Tag Archives: Anonymous

In a clearing, like a box….

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Ffolkes,
The human mind is a flexible thing….. mine has been hovering around the edge of depression for days now, and nothing that reality provided for consumption had the proper impact to cause it to want to change. Then the mail came yesterday….. Social Security has decided, for some unknown reason, to get at least part way off its duff, and get a move on… I received the package from them that I’ve been awaiting since May 11 of this year, when my lawyer filed the appeal of their initial negative decision.

What I received is, of course, another demand for information, to be coughed up by me in the shortest amount of time they can give…. get this….. after delaying the assignment of my case to an analyst for close to five months (!!!) they now demand I supply them with three complicated forms full of information on my condition, (from myself and up to three other people….) in ten days! Actually, only seven days are given, because the letter was dated three days before I got it…..  typical federal bureaucratic behavior…..

But, it’s here! This means that one period of waiting is done, and once these forms are submitted, I’m into the (hopefully) last period, up to three months, of waiting for a decision…. If it’s negative, well, off to court…. but, if positive, then I’ll be all fixed by Christmas, or New Year’s at the latest….. so I’m trying to control myself from dancing a jig, and shouting off the roof tops, as one might imagine…. Don’t want to get my hopes up too far…. it can be long fall if Murphy takes a hand, and he’s well-known around these parts. Instead, I’m trying to pretend it is just another delay; not working, though, because I’m still giddy…,

So, I’m going to distract myself with writing for a time….. Shall we Pearl?……

I can’t be humble — it’s just not honest. — Smart Bee  {Calm down, calm down…. it’s a joke, right?….. Sheesh, and people wonder why we are so shy about sharing?…..}
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Possunt quia posse videntur. (They can because they think they can.) — Virgil (70-19 BC), Aeneid, v

On the fictional planet of Pern, there be dragons. These dragons, the creation of Anne McCaffrey, are fire-breathing, and adept fliers, as all dragons should be, coming in a variety of colors, each of which has to do with its social status in dragon society. At birth, the dragons are bonded with a human, who lives with them, rides them into battle, and sees to the health and welfare of their bond-mate. The dragons of Pern have two characteristics which are special to them on their planet…. First, they can teleport, moving from one point in space to another in virtually no time. Second, they are capable of lifting “whatever they believe they can lift” even though it may not be reasonable to assume, given the size of the dragon, and the size of the load to be lifted. If the dragon believes it can, it can…..

This characteristic is only important to them as part of a plot design by the author, in which this talent is used to help solve a technical problem that faces the planet, placing it at extreme risk. But, in reality, the same characteristic may be shown to be present in humans, in this respect…. what we believe we can do, we can do. It has always been thus, throughout history, (as noted in the above statement from Virgil in the Aeneid….) and remains one of mankind’s most powerfully useful characteristics, for those who learn to utilize this elusive talent.

“A man can do all things if he but wills them.” — Leon Battista Alberti

Sound familiar? It should; it is virtually identical in meaning to the first quote.  Alberti sounds like a more modern name than Virgil, so it seems that the concept has been a common theme throughout history, and remains so now. Everyone has heard the amazing stories of human accomplishments that seem outrageously unreal. People lifting cars off of loved ones. People climbing the sheer face of a cliff a half-mile high, with no ropes or tools. Soldiers carrying a wounded comrade miles and miles while wounded themselves. A man in the mid-1800’s is documented to have survived a bear attack, and crawled hundreds of miles through wilderness to reach his home, alive.

     Many more stories are included in the complete lexicon of human experience. Some of the feats are planned, or trained for; some are the result of instinctive reaction to extreme danger, or need. But, in each story, the common element that remains when the separate circumstances are removed from consideration, is that of the depth and strength of human will…..

The will is not a simple tool; it is not like other talents humans possess. To be its most effective, it must not only be practiced and strengthened by use, but it must be nourished, by experience and motivation, that can only come with life and learning. Those who have chosen their Duty are much more likely to have used it as motivation to strengthen and harden their will to act, than are those who try to act from disorganized, or motivations ignorant of any moral or ethical direction. Like any strength, it can be abused by humans; fanatics have a very strong will, sometimes, at least in their intent to hold on to their delusional beliefs. It has been said that a fanatic is one who redoubles their efforts when they cannot recall or justify their original intent, and that takes a lot of will. But then, karma usually takes care of that particular problem, as they end up reaping the whirlwind that their ignorance gains them…..

This is a subject that needs, nay, is worthy of, further discussion, but reality calls (you know, stuff that CAN’T wait…. stupid Murphy…. bloody feds….), and it will have to wait for another day…. I’ll put it on my calendar for a couple days from now…. please feel free to come on back and see where this takes us, as I meander through whatever occurs to me between now and then…. until then… onward….
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Considering what I’ve been through this morning, this seemed just the right poem, and I had an urge for Emily, anyway…. enjoy! (Not you, Shawna…. you may go on to the next section, if you wish….  🙂   )

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,–did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,–
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

~~ Emily Dickinson
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“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle. Some things are within your control. And some things are not. — Epictetus

This statement, and its reappearance in front of me at this exact moment in time, reminded me of why I do this. Making Pearls. Reading, and serendipitously finding a piece of wisdom from a sage of past age that speaks directly to me and my current status in re: dealing with reality without biting myself or anyone else….. Since the start of the morning, to this point, my thoughts and emotions were unreasonably and unexpectedly dragged along on a roller-coaster ride of some proportions, courtesy of, well, let’s just say, a party that I had not expected to be forced to consider as a liability. In fact, I had every expectation of the opposite.

Then, Eureka! On seeing this quote pop up, I realized that my morning’s distress was exactly what I deserved for expecting…. anything. My expectation of how reality would behave is the only problem; without it, I would not be upset… As I’m accustomed to regular adjustment and deletion of expectations, I have now done so….

So, thank you, Epictetus, for saving me from my own folly….. now, I can get on with the day…..
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All things considered, this didn’t come out so badly…. and it will have to do. So be it…  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

 

Quantum mechanics isn’t for sissies…..

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Ffolkes,
Time passes, as do tears…. at least this morning, depression is not the first thing that hit me upside the head. So far, the only bad thing I’ve had to deal with is the half & half that looks weird in the coffee because I had to freeze it to get it through the month. Well, that and the urge for a cigarette I don’t have, & can’t afford to buy…. okay, morning whine finished, I’ll go on to a more bracing set of ideas….. I found this whine to be lacking in body, and the bouquet sucked….

So, living with PTSD is fun, what? Between that and the general sense of hopelessness that is conjured in one by the ever-present poverty in which I’m existing, it gets hard to hold onto hope, or even just a resigned acceptance. There are times when I want to go back & exact revenge upon the person I hold responsible for my status, and those thoughts are sweet. But, my karmic adviser is always telling me that is not a good idea, and will end up hurting me more than her. This is not a valid argument, considering the amount of crap I go through. I can deal with it, and better, if I knew that some of it was falling upon her like a horde of Mongols entering Peking (now Beijing….. and the Mongols now come there as homeless beggars…..)  But, my plans for that are not completed yet anyway, they’re still maturing…..

