry,
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.

~~ Ogden Nash ~~


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

Second in a series of very old Pearls to grace the third section, here is one from a couple of months after I began posting on WordPress… In those days, an entire Pearl was the size of what is now considered one section, which in most cases ends up here, in section three. I’m bringing back these old pearls to give a feeling of continuity, if only in my own mind…. It also gives me, and y’all, a picture of how things around here have both progressed, and stayed the same…. By the “look and feel” of this group of pearls, a five-star pearl is still the most compelling sort, when it works…. this one works…

From 10/5/2011:

Ffolkes,

A great confusion arose in my mind yesterday; a confusion so great, I could not find a way out, and several things that should have been done were not. This missive is one of those things…..I actually had most of it done, but my ever-present extremely high level of anxiety had me out doing other things that seemed more important at the time. Turns out it wasn’t but, hey, Murphy knows me by first name, so it doesn’t surprise anymore when stuff goes wrong. Hence, today, I must play clean-up on yesterday’s unfinished tasks, thus keeping me from what I’d like to do, which is to get some writing done. No hope there today, not when it takes almost all I’ve got to write a Pearl.

Speaking of which, I finally found the little poem that explains about the Pearls, at least from a minimalist standpoint. I merely take it as proof that I am not alone, that others have walked this path before me, seeking out the finest oysters, and bringing their Pearls of Virtual Wisdom into the light of day……

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.

 — John Dryden —

(1631-1700) — All for Love, Prologue

“Nothing is rubbish if you’ve got an inquiring mind.” — Doctor Who

:sagan: /say’gn/ n. [from Carl Sagan’s TV series “Cosmos”; think “billions and billions”] A large quantity of anything. “There’s a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS.”  “The U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare — hard to say which is more destructive.”  — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

 — John Milton —

 (1608-1674) — Comus, Line 476

Order is heaven’s first law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.

 — Alexander Pope —

 (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle iv, Line 49

“As the tempest and the thunder affect not the sun or the stars, but spend their fury on stones and trees below; so injuries ascend not to the Soul of the great, but waste themselves on such as are those who offer them.” — Akhenaton? (c. B.C. 1375)


Lotta poetry today, yes? It’s good for the mind to stretch in different ways sometimes; keeps it flexible….y’all take care out there…..

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

All things considered, not bad…. we’ll take it. Not only that, but, we won’t make any further big deal about it….. I’ve done all I can do; since all you can do is all you can do, I’m done…. See y’all 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, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!