Chicken bones for dessert….

Posted on November 12, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Xenophanes said,

“I confess myself the greatest coward in the world,

for I dare not do an ill thing.”

~~ Plutarch ~~

~~ Of Bashfulness ~~

A Storm on the Horizon

Leelu in full PK mode

Hajime…. For any Gentle Readers who are wondering why I’m continuing to use the Japanese opening for today’s Pearl, well, I’ll tell ya…. It’s like this: As I write this, it isn’t morning. It isn’t even evening, really, as it will be, in a short time, what is best described by Eric Clapton in his song, “After Midnight”…. That’s pretty clear, right? It’s the fucking middle of the night, again, and, here we sit, me & Leelu, working on a Pearl instead of sleeping, as my body/mind would REALLY like to be doing.

Why I’m up again isn’t important, though it’s probably relevant. But, any sort of discussion would just set me off again, I’d start ranting, and we’d never get out of the intro. So, I’m passing on that, and we’ll go straight to something more fruitful, or, at minimum, less offensive and rude. We do like to avoid rude, whenever possible. Mom wouldn’t like it if we were rude…. We don’t like to disappoint Mom, do we? No, of course not….

The question now, however, becomes once more problematic, as we are proscribed from using the same trick twice. My box of literary tricks is rather empty right now; what with all the recent time spent finding my way back from Hell, I haven’t had a lot of time to read, or study, or, for that matter, think as much as I’d like. Though we are both body and mind in one, the body’s complaints sure seem to take precedence when they occur; this makes it hard to use the mind to balance whatever is happening…. One can persuade one’s self Reality isn’t actually happening for only so long; at that point, Reality switches tools, from a scalpel to a sledge hammer. and has its way, regardless of whether we can fool ourselves, or not….

I’m pretty good at fooling myself, as are most of us human types. This doesn’t mean I like it; I can just accept it…. Now, where were we? And, where were we going? Oh, right, intro. Okay, it looks as if we have enough to satisfy the licensing board, so, why don’t we let Luigi have some more fun, and use the turbo booster? Everybody strapped in? Okay, Luigi, it’s all yours…. (Don’t worry, ffolkes; if we crash, we’ll just switch over to the Tardis, travel back to this instant, & start over….)

Shall we Pearl?….

“Skeptics laugh in order not to weep.”

~~ Anatole France ~~

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Tom Waits ~ Stencil by The MIVC

Image from 8tracks.com via Google Images

Unique. It’s the only word for Tom Waits; his voice, his musical talent, his lyrics, his persona. Another of mankind’s treasures, to my way of thinking. You can decide for yourself…. This was his debut album, released at age 24; on the page listed below, you can find all of the rest of his body of work, with extras…. Enjoy!….

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Tom Waits
Closing Time

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https://youtu.be/lndL46jiEFQ

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~~ Bruce Sterling ~~

Though I’m afraid he’s right, Mr. Sterling’s assertion does require some definition of terms; “moral relativism” just BEGS to be misinterpreted, in the sense that each person will filter the concept through their own moral viewpoint. So, in order for us to discuss it wit any degree of confidence, I’d best delineate why my own opinion runs, if not parallel, at least in the same quarter of the compass as his statement. Why don’t we do that? I dunno, why not?

Okay. I believe it, moral relativism means exactly what I described above. Each of us has our own moral code (hopefully); we view the world, and its activities, with that code coloring our perceptions. For example, a person who holds the belief they have the duty to help others will view a business transaction entirely differently than one who feels they are entitled to do unto others, first. One will sell their products at a fair price. with service given to each customer. The other will consistently overcharge for cheap products, and act as if they are doing a favor to sell at all.

You see, to me, that’s what moral relativism is; when people make a decision about how to interact with others, for whatever purpose it may be, a certain percentage of our species tends to think it is just fine to rationalize ANY sort of behavior, if it leads to them getting what they want. They can justify lying, stealing, even killing, in the pursuit of their desires, without any compunction, or, really, any thought at all about how others might be affected by their actions. Moreover, many of them are canny, and have learned how to manipulate others of their kind, who have a tendency to be violent, to do their bidding…. They call them ‘police’ these days….

“Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1816

As Tom’s observation from the early days of the Union show, the problems we face today have their origins in that very same beginning, as those who serve only themselves worked their lies and manipulations to gain control of government almost before the ink was dry on the Constitution. He recognized in this, and other writings, how the bankers and preachers had conspired, naturally, as is their nature, to pervert the legislators from day one of the first Congress, lobbying to have their own wishes made law….

And they’ve done it. Our world today is under attack by large corporations, and their owners, who number far fewer than many might believe. They wish to control everyone’s habits, and finances, and health, and every other aspect they can seize. They have made sure the laws favor them over any other member of society, and now have almost free rein to attempt to order everyone’s lives, so we all live in the same houses, watch the same TV shows, eat the same poisonous foods, go to the same doctors who feed us more poisons, then send us to church on Sunday to celebrate our slavery, by worshiping a delusion who promises us our next incarnation will be better.

Bah, humbug! Not for me, thanks…. I’ll take it the same way it’s laid out in the Constitution of this nation, as written. Period.

gigoid, the dubious, has spoken.

So be it.

“When, in the course of human events,…. etc.”

~~ Declaration of Independence of the United States of America ~~

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For some reason, this one, though recently created, seems to fit in with today’s rant; since I can do what I want, here ’tis….

Mad Dogs at Bay

Wicked, angry, red scenes of imminent demise
haunt my dreams each night.
Fearful visions of destructive surprise
leave me sweating in terror, as well they might.

Small, mean, ugly, with beady little eyes,
pundits gather like maggots, bloated and vile,
grunting, snuffling, mumbling outlandish lies,
enslaving the ignorant with patience and guile.

Society’s denizens exist as volunteer slaves.
Living and dying by script, completely blind.
Never allowing any resentment, no making waves.
Never knowing joy, nor any peace of mind.

Free men will not be controlled, ’tis said;
No coercion, no illusion can cloud their sight.
No threats, no pain, no fear they dread;
their only duty to keep to the right.

Dreams are mere reflections of our inner fears,
whispering, close against doors shut fast.
Mocking our mostly irrelevant tears,
clearly marking the future as our sordid past.

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 7/15/2015.

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What follows is what I would call a true pearl of virtual wisdom; in fact, in this case, it approaches the real thing. Most of it will definitely be on the Quiz, so, if I were y’all, I’d take notes, at least…..

“Reality is a group hunch.”

~~ Frank Zappa ~~
———-
“We do not perceive reality. We conceive it.”

~~ Oskar Haeml ~~
———-
“If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”

~~ Native American Proverb (Minquass) ~~
———-
“Never pretend to be something you’re not.”

~~ Things We Can Learn From Dogs ~~
———-
“Be and not seem.”

~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~~
———-
“Truth never tranquilizes.
The defining property of truth is its ability to disturb.”

~~ Solomon Short ~~
———-
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”

~~ Erich Fromm ~~
———-
“When someone loves you for a long time,
really loves you, then you become Real.
Generally, by the time you are Real,
most of your hair has been loved off,
your eyes drop out,
but this doesn’t matter . . .
when you are Real you can’t be ugly.”

~~ The Velveteen Rabbit ~~
———-
“Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

~~ Dylan Thomas ~~

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Some of you may have noted, or, not, I failed to actually tell y’all why I used the opening word; it shows how easily we humans can be distracted by them, adding more evidence to yesterday’s discussion of Socrates thought on the use of language, and how it can be evil when used improperly. Which is, again, a digression. Each Pearl you’ve seen, and continue to see, has been a fight to produce; I’m in sad shape, in a lot of ways, and the mere fact it’s getting posted at all is a victory, in a way. It means I survived another fight, which, at times, is the only possible way to win at all.

Since it’s been such a daily fight, we begin as every Judo, Karate, and Japanese martial art of any sort begins a match…. The irony, of course, is we are done now, but, it does mean I’ve survived this far, at least. Now I post, then, begin the fight to survive to do it again tomorrow…. Considering my record so far, the odds look good again…

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Simply bursting with indifference….

Posted on May 20, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”

~~ Chinese proverb ~~

Aurora Australis, seen from the International Space Station

NASA Image by Astronaut Terry Virts

Good morning… let’s keep it that way….

Shall we Pearl?

“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

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

Ludwig von Beethoven

Image from library.ucf.edu via Google Images

Those who don’t know this artist, or, for that matter, this symphony, are the unhappy possessors of some serious gaps in their cultural education…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. Da da ta DA!….

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Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

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https://youtu.be/Gzs-OGgkZTU

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Once more, I find my level of angst not up to a full, fresh rant, though I found several good openings… Instead, I’ll use what I’ve found to create an old-school pearl, with some comments about those who would rather prey on their fellow man than make any attempt to live with honor… In other words, Asininnies of every variety…. Polly pundits, Dogma Dogs, Corporate Snakeheads, Pimps, Uniformed Myrmidons, Mundanes, and all the others who make life a misery for others, simply because they are ASSHOLES!… Sorry for shouting….

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”

~~ Seneca ~~

“What would happen if the President, the Supreme Court, and all members of both houses of Congress were stoned out of their gourds twenty-four hours a day? The chilling truth is, it might be an improvement.” — Allan Sherman

“Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.” — John Selden (1584-1654) — Humility

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

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” — Virginia Woolf (Alternate definition of a politician…)

“A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A man can’t get rich if he takes proper care of his family.”

~~ Navajo Proverb ~~

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Maggie Mae has done it again, ffolkes; sometimes, the poems she writes are so powerful, I have to include them here, so everyone who comes here will know about her poetry…. Enjoy! This one is special….

Caterpillar

Ink is raining again.

