Tip the scales, but, only if they give good service….

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Ffolkes,

What we have here…. is a failure, to cogitate….. and, though it might further irritate the warden, I can’t see any such event taking place anywhere in the near future…. That, of of course, will make the creation of this Pearl just a trifle problematic, since virtually all I do, here, is based on at least a modicum of cogitation…. It may be MY cogitation, but, it’s there, and nobody can tell me it isn’t as valid, or as reasoned, as any other you might find…. presuming, of course, you are seeking any… So many of our peers on this planet make it a habit to “never touch the stuff”, which explains a lot about modern society….

Since that paragraph took almost 52 minutes to produce, you can see the difficulty to which I refer above…. or, maybe you can’t. Either way, my own head is in some sort of rebellion, or sit-down strike, or something…. I can’t seem to whip it into putting out anything more cogent than what you see before you now, and this, as is patently obvious, ISN’T going to cut it, not for an entire Pearl…. I’ve tried to use piffle, or blather, exclusively, to create Pearls in the past; it doesn’t work….. Nothing will make this kind of random BS acceptable for more than a few hundred words, despite my skill at creating it with little effort…. It just doesn’t hold up for long enough to get anywhere important, or even compelling….

Shoot, you’ve probably figured out by now that this intro section will be joining the ranks of many others, as being a marked departure from any real rationality, or even any cold, hard reasoning; it probably resembles a half-eaten peanut butter & banana sandwich more than anything else, though where that image came from I have no clue…. it just seemed to fit…. I may not have as much protein as peanut butter, but, I’m a good source of phosphorus, just like the banana…

So, how do you like my shoes?…. If I can’t impress anyone with my intelligence this morning, maybe I can charm them…. No, that won’t work, either, I’m thinking…. My charm won’t spread very far; it tends to get hijacked by my curmudgeon training, and the grump comes out, thus eradicating any good feelings the ostensible charm may have engendered…. besides which, I need new shoes, so they’re not going to charm anyone, except maybe an out of work shoemaker, or impress anyone but a mendicant…

Now that I’ve practiced my vocabulary usage, and literally babbled for four paragraphs now, I think we can wrap up this section, & try to get on with something that makes a bit more sense, and will possibly get us on our way…. I don’t believe I’ll even require the use of any emergency methods, as I seem to have wandered around to a point where we can easily jump off the wagon without getting in trouble…. Well, we can, if you follow directions, and jump NOW….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.” — Long Chen Pa

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It has been a long while, too long, since I posted anything on the subject of human trafficking/sex slavery, one I consider to be truly evil, with its own category of posts that touch upon the issue…. To make up for that, below this paragraph you’ll find TWO rants on the subject, both from May of 2012, when I first began to write about it…. Please pay attention to these rants, ffolkes, and spread them around if you will, to spread this message to all who need to hear it, which is virtually everyone alive…. Men, especially gentlemen, have a big responsibility to uphold, and need to be made aware of how they are failing to do so….

Free our sisters, free ourselves…. take note, ffolkes, and pass it on….

From 5/2012:

O men with sisters dear,
O men with mothers and wives,
It is not linen you ‘re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives!

— Thomas Hood (1798-1845) — The Song of the Shirt

Yesterday, I reblogged an article posted by rmott62, a very strong, inspiring young woman who writes about her experiences as a sex trade slave. I use the word “slave” deliberately, for no other word describes how the women, and children who are trapped, abducted, or even tricked into becoming prostitutes. I have reblogged her work, and the work of a couple others who have been fortunate enough to have exited the system in which they were entrapped, several times, and I will continue to do so as long as she, and I, still are publishing. I do this because I am ashamed….

Yes, ashamed…. I am ashamed at myself, and of all the other men in the world who turn their faces away from this issue, and pretend that there is nothing they can do about it. I am ashamed that this practice, of raping and abusing women and girls, just for their own pleasure (though I fail to see how it can be pleasurable to rape or abuse…), just because they can, not only has been present for thousands of years, but continues unabated in today’s supposedly enlightened culture. To my way of thinking, all of us men are responsible for this, and it is our DUTY to do whatever we can to put a stop to it.

Back in the days when mankind lived in caves, when a man in the tribe became dangerous to others in the tribe, for stealing, for abusing others, for whatever reason they had that went against what was good for the tribe, the other men in the tribe made it a point to discipline that man. It may have been merely a physical beating, or banishment from the tribe, or even death, but the other men took it upon themselves to see that the will of the tribe was upheld. Somehow, when culture grew, and started inhabiting cities, and there was more interchange between various tribes, the system broke down. The people of the society were now supposed to be protected from such depredations by law….

But, at about this time, the unscrupulous among us started to solidify their power over society; the richest among the tribes were those who made the laws; they were also the same ones who saw nothing wrong with raping and abusing women, assuming that was their privilege as one of the beloved ruling class. And so the laws were made to reflect that attitude, and the die was cast. This system has survived the centuries, and now the attitude that prostitution is an integral part of society is so ingrained that even those without any other kind of power over others can go to a brothel and act out their sick fantasies, at the expense of a woman or child who has no defense against the violence that occurs if they should object…. and if there is a discussion it is always about a “victimless crime”….

It disgusts me, right down to my core. It is perhaps the sickest part of our society, and very few people are even aware of it. There is certainly no discussion in the public at large of the issue; it is far too volatile for any politician to ever take the chance of siding with the women who are being abused. Hell, a good half of those assholes in office are trying to take away the few rights women have managed to get into law over the last 40 years; Roe vs. Wade has already been set aside, and the asshole men who can’t stand the thought of a woman having the right to choose anything, much less their own sexual nature, are trying to make sure it never gets revived.

I’m not sure what can be done, at least not on a society-wide scale. The attitudes, and laws, have been so set in stone for so many years that it may require surgical removal to make any progress. But, on a smaller scale, I can make noise about it, and try to shame any man who believes otherwise that he is not only a fool, but an asshole fool, and doesn’t deserve to call himself a man. When I was in college, the women’s rights movement was in its beginnings, and there was a phrase coined that says it all, to me…. Free our sisters, free ourselves….

None of us men will ever be truly and completely free until we have freed our sisters from such servitude. That is a fact. It is not just my opinion, it is a fact, and we would do well to pay heed…. and those who engage in this industry had best watch out, for if no one else does, I will be looking for them, and when I find them, I will do all I can to end them. And you can interpret that however you wish; I have no doubt in my mind as to what I mean, and I mean “end them”…..
______________________

From 5/2012:

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.” — John Lennon

Men are afraid of women… hence all the jokes about them taking over, over slyly ruling us without us knowing it. Men’s fears of just that thing are what cause him to hate women, because they do not understand them, and fear arises out of lack of understanding. Here are a few examples of such lies, the lies that perpetuate the war between the sexes…..

“My notion of a wife at 40 is that a man should be able to change her, like a bank note, for two twenties.” — Warren Beatty

A lady is one who only shows her underwear intentionally. — Smart Bee

— Yo momma……so fat she has to buy two airline tickets. — Smart Bee

“A beautiful woman is paradise for the eyes, hell for the soul, and purgatory for the purse.” — Smart Bee

“Passionate kiss like spider web, lead to undoing of fly.” — Confucius say (No, he didn’t, but liars don’t care….)

Really, really sexist and paranoid, yes? Yes….

The mere existence of these jokes, and others like them, indicates clearly what men are afraid of in women, and that is their sexuality. We… well, men, not necessarily we men, because not all of us hate them… No I don’t understand them, but that doesn’t make them any less fascinating or wonderfully different. I am aware of my own self, and my own powers, and they have naught to do with what women can do; I feel no need to compare the two, or to assume one is stronger or better. They are just different, and what is different about women is not to be feared, even if not understood. It is just to be learned, that’s all….and the learning is a totally awesome trip, I assure you….

But, back to the sexuality that men fear. It is because these men have never learned to understand themselves, or their place in the scheme of things, that makes them unable to understand women, and turns their ignorance to fear, from thence to hatred and abuse against them.  Men cannot stand the thought that a woman might be more important than him, and that is a certain sign of lack of confidence, and of ignorance.  Men who know their place in life, and who are confident of their own ability to cope with that place and its demands, have no need or desire to be more important than anyone; they are complete within themselves….

Too many men in this world don’t come anywhere close to this kind of self-knowledge; most go through life without exercising more than two neurons at once, and those tend to lose function whenever the blood goes elsewhere than the brain (such as during an erection). Most men are so afraid of women that they spend half their life telling jokes like the above, and spreading the nonsensical lies that perpetuate this atrocity.

Yes, atrocity, because it is this fear and loathing, of both themselves and women, that leads to issues such as domestic abuse, sex trafficking, prostitution, and abuse of children. The only women who are actively engaged in these activities are those who have been brainwashed to believe the crap they’ve heard all their lives, and who have given up their own humanity; they are very few in number. Otherwise, it is men who perpetrate these vile actions on women…. all because of their own fear and ignorance…. and I say, shame on them, for they are not men, in my world…. they are vicious, unredeemable beasts, and should be put down like the dangerous creatures they are…..

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

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This poetess needs no introduction; the world lost one of its shining lights when she passed away last week. Also, it kind of fits in with the above themed rants…

The Lesson

I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.

~~ Maya Angelou ~~


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Now that I’ve completely screwed the pooch, (and, just what does that REALLY mean?….), I’ll try to balance out the scales a bit, with a random, old-school pearl to finish off…. Hey, it can’t get any stranger, can it? I hope not….

“We enter into life naked and howling, covered with blood. The fun doesn’t have to end there.” — The Book Of Madness

“A man learns to skate by staggering about making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.” — George Bernard Shaw

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxvi

“Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it.” — Smart Bee

“One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.” — Frank Zappa, 1979

“Where the map differs from the terrain, believe the terrain.” — Swedish Army Manual

“I’m not available for comment..” — Zippy the Pinhead

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Zippy, though always good for a finishing line, got this one wrong; consider the quote to be ironic, okay? I answer ALL comments, as far as possible….. That said, I think I’m done; I’ve reached that point where the damage has been maximized, and leaving it all for the street crews to clean up is the most efficient method of dealing with the mess…. We’ve got a good crew here, so, it’s always ready for the next morning…. Now that reality has been insulted past all hope of redemption, I’m outta here…. See ya, 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

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Based, as always, on arbitrary parameters….

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Ffolkes,

I know it’s going to be a long day when taking a nap tires me out….. Yesterday was one of those days, and though I’m not precisely bursting with energy, today does NOT feel the same…. thankfully. Though, being one who doesn’t buy into the whole pie-in-the-sky routine, I’m not sure what that means…. It’s not as if I believe there is actually some bearded, white-haired old Caucasian dude sitting up there in the sky, on a gilded throne (tacky….), waiting for me to acknowledge his divinity with worship, who, I am told, will display a tantrum of childish pique if I don’t do so…. At least, that hasn’t happened thus far, so, I’m not going to hold my breath over it….

I will, however, remark that it makes it hard to feel productive when one gets up, as I did yesterday, after dozing off for a good two hours, only to feel like the only possible, logical choice is a return trip to go another few rounds with the pillow. It also makes it a bit sticky the next morning, (that’s today, ffolkes…. let’s keep up….), as I  try to salvage some of yesterday by speaking of it today…. I know it takes the chance of having the entire group get lost in time, as I tend to mix my time zones when writing, which often leads to losing track of which one I’m currently inhabiting…..

Life can be tough when one wishes to pursue the quest to create the perfect Pearl; it’s not the simple, stress-free activity it appears from the outside, let me tell you…. It CAN be fraught with all sorts of danger, and/or vicious beasts, all angry at being provoked…. those preachers and pundits get a bit testy when crossed, or, worse for them, exposed for their lies and chicanery….

However, I’m not a coward, and I’ve been at this for some time now; it’s merely the morning’s ambiance that has me nervous; it feels like Murphy is lurking, and I hate it when he holds off his surprises for later…. They’re always so much more complex, and, thus, harder to spot, when he takes the time to make them that way, the butthead…. I would try to fool him into thinking I’m not ready for them, so he lets whatever it is out of its cage early, but, I’m not sure I’ve got the chutzpah today…. Hell, I can barely keep my eyes open again, so, maybe today will be more like yesterday than I’d thought…. Hmm, how can I turn that to my advantage?….