I’d like to think I’ve gotten beyond what was done to me, but I see that I haven’t, and I guess I’ll have to do something about that….. soon, I promise. For now, it is these thoughts of revenge, intangible as they are, that get me through the worst of the moments when I’m hitting the bottom. And that is enough of this depressing subject…. I’m going to go look for some pearls to write about, and try to shake off the strangely adhesive feelings that have been dogging me since yesterday…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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SIGH…. the only reason I did not write this in 1988 is that I did not see it until today….. it is never a good policy to suffer a fool gladly, so my code of honor demands a response…. this begins the tale, but by no means ends it….. be warned, and be nervous, if not afraid…..

“I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they  be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” — George Bush in Free Inquiry magazine, Fall 1988

Actually, George, the Pledge of Allegiance has no legal standing, in relation to the Constitution of this country, or for that matter, in relation to what our forefathers were thinking when they founded the nation. In fact, what was said here by such an upstanding Constitutional scholarly type, is, in reality, completely contrary to everything that makes a true patriot, or an American citizen. The part in the pledge, (which no one at all is legally required to take, or state…), that says “under God” was only added in the middle of the twentieth century, by the same Congressional idiots who perpetrated McCarthyism, and the Red Scare, on the American public. It has nothing to do with the Constitution, and in fact, could be construed as a Constitutionally illegal statement, considering the intended separation of church and state that is the backbone of what our forefathers wished us to have as our legacy…. True freedom, not Christian usurpation of freedom….. A person’s religious belief, or lack thereof, is protected by the Constitution, and a patriot is one who supports the Constitution, not a church, or a corporation…..

And if his name be George, I ‘ll call him Peter;
For new-made honour doth forget men’s names.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King John — Act i, Sc. 1

(I know, I don’t much like Will’s stuff, but, law of averages, remember?….. Give me a break, it was the only George quote I could find….)

This kind of thinking from the Shrub, whichever one it was, Junior or Senior, is the same kind of narrow-minded fundamentalism that the colonists were escaping from in England back in the 16-1700’s when they came to the New World. The churches and corporations, both of which were singled out as dangerous to the republic by Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, Adams, Hamilton, and many of the other founding fathers, have tried to usurp the Constitution ever since it was ratified. Their writings, to each other, and in public venues, were filled with precautionary admonitions about allowing corporations and preachers to have access to, or influence over, members of government. And, their fears were justified, as we now are facing just the situations they predicted….. corporations are manipulating our “professional thieves”, otherwise known as politicians, to vote for laws that favor them (really, “corporations are people?”… I don’t think so…), and the ranks of our leaders are rife with fundamentalists and religious nuts of all varieties.

“Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel God and use their belief to excuse their cruelty.  Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967)

It’s difficult sometimes to tell which ones are more dangerous, or more disgusting: the corporations who buy votes from those who fit the definition of “good politicians” (…. a good politician is one who stays bought…..), or the religious demagogues who want to oppress everyone who doesn’t believe the same set of dogmatic constraints as they do. Neither one is particularly hard to spot, but they are protected by their tame dogs in Congress, who will do and say anything to make sure the cash keeps flowing…. right into their pockets.

As indicated by the almost 500 words yesterday, and again today, you can see that the Romney/Ryan ticket disturbs me; I have no problem ranting without end right off the top of my head about the lies and distortions of reality that continuously fall from their lips. As I mentioned yesterday, a lot of people are catching on to this, as Ryan was roundly booed offstage at the AARP meeting he attended to try to sell their rape of Social Security (Smart? No. Arrogant? Completely.). But, even this is disturbing to me, as it shows just how little they care, that they are showing themselves to be only interested in lining their own pockets, and the pockets of those who own them. They aren’t even trying to hide their lies anymore; they just keep repeating them, even after having been shown to be false, believing that if they repeat the lies enough, people will buy it….

“Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book iii, Chap. xi

Unfortunately, they are right, to a large extent. Millions of people in this country, who have hung on to their prejudices and bigotry with desperation as the minorities have become majorities, are supporting these assholes, merely because they are white. They don’t realize, or seemingly care, that these are the same assholes who will be screwing them over completely as soon as they get sworn in, preferring to trust in the lies, because it soothes their fears of having a black President.

Beware of the half truth.  You may have gotten hold of the wrong half. — Smart Bee

This is why I keep reiterating that this election is bringing this country to a crossroads. The outcome will show whether we intend, as a nation, to continue to fight all attempts to curtail the freedoms that were bought and paid for by our forefathers, with blood, sweat, and tears, or will become just another religious, corporate-controlled entity, with a nation consisting of slaves and their masters. I don’t know about y’all, but I’ll be at the polls as soon as they open, and will urge everyone I know to do the same…. vote early, and vote often (just joking…), but vote. We need to send a message to these fools, that there are still patriots and citizens of this country who believe in the vision embraced and established by the men and women who began this noble experiment in self-government…..

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” — Aldous Huxley
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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

Now back to the normal confusion we count on around here…..
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“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence…  From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable….  The very atmosphere of firearms every- where restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.” — George Washington (bogus?)(who cares? I don’t, it doesn’t make it any less true if it was said by someone else…..)

I am constantly hearing people these days spouting off about gun control, and how guns should be outlawed. This is a viewpoint that I have never understood, because it makes a totally unwarranted assumption (more than one actually, but one that is most important….), i.e., guns cause violent behavior, and if people couldn’t legally own them, violence would stop. This is naive, and unreasonable, given that there is absolutely no evidence to support such a contention. There is no evidence whatsoever that violence is NOT part of human nature; this is a psychological FACT, not subject to debate. People have violent tendencies, and violence is the primary response of a great many people who have never learned how to use their reason to control their emotions.

Though I’ve never owned or carried a gun, I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, in its most literal sense. Without the right to bear arms in our own defense, we, as citizens, would be at the mercy of whomever was in office at the time, and would have no recourse at all to any redress of grievance against those officials, since they could not be forced to comply with law. I do NOT trust any elected official to act in MY best interests; human nature also decrees that they will act in their OWN interests first, with no compulsion to even consider anything else. Making it a law that only police and government lackeys could legally be armed is a sure way to guarantee that the average citizen would be at the mercy of these so-called leaders, mercy being a quality that they have never heretofore demonstrated in any fashion.