Stan, on the radio, rapping tattoos
onto white-trash girls,
sitting, spinning on bar stools.

The highway is moving ninety miles
back, to late August madness,
cars are splashing

into phone booths
left over from big cities
and light houses.

But ships don’t come in
like they used to.
The calm of the sea
isn’t the color of God’s
angry finger anymore.

Caterpillar!!
Across the back of my shoulder!
“To rob.” “To pillage.”
“To suck the ink out of every living thing.”

My name is not what matters.
The alphabet is random.
My fingers have no pattern.
I’m bound to and wrapped around each syllable
like a piece of cabbage.
An appetizer. A long, soft caterpillar
eating my way into you.

~~ Maggie Mae ~~

http://maggiemaeijustsaythis.com/2015/05/18/caterpillar/

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A simple little pearl, this one speaks of how to live your life with courage and compassion, guided by reason….

“Safety is on the shore, but the pearl is in the ocean.” — Chinese Proverb

“A good philosopher is one who does not take ideas seriously.” — Edward Abbey

“It is human nature to think wisely & act foolishly.” — Anatole France

“Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.” — Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramee)

“The light is reached not by turning back from the darkness, but by going through it.” — Leonard Roy Frank

“To be alive is to take risks; to be always safe and secure is death.” — Edward Abbey

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” — Professor Bernardo de la Paz

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Without even looking it over, I can tell it’s done. Or, maybe it’s me…. Yep. That’s it. I’m done. Since it would be fruitless, not to mention pointless, to continue, I’ll cease torturing y’all, and take my leave, stage center rear…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, unless my imagination quits working overnight…. Not bloody likely….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Concentrating on cross-pollination for now….

Posted on May 10, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Nowhere is now here.”

~~ Nakagawa Soen Roshi ~~

Picture of Thunder

From an article on Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/heres-the-first-ever-picture-of-thunder-1702480686

“I hope that after I die, people will say of me: “That guy sure owed me a lot of money.” ” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

I hope it’s just me who thinks this is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard, in a weird, wacky way. I’m not even sure WHY I think it’s hilarious, but, I have to go with the evidence…. Whenever I start to actually think about what it says, about life, about Jack Handey (whoever he is…), and about irony, I bust up chuckling. It’s not a guffaw, nor a belly-buster; just persistent chuckling over how really, really stupid the person who said it HAS to be….

Okay, enough about me, and MY oddities…. I am not sure I want to know about what it says about me that I think it’s funny, so, we’d best get on with today’s mess, before the men in white suits arrive to take me away….

Shall we Pearl?

“Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it . You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.” — Will Rogers

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To ffolkes of my generation, only one name is needed to identify this artist; this one is definitely pulling some covers…. But, then, I’ve never denied, or tried to hide my complete identification as an old hippie… So be it. gigoid has spoken…. Enjoy, ffolkes….

***********************

Donovan

The Hurdy Gurdy Man

***********************

https://youtu.be/2NksT2zxuOE

***********************

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Well, here I am in AMERICA..

I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it.
I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it.
I LIKE it. I HATE it.
I LIKE…

EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!!

— Zippy the Pinhead

I know how Zippy feels; the direction this country took some time back has left all of us, I think, with a bit of a head-spinning problem, trying to keep up with all the insanity we see. I’ve figured out why I haven’t been up to ranting of late; there’s too many subjects to pick from, and all are equally important to us all…. The insanity of the Middle East, the Ukraine, and all the other places in the world where the arms dealers are continuing their insane need to keep the money flowing, by whipping the flames of discontent all over the world. The ongoing abuse of women and children, in the areas of sex trafficking and child sexual abuse, which are rampant everywhere, even in the most seemingly civilized countries. The wealth inequality gap continues to widen, while the 1% (much too large a number, btw…. there are actually only about a thousand or so of the true elite, who actually control everything…. Names like Rothschild, Krup, DuPont, Remington, Rockefeller, etc…)

I could keep listing the troubles faced by our world, but, what is the point? Nobody is listening, unless they already feel much the same, and the people who NEED to hear what I have to say, not only don’t give a shit, they would actively try to shut me up, if anyone actually began to pay attention. That, of course, doesn’t worry me; in fact, I wish they would try, for then I’d know I was on the right track, and I have no doubts about my ability to handle whatever they come at me with. (I’m a bit more prepared than it might seem on the surface….) The only thing they might be able to do is kill me, and that is fine with me…. I am prepared for my death; I wonder if they can say the same….

So, for now. I’m going to NOT rant, but, try to keep after them with old-school pearls, until I can figure out a way to have what I say find its way to a larger audience…. For today, here is a nine-star pearl, speaking about life in this country, and in the world at large, as it exists today….

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?” — Ursula K. LeGuin

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin.” The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”– Preface to ‘The Screwtape Letters’ by C.S. Lewis

“There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.” — Samuel Johnson

“If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxv

“Who is more foolish: the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?” — Maurice Treehill

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a republic, the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are graduations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

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

Because he was human, because he had goodness,
Because he was moral they called him insane.
Delusions of grandeur, visions of splendor,
A manic depressive who walks in the rain.

Cinderella Man, doing what you can,
They can’t understand what it means.
Cinderella Man, hang on to your plans.
Try as they might they cannot steal your dreams.

~~ Neil Peart, Rush ~~

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Y’all get stuck with mine again, simply because I’m lazy, and the new poem isn’t ready…. Enjoy, please, it’s the best I’ve got today….

Pure Truth: Elsewhen

Everything I say and do, I’m sure,
only comes from what I know.
If what I’ve said or done is good, and pure,
I can say it’s not just for show.

Sometimes people don’t quite get me.
It can be a pain, for sure.
I try not allow it to keep me from being free,
especially when my thoughts may be impure.

In fact, I try quite hard most of the time,
to keep from hurting folks.
If any culture more often approached sublime,
I wouldn’t have to take so many pokes.

Now I’ll make another sacrifice, for y’all,
not for karmic advantage, not merely so….
But, to save me from yet another downfall,
I’ll stop here; ensign, make it so….

~~ gigoid ~~

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Today’s final pearl was left up to SB, who has, apparently, gotten the raise for which it went on strike. It seems to be a rather international collection of wisdom from the Sages of the Ages…. Greeks, Romans, Europeans, Asians, they’re all represented here today…. Enjoy, ffolkes, it’s all pretty good advice….

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” — Socrates

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” — Confucius

“I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.” — Seneca (8 BC) — On a Happy Life, 2, (L’Estrange’s Abstract, Chap, i.)

“The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.” — Anatole France

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

“Safety is on the shore, but the pearl is in the ocean.” — Chinese Proverb

“I grow old ever learning many things.” — Solon (630 – 555 BC)

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Having exceeded my expectations today, I’m going to take the money and run…. Not that there is actually any money in this, but, hey, one uses the euphemisms that fit, right? Right. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, though goodness knows why….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Looks like a can o’corn….

Posted on January 6, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“I think the Wheel of Morality needs a tune-up.”

~~ Wakko Warner ~~

‘Tis a sad old world we live in, isn’t it? The sculpture you see above, located in a courtyard on the grounds of Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland, is certainly a perfect metaphor for a lot of my ranting, wouldn’t you agree? When I took the picture, I didn’t realize it, but, looking at it now, especially with the oh-so-perfect pearl above it, really drives that point home, for me….

Since the quote and picture worked so well, I’m going to try a new method of starting these Pearls, in which the intro section does exactly what it is intended to do, to wit: introduce today’s Pearl…. Let’s see how it goes….

Today, I have much to do out in the BBR, so, the Pearl you see will be a bit truncated, if only in terms of fresh material…. A quick video pick, a modified ranting section, and some archived material should cover it all nicely, I think…. With no further need for the usual drama and build-up of angst, we shall proceed to the day’s effort, just as if we did this every day…. I think you’re going to enjoy this, if only for the change of pace….

But, please, don’t forget to fasten your seat belts, and keep your thinking caps handy, okay? Right….

Shall we Pearl?

“Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.” — G. K. Chesterton

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This particular collection of classical music is one of my favorite compilations…. Listening to Mozart has an advantage over most classical music, in that it stimulates brain activity, while simultaneously calming the nerves, and soothing the psyche…. You will need this in order to be able to successfully navigate the ranting section today…. Trust me on this….

Best of Mozart : Ouvertures , Sonatas , Eine Kleine Nachtmusik , Concertos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCB7c7RDmyU

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“A friend once asked if it was true that no politician ever failed by underestimating the intelligence of the peasants and livestock. I told him we would never know, because their intelligence was something that was impossible to underestimate.” — President Weishaupt, “Church & State” by Dave Sim

I don’t have the time, nor the energy, to rant today, though my angst really needs to be released…. It is especially powerful since seeing the following three posts on talesfromtheconspiratum.com. Read these, and you’ll get the same effect as a rant based on the above quote…. It will have to do for today….

http://talesfromtheconspiratum.com/2015/01/06/the-american-people-are-utterly-clueless-about-what-is-going-to-happen-as-we-enter-2015/

http://talesfromtheconspiratum.com/2015/01/06/activists-plastered-the-london-tube-with-posters-telling-people-their-jobs-suck/

http://talesfromtheconspiratum.com/2015/01/06/north-korea-rebuttal-at-un-u-s-the-biggest-violator-of-human-rights-in-the-world/

Ffolkes, if you aren’t worried now, you’re simply not paying attention…. But, then, that’s part of the whole problem, isn’t it? Ah well, the following piece of truth tells us why…..

“It is human nature that rules the world, not governments and regimes.” — Svetlana Alliluyeva

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Staying with today’s theme….