I know, I’ll trick Murphy into thinking he’s already tricked me today; if I go back to bed, he’ll get all confused about the time, and think he’s losing it…. I don’t get the chance to fool with him like this very often, so, hey, we’re going for it…. I’ll come back later, ffolkes, to finish this intro, and bask in having bested that blasted asshole, who spends so much of his time fucking with me, or with my friends….. Plus, maybe if I sleep a bit more, I’ll come up with some sort of direction for this Pearl, which, thus far, is completely lost…. Brave, and unafraid, but lost….

I’ll be back….

I’m back… I think. Enough so that I know my tricking of Murphy worked, well enough, it seems, to have dodged whatever nasty bullet he had  planned for today…. and, in celebration of a successful display of cowardice, we’ll close off this intro (you hadn’t noticed that, had you?….), and get on with the rest of today’s mess, such as it may be….. Method #4 should work nicely, I think….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Human life nearly resembles iron. When you use it, it wears out. When you don’t, rust consumes it.” — Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC) — Carmen de moribus

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As noted, today has displayed a high probability of being slated for strangeness; to be frank, which is difficult, as I’m Ned, not frank…. but, if I were, I’d say we’ve already reached that stage…. I know I have, and if that’s true, it would be even more difficult to avoid having the strangeness bleed into this pearl…. Since we’re being frank, I have to say it’s too late….

To salvage what otherwise might turn on us, I’m putting in a headline here, one with some pretty good information….. Read this, if you would, please… then, we’ll talk…. That is, if I can think of anything worth saying about it…. Most all bets are off at this point, as to whether or not we can pull this off…. Myself, I think we can, though it may cost a couple of broken bones…. no big deal, as long as they’re MY bones, right?…. Okay, I’ll stop now, & let you read this….

http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2014/06/23/recap-heres-30-recent-studies-on-the-effects-of-marijuana/#24367101=0

Excellent summary of recent research, almost all positive re: the effects of long-term use of cannabis and/or cannabinoids in general. I’m encouraged, both by the positive nature of all of what is brought out here, but, also by the recent court decisions right here in California, making the process of legalizing medical cannabis that much more of a done deal…. Soon, between the latest advances in the LGBT arena, and this one, American culture might just start to look as if the people were ready to enter the 21st century, along with the rest of the world….

Of course, that is partially an illusion; there are still a LOT of people in this country with what I like to call the dead-brain syndrome, characterized by bigotry, racism, misogyny, and a general refusal to use more than one neuron at a time…. They all go to a Christian church, wear blue suits with red ties and a flag pin, and spend most of their time in the modern world either closing their eyes, or their ears, so they don’t have to see or hear anything that offends their sensibilities…. Murricans, I call them, in close resemblance to their butchering of the country’s name…. These are people who cannot speak their own language without making it sound ignorant….

Sorry, got off into a minor pocket of outrage…. Stupidity is rampant in this country, and it offends me constantly…. Worse than even this stupidity is the even more prevalent attitude of deliberate ignorance, which has to be a choice…. a choice that infuriates me. When I see one of these fat, racist bigots talking on TV, spewing their ignorant hatred over all they see, it makes my fingers itch, for a bow, or a gun, or some other way to put an end to the idiocy of their existence…. It’s a bit harsh, but, there is no other cure for deliberate ignorance…. As I’ve noted in the past, stupidity can’t be helped, and has a certain charm; deliberate ignorance is ugly, and deserves any harsh treatment it engenders from me, or anyone else with any honor in their veins…

I see that I’ve managed to spew now for quite a while, without ever settling in to one theme, other than a very general poking at white Christian bigoted misogynists… of which there are millions of unpleasant examples to witness, in this country alone…. and they breed like fricking rabbits! Oh well, what the hell, it makes for more targets, eh?….. I am not sure exactly how we got into all this, as we started this section relatively positively…. Somewhere along the line, it turned on me…. which is okay, as it got all that built-up vitriol out of my head, where it has obviously been festering for some time…. Better out than in, eh?….

I think what I’ll do now is drop y’all like a stone, off the edge of the precipice upon which we just poised ourselves…. but, we’ll pad the landing area with a group of pearls, which will close off this section with some dignity, or, if nothing else, a bit of pointed humor…. Well, we can hope, can’t we?…. I think a five-star pearl will do nicely….

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.  — Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”

“Intelligence has nothing to do with politics.” — Londo Molari

“…this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no”religion in it.” — John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816

“When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, “Not to unlearn what you have learned.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Antisthenes, iv

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Here is one of mine that I haven’t reprinted in a while; it’s not bad, IMHO….

Dreaming, I wait….

In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.

Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.

Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.

Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.

Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.

When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.

Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night
aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart
Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,
tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art….

~~ gigoid ~~

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I’ve been cruising my archives again, and keep finding rants or discussions worth reprinting; this fits in perfectly with my lazy nature, as well as providing me with material I know is already proofed….. It’s not much, but, it helps….. Plus, I’m finding that much of what I wrote in this period has a certain sharp edge I have trouble matching these days…. I was, at the time, living a much less comfortable life, and it shows in what I wrote during that period…. For now, it fills my need for something to finish this Pearl with panache, or, the closest I come to it…. Enjoy!…..

From 5/7/2012:

I don’t have an attitude problem–it’s supposed to be like this. — Smart Bee

I like this. It’s what I’ve said in response to any number of folks who have challenged me regarding my intransigence in the face of ignorant behavior. I am always tempted to add, “I am an American citizen, and it is not only my right, but my duty to challenge authority,”  mainly because I believe it to be absolutely true, thought not an attitude currently favored by most of society, more’s the pity…. We’d be a lot better off if more folks took their duties as citizens more seriously….

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” — Thomas Paine

All of our founding fathers were convinced that only an educated populace had a chance of maintaining the freedoms they secured for us. They knew firsthand how unscrupulous churches and governments, working hand in hand, had oppressed and subjugated the people for centuries, and they were determined that it should NOT happen here. So they engineered a system whereby each citizen has the opportunity, and the right, to a complete grounding in basic knowledge, in order that they could make informed decisions regarding the laws with which they would be living….

“The Church hates a thinker like a criminal hates the police.” — Smart Bee (So do politicians…)

For over 200 years now, the beloved ruling class and their hidden supporters, the prelates of the churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues, have been repeatedly and subtly attempting to undermine the purpose behind educating people, trying to limit the amount spent on education, or luring people into believing the nonsensical alternatives that religion offers in lieu of independence of thought, thus minimizing the effects of the education received outside their influence. They (the politicians and priests/preachers….) continuously bombard the public with lie after lie, until the lies are accepted as truth, just because there is nothing else offered. They then use those lies to further confuse the public as to what is really happening, and go about their business of stealing and grabbing power wherever they find the opportunity….

“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State.   My idea  is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” — George Carlin

So, my attitude is not the problem…. the problem is that not enough of us have this attitude, and the PTB have virtually no competition in their fight for our attention; there is nobody allowed on the political stage who is singing a different song than the one approved for public consumption by those who control such matters…. Hell, we’ll know we’re making progress if even one such person ever gets the chance to even speak…. In the meantime, all we can do is to have those of us who know our duty keep plugging away, calling them out for their lies, and making as much noise as we can, to try to draw some attention to those places where it isn’t appreciated, but is needed the most…..

“Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast and you ask me what you shall put in its place?” — Voltaire

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This one kind of got away from me a little…. That’s what happens when I have too much energy; it comes into conflict with my bone-deep, inherent laziness, and we end up with an epic pearl, which will surely drive the easily intimidated elsewhere…. So be it…. It’s way too late to go back & do it over, and, besides, I like it…. such as it is…. It will do, and that is the essential ingredient…. 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

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Found while sifting through debris….

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Ffolkes,

Seemingly, my ego knows no bounds…. or, I’m becoming too much a blogger, having lost track of what is important in the search for material about which to write EVERY DAY…. I also figured out it’s the ‘every’ part that makes the difference; once one has committed to a fresh post each day, there is no more leniency allowed…. or so it seems to me….

Ego, though, is NOT allowed to be the driving force behind all I do; that particular battle has been waging inside me for most of my life, ever since I learned that to do so is to court a life full of misery and pain, not always my own…. which only makes it worse. So, I try to focus on duty, instead, which may have elements of ego in it, from the process of choosing, but, duty, by its nature, and by what I was taught about it, does not lend itself well to ego driven choices. As one who accepts the entire concept of duty, and what it means, one realizes that duty to others is the only one that counts toward earning self-respect….

I suppose all that’s a pretty high-falutin’ chain of reasoning that basically amounts to an outburst of well, bullshite, ostensibly lamenting my lateness, which, today, is great, indeed…. Having slept an hour past my normal time to arise, the coffee, while ready, has been cooking for all that time, and should make up the difference in time by loading me up with a truly massive dose of caffeine in the first cup…. I can attest, actually, as I can feel my typing speed increasing as I type this sentence…. Not bad, eh? Another couple blathering, wandering paragraphs, and this will look just like a Pearl that started on time…. whatever that may be…..

Face it now, ffolkes…. when I’m this late, there’s no telling what may happen; this process is already about as random as I can make it…. When fate steps in to fuss with the timing, or the layout, or any of the interior furnishings, the degree of randomness only increases, not arithmetically, but, worse, hyperbolically…. which, though, perhaps, a bit canny, is NOT in itself hyperbole…. Besides, I really meant to write the word, “parabolic”, which is the correct word for my meaning…. hyperbolic merely describes the end result better, as it’s meaning implies a parabola with a slope approaching infinity…..

I should know…. hyperbole is one of my favorite tools as a writer, especially when writing about politicians, or preachers, who both have made the use of hyperbole a part of their everyday patterns of communication…. If you don’t believe me, just go listen to a sermon some day, and count the number of times the pastor-person employs it in their speech; it might just amaze you….. Me, I got tired of it, so I don’t much listen any more…. Of course, in my case, that started at about age 4, so I’ve had lots of practice at ignoring their nonsense….

Look, it’s an intro! Not just ANY intro, either…. It’s got a mini-rant flavor to it, and actually sets the stage for what MAY come after…. I can guarantee no fresh rant today; there isn’t time to go further into that sort of byplay with my targets with what is left of my morning. But, that’s okay, I’ve got a good one on tap from the archives, as mentioned earlier this week…. The Wise Old Pine Cone is gone for a day or two, attending a tournament down south with his paduan…. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go with them, so I won’t have any pictures of that…. The old one has promised me I could take some shots of an upcoming lesson when he returns, so, that will be good…. For now….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” — Oscar Wilde, “Oscariana”

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As noted, below you will find a discussion from the archives, which, oddly enough, will do nicely to bring a bit of reasonable discourse to this Pearl…. It’s probably to late to save it, but, I’ve gotta try…. This one IS tasty, though, so, please enjoy….

From 9/19/2012:

“Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.” — George Santayana

This observation by Mssr. Santayana seems to me to explain most of the movies that come out of Hollywood, or anywhere else. Each of us, though we cannot always say what we see as beautiful, knows what it looks like when we encounter it; every movie made is an attempt to attract people with visions of commonality, beauty that all can agree on, and, of course, pay money to see. It’s a manufactured market, only there because people want to experience those feelings, and are convinced that they can by participating in the public viewing of someone’s idea of beauty (or comedy, or evil, or any other intriguing related emotional experience)….

It reminds me of the concept of perfection…. We all have heard that “nobody is perfect”, or “nothing is perfect”, and there are numerous philosophical treatises that attempt to prove that perfection is beyond human attainment. My question for these people is this: if there is no such thing as perfection, then why do we have its image in our minds? It seems more logical to me that perfection is merely very rare, but examples of it are bound to occur, just by the law of averages, and when it does, we have the perceptive ability to see it, to acknowledge and appreciate its perfection….

The statement also can be viewed as another way of looking at the nature of reality, or the Tao of life. Is not the very first line of the Tao Teh Ching a paraphrase of the above? “The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao.” It touches on the very base of natural law, of how reality is not what we can say of it; it is more than just the description of it. By observing what is real, our perceptions remove the part of what has occurred that gives it body and substance, what makes it real….