As I said, I don’t own or carry guns, yet. I’ve trained myself to be dangerous without the use of them, and feel no fear that I cannot deal with an armed man to my benefit; this is simply because it is the person holding the gun that is the danger, not the gun itself. Speed, power, and accuracy are the key elements to controlling a violent situation, along with some forethought and preparation, and the ability to keep a clear mind when under duress. When a person is holding a gun, they feel ten feet tall and invincible, but they remain human, and humans can be controlled with superior strategy and tactics. It does no good to hold a gun, when the target won’t sit still, or even remain visible….. and in these cases, that sense of imperviousness becomes a liability to the gun-wielder.

However, most Americans do not have this sort of skill set, nor the state of mind that makes it work. In the hands of a skilled warrior, a gun becomes a dangerous weapon indeed, for it will be used to achieve the warrior’s goals, as any weapon would, and not employed to merely bully others into doing what is desired, which is the usual use of these kinds of weapons in the hands of the ignorant and deceitful. And politicians, by the very nature of their sociopathy, do get rather deceitful in the pursuit of their self-centered ends. The desire to be in public office, to me, is a sure sign of a sick mind, as a healthy one has no need to assume power over others, being content to be in control of themselves.

So, I would say to those who would get rid of or alter the intent of the Second Amendment, get a grip on reality, and shut the fuck up….. truly, your lack of sophistication and knowledge of human nature gives you no right or reason to speak……
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Well, that turned into quite a little rant…. I guess I needed to get that out. In reading back over it, I have nothing to regret, for it is all the plain and simple truth. So, I’ll send it out there, with the ever-present invitation to come back at me with any thoughts you that may occur to you….. Arguments, for or against, are welcome and appreciated. Constructive criticism is also welcome, wherever it is deemed to be warranted; ignorance will be ignored if harmless, or ruthlessly exposed for what it is if not, at my discretion. But, please don’t get upset if I don’t answer a comment; I intend to answer all comments, and try to get to all of them, but my internet time just now is limited, and I’m probably missing some comments.

Flaming, or fanaticism, or personal attacks will be either cheerfully deleted, or prosecuted/persecuted, depending on the severity of the idiocy therein….   🙂   Oh, and keep always in mind that I pay little attention to my attempts at humor, other than as an artistic tool; making fun of it can only improve it, I’m sure…..   😉

Not your standard disclaimer, but I think it works….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Dozer

Kowabunga!

On the trail of inner peace….

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Ffolkes,
It is never a good sign when I start leaking tears within a few seconds of sitting up in the morning; it is a bit disconcerting to find oneself immersed in depression first thing in the day, even pre-coffee…. or especially pre-coffee….. So disconcerting, I have had to take some time to recover my equilibrium. Took a shower, had a smoke, and went back to bed for a bit….. and still feel like hell…. I’ve got to say, when my ex-boss perpetrated the bureaucratic blitzkrieg that forced me into retirement, I’m betting she had little idea just how effectively she was damning me to perdition, or at least poverty and misery….. so, to make myself feel just a tad better, I made a quick phone call, and asked her secretary, (my FORMER friend….) to pass on to her just how happy she could be with herself….. a little passive aggression always helps, ya know?……

Two hours later, and equilibrium is still just beyond reach…. but, life must go on, balance or no, so I’m casting my fate into the wind for the time being, and just going with the flow….. perhaps some time in the library will settle things; it is one of my places of power, so there should be something here to pull me out of this hole I’ve dumped myself in….. and if not, well, at least  I tried….

All of that being said, or whined, as the view may be, I think it’s time to get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Writing is HELL!! Every word is like giving birth to twins.” — Andy Shedlock, May 12, 1998
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“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” — Eric Hoffer

I am occasionally amazed at how one short phrase, well-turned, can be applied to such a huge range of human activity; this one from Mr Hoffer is one of those. This little idea gives one a perfect way to understand the phenomenon currently being played out on the public stage here in America. The election coming up in a little over a month illustrates very well that many, many of our countrymen spend their lives in fear of things they do not want to know, and will go as far as cutting off their own noses to keep from having to look at reality without the aid of rose colored glasses….

Take, for example, the millions of middle class IDIOTS who have decided that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are the answer to their fears of having not only a BLACK man as President, but a progressive-minded one at that. They shut off their brains whenever news of something going right is published, and listen instead to the lies and misrepresentations being mouthed on a daily basis by the Republican candidates. Even when the lies are exposed, they just turn to another and start repeating it over and over, sort of like a little kid sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “la la la la, I can’t hear you” in order to shut off the truth that is in front of them.

I watched a short video of Paul Ryan the other day, when he was roundly booed by a gathering of AARP senior citizens while trying to convince them that his party’s platform was going to help them, an obvious lie, considering the platform outlines how they intend to gut Social Security and give all the money back to Wall Street and the 1%. The expression on his face was priceless! He was trying to smile, but his color had gone to an embarrassed shade of red, and his words ground to a halt, as everything he was saying was being booed by the audience, who were not about to fall for his bullshit. It was quite fun to watch, I must say….

I’m also looking forward to the upcoming Presidential debates, when the cool, compassionate demeanor of the President will be set up against the cold, uncaring, obviously prejudiced Mitt the Twitt. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, given Romney’s habit of shooting himself in the foot, if he (Romney) totally lost it, and started ranting and mouthing racial epithets. It is obvious that Mitt hates Americans of any color other than pure white (his purity being one more lie, since his family has no doubt had the same skeletons in their background that any other American family has, and he can probably claim only about 40% pure white ancestors….) and having to try to be civil, even on national TV, may be more than he is capable of being…..

I’m a bit worried about the eventual outcome, as I am fully aware of how deeply stupid the American public has become in the past 50 years, as corporate America has deluged the public consciousness with tons of lies and brainwashing, and there is almost no limit to the number of people in this country who fall for the demagoguery every time. I mean, how else could Ronald Reagan, GW Shrub, and GWH Shrub have ever been elected, if there were not an already massive number of idiots out there susceptible to their nonsense? Yes, there are plenty of fools available….

“Crime must pay, or politicians wouldn’t seek re-election.” — Smart Bee

But, this election, I think the rest of America, the true majority of which is NOT bigoted and racist, has become so outraged at the degree of disdain shown by the Republicans for real Americans that they will come out to vote, and send these fools packing off to their bankers, to soothe the pain and embarrassment of their failure with some malicious business practices…. you know, ship a few jobs overseas, count their money in the Caymans, take a quick trip to Switzerland to check their bank accounts there….

So, join the crowd this November, come on out to vote for President Obama, and help send the false Americans back into their holes, or more accurately, make them crawl back under the rocks they came from…..

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” — Richard Cardinal Cushing
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Cultural Exchange

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o’-Lanterns caper
And the wind won’t wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off going
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whistles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going–
Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa–
Not of her own doing–
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.

Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we move dip to Mount Vernon.

In the pot behind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what’s cooking?
What’s smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.

You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.

Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over–
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power–

Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies–
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!

Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make haste!