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 ~~

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

As mentioned, time is at a premium, so, we’ve gone to the archives to find an appropriate piece…. This one will do nicely….

From 4/10/2013:

In re: freshness, since the poem section is only half and half, I’ll put together an old-school pearl for this last section today…. It’s a bit shorter, and takes less time than another rant…. Here is one with a very obscure, but valid, point…. which, of course, is left as an exercise for the Gentle Reader….. (that’s you…..) ….. Enjoy!

But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.

~~ Thomas Moore (1779-1852) — Lalla Rookh, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan ~~

‘Tis not the fairest form that holds The mildest, purest soul within;
‘Tis not the richest plant that holds The sweetest fragrance in.

~~ Dawes ~~

“Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.” — Vladimir Nabokov

“In God We Trust.” I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true.” — Mark Twain

“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” — Jules de Gaultier

“It is human nature to think wisely & act foolishly.” — Anatole France

He ne’er is crown’d
With immortality, who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead.

~~ John Keats (1795-1821) — Endymion, Book ii ~~

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

I don’t much like giving in to expediency, but, this time, it didn’t work out too badly; moreover, it’s done, which, as we know, is all I really care about…. I’ll try to give it a bit more effort tomorrow, ffolkes, if I make it that far….. 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

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Yep… The whole village is excited….

Posted on August 8, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

My mother told me, “Elwood,”–she always called me “Elwood”–“in this world you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant.

Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”

— James Stewart —

(as Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey, screenplay by Mary Chase and Oscar Brodney)

—————————————————————————

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”

~~ Theodore Isaac Rubin ~~

I think this picture is one of the better ones I’ve taken recently…. even if it did need a tiny bit of digital enhancement and correction. It still came out nicely, I think, and makes the perfect complement to the two opening pearls, adding beauty on a visual level to the beauty of the spiritual beauty implied in the two quotes…. These two quotes would also make a fine introduction to a rant, on human nature, and the flaws therein…. or, on the effect of those flaws on our society, but, I’m not in ranting mode yet, as I’m still not recovered from yesterday’s ordeal….

When inside a period of pain such as the one that beset me yesterday, Emily Dickinson’s lines on that subject often come to mind, to wit:

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

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

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

Time ceases to have the same meaning for us when in that state, seemingly becoming a vicious, crafty enemy, spreading out endlessly before our weary eyes, slowing itself until one wants to scream at it, even knowing it refuses to hear. Everyone who experiences such bouts with what is normally merely a warning system develops their own approach to dealing with the pain, an approach that manages to reflect the personality of the one in pain…. Me, I tend to try to push through it, unless I’m drugging myself into oblivion. I don’t like to allow the pain to stop me from living, so I try to go do things, until it becomes so hard I am close to breaking down…. at which time, danger appears, and must be acknowledged

The danger lies in being near other people when I get to that point, of being close to letting go, allowing myself to strike out against reality in some way, any way, that will, at least for a moment, give me some relief from the constant, unrelenting assault from my own nervous system…. When I get near the end of my rope, I’m always afraid I’m going to dump my reaction on somebody close by, who has no reason to suspect they’re about to be bitten, or yelled at, or otherwise dumped on by my amped up emotional state….

Being a tough guy, though, means one must man up, and try to ignore the pain for as long as possible…. So, yesterday, after the morning’s waves of pain had eased off, I took off for a walk, & ended up going to the local commercial entertainment park, Discovery Kingdom, to try to get some photos of the wild animals…. Mission accomplished, with the bonus of talking myself into a membership pass, so I can go back whenever I have the urge….

The potential for photos is, of course, pretty unlimited at the park, what with tigers, penguins, elephants, and dolphins all available for photo ops… I got a few good shots, plotted out future photo safaris, and wore myself out completely, to the tune of a 3 hour nap when I got home…. But, it did feel good to be able to say I hadn’t let my pain stop me from doing what I wanted to do…. Now, if I could only convince all my joints that’s a good thing, I’d be all set….

Ah, the hell with it…. I’m up late, due to the aforementioned fatigue factor, and need to get going on the rest of this…. Once again, we’ll have to resort to one of the more abrupt endings for these intros, such as they are, so we don’t get stuck here all day…. Belts all fastened? Okay, hold on, we’re going in…..

Shall we Pearl?…..

” You are a member of the British royal family. We are never tired, and we all love hospitals.” — Queen Mary (to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II)

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

At this point in time, I don’t have any idea what will be put here today…. I’m not going to rant, as I can barely think…. I already put together an old-school pearl, which you’ll find in the third section, where they are accustomed to find themselves…. I could put in some art, from my photo trip yesterday, but, the pix aren’t processed yet, so, that’s out…. Oh well, y’all know what this means…. something from the archives…. Don’t worry, I’ll try to make it a good one, okay? Given my state of mind today, that should be well within the realm of possibility…. let’s see now…

From 5/18/2012:

“And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.” — John Dryden (1631-1700) — Britannia Rediviva, Line 208

Wow! Have you ever seen a better description of this blog? 🙂 I’ve been torturing words now for over 12 years, at least in a bloggy sense; that’s about how long I’ve been doing these Pearls. I’ve learned over the years not to hear their screams, or read the petitions, or pay any attention to the ones who try to distract me with their flexibility of meaning; I just strap them into the rack and start hacking away. Sometimes, in the intro, I force them to assume the shape of a short fantasy; other times I will completely embarrass them by telling them they are haiku, or a poem, when they know for certain I am no poet. I can be pretty cruel to the words in my head…..

I figure it’s only fair, considering how they treat me much of the time. I don’t ask much of them, really…. just the morning group of five good pearls I can use to create these missives, and I’d leave them be. But much of the time, such as today, they insist on playing games, hiding, shifting about, presenting only the quotes they know I’ve already used, or massive amounts of Shakespeare, which they KNOW just annoys me…..

No, they’re not very nice to me, so I feel no compunction about torturing them to get them to do what I need them to do. If I didn’t, I’d never get anything written. If I didn’t write as much as I do, I’d build up all this incredibly strong angst and tension, and eventually it would have to come out…. and, at that point, it can be dangerous, especially if there is anyone else in the immediate vicinity of the blast zone….

So, you see, this blog is really a public service in disguise…. No thanks are necessary: since they are my words, I take responsibility for them, and consider it my duty to keep them from harming others (except, of course, when I want them to do so…..). I just didn’t want y’all to think I was hiding anything important…. I just call this my Literary Guantanamo Bay for Wayward Words, where we have the leeway, and the executive authority, to torture those nasty little terror-inducing buggers into submission….

gigoid has spoken…. So be it…..

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

This poem is one I wrote in 2012, soon after ending the thirty year hiatus I had going of NOT writing poetry…. I remember quite clearly, it was written soon after a bout with my PTSD, that happened to occur on a day when my physical pain was also quite active, so, it was, in simple terms, a bad day… But, if work of this nature comes out of it, I cannot entirely regret the experience, though I hope not to live through it too often…. It’s not what I’d call the most comfortable way to exist…. Any who, all that aside, I hope you enjoy the poem….

Pieces of broken spirit….

Deep within the inner abyss, tears lay in wait
Ever on the verge, tending to infuriate.
Real moments of sadness cracking our need
Swift, deadly waves of appalling terror freed.

Memory hurts badly when visiting now
Leaving me alone, forgetting even how
Killing the sunshine still pouring over all
Darkening all spirit, holding it in thrall.

Knowing no blame seems almost to heal
Yet healing is blunted, plainly not real.
Innocence is pointless compared with pain
On the soul it tattoos an indelible stain.

Hours become days, days turn to a year
Serving up only a compendium of fear.
Blind groping for light finds only dark
In caverns of terror, angry and stark.

Trails of endless sorrow fill up the nights
Confounded at last by unfathomable sights.
No hope can find its way to the fore
Never to sail safely, lost forever more.

~~ gigoid ~~

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

Okay, ffolkes, here’s what we have…. Below are a bunch of pearls, all on one particular subject, with which I am sure you are familiar… we all are. The process of modern political phenomena is complicated, even more than the natural state of the beast, by the influence of those flaws in human nature, which tend to lend themselves to the obsessive pursuit of power and control over others…..

However, instead of ranting today, this is my sublimation of that urge, a group of political pearls, that hopefully, poke some holes in the faux dignity all of the pundits assume when they climb to the podium, wrapping themselves in the flag, issuing veiled proclamations of intended thievery and crimes against the populace they so despise….

“If the people are given the power to vote themselves bread and circuses, then they will.” — Cicero

(Actually, you will note, in the case of this nation, they did…..)

“The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” — Anatole France (1844-1924)

“Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.” — Calvin & Hobbes

(The latest version of the American Dream….)

“Take away the right to say ‘fuck’ and you take away the right to say ‘fuck the government.'” — Lenny Bruce

“If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A. You say A is white and B is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks and therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1854.

“Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.” — Octavio Paz

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” — Will Rogers (1879-1935)

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

Well, ffolkes, there you have it; another fine mess from the messy mind of gigoid….. Remember, what I said above, about how the pain had gone? Well, it’s back, so, I’m going to go engage in the necessary activities to prepare myself to do battle with my own body…. In short, I’m going to go take a bunch of heavy drugs, and go back to sleep for a while, in the hope it will go away again…. This Pearl, choppy as it is, is done…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, as long as I win the battle….

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

Analyzing inventory on hand to find the shortest shrift….

Posted on March 7, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

As a practicing curmudgeon, I am required by law to ascertain daily how often I hear the term “grumpy old fart” as applied to myself; something to do with national demographics, I understand, and how many of us are allowed to coexist with the mundanes in any one city block at a time….