If Albert Einstein’s God is the true one, then He left clues to this aspect of reality all over, but especially in physics, as noted by the famed Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which so poignantly points out the folly of placing one’s total faith in what is perceived…. because by seeing it, it has already changed, to suit another of reality’s aspects, Change….

Axiom # 2 of Peruaosophy states: “The Nature of the Universe is Change. Unpredictable, innovative transformation of Reality is the Norm. If you have a problem with this, you are in for a rough ride.”  Since Peruaosophy is my own philosophy, I can tell you, without fear of lying, that the axiom is absolutely true. It has been tested by every method I could think of, all through my life, and I can assure you that it is a factual statement. Trust me….

Okay, so you don’t have to take my word for it…. test it yourself. If you can find a single time when you can say that it is untrue, you document that, and send it to me. I’ll check it out, if any are sent in, but I have serious doubt that I’ll get any replies, as I’m confident of the axiom and its veracity. It doesn’t mean it is better, or more real than any other viewpoint or world view, but I’d wager it stands up to any of them without flinching or looking away….

Now see what I’ve done? I’ve talked myself into a corner, and can’t figure out how to tie all this mental meandering together with any aplomb. I’m sadly short of quotes, so we’ll have to make do with whatever I can come up with on short notice….. let it suffice to say that I believe in beauty, as little as it can be described, and I believe in perfection, in reality, and in the nature of everything…. After all, to be perfect, one would need to also be perfectly imperfect, else how would one tell?  And I know for a fact that many of us are imperfect; at times, I am so myself, on rare occasions…..    🙂    Besides, nature itself is full of examples of perfect beauty, anyway…. just take a walk in a garden when it is blooming with roses, and you will find any number of physical examples of the concept……

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned….

— William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

His head,
Not yet by time completely silver’d o’er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpair’d.

 — William Cowper (1731-1800) — The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 702


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

When I am at a loss for anything else that will do, you know to whom I turn…..

When we stand on the tops of Things —
And like the Trees, look down —
The smoke all cleared away from it —
And Mirrors on the scene —

Just laying light — no soul will wink
Except it have the flaw —
The Sound ones, like the Hills — shall stand —
No Lighting, scares away —

The Perfect, nowhere be afraid —
They bear their dauntless Heads,
Where others, dare not go at Noon,
Protected by their deeds —

The Stars dare shine occasionally
Upon a spotted World —
And Suns, go surer, for their Proof,
As if an Axle, held —
     
~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


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

As I searched for the aphorism to go with the intro, these kept throwing themselves under the wheels, so, I figured, what the hell?…. It turned out pretty well, considering it created itself….

“Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” — George Bernard Shaw

“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” — Sir Barnett Cocks

Hope and inspiration is a thousand times more valuable than people telling me what all the problems and limitations are.” — student after meeting Jane Goodall

“The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people: I was saved, they were damned … Our hymns were loaded with arrogance–self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come judgment day.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first base.” — Frederick Wilcox

“A candour affected is a dagger concealed.” — Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) — Meditations, book 9.

:GIGO: /gi:’goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out’ — usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program didn’t “do the right thing” when given imperfect input or otherwise mistreated in some way.  Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data.  2. `Garbage In, Gospel Out’: this more recent expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have to put excessive trust in `computerized’ data.  — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

A bit eclectic, perhaps, but, it comes together at the last very nicely, I think….

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

I’m not going to offer any excuses for any of this; I’m late, and the consequences of that are readily apparent, so, there’s no need for any further self-vilification…. I’ve completed my chosen duty, and that’s all that matters in the final analysis…. Besides, I’m hungry…. See ya tomorrow, ffolkes, when we’ll try again, hopefully with more success….

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

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Undergoing the dreaded pink belly procedure….

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Ffolkes,

In the usual course of human events, fear plays a part all out of proportion to its actual importance; we humans give it far more credence than it deserves, with a tendency to puff it up to twice or more its real size when we encounter it, until it looks just like a cat trying to impress the neighborhood dog by arching its back and tail, with fur standing on end…..

There is even a small degree of it present here each morning, though I try not to let it have its way beyond allowing it to be here at all….. I’ve done all I could for most of my life to banish fear from my presence; I don’t like or appreciate it at all, even though it has an important evolutionary purpose, as motivation when threatened; but, it also has other effects, unwanted effects, that slow us down, confuse us, effects that debilitate, and keep us from reaching our potential as humans….

In re: this blog and fear, it plays the part of keeping me on track with my discipline; my only remaining fear is that of disappointing myself, or those I love, with failures of morality…. In essence, acting in ways that hurt other people by deliberate choice is, to me, despicable, reprehensible, and unacceptable, in myself, or others….. My fear is that I will act this way myself, or, by a lack of courage, fail to act when others do so…. I like to think of that as the only major fear I have any more, (I don’t count dentists…. it’s not my fault….), and it’s one I am certain is necessary, so, it isn’t worth complaining about, as it isn’t going to go away….

I see that I’ve managed to position myself well today, even though this is all being created in a fairly unconscious frame of mind; I’m not even sure if I’m awake, so, I wouldn’t say I’m actually writing this, so much as letting it leak out of my head with only minor regard for organization or coherence. No, this is more of an irrational outburst of semi-automatic paranoia, with a side dish of confusion, all drizzled with a nice, still-sleepy sauce…. Good thing the recipe doesn’t call for whipped anything; there’s no telling how my sub-conscious mind might translate that into reality….

Hell, at this point, reality itself is a bit flaky around the edges…. I’m beset by a number of minor little physical issues that are annoying me no end, but in no way are excuse enough to quit (left wrist, right thumb, both swollen & painful when typing,…. if I detailed any further issues, we’d enter the realm of TMI, so, just trust me, there are others…. I hurt, but not enough to keep me down…. just enough to get me to complain….)….. It’s a good thing the coffee is my own brew, strong enough to melt enamel, or I’d just be lying in bed, whimpering, and you’d be reading a re-blog….

Of course, you still may end up with something from the archives…. it’s terribly late, all things considered, and I’m still stuck here in the intro…. again…. You know, the hell with this…. I’m not going to fool around any more today…. Stand still a moment, while we employ the ever-faithful, ever-effective method #4….

Shall we Pearl?….

“…if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world.” — Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days

You know…. the above line from Mr. Keillor is a mini-rant, all by itself…. think about it…. (If you don’t want to think about it, I certainly can’t MAKE you, but, think about this… I COULD have ranted on it, easily…. so, you owe me thanks for that, any who….)….  Okay, now go on to the next section….

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

“People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.” — Malcolm Muggeridge

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/House-votes-to-curb-NSA-surveillance-of-Americans-5568755.php

It’s a start…. not much of one, but, a start…. At least the House, though it did so unconsciously, (It seems to be a day for unconscious acts…. that’s the fourth or fifth use of the word/concept already today…. If I were y’all, I’d stay alert….), has provided some solid proof, legal proof at that, of the validity of the revelations revealed by Eric Snowden in 2013, about the illegal spying being carried out by the NSA. What better proof can one ask for than to have Congress take up the gauntlet, acting legislatively to defend against the very activities over which his whistle got blown, in his attempt to let the American people, and the rest of the world, know about the illegal data mining going on every minute of every day?

Now, it is on record, that the American people, by their vocal support of his actions, have influenced their representatives in Congress to tell the NSA to stop their spying on American citizens, thus, in my mind, as well as in the public record, providing ample justification for what Mr. Snowden did when he acted to release the information they (the White House, and the spy organizations….) had no intention of EVER revealing to the public…. In my mind, and in the minds of, I believe, MOST Americans, we owe Eric Snowden a huge debt, for his patriotism, and his integrity in the face of threats to his life by his own government….

That being said, I will let the article speak for itself, and keep the ranting to a minimum today; my own state of mind isn’t trustworthy just now…. Instead, I’ll finish this section with an old-school pearl, with parameters set to shoot at the BRC, and any other connected assholes…. As it turns out, this is a special pearl, with its very essence revealed by its infrastructure…. It has excerpts from the Tao Teh Ching as bookends, which makes for a very solid, very pointed, very wise pearl of virtual wisdom…. Pretty, too, isn’t it?…..

18. Hypocrisy

When the Way is forgotten
Duty and justice appear;
Then knowledge and wisdom are born
Along with hypocrisy.

When harmonious relationships dissolve
Then respect and devotion arise;
When a nation falls to chaos
Then loyalty and patriotism are born.

— Lao Tzu, excerpt from the Tao Teh Ching

“Government is the only known enemy of intelligent life.” — Smart Bee

“Everything has two handles,–one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Enchiridion, xliii

Then came the churches,
 then came the schools,
 then came the lawyers,
 then came the rules.

 — Mark Knopfler

“A companion of fools shall be destroyed.” — Proverbs 13:20

“The government claims it’s following the will of the people. I didn’t even know we’d died!” — Smart Bee

14. Mystery

Looked at but cannot be seen – it is beneath form;
Listened to but cannot be heard – it is beneath sound;
Held but cannot be touched – it is beneath feeling;
These depthless things evade definition,
And blend into a single mystery.

In its rising there is no light,
In its falling there is no darkness,
A continuous thread beyond description,
Lining what can not occur;
Its form formless,
Its image nothing,
Its name silence;
Follow it, it has no back,
Meet it, it has no face.

Attend the present to deal with the past;
Thus you grasp the continuity of the Way,
Which is its essence.

— Lao Tzu, excerpt from the Tao Teh Ching


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

This poem is mine…. all mine. After reading the first couple of lines, that will be more than apparent, and is the sole reason for it being here today…. because I felt like it…. Enjoy!…. Or not, up to you…. but, if you don’t enjoy it, you need a vacation….

Roses for Noses

I have a bozoid personality, of the first degree;
 nobody, I mean nobody, knows that better than me.
I often wonder, as the world goes around, and around
 how many others have realized just what I’ve found….

I know for a fact, I’m not the only bozoid one;
 too many people laughing out there, having fun.
Is their laughter, though, at themselves first?
 Or is it some other impulse, like purple liverwurst”….

I’ve always loved to make others laugh and giggle,
 since my tender youth, when my ears began to wiggle.
 The world is full of humor,  but not always easy to find
  so laughing at myself I learned never to mind….

We bozos know each other, here, there, and everywhere
 there’s no hiding such joy, it just wouldn’t be fair.
We all have one feature, our great bulbous nose,
 and there’s no doubt at all, cuz it just grows….

There’s nothing like a good, big mistake, a disaster,
 to show us the folly of living life faster and faster.
Nothing in the world can ever take the place,
 of seeing in the mirror, a happy, smiling face….

Don’t be shy, just let it all hang out;
 we bozos have more fun, there’s no doubt.
Life’s too somber and gray if we let it get on top
 if we don’t stay loose, the pain won’t ever stop….

My advice to all of you, out there in the world,
 let noses grow round & red, keep hair tightly curled.
Find a way to let your spirit out often to play,
 you’ll never once regret any price you pay.

~~ gigoid ~~


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

I was going to save this, but, I’m not in the mood to be logical today, or, for that matter, in the mood for much of anything, other than contrary and/or contentious…. No idea why, just grumpy…. Deal with it, that’s all I can say at this point…. This is actually fairly important, in terms of the message, so, I wouldn’t mind if you paid attention, and spread it around when you can…. The message is one that needs to be in the public eye as much as possible….

From 12/2/2012:

“Free enterprise ended in the United States a good many years ago. Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and drive out the small entrepreneur. In their conglomerate forms, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the legitimacy of the state.” — Gore Vidal

In his book, “Friday”, Robert Heinlein details a society of humanity’s possible future, one in which corporations have continued to grow beyond the boundaries of mere countries, until their interests become paramount even over that of the state, as observed by Mr. Vidal. We, of the society here on Earth in the early 21st century are witnessing that growth, as I write, and as you read…..

The small enterprise markets still exist, but only on the fringes of the economy, the major portion of which is busy manipulating the population into serving the economic trends that the corporations control, in the essential markets that cover everyone… In other words, the corporations monopolize most of the economy, allowing the fringe markets to exist to provide exotic, alternative toys and entertainments for the working classes.