Langston Hughes

A comment from me is hardly needed here, but I would like to have each reader ask themselves if they can envision Mitt Romney ever reading this poem, start to finish….. I didn’t think so…..
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I’m tired, and hungry, and this Pearl, though soothing to create, is getting longer than I can deal with well, so I’m going to cheat, and insert here a visual Pearl, which is, no doubt, self-explanatory….. I will note that it is applicable not only to life at large, but also to the subject above, i.e., the upcoming election….

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Well, that was…. something. Exactly what remains to be seen….. I’m broke again, so it will be a couple days until I can publish the email Pearls, so please have patience. In addition, I don’t get a lot of internet time, since I’m at the library until payday, and I only get two hours there…. It will have to do, for the nonce…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

Bath water? What baby?……

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Ffolkes,
I am forced to confess that I’ve become an internet addict…. I can’t conceive of going back to the days before the entire repository of human knowledge, minus the traditional confidential security material, was available at request, in the blink of an eye. One can feed the elephant’s child for as long as they wish, in any field or subject, and never run out of material to learn. I miss what I now feel to be a necessity, a connection to the net at home, where I can fulfill any question or impulse to find out something at my whim. Being reduced to a limited time per day is somehow diminishing, and emotionally stressful…. hmm, maybe I could plead that to the cable company, to get my hook-up for a discount…. might be worth a try….

Meantime, I am reduced to creating my Pearls ahead of time, so that I can post them quickly…. this gives me a little time to catch up to email, check in with Facebook and Twitter, check the time for the ball game at the news site I frequent, and then do any online research I’ve remembered from when at home…. all of which adds up to a routine I’m still evolving into some sort of efficiency, reluctantly. It’s still annoying to have to develop a whole new routine, just because I had to move, but I suppose I can’t complain too much…. I’m still living indoors, and have enough to eat, which is a damn site better than a lot of the world’s population can say…. Can’t forget that, even when it gets better, or worse, there are always people in a tougher spot…..

What this all boils down to is that today’s effort was actually created yesterday, almost completely…. it was necessary to fill in around the edges, as you will see after reading today’s poetry effort in the second section of pearls. That effort drained me pretty thoroughly, and I retreated into the past a bit…. sections one, three, and the closing section are all pearls created years ago…… a mild form of hebephrenia, as is were…. and, sorry, no, you’ll have to look it up….. 🙂   Try a Dictionary of Psychiatric Disorders…. which is appropriate for use in this blog….

I’m now ensconced comfortably with a cuppa coffee at the local Wi-Fi & java spot, ready to cram a day’s worth of internet into an hour and a half. The Pearl is ready, so I’m going to begin the process of moving it from my laptop to the blog site, with a short stop to send out the email Pearl, which continues a tradition founded over 10 years ago, in the dawn of the personal computer age…… and has been my primary source of defense against insanity for all that time…. Shall we Pearl?……
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There are times when getting bogged down is unavoidable; the nature of the Universe demands this, in order to maintain the proper degree of entropy. I think it is one of God’s greatest jokes, one that begs for understanding. I mean, just look at the way things are set up; is this not prat-fall funny, having a well-ordered Nature, and then tossing in entropy to keep things interesting? Things fall apart, and that’s just the way it is…..

proof by forward reference:
Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first.

proof by semantic shift:
Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed for the statement of the result.

proof by appeal to intuition:
Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here.

— How to Prove It, Part 7

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” — Francis Bacon, English philosopher (1561-1626)

As always, the lesson is left as an exercise for the gentle reader…..
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Playing by the Rules

All my days I looked for love,
And found it everywhere I looked.
The years were joyous and fully booked
Seemingly by command from Above.

In return for all of the beauty in Life I found
I played life by the Rules that we all know,
It was from my father I learned the how,
Honest love, given freely, hand-fasted, gladly bound.

It seemed a while as if it were all real,
that fulfillment and contentment could be
as real as the children given us to oversee,
to teach them of Life and Love, and how to feel.

Then storm clouds of grievous change arrived, unbidden
Insidious, deceitful, three steps forward, then one back.
Tearing holes in our beautiful cloth, a heart heard to crack,
Gleeful demons eating life’s bounty, fangs dirty, and hidden.

Pain and sorrow grew, in defiance of all I tried,
Sanctuary turned into a reluctant scene of ritual battle,
Love still lives, but herded like doomed and pitiful cattle,
While the keening of my soul sounds as if I’d cried.

Betrayal in love is, allow me to assure, no small pain to take.
Time has no power to reduce its place in my heart or soul.
My truest love became a stranger, a powerfully sharp toll,
Solitude has become my lot, no killing time for necessity’s sake.

Love yet surrounds me, everywhere; I’m not one of those fools…
Children are forgiving, I’m glad to be able to say,
They show me life’s solid purpose, the old, right way,
I guess  don’t know any other way, than to Play it by the Rules.

~~ gigoid

Okay, ffolkes, this one hurt, a lot, but it had to come out…. I’ve been in tears for an hour now, first drowning in feeling that arose from inside, unasked, then letting those feelings out onto the screen, and they’re not going to stop anytime soon, I can tell. This is an old, old pain, and apparently has been hiding for a while, buried much deeper than I had previously given credence to; it fucking HURTS!….. It’s a damn  good thing that I’m an optimist, and too bloody stubborn to give up believing in Life, and all that is good and beautiful in it…. that’s all I can say…. otherwise, I’d be damned depressed right now….. I  gotta go…..
__________________________________

As a firm believer in taking responsibility for our own karma, I often allow instinct to guide my behavior. This is not to say that it is my sole guide, but evolution gave us certain advantageous traits, and allowing them free rein can be, and often is, a very comfortable path to success. (Success = survival)  Reason, and perception, and those other parts of us arising out of our intelligence that can be valuable as survival tools can fail us at the test, and instinct provides options. Thus this morning’s offering…. many of you are, ostensibly, therapists. These are good tools in being effective as one who serves others in the fertile fields of the human mind…..

“A bitter jest, when the satire comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind.” — Tacitus

“If rejection destroys your self-esteem, you’re letting others hold you as an emotional hostage.” — Brian Tracy

“You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.” — Kahlil Gibran

Thoughtfully kind, self-confident, and compassionate. Valuable traits indeed……
__________________________________

The following pearl, also a former Pearl, is from the summer of 2008, as are the first section, and the third section of today’s Pearl. I know it’s a bit lazy, and possibly a bit confusing, but, bear with me, as I go through these difficult times, bereft of my usual resources, such as Smart Bee, and an ISP at home…. I’ve been around writing these Pearls for a long time now, all in all, and there are a lot of them I don’t even remember…. it’s kind of fun, like finding a long lost stash of comic books…. any who, enjoy….. even if it isn’t Monday…. please?….