Apparently, a while back, some busy-body, wannabe do-gooder noticed that, when there are four or more of us in that small an area, the vegetation tends to suffer, and weather patterns for the area take a turn for the worse…. which wouldn’t have mattered, but, combined with the higher rates of cancer among 17 year-olds without severe acne, somebody got nervous, and called their legislator to have the law prohibit us from congregating in small areas…

I heard they also have a new research study that shows how more than three of us in a specific amount of space can have serious side effects on reality, which only served to make the bill go through faster, as the study was done by the state’s research labs, commissioned by some citizen’s panel of paranoids….

Apparently, and this is just what I heard, mind you, one of us scared the governor one day, so this negative research study was done, so he could pressure the legislature into the bill to curtail our getting together…. not that we ever did; socializing with each other isn’t part of the program of training….

S’alright, let ’em legislate their little hearts out…. It won’t stop us from completing our training, and going forth into the world (fewer than four at a time, legally….) to annoy and to be annoyed…. It’s our lot in life, and the lot of society to put up with us, so there….

Okay, I’m done being silly for the moment…. I couldn’t take that any further, as it was threatening to stimulate my ACTUAL curmudgeonry to go active, and it’s way too early for THAT! I’ve tried to let that out at this time of day in the past, and the results, both times, convinced me it isn’t worth the hassle….. Both times, it took over an hour to clean up the mess, and I don’t think that kid down the hall will ever be the same…

In fact, I heard she’s been seeing a therapist on a daily basis, just to keep from being committed…. Poor kid… I felt bad, but, hey, what can a poor curmudgeon do when the little buggers come up to us in that stupid brown uniform, with that silly-ass vacant expression, and a box of cookies they want to sell me?

It isn’t MY fault that answering the door in my ratty robe, untied, wearing skivvies, hair all over, five day beard, and full-on morning grump caused her to run screaming away down the hall, shedding cookie boxes as if they were plucked feathers….. Nor was it necessary for her damn father to come down to try to chastise me…. an event that even now, I regret….

I suppose that stuffing him into the dumpster WAS a bit over the top, but, hey, he’s the one who woke me up the SECOND time…. He should be glad he survived at all… Besides, the Boy Scout managed to pull him out of the dumpster before he was overcome by the smoke from the explosion….

Now that my internal clock has had the little hand get to the 4, and the big hand to the 12, it has once again caught up to the real world…. Since that means, obviously, it’s now 4 AM, I’ll stop the blather and BS, and get on with whatever we’re going to do today…. I haven’t really decided what to write today…. I’m trying to shake things up a bit, trying to make it more compelling, and, hopefully, more interesting for ffolkes who stop by to read….

Not that my material isn’t grand…. else why would I write it? No, I’m just tired of ranting about the same old stuff, without ever seeing any changes in the real world, so, I’m going to try to vary my delivery, and my material enough to make it a bit more, oh, flashy, or noticeable, or SOMETHING to get ffolkes to spread my message around a bit wider, to more of the public at large, the folks who NEED to read it….

I have a feeling that much of the time, my material gets read by the choir; they have already been converted, so the message, while not completely wasted, isn’t getting the play with those by whom it needs to be seen, in order to be completely effective…. We’ll see how it goes….. fluff is everywhere, it seems….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” — Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
_____________________________

Early as it is, I won’t give in to my urges to vent….. The easiest, most efficient way to accomplish that goal is to provide myself with a sublimated task, which will give me the sense of venting, without having to actually create the path for it to be released into the blogosphere…. Well, that’s the plan, anyway…. What this means in a practical sense is, of course, an old-school pearl, with parameters set at “rage against the machines”, otherwise known as Sublimated Rant Mode….. Enjoy!….

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde

“There are scores of thousands of sects who are ready at a moment’s notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject.” — Smart Bee

“I’d rather that a bigot mistake me for a lesbian than that a lesbian mistake me for a bigot.” — Tovah Hollander

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” — Thomas Jefferson

“A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.” — Anatole France

“The next best thing to doing something smart is not doing something stupid.” — Flo Capp’s Observation

Truckin’, like the do-dah man
Once told me “Gotta play your hand.
Sometimes your cards ain’t worth a dime
If you don’t lay’em down.”
Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it’s been.

— Truckin’ by Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Hunter

Wow…. not bad, not bad at all…. I don’t think a pearl has ever come together so quickly, or so seamlessly as this one…. It took a total of eight minutes, as pearl after pearl jumped up to be included, sandwiched between a very few obviously unsuitable quotes, easily dismissed in jig time…. It was almost as if the universe was rewarding me for having picked the correct venue for this group, which, patently, is an excellent one to highlight such valuable gems as these….

From now on, I think you’ll be able to use this pearl when you want to show someone a real-life example of the definition of the word “eclectic”….. You could probably use it with the same effect to demonstrate the meaning of the word “esoteric”, too, but, that might stretch the minds of those to whom you show it to a point of no return…. It’s entirely conceivable that, upon assimilating the concepts contained herein, they would never be normal again, which, all in all, in today’s world, might not be such a bad thing, eh?…..
_____________________________

Another archived poem of my own, serendipitously dumped in my lap yesterday afternoon…. from January of 2013….

“A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.” — William Stafford

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,
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 your noses grow round & red, keep your hair tightly curled.
Find a way to let your spirit out often to play,
you’ll never once regret any price you pay.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

“Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

As I stated in the intro section, I’m trying to NOT rant as often; at the very least, a rant a day is simply too much, and cutting down on how often I produce a fresh rant can only do me good. Most likely, it isn’t good for my blood pressure to put myself through the angst and emotional turmoil on such a regular basis….. Therefore, to keep things balanced, and healthy, here is a not-at-all-shabby politireligirant from 6/17/13….. Enjoy!….

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

“Nevertheless, in the system of Copernicus there are found many and great inconveniences; for both the loading of the earth with a triple motion is very incommodious, and the separation of the sun from the company of the planets, with which it has so many passions in common, is likewise a difficulty, and the introduction of so much immobility in nature, by representing the sun and stars as immovable, especially being of all bodies the highest and most radiant, and making the moon revolve about the earth in an epicycle, and some other assumptions of his, are the speculations of one who cares not what fictions he introduces into nature, provided his calculations answer.” — Francis Bacon, Descriptio Globi Intellectualis, 1653

In his time, Frank Bacon (Oh…… Okay, now I understand: no wonder he went by Francis!….), was considered a learned man; even today, he is regarded as one of the brightest minds of his era…. Such regard, however, doesn’t go far toward explaining this statement. As is patently obvious, according to what we now know, Frank is talking with his head firmly planted up his ass; every one of his objections to Copernicus’ work is WRONG. It has long been proven the Copernican system of physical construction of the solar system, and all the stars and galaxies, is the closest to reality, when compared amongst all of the ancient theories on the subject.

No, Frank was being a coward here…. He was afraid of the churches of the time, as well he might have been; the Church, (actually, ANY of the churches, but, most especially the priestly hierarchy under whose aegis Sir Francis lived….), during the middle ages, was notorious for their intransigence when it came to what they defined as heresy…. So, Frank, being the mealy-mouthed opportunist that he was, dutifully issued this condemnation of Copernicus’ theories, to satisfy the priests, and get on their good side….

I have a feeling that he KNEW he was telling a bald-faced lie in this instance…. It’s too wordy, and too UN-scientific in nature to disguise the lack of truth, and gives me the impression that he would have found it difficult to state this aloud, with a straight face…. I know I would….

“Appearances deceive and this one maxim is a standing rule: Men are not what they seem.” — Harvard

The point I’m making here, or, more accurately, that I’m circling around in the attempt to make, is simply this:

Ffolkes, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but, people lie…. They do it for a lot of reasons, but, regardless of whether it is justified, or not, by whatever standards one chooses to apply, they still lie…. Mostly they do it for reasons that are not particularly public minded; humanity, as a rule, finds it hard to act other than in their own self-interest, even when acting honorably. It is the rare man, or woman, who makes their decisions based on the public good on a consistent basis….

This, of course, is merely my observation, but, I think it’s fairly accurate, given my age, and how extensively I’ve observed people for my entire life. Most folks, I’ve found, act in their own self-interests FIRST; they may act otherwise AFTER they are satisfied they’ve achieved their own ends, but, any such acts will be an afterthought, and will, no doubt, also be designed to benefit themselves more than anyone else…. There are very few who act with complete honor in this respect, and I don’t exclude myself from this accusation; I’m no saint, to be sure….

But, I think that Truth is more important to me than to most of the people I see out in the Big Blue Room, or, for that matter, amongst those who inhabit the rooms inside, where our computers live….. It is that dedication to finding what is true in any situation or issue, I think, that allows me to have a clearer view of reality, than those who tend to color it with their own preconceived notions of right and wrong, with right being what is good for them, and, conversely, wrong is what is not good for them….. The effect of this policy toward life on others, good or bad, isn’t usually a significant part of their decision, as to which is held to be which…

“He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false.” — Smart Bee

How often do we meet someone who even makes any attempt to find out the truth? Most people, from what I observe, tend to just accept whatever they are told, (especially if they hear it on TV….), preferring the abrogation of responsibility for their own opinions to having to spend the mental effort to find out what is true….

I don’t think anyone can argue, not very hard anyway, about such a basic observation of human nature; there is far too much undeniable evidence of this truth to be found in an obvious place, to wit: almost every home in middle- and lower-income American, with anywhere from two to six or eight people in them, all of whom are glued to the huge flat-screen TV up on the wall, absorbing everything they’re told by the talking heads they see there….