Mr. Heinlein’s character, a young woman with designer genes, genius IQ, and Heinlein’s innate sardonicism, as part of an assignment, is required to perform a research and analysis of how the corporations affected the political and economic scenes of their society, obliquely referring, of course, to the one we have now. It is a very interesting part of a very good book, and well worth a read, not only for its perspicacity in explaining the piracy we are seeing today, but because Heinlein was a master storyteller, who created fascinating characters in  fantastic situations, making it all seem perfectly normal and real.

“The phenomenality of organic, conscious existence should, could have made impossible the sadism, the unending hurt of our ways. The impotent fury, the guilt that master and surpass my identity carry with them the working hypothesis, the ‘working metaphor’, if you will, of ‘original sin’. To this expression, I am unable to attach any reasoned, let alone historical substance. On the pragmatic-narratological plane, stories of some initial crime and inherited culpability are universal fables  — uncannily profound and lasting. Nothing more. Yet in the presence of the beaten, raped child, of the horse or mule flogged across its eyes, I am possessed, as by a midnight clarity, by the intuition of the Fall.” — Rudolf Steiner, Errata: An examined life, Phoenix — (a division of Orion Books), London, 1998), p. 169

At first, this quote may not seem to be related to the first. However, it is this “original sin” of which he speaks that is the root cause of the problems with corporations in society. Those humans who reject commonality with the rest of humanity are the villains in this play that passes for modern culture, for they do not accept their debt to the rest of the species, and have determined that they will use whatever means they need to become ascendant over the rest of us. Greed is only the most obvious of the ills that this group has subjected our culture to, with cruelty, dishonesty, and lack of compassion as side attractions. Through the actions of their corporate entities, they work to maintain their power and control of others, all for the sake of their own aggrandizement….

These are the men who run the trade in human trafficking, abducting and abusing children and women, for sex and slavery. These are the men who run the brothels, and the underground casinos, and the money-lending, and the protection rackets, and the drug dealing rings. What many folks don’t realize is that they are also the men who run for political office, or become preachers/priests, and the bankers, and the CEO’s,  and other corporate officers, who make their decisions based on self-interest, never on altruism. They seem, and act like, they are the leaders of society, when, in fact, they are the very reason our society is headed for extinction….

Unfortunately, these men (and they are almost ALL men….) will not give up their power and control without a fight. They will not respond to reason, giving up all their wealth and perceived power, to benefit the rest of mankind. They will not suddenly see the light, and give it all back. They will have to be rooted out like weeds, tough, hardy weeds, and destroyed, if we are to have any chance of survival…. It is unfortunate, but no other method will work, and it brings with it the danger of falling into the same kind of behavior by which they operate. But, I can see no other way to solve the issue, since they will not cooperate with the rest of us for the benefit of all….

1. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting.

2. What you settle for is what you end up with.

3. If you think that worrying about a problem is the same thing as solving it, then you must live in some other universe where different laws pertain.

–Smart Bee

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So much for the best laid plans…. I went to bed late, got up late, and may go right back there once this is done…. Damn good thing I’m retired, isn’t it? Well, it’s a good thing for me, anyway….. I hope y’all have a day that suits you…. which is probably a better choice, as it has a better chance than anything more, or less, positive….. None of which means a damn thing, ultimately, but, the thought counts, doesn’t it?….. Well, that’s what they tell us, but, then, when it comes to the truth, they’ve got priors, don’t they? (You KNOW who THEY are, right?….)

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

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In the name of all that’s roly-poly….

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Ffolkes,

Bare bones…. that’s all you’re going to get today, ffolkes…. or, that’s what my brain, pre-coffee, has to say about it. That could change, given enough liquid blood-saver, but, even if we get more complicated, it will be minimally so… I can tell. It isn’t that there isn’t enough coffee, it’s just arriving late to the party, as I discovered I was when I glanced at the clock a bit ago, to find it was already 5 AM…. When I sleep longer like this, it has a tendency to slow down the wake-up process…. All the above may now be dumped, wherever seems most appropriate….

I take no credit for the above paragraph; even if I wrote it, it isn’t something I want associated with my name…. either of them…. I’d start completely over, or over completely, or something, but, I have the feeling that I shouldn’t waste any words today, any more than is necessary, that is, to maintain some of the quality we shoot for here…. I’m guessing, though, that’s out of the question anyway…. quality, that is. If the above, and, hell, THIS paragraph are any indication of how it’s going to be today, it might be best for me to just re-blog an older pearl….

However, I AM awake, even if a bit late, and I told myself when I began this whole deal that I wouldn’t allow myself to fall prey to any sort of depression caused by a mere lack of inspiration…. You see, I know that such motivation is merely a self-induced manipulation of emotion, generally provided by a sense of duty, and as such, is programmable, according to what we choose as our duty. In this case, the chosen duty is more of a self-indulgence than a sacrifice; it only does me good to get all this out, while the effect on the outer world is flexible, variable, and, to be honest, about as random as can be….

Random? Hell, the effect this has probably approaches the very edge of chaos, with a side of confusion…. which is fine. I mean, there’s not a damn thing wrong with causing confusion among the natives; it’s a time-honored tradition in this country….. It’s not as if reality itself isn’t trying to reduce us all to quivering jelly, abjectly cowering in the face of what faces us each day on this sad old ball of mud; reality shits on us all, my friends. The actual quality of our lives, of which I spoke above, if only laughingly, depends entirely on how we deal with that shit; we can wash it off with rational, productive actions, or we can let it dry in place, thus adding odoriferous aggravation of our peers to our more obvious attributes….

What any of this has to do with this Pearl, as is patently clear by now, would, by nature, be considered a deductive event, having been duly examined for its value and level of appropriate connection….. which makes it completely idiotic to try to claim it came from my mind. Nothing in THIS blog ever makes it all the way through that sort of examination, mainly because I simply don’t care that much…. I mean, it’s not like they can fire me, or anything, so, I don’t fret about that sort of nonsense…. I have my own nonsense I can bring out, if I want some….

Having thus firmly established today’s theme. (Insane, misguided outbursts of faux rationality…. my favorite….), I think we can bring this particular mess to a conclusion, if such be at all applicable to what has obviously grown beyond the bounds of all decency….. Conclusions imply some sort of logical structure to what has been presented, and that certainly can’t be claimed in this instance, now, can it? No, not at all…. Of course, we don’t care, but, hey, it says here in the manual we’re supposed to mention it…. I’m just following orders, see?….

On that completely bizarre note, I can see there’s no more hope of salvaging any sort of dignity, so, I’ll just sign off here, and get on with whatever is going to happen today…. I’m not sure I want to know what that will be, but, hey, it can’t be any worse, or harder, than this has been…. I’m having a bit of a problem stopping, so, hang on…. I’m grabbing emergency method #4 from the box…..

Shall we Pearl?….

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

— Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Ah….. that’s better. A bit of Emily fixes it all…. Now, we can go on….

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“Representative government has broken down. Our politicians represent not the people who vote for them but the commercial interests who finance their election campaigns. We have the best politicians that money can buy.” — Edward Abbey

Over the next few days, in order to concentrate on pictures of and with the Wise Old Pine Cone, I’ll be using a number of older rants, mostly from 2012….. Not all that many, actually; at this point, it’s only one politirant, and one exploration of reality and human nature that turned toward being a Plague of Evil rant, against human/sex trafficking…. For today, to counter-balance the older material to come, I’ll try to deliver a fresh rant, with the above piece of insight, and clear sight, from Mr. Abbey, one of our most frequent contributors of most excellent pearls….

This one particularly hits home today, considering the state of the American government in re: the blatant corruption implied by the ubiquitous presence of lobbyists and corporate representatives to Congress, the White House, all of whom, of course, are supported by the vast army of lawyers, employed by “corporate entities” to protect the bottom line, by exerting undue influence on the judicial system….. not to mention elections….

This influence over the courts is how we ended up with the decision by a Supreme Court, (who lived up to the definition of a “good politician” by staying bought, once they were paid for….), that allows the formation of Super Political Action Committees, whose stated purpose is to use virtually limitless supplies of cash money to influence the outcome of elections, appointments, and, by extension, placing virtually every level of government under the control of these corporations, whose only purpose is to control all the resources they can possibly possess, no matter what effect it has on regular flesh and blood people….

“You can fool all of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time; and that should be sufficient for most purposes.” — Smart Bee

To be honest, ffolkes, my current level of disgust with the sham that is the government of this country is so high, I’m having trouble fashioning my thoughts into a sharp enough weapon to use…. None of what I’m currently feeling…. no, that isn’t correct…. ALL of what I’m currently feeling is so huge, so angry at the segment of humanity that preys on society, no words I write seem to be harsh enough, nor is any of it sufficiently compelling to create the outrage in others I seek to stimulate….

This means we’ll switch horses here, right in mid-stream; it’s one of the few times that procedure is safe enough for us to pull off without putting y’all in any further danger…. The following old-school pearl will, I hope, give y’all some idea of where my thoughts and feelings about the state of our Union….

“For too long, those who play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft, and those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded.
— Bill Clinton, 1992 Democratic Convention

(A fine example of one of the politician’s most useful techniques; a large black pot,  pointedly calling a kettle black, just as if it meant something…..)

“Well, I would — if they realized that we — again if — if we led them back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds, or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they they couldn’t afford it, that would hold them off.” — President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile

(Yep…. the Great Communicator, with yet another example of complete and utter BS….)

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”

“An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.” — Albert Einstein

(One might surmise, to watch Congress in action, that elected officials suffer from a state of constant hunger….)

“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

(I can show you three buildings in Washington D.C., today, where somewhere around 400 demagogues spend much of their time, composing the latest doctrines to preach…..)

“Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else.” — G. K. Chesterton, The Church of the Servile State Utopia of Usurers

“To blow and swallow at the same moment is not easy.” — Plautus (254-184 BC) — Mostellaria, Act iii, Sc. 2, 104, (791.)

Well, there you have it; it isn’t the clearest water I could find, but, that’s a tough job when dealing with politics. The water is always so damn muddy….

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At this moment, I have no idea what to put in this section…. I’ll come back to it, at the end…. Okay, so…. Here is one of my own poems, written in April of 2013…. I don’t recall the process, but, the result isn’t too shabby, and will do for today’s purpose…. Enjoy!….

Funny Bones

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

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

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

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

~~ gigoid ~~

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I’ve stalled long enough, so here is the latest episode in the Life and Times of the Wise Old Pine Cone…. I had to go to the dentist the other day, and the Wise Old Cone was nice enough to accompany me, to obtain a car to get there, then, going along with me to the dentist to help me stay calm…. I’ve previously mentioned that dental visits are sheer hell for me, due to my mother being frightened by a dentist while pregnant with me…. It’s the only thing I can come up with to explain my unreasoning fear of them…. Well, that asshole who tried to poke me with a needle as big as my head when I was six didn’t help, either….

Any who, here are some pictures I took that day, such as they are, while I was, first, operating with a haze of pain and drugs, and then, with a numb, drooling mouth, after the extraction…. The Wise Old Cone was a big help, cracking jokes, and generally keeping things light, so as to keep me from reacting too heavily to the adrenaline that courses through me whenever I think of getting poked with a needle in my mouth…. It helped enough that it’s now just a memory…. even the residual pain has passed now, so. let’s show these pix, and get on with life, eh?….
June 18 2014 012On the way to pick up a car from a rental agency, we stopped, me for coffee, and the Wise Old Pine Cone for his weakness, razz berry scones….
June 19 2014 011The Old Cone’s paduan came along for the ride…. Above, we see the two Cones talking with a another pair of cones, who were at the rental agency as part of a job….
June 18 2014 021Here is the Old Cone, helping me get a multi-layer, multi-subject shot, to help distract me…. The old cone is pretty compassionate, for a pine cone….
June 18 2014 016Above we see the Old Cone, strapped in for the ride to the dentist….. He looks comfy, eh?….

June 18 2014 023Here is the Old Cone, demonstrating for me that nothing untoward will happen by just sitting in the chair…..
June 18 2014 022Of course, he was then smart enough to wait there, to make sure I didn’t bolt from the chair…. He watched the entire time, save for when the dentist actually pulled out the tooth…. He isn’t fond of seeing blood, it seems….
June 18 2014 025Of course, on the way out, he had to make a joke about the odd figure on the monitor, and how he looked like me…. back when I had hair on top of my head…. What a wise guy!….