First Impressions…

Ffolkes,
…..can last a long time, even when the secondary & tertiary experience is contrary. Which is why I try to be particularly lucid on Mondays. But then, nobody’s perfect……

“Be able to be alone.  Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.”–unknown smart guy

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. — Theodore Isaac Rubin

It is good to be alone sometimes. And wisdom is its’ own reward. But this next one, this is powerful truth!

“Fifty bucks, same as downtown!” — The Philadelphia Kid

See, it’s all in the wrist….. And don’t worry about the lesson today; it isn’t there…..unless you wish it to be……

This is the oddest Pearl I’ve created in a while; if you are familiar with what goes on around here, you’ll know that is saying a lot…. which is, no doubt, enough said…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

Age before beauty, beauty before fish sauce….

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Ffolkes,
In the beginning, there was fish sauce…. and not much else. Of course, this was because things were still new and confusing, and no one had even thought about ice cream, or margaritas. But, the weather was good, so it was okay with most everybody…… people didn’t used to be so greedy. Then, of course, came the rules, first set up by a preacher, and things have gone downhill ever since…..

Life got really hard once there were rules, because, hey, no more fish sauce at bedtime, and folks have been playing the blues ever since that fateful day. We’d probably all rather have the fish sauce, but the blues are a pretty good trade-off, when you stop to think about it. And nobody pays any attention any more to the preachers, so things will get better, unless we start that old politics thing again. Boy, every time we try that crap, somebody’s got to get all elitist and big-mouth, dissing everybody else and hogging all the money, which we need for ice cream and guitar picks….. I hate when that happens….

So, rather than fall prey to the depredations of rogue politicos, or assholes, as we call them downtown, I think we should go diving in the web for pearls, & see if we can find some really shiny ones…. Toothsome, over at adollyisciousirony, also known as All About Lemon, her blog site, has started another game, a story game, and today’s first section will talk about that…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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One of my absolute favorite blog sites is called All About Lemon, aka adollyisciousirony, or Toothsome’s Place…. Dolly posts the most amazing stuff, and is always starting a new game for bloggers to play along…. Now we have the Story Game…. Dolly gives the first five words of a story, then the next blogger writes five more, then another blogger writes five more words, and so on to the end of the story that develops, with each blogger tagging one of their blogging friends or followers to provide the next five words, AND, with each blogger providing a link to the original post, to the tagger’s post, and to their site, where they’ve listed their five words…. Once the words are written, that blogger then tags another blogger to give five more words, and so on… So, the original story line started here, …….

http://allaboutlemon.com/toothsome-story-game/    …….  

with these five words from Dolly…”Once upon a Toothsome Day,”……

then, Illustrious Illustrator Mark Armstrong added, “a truck full of donuts” at his site, here: 

http://wp.me/PRFVr-1DO

So, now we have, “Once upon a Toothsome Day, a truck full of donuts…”

Linda Vernon, the next taggee, added these words, …..  “pulled up at Al’s house…”

as listed on Linda’s post at: 

http://lindavernon.wordpress.com/falderal/   

Linda, to my surprise, tagged me follow her, so…… here is my response, with five more words of brilliance, of course….. The story now reads…..

“Once upon a Toothsome Day, a truck pulled up at Al’s house….”

My contribution is: “leaking glazed all-bran crullers”…..  So, the story now goes like this….

“Once upon a Toothsome Day, a truck pulled up at Al’s house, leaking glazed all bran crullers…..”

Now, it becomes the turn of the person who I am tagging, and that person is:  WillowDot21, from her site here:

http://willowdot21.wordpress.com/  

Good Luck Willow!

Keep an eye on Dolly’s site to see the eventual finished product of our fooling about……
__________________________________

Denial of Comfort

Baleful chairs become the enemy, heralded in red
seemingly welcome softness beckons with a smile,
waiting, content with slaughter, they are finally led
screaming in agony, deluged in venom all the while.

Desperate distraction becomes such a friendless fire
for all the patterns of autumn’s pale dismay,
leaving sincerely latent trails in spirals of twisted wire,
while memory insists upon failure, palpably evil, and fey.

Fat, jaded tears would have fallen in good time,
if only the suitable suitor had scaled the garden’s wall.
Credence for discounted prices luckily in their prime
bring only fascinated eyes into such a hallowed hall.

Searching for answers is ever a clever portrayal
with studious accouterments to fulfill each common rule.
Arguably patient pictures of science and honest betrayal
shall evermore languish, in light of passion so elegantly cruel.

~~ gigoid

Ouch, that hurt…..

“I was reading the dictionary.  I thought it was a poem about everything.” — Steven Wright
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Where else can you find intellectual games, with no pressure to win, that allow you to pick your own conclusions, other than right here, exploring consensual reality with me? Nowhere, that’s where…. So, here is another old-fashioned pearl for your perusal, with the conclusion right there in plain sight, for anyone to see…. it’s Hobson’s choice, all over again….

Politics is what happens to democracy when not enough people care. — Anonymous, Thursday, 1992

After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from  Heaven.  As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, “A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created.”
“This is true,” He replied.
“He will need laws,” said the Demon slyly.
“What!   You, his appointed Enemy for all Time!  You ask for the right to make his laws?”
“Oh, no!”  Satan replied, “I ask only that he be allowed to make his own.”
It was so granted.

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill  in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire

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

Sometimes, it’s just too easy….. but, somebody’s got to do it…..   🙂
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Well, that was a thoroughly enjoyable Pearl to make, other than the poem, which hurt like hell getting it out. But, better out than in, as I always say….. And, it’s cost effective, too! The overhead is really low on that stuff….. but, I know you’re not interested in the economics of writing a blog, any more than I am, so we’ll just forget all that, and bid thee adieu for another day…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

 

Insanity runs in our pod-group this cycle….

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2

Ffolkes,
Hmm….. The demise of Smart Bee as a resource for this blog is confirmed; there is something magical going on (translation: I don’t understand why it’s happening….) that is preventing SB from operating correctly, and I’m out of ideas of how to fix it. I’m going to have to think about this, seriously, and without delay; no other choice, if not the chicken-with-the-head-cut-off option. With no internet access on demand, quotes and poetry are limited to my library (non-digital), and a lot of old Pearls…. I may have to authorize some selective mining from that last source…. I do have a lot of stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day for a long time, and may just work again for inspiration….. Hmm….

Okay, I know I’m desperate when I start and finish a paragraph with the same word, especially one that isn’t even considered standard English. Of course, my English is anything but standard, I should hope…. Any who, I’m going to think about this now, and come back to it when I’ve developed a strategy…..

Okay, I’ve figured out the right approach….. I’m going to pretend it never happened….. Hey, if the GOP can base their entire platform on denial of reality, why can’t I base my blog on the same blissful ignorance? There’s obviously millions of people out there who will buy into that kind of rhetoric; witness the money collected by the GOP from people from whom they will proceed to destroy if allowed into office, to wit, lower middle class folks who are scared of the black man in the Oval Office, and will throw their support blindly to anyone who promises to get him out of there….. Denial is big-time politics, ffolkes, for sure…. and if it works for them, I’ll give it a try….