It’s an all-too-human characteristic to want to have someone else take the responsibility for all those hard mental tasks that go along with finding the truth; real, effective thinking takes much more effort than most folks are willing to put forth in that direction, no matter how often they are told they are being lied to….. not even if the telling comes with anything in the way of actual evidence, unless it is visible, tangible proof that actually slaps them in the face…. They prefer to let anyone who appears on TV show them, preferably with lots of bright, colorful pictures, exactly what they should think and feel….

SIGH…. I’m depressed now. This is an issue that burns my ass on a daily basis, because it is not amenable to resolution, at least, not any easy, peaceful resolution. It is a serious, inherent flaw in the very nature of humankind, that allows this kind of chicanery, keeping the majority of mankind in ignorance, at their own behest; this has been true for all of our history, and will remain so until our untimely demise, somewhere in the not-so-distant future….

I wish I could bring myself to entertain hope, for enough changes in society that we, as a species, would conceivably stand a chance of survival…. Given the stubbornness of even the most average person in resisting any kind of regular, effective cogitation, however, I’m afraid I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that, not in the long run. Humans aren’t going to stop acting in their own self-interest, or being deliberately stupid, and it’s a damn shame there isn’t much that can be done…

“What is man’s chief enemy? Each man is his own.” — Anacharsis (f1. c. 600 B.C.), Scythian philosopher — Quoted in Stobaeus, Flor., II, 43
_____________________________

Not everyone can do this, you know…. nor, in any case, should everyone be encouraged to do so…. Hell, any encouragement I get just makes me worse, and I know it, so, encouraging everyone might just be more than Reality can take…. It probably has enough trouble assimilating what I do; I don’t think it really wants to have to deal too many others spewing all over the place like this….

Of course, one must remember this is all good, clean, digital fun, and the only possible harm to be found is in the ideas and concepts it contains, ideas that could conceivably inflame the hearts and minds of the public, thus smiting a great blow to the very fabric of society, with possible aftershocks produced in the connective fabric of the space-time continuum….

Far be it from me to wish any harm to the space-time continuum; not a healthy habit, I should think…. I think I’ll go now….. 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

Painfully shy, the marmoset left the lobby…

Posted on August 31, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

In life, there are a number of events that occur that cause a great deal of stress to the human psyche. The death of a loved one, major surgery, divorce, losing a job, foreclosure, being falsely arrested, seminal events of many types….. all are guaranteed to put pressure on the mind and spirit…. There is one I didn’t mention yet, but, is just as hard on people as those mentioned…. I refer, of course, to moving…. whether by choice, or force, having to transplant one’s self and property in a new place puts a great deal of negative pressure on us….

Packing, address change notifications, money worries, all contribute to making a move between two houses one of the more difficult propositions to accomplish with any degree of ease. In about two and a half hours from this moment, I have four professional movers coming here, to make the move from this studio to the new one-bedroom duplex a lot easier on Patricia and I, and I am not regretting a single penny of what it will cost, as it removes almost all of the stress from our part of the move…..

They will pack us up, move everything to the new place, and put it in for us…. All we have to do is stay out of their way, then, unpack and figure out where to put everything….. I’m hoping for a stress-reduced day, if not completely stress-free, because, quite frankly, I don’t have it in me anymore….. This also means this Pearl needs to get done in a timely fashion, so I can gear my head up for the big event…. Even though I don’t have to do the actual work, I still have to oversee all of it, and I have absolutely no doubt Murphy is hanging about somewhere, just waiting for his chance to fuck with me with some insidious, insane-making foul-up…..

Ah well, as I’ve said before, ain’t life grand? I’m going to go get this done, so….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“I’m EMOTIONAL now because I have MERCHANDISING CLOUT!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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No harm, no foul, right? That’s what I always thought was the rule….What do you do, though, when the foul is vicious, the harm is real, and the referee is corrupt? Such is the case we have here in Amurrica, land of the fee…. and that’s not a typo…. I have a lot to do today, and, thus, have not enough time to rant, but, I have some thoughts on the developing problems in Syria, one of a long line of Middle Eastern situations rife with potentially disastrous consequences for all of us…. Not just the military, or the government, or them, or us….. I mean ALL of us…. If this one gets out of hand, the whole ball of wax could melt in the ensuing fracas….

Jon Carroll has been one of my favorite columnists for a long time now….. He is erudite, intelligent, compassionate, and generally seems to have the same view of events that I do, in the sense that we tend to disapprove of the same habits shown by the BRC….. His take on things often points out parts of the issue that other people may gloss over, or miss completely; he is able to pinpoint those issues with great accuracy, and excellent common sense…. This article meets all those standards…. enjoy this, if you will, in place of my rant on this subject, which will come in a few days, after I’ve gotten settled in the new place, and further developments have occurred overseas…

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/The-upcoming-unfortunate-war-with-Syria-4772410.php
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Today’s poem has no meaning, beyond the fact that I liked it… it isn’t here because of any deeper meaning, or because it fits in…. I just like it….

An Old Man’s Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him — at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; — and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man — one man — can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

~~ Robert Frost ~~

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As time is of the essence, I have to go into the archives today, to pull out something appropriate for this section… I found a good pearl, from early this year, and it will do just fine…. enjoy!….
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“Can I leave now? My brain is full.” — Smart Bee

I’m not sure exactly why, but this appeals to me; I’ve felt this way often, and can empathize strongly with whoever wrote it….. In its quiet little way, it also points at my own current state of mind, in that I seem to be out of outrage…. There are so many examples in my perception, of the evil being done every day, by the government, by churches, by random assholes with more testosterone than brains, I’m finding it hard to pick out just one or two to rant about…. For me, that is a disastrous state to be caught in, since much of what I do here involves ranting about stuff that tickles my outrage….

I suppose y’all might just be laughing at me just now, as this may seem like a minor complaint…. and, in a cosmic sense, it really is. But, lest we forget, MY cosmos is the one being affected, which will affect what I write about, and when, and how much, and y’all will be the ones that have to deal with the fallout….. You’ll be singing a different song, then, I’ll wager…. Ripples in the pond, don’t’cha know?….

This isn’t to say that’s what I WANT to happen; I’ve given my opinion previously on how much I dislike being unable to write something, whether it’s a rant, or an old-school pearl, or a poem…. Writing has become for me as important as reading, and I’ll consider writing ANYTHING, if it seems even the slightest bit intriguing, just like I’ll read just about ANYTHING, including milk cartons and cereal boxes, if that’s all there is to read…. Now, writing has assumed an equal importance in my scheme, and any glitches in the process can stimulate worry…. mankind’s true nemesis….

“More people have died of worry, than ever bled to death.” — Lazarus Long…..

Rather than spending any significant amount of time worrying, I decided to seize on what I had, and just jump in & start writing…. So far, it isn’t too shabby, but needs…. something…. aha! A hook…. I need a hook…. okay, let’s see what we have laying about….. Nope, nada damn thing to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, which kicks the worrying up a notch or two, for sure…. Calliope has deserted me for other parts, the headlines are too bland to get worked up about, and the Westboro Baptist Church of Fools has been strangely silent of late…. All I have here, as I gaze around the room in pathetic hope, are the same old items I’ve been looking at for seven months now, since moving here…. most of which has either been already explored, or isn’t worth mentioning….

I see now I should have perhaps prepared for this a bit better; research is always useful, and it would be nice to not have to get all antsy just because my imagination is coming up empty. Whining about it isn’t going to help, or solve the issue, so we’ll skip right by that, and go into strategic planning mode, followed by a dip into tactical operations mode, and we’re home free…. Let’s see now, first, a small diversion… I can do that…. Look, over there! It’s a pearl!….

“Why can’t we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a ‘War’ on it?” — Rich Thomson

Now, THERE’s a question for the BRC, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t get as much response as we’d like…. Good strategy demands, after a diversion, a foray out into enemy territory, to gather intelligence…. so….

“All power rests on hierarchy: An army is nothing but a well-organized lynch mob.” — Edward Abbey

Okay, that’s intelligent…. now, we shoot back…..

“If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” — Anatole France

Yep, that had to hurt…. Okay, so now, all we have to do to have achieved our strategic goal is to finish them off with unassailable logic, combined with a bit of humor…. no worries…

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” — Albert Einstein

“It’s not the pace of life that bothers me, it’s the sudden stop at the end.” — Hobbes

See? It’s all in the wrist…. Using two pearls for the last thought was deliberate, though it helped that both of them came up one after the other, as if pre-ordained…. But it just fit, as the first supplies the unassailable logic, and the second the humor…. and, as we all know by now, timing is everything……
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This has gone more smoothly than I hoped, so, rather than press my luck, I’ll confess to my duck, and leave it at that…. No, I have no idea what that means… do you? Oh well, no time to worry about it now, gotta go start packing what little there is for my part of today’s effort…. there’s always a few things one MUST handle personally, y’know?…. No way I’m going to trust my collection of prized paper clips to anyone else!…. So, I’ll just go find the velvet-lined manila folder, and get on with it…. This, while not completely cool, or even radical, is, nonetheless, done…. See ya tomorrow, I hope, from a new perspective point…..

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Put the stray curator in the parlor for now….

Posted on June 15, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Rational thought, being skittish, and reluctant to come out to play at this time of the morning, has easily escaped my feeble effort to pin it down, in spite of the reservation I made. While the foregone conclusion may well be obvious, that doesn’t alleviate the frustration. Having, however, given a solemn promise, this won’t stop me, but may, due to circumstances completely within my control, adversely affect the quality of the content of today’s Pearl. I’ve a pile of stuff to take care of today out in the BBR, so this missive must needs be done smartly; I only hope I can do so with some style…..