Well, there you have it, ffolkes…. Not an adventure, but, hey, it got us both out of the house, and my jaw feels much better now, so, it was a good day, all in all…. plus, it DID fill in this last section…. Now, all I have to do is find a good poem….

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This turned into an epic…. and continues to drag itself out…. So, to bring balance to the Force, I’ll use this final section for its intended purpose, to wit: an ending…. See ya, 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

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Ulysses wasn’t all that brave….

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Ffolkes,

Okay, now we’re all in for it….. I tried, several times, and even sent out for the latest version of the necessary software, but, I couldn’t adjust reality to suit the needs of the few, and had to let it go ahead with it’s program, which DOES suit the needs of the many, but, at the expense of dignity…. Reality, of course, has no opinion either way; it’s level of indifference to human sensibilities is long-standing, and well-practiced. As that is the case, I’m going to just finish issuing this warning, as required, and hope for the best….

There, that should meet all the legal requirements for density; it certainly lends new meaning to the word “inscrutable”, doesn’t it? I’ve worked hard over time to hone my writing skills, and find that I have a natural bent when it comes to producing sheer nonsense; it’s a gift….. It may have a lot to do with my Bozoid tendencies, but, that can probably be said for most anyone, at least anyone who recognizes the bulbousness of their nose, and has no problem with it’s glowing redness. Gift or not, it’s a valuable skill for a blogger….

This morning, it’s a good thing I do possess the ability to blather & spew at will; I’m about an hour and a half late getting up, having inadvertently consumed, last night, about twice the amount of the Beast as I intended, or am used to, which had a wonderful effect on my sleep, if we don’t count the extra time in bed as a handicap…. What it does mean, though, is some slight alteration to the structure and content of what will come out of my creative well today; the exact nature or shape of that alteration remains to be seen, as I’m still trying to figure out, first, how to make this intro acceptable, and, second, how to end it with some style….

Of course, those are the same two issues I encounter every morning with this section, so, the contortions you are witnessing shouldn’t be anything new, or out of the ordinary, at least, not for any regular Gentle Readers; they should be quite used to this by now…. I’m never sure how this will turn out, and the fact that is does so every day is a constant surprise to me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that I came up with something Murphy actually approves of….. which may just be the case, as this format certainly offers him, and his associates, plenty of opportunities to nail me one way or another…. SIGH…

This introduction has now entered the stage where I have to start trying to decide how to bring it to a close, without spoiling whatever message I’ve already delivered…. Actually, this one won’t be much of a problem, as it looks to be about done…. these last few lines are properly aligned for a landing approach, even if the weather is blustery…. In fact, I’m pretty sure that…. yes, it will work…. Okay, I’m taking a flier here, and going out on that proverbial limb…. I hereby declare this intro section complete, and direct you to proceed to the next available check station, where you will be issued the necessary weapons for this next stage of the journey….

Shall we Pearl? I think we’d better, before it’s too late…..

“I like nonsense — it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope…and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities.” — Theodor S. Geisel, a.k.a. “Dr. Seuss”

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Some of y’all, who have been here previously a number of times, will know what is coming now…. Since I’m so late, today’s rant will be furnished out of the archives, this time with an excellent outburst aimed at mankind’s oldest, most insidious scam….

Last posted in April of 2013:

I looked for something appropriate, and here it is… a quite long religirant, from sometime in 2012, I didn’t check, and it doesn’t matter…. it was a good one, so enjoy…..

“The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing beyond the grave. Such childish proofs are typically theological, and they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents…” — H. L. Mencken

“One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it–they also believed the world was flat.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910)

“Convincing yourself doesn’t win an argument.” — Robert Half

Here is an old school Pearl, in a manner of speaking…. These three quotations all say pretty much the same thing, with varying types of expression. Each, to me, seems to express that same idea more succinctly than the one before, leaving out more and more words until the final statement gives the bottom line… which is one that is heavily argued by those to whom it most applies….

It’s funny (ironic funny) to me to hear some of the arguments proposed by the priestly hierarchies in support of their beliefs. Some are couched in formal robes, all dressed up so they appear as reasoned logic, rather than the unwarranted assumptions that they really are. Mr. Mencken’s expression above would be the most effective in engaging these wordy individuals, as it would appeal to the side of them that pretends to being a scientist. They might reject the arguments, since their own arguments are, in the final analysis, subjectively formulated, not based on observations but on induction, as the platform of their entire argument is all based on an imaginary entity’s theoretical wishes…..

“Jesus loves  me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”…. Such an innocent sounding piece of doggerel…. one would scarcely believe it is one of the most insidious examples of blatant propaganda in existence. The proponents of the “Old man in the sky” group start drumming this into the minds of children as soon as they are able to talk, and, as they well know, before they learn to doubt what their elders tell them. Children naturally accept what their parents tell them, almost exclusively for the first few years of life.

This home-schooling form of brainwashing continues once they are of an age to start looking outside their family for knowledge of the world, with teachers, preachers, and kindly old aunts who continue to inundate the young minds with stories of Bible heroes and villains, drilling into the malleable minds the sense of entitlement and elitism that will provide them with the impetus for bigotry later in life. In addition, this period strengthens the brainwashing given earlier, teaching the kids that they should only trust certain people to tell them the truth, and that all the other religions in the world are not only not saved, but are not eligible for saving, due to their own beliefs, which are characterized as villainous, and as enemies, to be reviled and persecuted because they are different….

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” — Oscar Wilde

This entire process, this systematic, deliberate mental conditioning, is, to my mind, pretty despicable. It denies its proponents any possible way of examining the information that other systems may possess, by convincing them that all other forms of knowledge are not only wrong, but blasphemous in nature, and should be cast aside whenever encountered, without ever examining the information for its relevance, or its accuracy.

Education is learning that you did not even know what you did not even know you did not even know. — Smart Bee

The whole system is designed to continue the delusional system into the future, while keeping the congregation in the dark of ignorance. It has no other purpose…. it is not in place to help or sustain the members of the congregation, but rather to control that population’s thoughts and behavior, ensuring the power and influence of the priests, pastors, preachers, or whatever name they choose to call themselves…..

I can only count myself as fortunate, to have been raised without the brainwashing on a regular basis. We attended a Presbyterian church, probably an offshoot of the old Church of England, where the adage about “cake, or death?” was originated…. The net result of this was that I was able to include other systems in my education, and found the entire construct to be a house of invisible cards, easily knocked down with a single bite of the Apple….

“How come you never see a politician (or a preacher) laugh? Because they know what they’re getting away with, and if they started laughing, they’d never stop.” — Smart Bee

And you know what else?…. I always thought Satan got a pretty raw deal, all for exercising the free will he was given…. and so did Adam and Eve…. Even as a child of five, I always wondered why God had set them up to fail like that…. it’s like, “Here’s the apple…. don’t taste it….” and then making sure we, as humans, had a sense of wonder and curiosity strong enough to disregard the admonition…. Even then, it looked like a set-up, and I could never reconcile the image in my head of a God, supposedly with infinite knowledge, setting up his own creation like that…. it just didn’t seem very God-like, or even fair…. and I still don’t get it, even today…..

With a subject such as this, it’s hard to know when to stop…. the issue has been one that has held Mankind back for two millennia now, preventing us from achieving our real potential as a species. All the progress we, as a species, have made in the last 3,000 years or so has been in spite of the efforts of the priestly hierarchies to keep us as ignorant as possible; at every turn of the wheel of science, the powers that be have thrown sand in the works, to try to slow down the acquisition of knowledge.

“Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom.  For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself; he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.)

The preachers, from long experience,  know that an educated populace, capable of reasoning beyond the limitations placed on the human mind by religious dogma, is the greatest threat to their continued existence as the leaders of Mankind. They know that once people are exposed to knowledge (the flesh of the Apple, remember?), the less they will submit to the brainwashing that is the lot of the common man…. and it scares them to death…..

Doubt. Question authority. Ask the next, deeper question. And never, ever, give up the right to make up your own mind…. In the final analysis, that power is the only one we all have, and the only one that cannot be taken away from us without our consent…. Viva la raza!…..

Oh, and won’t it be nice when you don’t have to give tithes anymore?…..

Though old the thought and oft exprest,
‘T is his at last who says it best.

 — James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) — For an Autograph

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Since it takes less time to find one of my own poems than to search one out on the Net….. Plus, this one fits in with today’s rant better than any I could find….

Early Observations

Until I knew there was more,
I wanted to know God.
They said he was a nice guy,
and would let me live forever.

All I had to do, they said,
was live my life for Him,
always living by scripture
cleaving only to his Way.

But, everyone I saw in church,
acted different at home.
Living wild, cussin’ and fussin’,
nobody lived like they said.

Still, I tried to be like Jesus,
he was sort of cool.
He never hurt nobody
and walked on the right path.

‘Course they killed him for that,
they couldn’t stand his example.
Turned him into a martyr,
 hid his real words among their own.

Then I found the Buddha,
and met Lao Tzu at the gate.
They saw things real different,
showed me how to see straight.

Right thought, and right action
replace blind obedience and faith.
Reality becomes manageable,
fear retreats, the universe expands.

Brother John said it pretty well,
“Imagine there’s no heaven,
it’s easy if you try.”
Sounds like he knew why.

Day to day, life is grand,
we walk in eternal beauty.
Open your eyes and hearts,
find yourself already immortal.

~~ gigoid ~~


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Once again, I had hoped to have more pictures today, but, the Wise Old Pine Cone has been busy with his new student, so we’ll have to settle for a fresh, old-school pearl….. We’ll make it a random, harlequin style pearl; they’re the quickest to put together, as the parameters involved are so flexible…. Enjoy!….

“This is a wise maxim, “to take warning from others of what may be to your own advantage.” — Terence (185-159 BC) — Heautontimoroumenos, Act i, Sc. 2, 36, (210.)

“The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.” — Max Lerner

“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” — John Milton (1608-1674) — Areopagitica

“He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.” — Kahlil Gibran

“After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.” — Olmstead’s Law

“…for the most part happiness consists in being willing to be what you are.” — Erasmus

“Honor is the reward of virtue.” — Cicero (B.C. 106-43)

Sometimes this process doesn’t work; this is NOT one of those times…. This is a good pearl, ffolkes…. Serendipity strikes again….

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There are occasions when I think I should always procrastinate; I seem to do my best work when I’m in a hurry…. This Pearl is a perfect example of that…. not that y’all care at all about that, but, it keeps me occupied, and mostly off the streets, so, all in all, it’s a good thing….. 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

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These weren’t buffed OR polished!…..

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Ffolkes,

It was a beautiful morning…. The bright, friendly sun was shining brightly out of a deep blue sky, dotted here and there with a few puffy cotton ball clouds. From where I lay in the hills above the town’s main thoroughfare, I could see the entire valley where it lay spread out before me, looking just like one of those advertisements in a travel magazine, offering 3 nights & 2 days in a beautiful country setting…. To look, one might think nothing could disturb the bucolic serenity that lay over the whole scene, covering all that lay before one’s eyes, like a haze of smoke from distant fires….

Little did the peaceful residents know of the horror that would soon be unleashed; the dark shadow of fate fell upon them without notice, or heraldry, allowing this little time of peace before all hell broke loose…. With a small sigh of regret for the peace about to be shattered, I reached down, gave the all-clear signal, and began preparations to move…. In a few short hours, the scene below would change drastically, and the beauty and grace that once lived here would be gone forever, blasted into the depths of memory by the march of time…. and a few well-placed artillery shells….. It was a shame, really, but, nobody can stop time…

Okay, enough…. I’m tired of that one already, which is unsurprising, to say the least….  I have to admit, it ISN’T one of my best…..  It’s funny how my mind turns almost automatically to this sort of fictional opening…. A lot of them that I’ve done all seem to focus on the same sort of scenario, which is the beginning of some sort of military action, or spy mission, or assassination, or some other sort of situation in which guns, bombs, or other war-like implements play a major role, or act as a silent, unseen threat…. I suppose that is just an unconscious expression of human nature, falling into the habit of violence, and/or war…. Our species has a long history of involvement with such issues, he said with an ironic smirk….