No, I won’t, don’t worry….. I couldn’t….. I don’t know yet what I WILL do, but, it will all happen as it is meant to do, so I’ll just write around the edges…… Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Religion has never attracted me as a pastime that led to any particularly desirable activities. From the very first, even as a small child, I always thought the people at church were trying to get me to believe something that was not only hard to believe, but they wanted me to believe it, just on their word that it was true….. What they were saying wasn’t anything like what I perceived to be true about the world at large; none of it sounded like common sense, if you get my drift…. Plus, the more I resisted what they said, and asked questions that they couldn’t answer, the more insistent they became….. Most kids have a pretty good crap detector, and the whole church thing seemed based on fluff and wishes to me…..

Any who, it seems a lot of my saved up oysters have been on that very subject, i.e., religious dogma, and alternative ways of looking at the universe, and how it works, and what it means…. (you know, all the good stuff….), so I thought an old-school grouping would perhaps help ffolkes get a clue about what I do believe….. which can, I have to admit, change from one day to the next….. gotta keep room for new data, y’know…… shall we Pearl a bit?…..

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the bible is filled, it would seem more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” — Thomas Paine — The Age of Reason

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

“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.” — Albert Einstein

God:  What one human uses to persecute another. — Anonymous

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.– Robert Heinlein, “Job”, 1984

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.  Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my own constitution; the only wrong what is against it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“If the lord had meant us to have faith, he’d have given us lobotomies.” — Zlatko

“A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain, then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?” — Robert A. Heinlein

“I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in     youth.  I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.”
–Albert Einstein

“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.” — Buddha

Well, there you go…. a complete mish-mash of different philosophies and outlooks, each with its own little piece to contribute to the whole, all ended perfectly with a piece of profoundly simple wisdom… not the virtual kind that is common around here, but real wisdom, that you can put in your pocket, take away with you, and use as needed…..
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November Dreams of Spring

Crass and cold, the beggar finds me swollen, so frail and fat
with painful stepping motions, running, like a Republicrat.
Building with straw and spittle, should artists come aground,
we all pay heavily, a billion for a bloody pound.

Too desperate, too ashamed to play such a part
We ask for belief, and sweet liberty, dressing up so smart.
It falls between the simple cracks, always in a hurry
To find a shrunken ego, ashen, swift, and full of worry.

Never there was a more penitent group, such a sterling way
To fast in luxury, making sure the guilty enter, but do not stay.
Forgotten gods can find their diffident suitors tonight
With dream-fitted convention, and a natural sense of delight.

For all the silken babies cried, to see the broken dreams of power
forgiven moments of certitude serve, filling up the maiden’s bower.
All the patient, loving veterans of ancient foreign time,
give up their first impressions, dying, dying for a rhyme.

~~ gigoid

Odd, isn’t it, how we sometimes fall into a trance to write…. or, maybe that’s just me…. ah well, regardless, enjoy!….
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Often of late, I find myself staring at the screen with a vacant expression, listening to the patter that passes for thoughts in my head. I can sit like this for a long time, just meandering here and there in my memory, re-living good and bad moments from what has turned out to be a lot more years than I ever thought about, really. Until I became 60, I had never thought about how it would feel to be that age, a discovery that surprised me to a certain degree. But, as I thought about it just now, I realized that I really had not considered what I might be doing in my 60’s, either as a career, or as a person. Part of the surprise, I know, is connected to the fact that I am currently without a life-partner, as the ones I chose as my supposed mate seem to have chosen to be elsewhere. This, being alone, was not part of my plan……

I had thought to be sharing all the joy, and all the pain that my life has brought me, with a person who I thought was as committed to that as I. Instead, I am left wondering, as Tom Robbins put it in “Skinny Legs and All”,  “How do you make Love stay?” His premise is is based on the idea that love is easy to find, but impossible to keep, given the craziness of the modern world, and the state of confusion and angst that seems to be the legacy of everyone these days. I’m not sure I completely agree with his final assessment, but I can see how it came to him, having had many similar experiences in my years. I hope he is wrong, and there are still people out there who can actually give their word to someone else, and mean to keep it….. If not, then the world is beyond hope, to my way of thinking, and we may as well just give up….

Of course, there is still that small part of me that won’t do that; I’m not sure if I should call it being stubborn, or stupid. Maybe it is what Emily calls Hope, that will not die easily. Whatever it is, it keeps me getting out of bed every day, with the view in mind to see what the world has to offer, whether it is more BS like I’ve been putting up with now for a few years, or whether there is some sort of justice to the world, and I’ll soon meet, or get together with, a person with whom I can share all of what I have inside me to give, and who will live up to whatever promises we can make to each other. And if not, well, I guess I’ll just keep flirting with the young lady at the coffee shop, and listen to her talk about her boyfriends, smiling to myself, grieving for might have been, and hoping for what might yet be…..

Leave the past behind;
leave the future behind;
leave the present behind.
Thou are then ready to go to the other shore.
Never more shalt thou return to a life that ends in death.
— The Dhammapada (c. B.C. 300)
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Whew! That last section turned on me…. it became quite a self-confession, didn’t it? Well, it’s a bit revealing, but it’s too well written to get rid of, so I’ll just have to suffer the embarrassment of hanging my laundry out for all to see…. and what the hell, it’s all true, so the chips can just fly where they may….. in the meantime, y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

A surfeit of hand-blown candlesticks…..

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Ffolkes,
What is the world coming to? Smart Bee has crashed on me. I am bereft of my dB, and woe is me! What, oh what shall I do now? If I could run around in a circle and scream without hurting myself, I would do. Since I don’t want to spend the next two days recovering from such an ill-conceived idea, were I to carry it out, I’ll not do that. Instead, until I can find or obtain another zipped install file for it on the ‘net, or find one on my computer somewhere, I’ll have to make do with what is in my head, and what is in my old pearl files, which are chock full of oysters with pearls that never made the grade….

This whole process is becoming somewhat problematic; between the loss of Smart Bee, and no ISP at home, getting the Pearl sent out is turning into an ordeal of no small proportion. Not to mention, of course, my new physical challenge, which is a bit scary, so I’ll leave it out for now…. Nevertheless, it’s getting tough to do this, from a tactical standpoint. So far, major strategic alterations have sufficed to solve the tactical difficulties, but those tactical challenges seem to be still growing, and my strategy once again needs to be re-examined and adjusted to deal with the issues. Always a pain in the proverbial ass….