Legal requirements for blog intro material require me to notify any potential readers of the above, little as it has to do with anything at all. Regulations are like that, especially when they only exist in my imagination, but, I prefer to cover all the bases, having experienced the wrath of bureaucrats previously. Not that imaginary bureaucrats have anywhere near the power as actual, live zombies, but, one must do what one believes to be correct, even if not entirely sure of what that may be…. In spite of what you might have heard, the Universe does give points for effort; you just can’t use those points for any of the prizes….

Right…. now that we have conjured up a sufficient quantity of absolute twaddle, it is imperative we not lose momentum, lest we lose track of what has been done, and what remains to do. Of course, I can’t honestly say that I ever actually KEEP track of any of that, but, it sounds good, and does fill in more space. Moreover, we have honorably adhered to my determination to avoid anything resembling cheese, thereby keeping under control one’s consumption of cheese’s favorite beverage companion, dry, white whine…. Hey, it can’t be any other color; I’m Caucasian, and haven’t been out in the sun without a shirt for years…..

Now that I have completely gone ’round the bend, we’ll get on with today’s conflagration (I don’t know what else to call it at this point…..). I will point out that, despite any such rumors to the contrary, none of what is included in this blog has any nutritional value…. intrinsic philosophical value, yes, but, don’t bother trying to live on it, as you’ll end up with a severe case of scurvy to go along with the hair loss….

“It is human nature to think wisely & act foolishly.” — Anatole France
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As mentioned above, I have a lot to do today out in the real world, so fresh material will have to wait until tomorrow…. Here is a relatively short rant, sort of a combined political and religious rant, from the first day of the year we are currently surviving…. It came out pretty good, and is still quite valid today, so…. enjoy!….
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“If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.” — Thomas Jefferson

Oh well, so much for THAT hope! From all I can see in today’s society, what Tom J was afraid of has come to pass. If one takes almost any of the articles in the news that talk about the activities of government, religion, or society at large, it is obvious that bigotry and priestcraft have corrupted every level of those entities, and influence just about every human interaction that we see. Common sense is nowhere present, in any of those same activities under discussion. Of course, he forgot, in this instance, to include the bankers, but perhaps that is where the bigotry comes in…..

By its precise meaning, bigotry doesn’t include the idea of cheating, lying, and stealing from whomever one encounters; those activities, for a bigot, are only appropriate when done to those outside the personal group, to “foreigners, niggers, and chinks,” or some likely other group they’ve chosen to bless with their ignorance…… But, in a sense, bankers can be said to be universally bigoted, for they have no qualms about lying, cheating, or stealing from anyone, in any group, even their own. I guess that would qualify them as Ultimate Bigots…..

“As an ox goeth to the slaughter.” — Old Testament — Proverbs vii, 22; Jeremiah xi, 19

I would imagine this is how the bankers and preachers (either of which is capable of turning into a politician, at the drop of a hint….) view the masses of humanity who do not subscribe to their venality. In this view, they may be at least partially justified, by the apparent willingness of those masses to submit to whatever is done to them. Why should the politicians stop lying, when their lies secure for them the keys to the treasury? Why should the preachers not spread their delusions, when the masses are so willing to accept them, because it saves them the effort of either thinking about morality, or even better, saving them from having to BE moral….. The bankers, of course, need no excuses to carry on their despicable acts of calumny upon the remainder of society; their sole motivation is based on profit for them, and nothing else concerns them at all…

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson

Back to Tom…. He was a bit over the top sometimes, in the force of his expression, but never, to my mind, in his sincere commitment to Truth, and his sincere love for Mankind. I would like to think I join him in this sentiment, especially today, when we are so besieged by attempts to tyrannize our minds by our own beloved ruling classes. The war against immorality continues unabated, and too many folks in the world have withdrawn from the battle, accepting the lies and delusions that are foisted upon them.

It is important, in my opinion, that the rest of us, who can see the depredations assaulting the common man every day, keep on shouting from the rooftops to the rest of our compatriots, if only to save our own sanity….. and, before the strain of the conflict brings us to our knees, and we enter Zippy’s domain, doomed to extinction…..

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

Here is another piece from the archives, to save time, our most precious commodity, after the contents of our bag o’love….
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It has been awhile since I read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, and a small piece of it in Smart Bee gave me a hankering to run through it again. It’s a long piece, though, and can take a while to get through. In addition, it takes up a lot of space…. so, to avoid both those problems, today I’m providing a simple link to the poem, on PoemHunter.com, where I find a lot of what goes into this section…. A very large amount of the world’s best poetry and poets are to be found there, and I enjoy the simplicity of their interface… Any who, here, for your reading pleasure….

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/

Enjoy!…..
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Well, I’ve gone and done it…. I’m going for the hat trick today, with all three sections pulled from the archives…. I decided that, if there are over a million words of material in the archives, why should I not utilize a bit of it to my own advantage? It IS my own material, after all…. Any who, here is another rant, this one fairly straightforward, again taking aim at organized religion, which I consider to bear a large degree of responsibility for the state of society….
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“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.” — Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in “Time”, 1981

Well, Vladimir certainly nailed it in one! This fits right in with what I believe, which, though it has little if anything in common with popular religious views of the afterlife, is nonetheless just as optimistic in outlook as any of those rather exceedingly ornate, highly unlikely scenarios. In my world view, the mind, and consciousness, whatever it may be, is equivalent to energy in our universe, and as such, should logically have the same characteristic as all other forms of energy we have thus far discovered, to wit: it cannot be destroyed, only changed in form.

Each of the world’s religions has their own version of what happens after we die, and all of them are made with the assumption of the presence of their idea of God as the underlying reason for all that occurs. This, while logical, to a small degree (one has to accept some rather specious assumptions in order to follow a logical path to the concept of a God….), mostly reminds me of a small boy walking past a graveyard, whistling loudly to scare off his own fears…. It’s mostly wishful thinking, as far as I can see, according to all the physical evidence available. The proponents of these religious philosophies all make the same basic error in their logical constructs, one that is so basic, they can’t even see it….

That error lies in assuming that Man, or a man, being a mortal being, limited in perception and understanding by their own physical envelope, is capable of either understanding, or describing, what is a God. If one assumes that an entity is capable of creating an entire universe, I don’t think it is logical to assume that we, as part of that creation, would have the capability of comprehending either the process involved, or the being that carried it out. The mere fact that, in order to try to comprehend God at all, we need to try to give him first, a sex, then a visual identity, is the first and most telling clue that we are wrong, right from the start…..

The next clue as to our inability to know God is the behaviors that Man ascribes to Him. In just about every religious book I’ve read, the actions of most of the Gods therein reminded me more of a surly, selfish teenager than of a God. I don’t know, it just seems a bit illogical to have the creator of the entire universe behave worse than a cranky two year old that needs a nap, if He doesn’t get the fawning worship he so desperately needs. It sounds more like Benito Mussolini, or Madonna, to me, than it does like God….

This doesn’t mean, though, that there is no hope of redemption (though I’m not sure from what I’m being redeemed… the idea of original sin is pretty much a hoax, you know, put in the Christian dogma to help manipulate and control people….), or of life after death. The universe is actually a quite beautiful place without the concept of God hanging about, getting in the way…. And this viewpoint allows one to appreciate life much more fully, knowing that we bear sole responsibility for making our lives worth living…

Everybody dies, and everyone lives after death, as far as I can see from a logical standpoint. I think that what Vladimir says is a good way to look at things, as it acknowledges that responsibility for our own happiness, and does so without implying the existence of a need to do so in hope of a reward for good behavior, as is the case in those religious institutions who wish to control people here in this life, using the threat of punishment or reward in the next. We can assume control of our own lives, including our own happiness, or, we can allow others to think for us, and accept the chains and limitations of living according to someone else’s ideas of what is real….

The saddest part of all this? Most folks never even realize they have a choice in the matter. From infancy, they’ve been brainwashed to believe what they’re told, and all-too-few of us manage to escape the bonds of slavery that are placed on our minds early in life. Most folks just accept what they are told by anyone in authority, and get very comfortable in their chains, since they don’t have to think for themselves at all….. They never realize just how large and beautiful the universe really is, because they’ve accepted the blinders they wear, and refuse to even acknowledge that they wear them at all….

It sure makes me glad for whatever happened to keep me from falling for that whole scam; I can’t say exactly what first clued me in to the facts, but, I’m very, very happy that it did. I can’t see going through my life filled with fear of what might happen afterward; it’s too much fun enjoying all the beauty and grandeur that exists on our planet to spend more than a second considering such nonsense…… 🙂 Thank God for small favors, eh? 🙂 Sorry, couldn’t resist….

‘Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 50
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Mission accomplished, and with some style, by all appearances…. Let’s take a look…. Well, it all worked once, why not again? Plus, all of it remains valid, so, it works for me….. As a bonus, I’m still on schedule for the day’s activities, so I’ll take it, and run….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Phlebotomists do it with their fingers…..

Posted on April 10, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Artfully, he dodged the bullet, turning to watch it plow into the wall by his head. Slapping one palm to his forehead, he gave out a great shout, “ki aieeeeeee!”, striking to the left with his other hand, shattering the small bird statue on the pedestal. The bird screamed, and dropped the tiny silver gun….. As entropy increased, gravity grew weak, then strong, tossing the players about the room like ten-pins in a row. Finally, a loud gong sounded, whereupon everyone dutifully trooped into the great hall to hear the daily proclamation from the beloved Leader in Mystery. Headache gone, thanks to the bird’s scream, he joined the parade, knowing he would find what he sought in the great hall…. His quest neared the end, and he could almost taste the cold dish of revenge, demanded by the blood of his murdered master…. Not for nothing was he called, “Pujin, the Merciless, Nearly-Master Killer of the Temple of the Divine Duck…..