Once again, though, the creation of such common tales from human experience, even though completely fabricated, has brought us this far down the page, where we (I) have a better chance of moving this along toward the day’s offering, such as it is…. I can only say this; it seems to work for me, and, although I really don’t feel like I have this process under control, it does get me somewhere close to where I need to be to get this done…. The usual obstructions are have been set aside, for the moment at least, and I’m thinking we might just as well take what we’ve got, and make a break for the border…. Hey, it can’t possibly get any more absurd, can it? No, I didn’t think so….

Shall we Pearl?…..

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
 down the foggy ruins of time
 far past the frozen leaves
 the haunted frightened trees
 out to the windy beach
 far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
 Ah, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
 silhouetted by the sea
 circled by the circus sands
with all memory and fate
 driven deep beneath the waves
 let me forget about today until tomorrow.

 — Bob Dylan —


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I’m afraid today is going to be one of those days around here…. A lot of reasons come to mind, none of which make for a good story, so, y’all will just have to suffer, and wonder…. However, to ease the pain, here is a rant, from early in 2013…. It’s been used before, and may be familiar to some of my more regular readers, at least, those who have been coming by for a while…. It’s also one of my best, all in all, which is why I use it so much…. Enjoy, please, and more importantly, pay attention, & pass the word, right after you pass the salt, please…. These hard-boiled eggs are just too bland without it….

Originally posted in January, 2013:

“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.” — Oscar Wilde

One may always trust Oscar Wilde to be both elegantly witty and intelligently insightful, though, to be sure, many of his most closely held views were somewhat divergent with what was commonly held to be true, philosophically. This divergence was, I believe, mostly deliberate on his part, as he tended to mock that which he did not respect, and he never had much respect for…. well, anything to do with human nature vs. reason and rationality. He mistrusted most people to act morally, and was unafraid of saying so; this, of course, made him both famous, and infamous….. His infamy, I’m sure, ultimately was his undoing, much to society’s loss; as is said so often about our brightest minds, “only the good die young….”

I often wonder, (well, maybe not so often, as much as I’m wondering now…) what the world today would be like, if somehow, some of those bright stars in history had lived to an age where their accomplishments, in relation to the advancement of human thought, and the betterment of the human condition, had a broader, and more lasting effect than their absence has left us. What if Keats had written poetry until he was 85? How many more inventions would have come to us from Nicolas Tesla, had he lived long enough for the rest of the scientific world to catch up to him, instead of hounding him to an early grave? How much more good music, and art, and literature would be available to all of us, if not for this tendency for the best of us to live as a burning meteor, flaming brightly through the sky, until burned out and lifeless?

It is a sad commentary for society to know that it is often the very brilliance of these people that brings about their downfall, at the hands of the ignorant, and the avaricious…. What is even sadder, to me, is that this demonstrates another part of human nature that is responsible for almost every issue in human history, and current society, that causes people to suffer pain, oppression, perpetual struggle, and will most certainly ultimately   lead to the extinction of our species, on this planet, at minimum, if not completely…..

That piece of our nature is the unfortunate characteristic, in a number of humans, to be able to put aside all conscience, and act solely in their own self interest. All of us, of course, possess this to some degree; it is an outgrowth of having a will to survive. To these few others, it is their primary modus operandi; they simply do not take other people, or their concerns, into account when deciding what they are going to do, and are not hampered by the consideration of any suffering they may cause other people, animals, or things.

As is patently obvious, to my mind, every elected official, every high level preacher, every corporate magnate, and a great many lawyers, are all of this ilk, and have, for nearly 230 years now, been quietly and efficiently plundering the pockets and rights of the American people (and those of every other country in the world, for that matter…. it is a HUMAN condition, not just American…. Ours are just some of the most obvious about it….), while simultaneously lying, cheating, and otherwise acting to secure their stranglehold on society.

Anyone who disagrees with this assessment, quite simply, isn’t paying enough attention to the world around them….. Sorry to be so blunt, but the facts are all laid out, right there, almost every day in the news media, if one knows how to look at the larger picture it presents, rather than the individual facets of that picture. Focusing on the little shit is just what those in power wish for people to do…. it keeps them busy not noticing other, more incriminating stuff they are carrying out, in the darkness where they mostly live….

“… change depends on individual acts of courage and commitment. Most such acts are private, invisible, and uncelebrated. But some find a place in the public spotlight; and their influence goes far beyond mere example.” — Arthur C. Clarke & Michael Kube-McDowell,  The Trigger, 1999

Each and every one of us, in the face of what we know about reality, is responsible in some way, and to some degree, for both the way things are, and the way they will be in the future. If you don’t believe that, well, discussion is, for you, probably useless, and little hope remains. For anyone with moderate insight, however, this is plain, clear truth, and we all need to accept it before any significant progress can be expected against those who are sociopathic, which I define, and hereby name, as homo suicidus, those who would kill us all…. But, it is imperative that we act soon, for the damage we have done, and continue to do to our world, is at a point where the effects are nearly irreversible, and even if we manage to wrest control from the beloved ruling class,it may be too late to save our lives….

“In regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not consist in evasion, or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fear groundless.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays_, Prudence

It is my hope, small and pale though it be, that we WILL speak up, that the rational among us will rise up, and take back the control of our destiny from the hands of those who would see us all die, rather than give up their own control. It will only happen when men of courage, as defined by Mr. Emerson, stand up to those who would render us all impotent, for their own benefit. The only hope that exists for the rest of us lies in enough of us showing this kind of courage, and overcoming the fear that keeps us in thrall…..

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” — John Milton (1608-1674) — Areopagitica

Myself, I don’t want to die ignominiously, gasping for breath, because I didn’t have the courage to speak up, and to fight back against the immoral, avaricious assholes who dominate society….. Instead, let’s create a whole new world, without a beloved ruling class, at all….. Who knows? We might just find out that anarchy works!….. Worth a try, I think….. And, if it doesn’t work, well, we can always try a technocracy, which we have yet to do in history….. With a bit of foresight and planning, it might just be what we need to survive our own foolishness… Maybe, Richard Brautigan had the truest prophetic vision, when he wrote “All watched over, by machines of loving grace….”

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” — Pablo Picasso

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

— Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning”

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Once again, to save the reputation of anyone else who might be associated with any of this, here is one of my older poems….

Dreaming of Calliope

La belle dame sans merci speaks aloud through endless night,
torturing dreams, with powerful words and stentorian phrases.
Manifest visions bathed in unbearable grace and light,
destroying all direction, standing lost, in unfathomable mazes.

Fate plays a part, one that will never face denial,
as fear and courage eternally vie for ascendancy.
Conflict becomes valid, gifting strength in open trial,
but honest emotion wears no costume so fancy.

Blood, sweat, and tears stroll on avenues of gold,
unlikely heroines heralding as in ancient lore;
Sharp, competent knives cut through tales untold,
eternally shifting reality past the naked shore.

Drifting toward origin, bereft of mandate or cause,
finished, nay, abandoned, tied with a figurative bow.
No simple gift from muses to give comfort or pause,
save that all we need to know, we already know…..

~~ gigoid ~~

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

I was up a little late today, which probably shows in the intro section; it gets that way when I feel rushed….. Also, I tend to go to the archives more often, though, in today’s case, that’s not a bad thing, given the state of creative juices this morning…. To prevent feeling like I completely abandoned all routine, I’ll put together a fresh random, harlequin pearl, just so I can say some of today’s piece is fresh….. Boy, the things we put ourselves through to maintain our own good graces…. Try to enjoy it anyway, ffolkes…..

“The earth hath skin, and the skin hath diseases.  One of these…is called man.” — Nietzsche

“There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book ii, Chap. xi, Of Cruelty

“Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.” — Francis Cornford (1908)

“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, ix, 16

“Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.” — P. J. O’Rourke

“Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one  man. How’s that again?  I missed something.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“Reality is what bumps into you when you stand still with your eyes open.” — Solomon Short

Hmm…. a bit esoteric, but, nice….. I like it, so, it stays…..

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

Some of y’all were probably hoping for a new episode of the Life and Times of Wise Old Pine Cone…. We actually DID get some pix taken, but, I didn’t have time to get them organized, so, it will have to wait until tomorrow…. Deal with it, you’re all adults…. I’m smiling, to take off some of the curmudgeonly crossness of that statement…. can you see it? It’s a big, happy smile….. Honest, trust me…. Well, if you’re going to be like that, I’m outta here…. 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

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Building rapport by flapping gums, Mambo-style….

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Ffolkes,

Zip….

Zilch….

Nada…. which translates as “Not a damn thing”….

Nothing….

Nope, not yet….

Hmm…. huh? Oh, sorry, no, nothing yet…

Hell, at this rate, I may as well go back to bed….

That’s it, I give up….

I was waiting for inspiration to strike, but, it seems to have taken the day off, along with Calliope, or whichever muse is involved with the written word, outside of poetry…. Calliope probably has more to do with music, by the sound of her name, and it really doesn’t matter a damn bit, because none of them are here, or are willing to help today, so, fuck ’em…. We can’t wait any longer, and I’m just getting more p.o.’d by the moment…. I should have know better than to take one of them at their word; they may be iconic forces of nature, but, they ARE female….

Before you get all pissy at me for being sexist, I’m not…. Well, maybe a little….  I have one (a sex, that is…), so, it’s natural to have a bit of an attitude that sees the issue from that perspective…. With that in mind, it remains my opinion, based on my experience, that it is the nature of women, as a separate entity from men, to be less than truthful, if they have a reason to believe the truth would not serve their purposes.

I’m not saying men are any better at it than women, sadly, but, our code of honor (at least, for those of us who have one…) will cause us to at least CONSIDER telling the truth SOME of the time…. From what I can tell from a lifetime of observation, the truth, to women, is something they use at whim, to suit their purpose…. I have yet to find ONE who is completely honest, at least when it comes to what they tell men…. Sorry, but, that is the truth, ffolkes, and you can call me whatever you like, but, it remains the truth….

I don’t hold it against them, most of the time; it’s part of their nature, one dictated by Mother Nature as part of their role as the primary care giver for children….. A woman must think FIRST of survival, of herself, and of her children; this is natural law, and not subject to change at this late date in our development…. Thus, it is clearly not in their interest to consider telling the truth, if it won’t help them survive, or protect their young…. The truth, to women, is primarily a tool, one they use to meet their needs, but, not something they consider written in stone…. which is fine, from an evolutionary standpoint….

On a personal level, however, since women are really no more ethical or moral than men, and possibly less, given this characteristic, this tendency on the part of the fairer sex has caused me no end of hurt over the course of my life…. Of course, the answer to the whole issue is clear, anyway…. All one needs to do to protect themselves against the kind of problems that untruthfulness creates is to cultivate the ability to NOT expect to be told the truth…. that’s it.

If one doesn’t expect the truth, it isn’t a disappointment when one is lied to…. It’s still a bother, and a mild pain, but, at least it doesn’t take one by surprise, which is usually what causes the worst of any reaction to such prevarication…. In other words, don’t expect women to be anything other than what they are…. human, and flawed, just like men… Once one sees the whole picture from this perspective, it becomes possible to appreciate the opposite sex in full, for what they actually are, not what we fantasize them to be…..

Okay, well, that was interesting, if a bit risky to my health & well-being…. I’m not sure, exactly, how we got off into THAT particular subject, but, I think we’ll drop it there, as it is one that tends to create more controversy than it warrants…. The ongoing war between the sexes, to my mind, is fabricated by the media, and those in society who spend more time thinking about other folk’s behavior than they do monitoring their own…. along with all the gullible fools who buy into that sort of nonsense to begin with….

It’s all a bunch of BS, anyway, as I’ve found, after many years of trying to disengage from the battle, the primary key to successful relationships is honest communication, something both sides of the human species need to work on, especially when dealing with each other…. An attitude of appreciative acceptance of the true nature of the beast, on BOTH sides of the issue, is the key to successful relations with the opposite gender….