So be it, he said, with grim determination. If that’s the way it is, so be it. And…. deal….. Okay, so I will. Deal, that is…. for now. Any who, it’s another good reason to get on with the show, so….. shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

An undertaker calls a son-in-law: “About your mother-in-law, should we  embalm her, cremate her, or bury her?” He says, “Do all three. Don’t take chances.” — Myron Cohen

I’m not sure why, but I find the above joke to be extremely funny. It may be because of the relationship I had with my ex’s father. I often had the same thoughts about him, though he is still alive, last I heard. He is one of those ignorant, bare-faced hypocrites who got into a line of work that fed right into his own sense of entitlement and bigotry, i.e., a county sheriff.

As a member of the San Bernardino County cadre of paramilitary wannabes, his racism and natural belligerence found a supportive home; his favorite jokes were about the “beaners”, and he was proud to have thought up a line for when he had to confront any Hispanics when on duty, to wit: “Comprende pistola?….. When he would laugh after delivering that line, it made my skin crawl….

He was psychologically, and probably physically abusive to his children, and probably to his wife as well, though she escaped him by dying at age 51, so it’s hard to tell…. Any who, when he does pass, I’d prefer they use the above method for parking his remains….. call me Ishmael, if you must…. or call me harsh….. I don’t care either way, he’s an Asshole, with a capital A, and to my mind, the world will be a better place without his particular brand of narcissistic, ignorant selfishness……

I’m not sure where this mini-rant has been hiding, but I’m glad it got out of my head, so I can replace those memories with some more amenable to my persona……

In contrast to my former father-in-law’s somewhat skewed and colored view of life, here are some more positive thoughts on how to achieve longevity, along with some pretty good karma….

Eat less and chew well.
Ride less and walk often.
Have fewer clothes and launder often.
Worry less and work harder.
Waste less time, and continue to learn.
Talk less and listen more.
Frown less and laugh often.
Speak less and act more.
Blame less and praise others.
Take less and give a hundred times over.

— Kenzo Futagil, describing the secrets of life. — He lived well over a hundred years.

Since we managed to discuss two completely opposite poles of human nature in one pearl, does that make this educational, or just moderately interesting? Or was it a complete waste of time and energy? That last one is my call, I think, for this side of the coin, and I say that no, it is not a waste, because, if nothing else, one can take away Mr. Futagil’s advice, which is purely good……
__________________________________

Painful candor

I sit, and ponder, then try to write…
seeking always to avoid sounding trite.
My record so far is less than grand;
we’ll not be striking up the hometown band.

Poems come to me, with cadence and rhyme,
that’s the easy part, every time.
Finding words of wisdom herein to include,
makes short shrift, however, of my attitude.

Still the words keep floating up in my head,
harbingers of danger, of wisdom, of dread.
Challenge is issued. in the weight of persuasion
Fey shadows of intent for any bright occasion.

Following along becomes habit and routine,
which naturally tells us where we have been.
New vistas beckon just out of sight
Pulling me forward, from day into night……

~~ gigoid
__________________________________

Old-school professor speaking here…. just follow the dancing idea to the ending, where you’ll find the perfect finishing pearl, to tie it all up in a bow…. and if not, well, okay…. I tried….

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” — Former US President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 — letter to Col. William F. Elkins — printed in “The Lincoln Encyclopedia”, — ed. Archer H. Shaw, Macmillan, 1950, NY

“Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an “ism” in the sense of a belief or dogma.  It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is counterfeit and what is genuine.  And a recognition of how costly it may be to fail to do so.  To be a skeptic is to cultivate “street smarts” in the battle for control of one’s own mind, one’s own money, one’s own allegiances.  To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim.” — Robert S. DeBear, “An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility,” — New York Skeptic — (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988

“A reverence for life does not require one to respect nature’s obvious mistakes.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.” — P. J. O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores

“Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!” — Albert Einstein

Okay, so it meandered a bit further afield than I intended…. a direct result of not having my normal resources at hand…. but, it still manages to make a pretty coherent statement….. and if it isn’t clear, well, that never hurt anybody, did it?…… Confusion is good for the soul, they tell me…..   🙂
__________________________________

They were bigger than me, Ma, but I didn’t give up!….. And, you should see the other guy…..

Due to circumstances well beyond my control, and even further beyond my desire for control, this Pearl is complete. It’s not “Gone With The Wind”, but it’s probably better than “Debbie Does Dallas”, at least from a morality standpoint….. I’ll see what I can do about providing some video…. in the meantime, y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

This absinthe is perfectly unacceptable….

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Ffolkes,
First, the strings….. violins, violas, cellos, basses, all start to softly play a slow melody, gently persuading the ear and mind to follow. For a moment the soft sound is all you hear, then, very insidiously, the woodwinds begin to softly play the counterpoint melody with the strings, so that together they are slowly and gently playing a mellow, but happy tune….. After a couple of bars of this, the horns start to add in their pointed notes to the rhythmic tune of the other instruments….

Now we have a lively tune, starting to fill up the area with sound.  As the woodwinds gather speed and urgency, the percussion section begins to keep the beat, with deep bass notes filling the bottom bass line, and the snare drums, and the tom toms adding their syncopation and fast, randomly spaced riffs to the spaces between the notes of the rest of the orchestra.  More and more instruments join in, guitars, mandolins, piano, harps, until the entire thrilling sound of an orchestra in full flight grabs hold of the soul, and lifts the listener up to the heights of feeling, into higher realms of thought, into pure feeling….. until, with unbound joy, the author quietly begins to weep…..

Wow…. I had no idea that was in there. I started to write the above paragraph, with the intent of trying to emulate the feeling one gets listening to a live orchestra as it begins to wind its way through a symphony….. and had no idea that it would be so real that I would burst into tears at the climax….. I don’t know if it is just me, or if what I wrote is that powerful….. Perhaps you could let me know if it has the same effect on y’all?….. Every time I go back to read it, so far, it gets me, and I start to leak….. It’s probably just me, with my softened emotional status, and feelings that are always close to the surface….. but, it could be the paragraph, too, so if it has that effect on anyone else, I’ll know I’m on the right track with what is written there….. thanks in advance to anyone who comments….

Well, that was an unusual start to a day…… it’s been a long while since I burst into tears of joy like that…. The last time I can remember that happening was about 5 years ago, during a morning commute…. I was driving, and came up over a hill between Sonoma and Napa, where I worked…. as I broke over the hill, and came from behind the hill that was blocking the morning sun, I burst into a scene of such imposing dramatic beauty that I literally burst into tears of joy at the sight.

The sun was just rising across the lower end of the Napa Valley, and as it broke over the opposite hills to the east, it lit up the sky and clouds with an unearthly bright light, with the clouds assuming a golden, shining hue, outlining each cloud, making the grey appear like noble pewter and silver, surrounded by gold, patterned across the electric blue of the sky.  The incredible beauty of the scene just tore through all my thoughts and  emotional callouses, and brought up a burst of joyful tears…. It was an incredible sight, and an incredible feeling, one I’ll never forget….