Okay, so it fell apart at the end…. I couldn’t keep my tongue planted any longer in my cheek, and had to let it show its nose…. Hmm, that doesn’t quite sound right, does it? Never mind, we’ll pretend none of it happened, and just go on with today’s Pearl, or what passes for the creative process around her on mornings, like this, when I can feel Murphy staring a hole in my back, waiting for me to approach something with paint, or cold water, or poop of some kind, to try to get me to fuck up, so he can hit me with whatever he has in mind….. the asshole…..

You would think that after all this time, he would find someone new and simpler to fool, as I’m getting pretty wise to his games…. He’s a master, of course, at making us think we have him beat, so I don’t fool myself into thinking like that for long, but, a newbie surely ought to be more fun than an old curmudgeon like me who doesn’t even have the wherewithal to get overly upset any more at his shenanigans….. But, then, nobody ever said Murphy was smart, whereas he is often described as an asshole… the asshole….

I note a bit of symmetry in those last two paragraphs, at least at the end…. Too bad we had to subject ourselves to the tender ministrations of a force of nature to achieve that, eh? I’m not complaining about Murphy, as that has been shown to be a futile pastime…. No, I’m just blathering again, trying to fill up space for the intro section, which asked me yesterday to avoid anything fancy or involved today, as it has a mind to take a day off from the strain of coming up with a new way to open up these Pearls each day….. Which is to say, of course, that my own mind is wanting the day off today… I only wish I could indulge that request, but, we’ve got stuff to do….

Well, no, we don’t, that was a lie…. I was just trying to…. well, never mind, a lie is a lie, and there’s no excuse, so I won’t offer any….. I’ll just ignore it, and go on to the daily dive, which, given the crap I’ve created here, could conceivably get a bit dangerous for the uninitiated…. Please watch your step, I have a feeling it may get a bit tricky to navigate today….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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ISMISM: Belief in any distinctive doctrine, theory or practice. Ismism was started up in the mid-1980s by a splinter group from “Atheists For Christ”. Ismism meetings gained quick popularity, and Ismism leader Ralph Snider travelled the world promoting his paper “Why I Argue A Lot”. The followers of Ismism are generally agreed to be very confused people. — Daniel Bowen’s TOXIC CUSTARPEDIA

Strangely enough, I believe a Church of ISISM was founded, as well, though not by Mr. Snider, to my knowledge….. What I do know is that the Board of Directors of the Amtrak system are probably charter members of both the church and the movement itself; this much is made plain by the obviously fucktarded business practices as carried out by their employees. The people who run the national train system here in the US are obviously those guys who got the C’s, D’s and F’s in business school, because their employees don’t seem to give much of a shit whether they do their work or not….. Allow me to describe my own experience with the results of their asinine inability to run a viable business….

The train station in Martinez, CA is rather nice, having been built within the last 20 years or so, so it’s still fairly clean, and most everything seems to work, except, of course the vending machines, which are programmed to steal money rather than give snacks. Oh, and there was the snack bar itself, which was closed during the period prior to the train’s arrival, choosing to ignore the 50 or 60 potential customers waiting to board the train… No sense in trying to make TOO much money, now, is there? Seems to be their attitude, because I’ve never seen the place open, no matter what time I’ve come there to meet trains….. They just like to have the open counter there, so people can look at all the stuff they can’t buy….

I’d booked a coach seat for my trip, but was not looking forward to a 14 hour train ride sitting up, so, when I saw that the trains were advertising on-board Wifi, I decided to pay the OUTRAGEOUS amount (more than THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS more than the coach seat, already more than a hundred….. for what is essentially a big bus….) they wanted for a sleeper compartment, the smallest they have, called a “roomette”. It’s almost big enough for a normal sized child to sit in comfortably, but for me, a Boeing 747 wide body, it was somewhat cramped, if I tried to stand up. That was okay, as there was no attendant assigned to my car, as I found out after having to haul my suitcase up a stairway designed to accommodate hobbits, or short, skinny elves, and I needed to sit down to recover from getting on board….

An attendant from the car behind mine showed up after about 20 minutes, when I was informed that she wouldn’t be able to turn down my bed, as she was still working on the car behind her, and wouldn’t be done for a while…. So, if I wanted to lie down to sleep, I had to drop down the upper bunk, get the mattress waiting there, then figure out how to make the two facing chairs turn into a bed to put it on… Well, this was too much for my back to accomplish, so I just tried to crawl up on the bunk to sleep, after the ordeal of trying to remove clothing in a space not big enough to turn around or bend over, once the bunk was down… all without hurting my back…. ‘Twas indeed a small miracle…..Climbing up was another ordeal, whereupon I found the only light control was down below, so rather than try to go down to find it, I tried to sleep a while with the light shining in my face….

Between the light in my eyes, the rocking and noise of the train, and my old bladder, my sleep lasted about 30 minutes…. Getting up, throwing on pants, using the head, and coming back to my tiny little space was so exhausting I decided to just sit up rather than try to get back in the bunk… so, I settled down to sleep in the chair, which I could have done much better in one of the big coach seats, as it turns out….. Sleeping fitfully from about 2 AM until about 6:30, I saw nobody, train staff, or passengers, stirring about…. I sat up, painfully finishing the Pearl I’d worked on for that morning…. painfully, because the alleged table was about the size of a postage stamp, with nowhere to use the mouse, but in the air next to the table…. not terribly useful.

About 0700, I took the computer and walked back to the Parlor Lounge, where the WiFi was supposed to be available, when the car was scheduled to open, at 0700, according to the literature with my ticket. The attendant there was still working on getting the car ready, so I asked him when I might have the service I paid for…. He informed me that it was hooked up, but only worked when the train was in Klamath Falls at the station…. the rest of the trip, the mountains and terrain blocked the signal from the network…. “Brilliant,” I thought, “Not only can I not get my Pearl posted, I have nothing at all to do for the next five and a half hours….”, having not brought a book, thinking the computer, and internet, would entertain me….. SIGH…. I was beginning to believe I had somehow died without noticing, and was now on the TRAIN TO HELL…..

I went back to my “roomette”… On the way, I saw the young lady ostensibly covering the service in my room, and asked her if I could get the breakfast service in my room, as advertised. She said she would be there “in a few minutes”…. 30 minutes later, she shows up, takes my order, acting as if she was doing me a favor, and disappears, with no word as to when it might be expected…. After about 45 minutes, the train pulled into Klamath Falls, where it sat for about 25 minutes to let off and take on passengers and luggage, allowing passengers to step off the train to have a smoke, if so desired (no smoking allowed anywhere on the train….). As I stepped off to do just that, I noted the attendant performing the same act of vice-maintenance; I said nothing, just finished my smoke and went back to my room, so I wouldn’t miss the food’s arrival…. I needn’t have hurried, as she didn’t come in behind me, as far as I could tell…. I checked, because, as I said, I was starving…..

The train resumed the journey, but, still no breakfast…. After another 45 minutes, and over two hours after I asked to have the food, telling the server I was starving (my exact words….), it still hadn’t arrived…. I got up, pretty steamed, and started toward the dining car, intending to find some food… As I rounded the turn in the car behind me, I saw the young woman approaching with a large paper bag in her hand…. I said, “Aha!”, spun on my heel, and started back to my room, not even looking at her after turning…

As I walked through the door between cars, I growled low in my throat, and hit my walking stick hard on the metal floor to catch my balance, (the floor moves….). and express a bit of frustration… At my room, I stowed the stick, sat, and waited for the food… She arrived and literally dumped the bag on the table, without a word, set down the coffee I’d asked for (two hours before), then, continued down the hall, and down the stairs to the conductor’s office below, where she apparently complained about my hitting the stick on the floor….

As I was trying to get my food out of the bag and fit on the tiny little table, the conductor appeared, and said I had been “threatening” to the attendant…. Well, at this point, I had had enough, so I proceeded to let my PTSD have its way, and treated the conductor to a full blown, tears flowing, crying rant, detailing my miserable night, the worse morning, and my intent to sue the rail system for everything they had….

I told him I had paid less money to stay at a Five Star Hotel, (the truth), that I was disabled, and had to carry my own luggage on board, spent a miserable night without a bed, that I had received NONE of the services for which I had paid over three hundred dollars, and I was now going to try to eat my COLD sausage and eggs with my COLD coffee, and he should just leave me alone before I totally lost control…. Having ranted in full out crying mode for about five full minutes at that point, I sat back, looked out the window, and ignored him until he went away…..

Well, I think I got the message across, to him, at least, as a bit later, he came back, apologized for my troubles, and tried to make nice for the company…. He couldn’t do anything about the ticket price, of course, (note the eyebrows wiggling up and down…..) but he suggested I complain and request a refund, because the management needed to hear about this kind of thing…. He stated he would be talking with the supervisor of the attendant for her lack of sensitivity and laziness, and offered to help me get my bag downstairs when we arrived in an hour or so…. His attitude, correct as it was, only served to point up the contrast with the service I should have received, and didn’t, in any respect…..

Fortunately for all, my friend was there to meet me, and whisk me away before I could devise a way to torment the office staff at the Eugene station, or blow somebody up like I’d been blown for the last 14 hours…. Instead, we went and had lunch, and I was able to decompress enough to enjoy the rest of my visit with my buddy and his partner, Cyn…. The wine helped, for sure…..

This rant has helped a bit, as well…. though, I have to say, in looking back over it, I was nicer than I should have been, and much nicer to them than they were to me…. This is also going to help, because I intend to include a link to this Pearl in the letter I send to them, eventually, with the expressed hope that the tale goes viral on the Net, and my intent to publish it as widely as I can, to start a whispering, word-of-mouth campaign as a message to them to either clean up their act, or get out of business…. I’m not going to settle for anything less…. They’ve already lost my business for the rest of my life, and I had intended to travel by train a lot…. Now, that is NOT going to happen, not without some kind of assurance that stuff like this doesn’t happen again, to anyone…..