Why, look, though! It seems my blathering, even if it’s about a real, honest-to-goodness issue from reality, has once again brought us sufficiently far down the page to call this a legal introduction…. Of course, it does nothing to introduce anything, other than as a sort of separating line between the silence, and the cacophony which now ensues…. but, then, around here, we don’t expect it to do that, nor would we know what to do if it did….

Besides, it’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that if I ever do figure out how to do this section easily, it may just be the death knell of this whole process…. and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? Would we? Hey, aren’t you going to answer that?….. Ah hell, never mind…. let’s get on with this….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Jo Jo was a man who thought he was a woman…” — Lennon & McCartney

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

Having gone completely off the rails in the intro section (not to mention risking my male neck with a discussion of the ongoing battle between the sexes….) I think we’ll start today with an old-school pearl, just to sort of clear the pipes, or the air, or other such euphemisms for getting on with it…. Let’s see what SB has for us today….

“Life without learning is death.” — Cicero

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” — Thomas Paine “Common Sense”

“All forms of government are pernicious, including good government.” — Edward Abbey

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” — J. K. Galbraith

“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.” — Edward Abbey

“If you work on your mind with your mind, how can you avoid an immense confusion?” — Seng-Ts’an

In a message announcing victory in the naval battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812, Oliver Hazard Perry informed the American land armies, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”

In one of the earliest expressions of ecological concern, Walt Kelley’s cartoon characters stood in their polluted swampland home, where Pogo sadly informed his companions, “We have met the enemy, and they are us.”
220px-Pogo_-_Earth_Day_1971_poster
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I’ve searched for some time now, and can’t make up my mind on a poem for today…. To save time, and because I can’t find anything more appropriate to today’s tenuous theme, here is a poem I wrote during the National Poetry Writing Challenge in April of 2013…. such as it is….

Rhyming is better than lying….

It’s all too, too much, he cried
   I can take no more!
It’s all crazy, my brain is fried,
   battered, bloody, and sore.

Talking heads shout out hatred and fear
   jam for my morning toast.
Pointing fingers far, middle, and near
   enemies everywhere, almost.

Women, gays, and seniors fall prey,
   easy targets, slow and weak.
Convenient fools, wanting only to play,
   used, and abused, even as we speak.

It enough to drive me floridly insane,
   or want to buy a gun.
I may end up in jail, or in massive pain,
   but, oh, it would be fun….

~~ gigoid ~~


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

“Believe me!  The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

This section was originally scheduled for another episode of the Life and Times of Wise Old Pine Cone, but, the Wise One has been busy with his new student, and he wasn’t able to let me get enough pictures to make an entry…. but, we’re working on it…. For today, I DO have a couple of pictures that I got one day last week…. We were talking about advanced techniques of meditation, and the Old Cone revealed his power by demonstrating the art of disappearing…. Look closely at these photos, and you’ll see an amazing feat of martial artistry, and the power of the mind….

The two photos below were taken in the space of two seconds, which is enough to show the effect, though not the actual disappearance, which is too fast for even a digital camera…. Watch….

Here is the master, seated on his meditation stool….

June 18 2014 003Now, two seconds later, the same stool….

June 18 2014 004Amazing, isn’t it? Next, in the picture below, we see the master, almost naturally hidden by his own natural camouflage, standing by a bush….

June 18 2014 005Without moving the camera, two seconds later, this is what it saw…..

June 18 2014 006    Absolutely incredible, eh? That would be a handy little trick, if one was involved with say, a group of NSA myrmidons, who want to discuss my politics, at THEIR house…. Being able to leave whenever I wish could be a good thing…. Regardless of my paranoia, though, it’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?

I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!…..

“The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.” — Lao Tzu

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

It seems I’m done…. which, given my lack of mental organization today, is not just a surprise, it’s a moral victory…. Hell, I would have laid even money today’s post would end up mostly from the archives; since it didn’t, I figure it’s got to be counted on the positive side of the scale…. But, then, I do tend to foster delusional beliefs in my own free time, so, I suppose we’d best take that, and just play it as it lies…. All of which means, of course, that I can now bring this to a close, which will greatly please my thumb, throbbing with each keystroke as it is…. It’ll be fine tomorrow, most likely, so, see ya, 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

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We’ll need more coffee for this…..

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Ffolkes,

I don’t know about y’all, but, I’m tired of staring at this blank screen…. Since that’s all I’ve done for the last 20 minutes or more, I’m guessing my creative juices have yet to become unblocked this morning…. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb, and guess that not only am I blocked, I’m impacted, in its truest sense…. In fact, the only blockage consistent with my mind’s right now is one I should be hesitant to discuss in public…

(Hmm…. I just noticed that word, ‘discuss’…. it’s very close, one letter off, of being the word ‘discus’, which is also something that gets tossed around…. sorry, got distracted…. t’was the only shiny object to be seen, in the vast featureless plain that is my mind in its current bloated state….)

Okay, I’d best take a vote here…. Do you think that paragraph is too much? I mean, is it too, too fractured, too flipped? I need to know, before I go much further in this direction…. Any voters out there? Well, it seems nobody wishes to give me any help yet (It IS early yet, not yet 5 AM….), so I’m on my own, as per usual…. I’m at a handicap here today, I think, between my foggy brain, my lack of preparation, and the usual degree of incipient terror I’m experiencing in the back of my mind, as my subconscious does it’s terrified child routine ahead of my dental visit later this morning….

I am an adult, and have learned to endure my visits to the dentist, as, intellectually, I know it is best for me; I have experienced the worst pain possible, an impacted molar, infected and throbbing just inches away from the brain….and know that visits to the dentist only help prevent that….

But, that knowledge has never been enough to completely overcome my experience as a six year old, when some gigantic Army dentist about scared me out of my skin, on a visit to have a tooth pulled…. The dentist, back in 1956 or so, was a huge, surly man, not pleased to be looking into the mouths of Army brats and soldiers, instead of his private rich folks, and his callousness and indifference to my fear managed to frighten me out of my wits…

To make a long story short, here it is, 58 years later, and I still get the serious yips before a visit…. even though my dentist now is a very talented, beautiful young woman, who has the gentlest hands I’ve ever known…. She has this trick she learned in dental school, where she does this little manipulation of the cheek while giving a shot, that, somehow, completely negates the pain of getting the needle inserted, which brings down the anxiety level like a charm…. But, no matter how often I tell myself it will be fine, I still get this rush of adrenaline, starting about six hours prior to whatever time I must be there for my torture session….

I had hoped the process of Pearling would alleviate some of my anxiety, but, it doesn’t seem to be working very well…. It’s a hard thing, to be this age, and still be suffering unreasonable fears rooted in childhood… but, it’s like those damn bees….

“YES! Living in today’s complex world of the future IS much like having a hive of bees live in your head! But…. there they are!” — Firesign Theater, “I think we’re all Bozos on this bus!”….

Since there isn’t anything I can do to remove the bees just now, I guess I’ll just ignore them, or put out some flowers as a distraction, and get on with the rest of this mess….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Remember what Simonides said,–that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Rules for the Preservation of Health, 7

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

“… so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.” — Voltarine de Cleyre

The Wise Old Pine Cone is off somewhere today with his Paduan, doing whatever they do at these times…. This, of course, means I’m supposed to rant here, if I’m going to stick with what we usually do…. I can do that; there is plenty of stuff to get worked up over in the news, although most would say its rather a slow news time, in some respects….  At least, nothing is going on domestically at the moment; we seem to be in a limbo between random shootings….

Oh, there is plenty of other stuff going on I could talk about, if I was so inclined…. For example, because of the latest round of violence in Iraq, the potUS, Barry the Obama, is sending some of our military personnel back there, although I’m not sure exactly what 275 soldiers, even Special Forces, and a contingent of the ever-so-powerful ‘consultants’, can do in the face of the extent of the insurgency going on there…. But, then, we aren’t expected to be able to count, I guess, or be allowed to know exactly what is going on…… We’re supposed to accept whatever they tell us, no matter how suspiciously dumb, or egregiously immoral/unethical….

I think what frightens and annoys me the most is what is NOT being written or talked about much… The NSA, and all the other agencies that get data from them, continue to carry out their illegal, unethical, obscenely paranoid surveillance of the world’s population, ( I don’t think they are limiting themselves to just us….), without any sort of oversight, and without any restraint by any outside regulatory agencies…. much less Congressional, judicial or (gasp!) public oversight…. They haven’t stopped, or slowed their vacuuming up of every bit of data they can access; if you think they have, or have any evidence thereof, please, tell me…. I’d LOVE to hear of ANYTHING anyone might be doing to try to curb their insanity…. but, I don’t think you can, because they haven’t stopped at all….

They just keep coming up with new, outrageous justifications for doing what they plan to do anyway, in court, and in the public eye…. For example, the link below, from the UK Guardian (the same news outlet that first published the Eric Snowden revelations….), tells us about the latest bit of justifying bullshit being put out by the British spy agencies, to try to convince the public that a) they aren’t doing anything wrong, and b) they’re legally allowed to do wrong anyway…. For me, the most telling point is the sheer bold effrontery that gives them the chutzpah to even SAY this stuff… It’s all so outrageously DUMB, not to mention self-serving, reeking of false entitlement, and, essentially, giving the finger to the public….

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/17/mass-surveillance-social-media-permitted-uk-law-charles-farr

Another part of this that bothers me is the lack of any coverage at all in the US news media; to find this kind of stuff, I have to go to overseas web sites, like the Guardian, to find out what my own government is up to, even if it’s only what they’re up to in England, by handing over all kinds of British metadata to their spy compatriots, and egging them on in their war against their own citizens….

A week or two ago, here in the USA, there were one or two articles, about some piece of legislation that passed the Senate, that was SUPPOSED to be the law designed to put the reins on the NSA…. Of course, the actual wording of the bill they passed does nothing of the sort; it didn’t even address about HALF the issues involved, and did NOTHING to halt any of the data collection… Mostly, it just dealt with what is to be done with the data once collected, none of which was actually restrictive to their activities….

Bah! Humbug! It all pisses me off, and what with the adrenaline already coursing through my system, I’ll be jacked up for hours now…. I’m going to halt this rant here… Y’all know it pisses me off, so I won’t dwell on it any more today…. I will, however, find a pearl or two to finish off what I’m trying to say, which essentially boils down to this….

Ffolkes, the government is lying to us, you know it, I know it, and so do they…. The only question remaining is, what are we going to do about it? I’ll leave that question hanging for the moment, to see if it garners any responses… and, in the meantime, go find a pearl or three to close the issue for the day….

“A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation.  A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.” — Georges Pompidou

“Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Twelfth Night — Act iii, Sc.

“A Lie is still a Lie, even if you believe it.” — Smart Bee

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

When I’m in this mood, only one poem will do, and it’s mine…

Geezer to Congress, with Love

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

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

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

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid ~~


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

Y’all know what comes now….. I’m in a hurry now; my adrenaline level is rising, and I need to get up and going, to work some of it off…. If I don’t, I’m going to have to take the option at the dentist to have them put me completely under, if I hope to get anything done in my mouth…. At the moment, sitting still is NOT an option…. So, here’s the quickest, random pearl I can put together…. Wish me luck….

“Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires, Line 333

“One who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.” — Lao-tzu, _Tao Te Ching_

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius

“If you are a host to your guest, be a host to his dog also.” — Russian Proverb

“Everything may happen. [Omnia fieri possunt.]” — Seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium, Epis. LXX, 9

“Never be boastful; someone may come along who knew you as a child.” — Chinese Proverb

“For after all what is man in nature?  A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either.  The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret.  He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.” — Blaise Pascal

Well!…. That went extremely well; quick, with an elegant, sturdy result…. I like it…..

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

“Heisenberg was wrong, I know exactly where I am and where I’m going.” — Einstein

Sadly, me, too…. and, it’s somewhere I DON’T want to go…. But, I’m a big boy, and I can’t afford another cancellation fee, like the last three times I bailed at the last minute…. Star, unreasoning feelings of panic, when rooted in events over 50 years old, make for a fearsome challenge, which I tend to fail to meet as often as not…. SIGH…. But, I’ll make it today, and, hopefully, be back tomorrow, in less of an internal mess….. See ya….

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

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

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In the final analysis, partial hydrogenation was a key factor….

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Ffolkes,

“Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth.” — Socrates (470?-399 B.C.)

I used this tagline yesterday, as an apology, sort of…. In retrospect, I’m thinking this may just be something I could have tattooed on my forehead, as it seems to be one of the most common phrases I use, in a figurative sense…. This entire blog demands that I express some sort of explanatory excuse quite frequently, just by the nature of my chosen subject matter, and my chosen manner of discussion…. Well, in my world, it demands an explanation, anyway; just because other folks don’t live by what my daddy taught me gives me NO reason to do so. In fact, a big part of what he taught me is the concept of Duty, which precludes any sort of shirking, or abrogation of responsibility for our words and actions…..

In conjunction with that thought, came another…. It had to do with something else my father said to me one time, a piece of wisdom that, as it does at one point or another in every father’s life, occurred to him, and prompted him to share with me; I have since shared it with my own children, as part and parcel with the other important lessons I felt they should be taught, as I was…. He said to me, in so many words, “I have taught you all that you know; I have not taught you everything I know.” He smiled as he said it, to take some of the pain from its delivery, but, he couldn’t hide the truth of it, which often causes pain to those who insist on having it, straight up with no ice….

That being said, I have, at least in one respect, tried to do a bit more for my own children, as I am aware of my own failures as a father (we all have them…. we just try not to dwell on them….), and can’t hope to emulate the example he set, in some respects…. But, I have left a legacy for my two kids my father never had time to create, if he so desired…. and that is this blog, along with all the years of Pearls of Virtual Wisdom I created before 2011…. a history that goes back to 1997, when I was first in computer school, and chose my user name, gigoid…. The first Pearls came out, via email, a year or so later, when I got my first computer & Internet hook-up, slow as it was….

The rest, of course, is history, sans any editing by the winners/losers of any societal issues that may determine whose version lasts any length of time…. In the past three years alone, in putting out the Pearls for this version of the Follies, I’ve written well over two million words, all in my own inimitable, irritable style…. These words, and those yet to come, are what I leave my children as my legacy…. With these words, I am trying to transmit to them all the things I’ve never had the time to relate to them, thus giving the lie to that old saw about not teaching all I know….

It may not be the most lucrative legacy ever left, but, it’s what I’ve got, and it ain’t bad…. To further the process, I’d say I’ve wandered around this idea long enough for one day, and now decree it is time to get on with today’s business…. I’ve been working on this one for a while now, as the idea for the first section today struck me solidly in the forehead about two days ago, and I’ve been trying to find periods of time without major spasming to work on it….. my walk around the pirate conclave on Sunday was a bit more draining than I had first imagined…. I’ll live, but, it’s been a bit of a struggle to keep wanting to do so….

Ah, the hell with it; if I don’t get on with it, it’s going to explode, or dissolve in its own tears…. Shall we Pearl?….

“Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade before the public. Never clothe them in vulgar or shoddy attire.” — George Crane

Oops! Now what?…. Oh well, we’ll just go on, as if we hadn’t seen this at all….

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

Welcome, gentle readers, to another episode of the Life and Times of the Wise Old Pine Cone…. Like me, you’ve probably heard stories all your life, telling happy tales with magical, happy endings, filled with anecdotes and descriptions of the Old Cone, and how his wisdom and understanding of The Way, and the Force, as well as the Metaphorse, helps him, and all who hear of him….

I know, I didn’t expect to find him here, in this somewhat bedraggled excuse for a city, either, but, I was waiting for a bus one day, and, there he was, just hanging out, waiting to catch the same bus…. We got to talking, and one thing led to another…. He came home with me, to continue our conversation, and further explore how he could help me, and I could help him, to leave a record of his words, and actions, for generations to follow…. Of course, I was humbled, and honored, agreeing at once…. We tried a couple of forays out into the BRC last week, and now are heading out for another walk, just to stretch a bit after the Pirate Festival I attended, and ended up walking A LOT more than is normal….

First, here is the Wise Old Pine Cone himself…. basking in the morning sun, looking forward to the day….. For all I know, he was meditating, as well, on some esoteric point of philosophy beyond my comprehension…. or not…. He looks content, though, doesn’t he?….

June 16 2014 002    As we walked, we came across some of his friends from the tree, a married couple, the Burleycones, (I know, they’re HUGE, aren’t they? The WOPC tells me they’re examples of a certain strain of cones, who are all much larger than the rest of them…. kind of like a whole sub-species of giant sized cones….), who apparently had something very serious to discuss with him, to which I was not privy…. All I know is the Old Cone was a bit withdrawn for a while, kind of thoughtful…. Here he is talking with the two towering Cones….

June 16 2014 003    You can see from the Wise Old Pine Cone’s expression, he’s got a lot on his mind…. He sat on this bench, staring at a small congress of crows, for over a half-hour before we set off for home….

June 16 2014 005    When we got back to the house, I found out we’d been followed…. by a young pine cone I’d never seen before…. It seems the Burleycones have a son, and the Wise Old Pine Cone agreed, after much inner turmoil, to take the youngster on as his new paduan learner cone…. It’s a big job, for both of them, from what I know of the tradition…. As well, knowing what I do about the Wise Old One, it promises to be a very long, arduous, involved, and challenging time for the young cone…. He looks pretty sturdy, though, and seems to have an intelligent look about him…. We’ll see how he fares, at the Art of learning the Way…..

June 16 2014 010    Here we see the Wise Old Pine Cone giving the Paduan his first reading assignment…. It’s a book written by a blogging friend of mine, Jeremiah Stephen, titled, “Sphere(s)” (as you see below….)….. Jeremiah’s blog, where you can find a link to purchase the book, (I did, and consider it well under-priced for the value of its work, and the worth of its contents, which is virtually incalculable….), is located here….  http://knowthesphere.wordpress.com/

Having read portions of it, (thus far; I’ve only had it a couple of weeks, and Jeremiah’s work is DEEP…..), I know that the young learner has his work cut out for him; it’s a challenging book, excellently written, full of solidly based, well-thought-out, and eloquently presented points of philosophy, all using a metaphor connected to spheres, which allows him to display his deep insight into reality…. He does all this in a fresh, innovative style of writing that engages the reader without becoming overwhelming….. Heavy praise, I know, but, which doesn’t even mention the accuracy and sheer, instinctive  rightness of the conclusions he presents, as the logical, and meta-logical, results of his arguments. It will be interesting to see what our young paduan makes of it….

June 16 2014 012    Here we see the young pine cone meeting Guan Yin, the Chinese goddess, aka the Empress of Heaven…. The Wise Old Pine Cone, in his wisdom, knows there are many things the young paduan can learn from her, things only she can teach him…. If you don’t know what they are, you don’t want to know, or it would do you more harm than good, thus negating the purpose of sharing the knowledge…. Trust me, the WOPC knows what he is doing, and so does Guan Yin….

June 16 2014 027Below you see the paduan meeting another of his teachers…. The Wise Old Pine Cone, having learned long ago to not try to do it all himself, assigns much of his paduan’s learning to other teachers, to provide more than just one point of view of the same material…. and, since Buddhism is an inherent part of what he teaches, why not go directly to the source to obtain the needed instruction?….  Wise, indeed….

June 16 2014 017In the picture below, we see the young paduan learner being introduced to a peer, one of the students of the Buddha…. Scrappy-Doo found out about the school, and figured out he would benefit from the calming effect the teachings have…. You see, Scrappy has entered puberty, and would like to meet some girls…. but, his aggressiveness and scruffy manner puts them off. So, he’s trying a bunch of different things to improve his chances of meeting a girl…. which, when you think about it, isn’t stupid….

June 16 2014 021Here you see the two famous teachers relaxing with an adult beverage, (or, perhaps, two or three of them….. they’re adults, after all….)….

June 16 2014 023    The kids are tucked in bed, & Guan Yin doesn’t drink, so the two enlightened Ones have the place to themselves…. I hope they don’t go overboard, like they did last month…. The school had to shut down for three days until they recovered…. Oh well, we’re all bozos on this bus…. or, so I have come to understand…. which means that everyone, even the driver, gets more than just one chance…. After all, we are all bozos, right? Right….

I hope you enjoyed today’s little foray into silliness… I did…..

“A little nonsense, now and then, is cherished, by the wisest men.” — Willie Wonka

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Since we’re being silly today, here’s a poet who does silly better than most anybody…. Enjoy!….

A Boy Named Sue

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn’t leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
Now I don’t blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and named me Sue.

Well, he must have thought it was quite a joke,
and it got lots of laughs from a lot of folks,
it seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I’d get red
and some guy would laugh and I’d bust his head,
I tell you, life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean.
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.
Roamed from town to town to hide my shame,
but I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I’d search the honky tonks and bars and kill
that man that gave me that awful name.

But it was Gatlinburg in mid July and I had
just hit town and my throat was dry.
I’d thought i’d stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon in a street of mud
and at a table dealing stud sat the dirty,
mangy dog that named me Sue.

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
from a worn-out picture that my mother had
and I knew the scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old
and I looked at him and my blood ran cold,
and I said, ‘My name is Sue. How do you do?
Now you’re gonna die.’ Yeah, that’s what I told him.

Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went down
but to my surprise he came up with a knife
and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair
right across his teeth. And we crashed through
the wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging
in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell you I’ve fought tougher men but I really can’t remember when.
He kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laughin’ and then I heard him cussin’,
he went for his gun and I pulled mine first.
He stood there looking at me and I saw him smile.

And he said, ‘Son, this world is rough and if
a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough
and I knew I wouldn’t be there to help you along.
So I gave you that name and I said ‘Goodbye’.
I knew you’d have to get tough or die. And it’s
that name that helped to make you strong.’

Yeah, he said, ‘Now you have just fought one
helluva fight, and I know you hate me and you’ve
got the right to kill me now and I wouldn’t blame you
if you do. But you ought to thank me
before I die for the gravel in your guts and the spit
in your eye because I’m the guy that named you Sue.’
Yeah, what could I do? What could I do?

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun,
called him pa and he called me a son,
and I came away with a different point of view
and I think about him now and then.
Every time I tried, every time I win and if I
ever have a son I think I am gonna name him
Bill or George – anything but Sue.
     
~~ Sheldon Allan Silverstein ~~

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Well, it’s been a productive morning…. We’ll finish off today with, of course, an old-school pearl, just as if we had it all planned out that way….. which, of course, we didn’t…. but, serendipity is our friend around here….

“I spent hours trying to come up with the perfect tagline.  This isn’t it.” — Smart Bee

“After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.” — Farnsdick’s Corollary to the 5th Corollary

26. Read more books and watch less TV. — Instructions for life

O!  If I were a fish
I’d lay hap’ly on my dish.
Yes, that’s my one and only wish —
To be a fish!

For fish don’t ever mish;
They needn’t flush after they pish!
Yes, and life’s just swish, swish, swish,
For all the fish!!!

— found in Smart Bee with no attribution, other than the essential quality needed, to wit: it’s damn silly….

“Facts are stubborn little bastards, be careful with them.” — Smart Bee

“One useless man can be called a disgrace. Two really useless men can be called a law firm. When you get more than these together, you have all the  essential ingredients for a committee. And after the committee has made one or two criminal errors which are against the law, you have all that is deemed necessary for the formation of a congress. Our country has two separate bodies of these people, no one room being quite large enough to contain them all. And then there is the executive branch, but we shall discuss this later under the heading: “Extreme Absurdities You Would Not  Believe!””– parts attributed to John Adams (though I suspect the last sentence or two were added sometime after the new millennium began….)

“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.” — Langston Hughes, Dreams

“Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.” — Buddha

“In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born: that they are not superior to the citizen: that every one of them was once the act of a single man: every law and usage was a man’s expedient to meet a particular case: that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882)

This is an unusual pearl, ffolkes, but, that fits right in with today’s essential theme…. This one went from silly to sublime, in nine (mostly) short steps…. I hope you enjoyed it….

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Ffolkes, I just don’t see how I can do this any better than this…. and, if so, I’m not sure I want to…. The best part is, I get to try again tomorrow… Well, that’s the best part for me…. y’all have to take your chances, as we all do when surfing…. I’ll make it worth your while, though, you can be sure of that…. Until then, stay silly, ffolkes, it’s a good excuse….

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

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