“The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that you never know when you’re done.” — The Stovall’s Law of negative inaction
__________________________________

Composing the above mild rant tired me out, not unsurprisingly…. Before I started writing so much on a daily basis, I hadn’t realized that PTSD, as one of its characteristics that comes down on the negative side, can make it tiring to think about old stuff that was of a traumatic nature, due to the tendency for the emotional content to recreate itself, strongly, generally causing an overflow of tears and embarrassment (I know, it’s okay to cry, but doing it in public places is somewhat of a facer, what?….. Not exactly the image I’m trying to create on the streets…..). Any who, I’m fagged, though having only been up about two hours….

A fresh poem isn’t ready, so I’m going back to the archives, but will add a fresh haiku, written this morning, before pasting in the older poem….. As every day this month, this is for the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ (I still don’t know if I’m doing this right, but, oh well….)

Haiku:

Bright sun rises up,
glory against a blue sky.
Joy is now, today.

~~ gigoid

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

A Failure to Germinate

Marking the days in elements of sad disarray
only holds me thrall, as I laugh while I may.
With cold, hard hands so impatient and cruel
pulling me to this vale of tears, a pathetic old fool.

Feelings sit silent, cast in shadows and light
breaking forth to implicate such vengeful might.
Just below the surface they patiently hide
to sally forth bravely, colors bright as they ride.

Tears and pain transform valued assets in hand
while comfort and serenity retreat to a far land.
Bold, bright patterns of hope garnish my ruinous state
until reality enters, full of disdainful portions of hate.

I sort out the illustrious measures of vision gone mild
only to find them transformed, now vicious and wild.
In my deepest desires I find myself calloused and cold
with faithless advocates whose souls have been sold.

My search finds little to support any hope of relief
far too much time has passed to bolster such belief.
The sad becomes real, and real becomes unfounded
until flights of such fancy are all dead, and grounded.

Nature has informed me of the newly hatched crime
that reality has boasted of proudly, time after time.
The last answer we think of is always the best
as we come to terms with fate, our hope at rest.

~~ gigoid

__________________________________

But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.

— Thomas Moore (1779-1852) — Lalla Rookh, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan

‘Tis not the fairest form that holds The mildest, purest soul within;
‘Tis not the richest plant that holds The sweetest fragrance in.

— Dawes

“Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.” — Vladimir Nabokov

“In God We Trust.” I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true.” — Mark Twain

“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” — Jules de Gaultier

“It is human nature to think wisely & act foolishly.” — Anatole France

He ne’er is crown’d
With immortality, who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead.

— John Keats (1795-1821) — Endymion, Book ii
__________________________________

Okay, why don’t y’all sit back and cogitate a moment while I go back and punch this up….. Not too shabby, I think…. I may hit out at Amtrak again some day soon; I don’t think I quite got all of my anger at them resolved. No worries, everything comes in the fullness of time, so I’ve heard…. 😉

Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

More emerald than jade……

Posted on January 25, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
BANG! CRASH! Hey, folks, don’t mind the noise….. SMASH! BANG!…. Murphy has brought some friends this morning…. CRASH!….. and they got into a big argument, that has turned into a huge brawl. RUUUUUMBLE! POW!…… Ouch, that had to hurt!….. I imagine they’ll stop breaking up my furniture in a few minutes, so if y’all don’t object, I’ll take a short break here, and let them finish up. BlAM! POP! CRUNCH!…. Oooh, that was nasty! Duck!…. Okay, I’ll be back shortly, when peace breaks out…..

Okay, then….. they seem to have finished up. What a mess! A couple of mornings ago, Murphy made me knock over a lamp first thing upon awakening, and must have thought it was funny, because he did it again this morning….. only worse, as it took the entire table down today. Then, I sit up, only to find Murphy, and three of his pals, rolling around, locked in fierce combat on my floor, with furniture flying in all directions…. It was almost like a scene from an old western, only there was no honky-tonk piano in the background, and no ever-present odor of horse manure…..

It was almost enough to make me go back to sleep, but, being the dedicated blogger I am, I got up and retreated, WITH my coffee, to worship at the porcelain throne for a while….. which seems to have worked, as they all got bored and left…. It’s handy that Murphy and his myrmidons have an objection to bathrooms and other places dedicated to cleaning up….. That sort of adolescent attitude is helpful to us old farts….. especially those of us who have achieved frequent-flier status in there….

Now, though, I’m at somewhat of a loss, without any idea of where to go from here…. It took all I’ve got to get this far, and I’m afraid I may have used up a good portion of today’s equanimity to keep from freaking out so early. I’m not sure what that will mean later on, but it promises to make life interesting….

Uh oh, there’s that word again…. interesting…. My life has, per the curse leveled at me when I was younger by the old Chinese gentleman, been far too interesting for my comfort up to this point, and I’m not sure I can live through any more “interesting times”…. I suppose I could just hide for the day, stay in my room and let the world go on about its business without my unnecessary presence; it’s not as if I’m involved in any seriously important stuff right now.

But, I can’t allow hiding to become a habitual response to Murphy’s ubiquitous efforts at disrupting my serenity, or he’ll win. Not going to happen, not on my watch….. So, we’ll slip on flippers and a mask, and go see what the old dB has for us this morning….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“How’s the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism?” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

I’m feeling a bit nasty today, it having occurred to me that I am now into my third year of waiting for Social Security to get through winding their way to giving me my benefits…. It’s insane, is what it is…. So, the following old school group of pearls all have one object… to vilify, denigrate, and otherwise make fun of government, and all those insane, sociopathic people who engage in that disgusting habit…..

“An elephant: a mouse built to government specifications.” — Lazarus Long

“For some reason the little Senators make us laugh.” — Smart Bee

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious bandersnatch

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

(Didn’t anyone ever tell you? In Jabberwocky, indeed, in most of Dodgson’s work, metaphor is king…. the jub jub bird is, of course, a Supreme Court justice, and obviously, a frumious bundersnatch is a member of Congress (in Dodgson’s world, a member of Parliament)….., and the Jabberwock? Patently, we’re talking of the President (or the Prime Minister, take your pick…..)

“Gun collection programs are a good way to get rid of a murder weapon.” — Smart Bee
(Oops…. wrong pearl…. wait…. no, it’s okay, it will work here…. sorry, but, when irony strikes….)

Honest politician — Oxymoron

“All authority is quite degrading.” — Oscar Wilde

Lastly, to round it off at nine… a very cosmic number, BTW… a summary of the other eight pearls, from one of the sharpest political and social philosophers of the twentieth century…..

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

Soliloquy of The Solipsist

I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
When my eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon’s celestial onion
Hangs high.

I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look’s leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.

I
When in good humor,
Give grass its green
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any color and forbid any flower
To be.

I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it’s quite clear
All you beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.

~~ Sylvia Plath

SIGH…. gotta love genius….
__________________________________

“Can I leave now? My brain is full.” — Smart Bee

I’m not sure exactly why, but this appeals to me; I’ve felt this way often, and can empathize strongly with whoever wrote it….. In its quiet little way, it also points at my own current state of mind, in that I seem to be out of outrage…. There are so many examples in my sphere of perception, of the evil being done every day, by the government, by churches, by random assholes with more testosterone than brains, I’m finding it hard to pick out just one or two to rant about…. For me, that is a disastrous state to be caught in, since much of what I do here involves ranting about stuff that tickles my outrage….

“More people have died of worry, than ever bled to death.” — Lazarus Long…..

Nope, nada damn thing to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, which kicks the worrying up a notch or two, for sure…. Calliope has deserted me for other parts, the headlines are too bland to get worked up about, and the Westboro Baptist Church of Fools has been strangely silent of late…. All I have here, as I gaze around the room in pathetic hope, are the same old items I’ve been looking at for seven months now, since moving here…. most of which has either been already explored, or isn’t worth mentioning….

I see now I should have, perhaps, prepared for this a bit better; research is always useful, and it would be nice to not have to get all antsy just because my imagination is coming up empty. Whining about it isn’t going to help, or solve the issue, so we’ll skip right by that, and go into strategic planning mode, followed by a dip into tactical operations mode, and we’re home free…. Let’s see now, first, a small diversion… I can do that…. Look, over there! It’s a pearl!….

“Why can’t we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a ‘War’ on it?” — Rich Thomson

“All power rests on hierarchy: An army is nothing but a well-organized lynch mob.” — Edward Abbey

Okay, that’s intelligent…. now, we shoot back…..

“If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” — Anatole France

Yep, that had to hurt…. Okay, so now, all we have to do to have achieved our strategic goal is to finish them off with unassailable logic, combined with a bit of humor…. no worries…

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” — Albert Einstein

“It’s not the pace of life that bothers me, it’s the sudden stop at the end.” — Hobbes

As probably came through loud and clear, I was a bit worried about this Pearl; it didn’t want to come together without some rather tricky meandering. All in all, though, it came out okay, and, once again,…. wait for it…. It’s done! That factor alone accounts for at least half of its charm, in my book…. What’s more, it’s still quite early in the day, so there is hope that the less than auspicious beginning can be mitigated enough to make the rest of the day a bit less chaotic… Time will tell, I have no doubt, whatsoever….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

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

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Anatole France

Yep… The whole village is excited….

Analyzing inventory on hand to find the shortest shrift….

Painfully shy, the marmoset left the lobby…

Put the stray curator in the parlor for now….

Phlebotomists do it with their fingers…..

More emerald than jade……

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