I don’t think I’ll be able to top that feeling this morning, but we may as well give it a try. Tears of joy, here we come……. Shall we Pearl?…..
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Okay, so here’s the deal…. I started this Pearl, and this pearl, some time ago this morning, and everything since the beginning has undergone some sort of morphology, or sinuous, serious lack of stability, and everything changes….. again. This started out as a rant, morphed into a ramble, then changed again…. now, it is an old school pearl, with several quotes all pointing at the same idea, though some are pointing with a finger, and some with a sausage… but, I like sausage, so that works for me…. in any case, the idea being pointed out can take the heat…. enjoy!

“As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity.  I collected some of their Proverbs.” — William Blake (1757-1827), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793)

“Governments which suppress freedom of speech… act like children who shut their eyes in order not to be seen.” — Ludwig Boerne, _Die Freiheit der Presse in Baiern_, 1818

“Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.” — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967), “Sceptical Essays”, 1928

“Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I’m rich.” — Daffy Duck, from Looney Tunes Ali Baba Bunny (1957, Chuck Jones) (Also stated by Mitt Romney, 1997)

“We start this life alone and we end this life alone, it is what we do in between with the people and the world around us that matters.” — Larry G. Smith

“Oh dear, now I’ve made a terrible mess of things.  And all I wanted to do was rule the universe.” — Dr. Zachary Smith
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We may not know much, but one thing’s fo’ sho’:
There’s things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons — you’ll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed.

Which ruins your test.     But then if there’s no testing
To see if a particle’s moving or resting
Why try to conjecture?        Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability — certainty never.

— Smart Bee

That’s right, Smart Bee…. there was no attribution with this delightful little poem, so it must have been some random hacker who donated it to the database I use ( to wit: Smart Bee….) It is a perfectly logical presentation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, one of the touchstones of modern physics, and one with which all hackers are familiar, since they need the math that is involved in expressing Heisenberg’s principle to write their programs, to create their “hacks”, as it were….. I love it! Perfectly cadenced and rhymed, it says what is true, and does it in an entertaining way…. I’m jealous…..   🙂   Hmm…. I’m jealous, but I feel a poem coming on……

Parenthood

Alternative questions always get in the way,
figuratively speaking, rudely barging around.
Still, no question is stupid, no matter what they say
An answer shall be given, a penny for a pound.

How else can our little ones learn to think,
than by asking direction, to show them the way?
They ask us to answer, with a smile and a wink,
To give them our wisdom, with all that we say.

No question too little, nor too large for them to ask,
and no given answer ever thought out of line.
Knowledge is their legacy, and their given task,
to pull wisdom’s nuggets from that eternal mine.

~~ gigoid

Okay, not the best, but not bad…. I think there is more of it still in my head, percolating, so it might reappear some day, in a slightly expanded form….. meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my little rhymes….

“If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?” — Thomas Henry Huxley

Wouldn’t you know it? Just when I finish a pearl, more appropriate quotes keep popping up on the same subject I thought I was done with….. here’s a bit more basic wisdom on poetry, and knowledge, and education….

“No one can go very far in the discerning enjoyment of poetry who is incapable of enjoying any poetry other than that of his own time and place. It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us to escape – not from our own time, for we are bound by that – but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our own time. ” — T.S. Eliot
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In life’s small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know’st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she ‘ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy; do this deed for me”?

— James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) — Epigram

Yes, yes, this pleases cute owl!….. *see photo, below…. It pleases me, also, dear Readers. This is old fashioned wisdom, but only to those to whom Duty remains a primary motivating factor in all their actions; or, if naught else, serves as a touchstone for determining the relative importance of differing choices of action. I especially like the metaphor of the muscle for the power of reason and will, and how it must be used, and used thoroughly, in order to remain in prime condition for action when needed. Which is to say, hopefully, always….
Aye, this pleases cute owl, completely…. remember axiom # 7 of Peruaosophy, which says, “Do your Duty.  Respect Life.  Share Your Love.  Honor the Truth.”   That’s all you really need……
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“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: The sight of the deep-blue sky, and the clustering stars above, seems to impart a quiet to the mind.” — Edwards

Well…. I have no idea what to say….. It is my custom, and habit, to go back over each day’s pearls/Pearl and read it straight through once, to get the overall effect that a reader would/will get by doing so. Today, I can report that I have done so, and I remain speechless, hard as that is to believe. I have no idea how this all came about. I don’t even remember half of it, and I wrote it….. But, speechless or not, it is done, and all I can say is, “So be it”……  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

Simply, frugally, and arguably fecund…..

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Ffolkes,
Yesterday, for the first time in almost 400 days, I did not publish my blog on WordPress. Not only did I not post, I didn’t write a thing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch….. All in all, it feels strange, like all those 400 days were a dream, even though I have over 900 pages of material to show for it. Getting back into writing mode now feels pretty good….. I guess I got used to being able to get all the stuff in my head out onto the screen…..

This Pearl will be…… well, I don’t know what it will be, I guess. I want it to be perfect, though….. for some reason, that seems important. I confess to a bit of confusion, which is not altogether unknown to me, and will have to be used as a tool, rather than as an obstruction, if I can figure out how to do that. I’m also a bit behind the times, in terms of the news, having had no exposure to any news outlets online, on TV, or on the radio. All I know is the Giants are still in first, and won last night over Arizona; I haven’t seen or heard a thing about the elections, or anything else, so finding rantable material may be problematic. No way to tell, until I jump in…..

With all that said, I hope there is someone out there to read this…. fame can be fickle, and who knows? One day of no post, and I might have lost a bunch of readers…. again, no way to tell until it is posted. So, it must mean it’s time to go diving…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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Here is an old-school pearl, using quotes from some fairly famous people….. and some not so famous outside SF fandom. All of the quotes, when co-mingled and mixed up like a smoothie, will give you a really good philosophy of life, and lots of good advice for living with a serene mind….. good luck!….

“He who knows does not speak, He who speaks does not know.” — Lao Tzu

Water wears the rock — Smart Bee

“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” — Buddha

“Human beings do not survive on bread alone … but on the nourishments of liberty.  For what indeed is a man without freedom … naught but a mechanism, trapped in the cogwheels of eternity.” — Harry Mudd, “I, Mudd,” stardate 4513.3.

“Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.” — Aristotle (B.C. 384-322)

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” — Joseph Conrad

“Yeah, but you’re taking the universe out of context.” — Smart Bee

There, see how painless that was? You’ll never even know you’ve been enlightened, until you wake up in the middle of the night, mumbling something about “he who speaks….”….. Onward into the fray!….
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Visible life

Forty-two days of pressure and internal rain,
leave marks of salvation, often in pain.
Such sharp reminders of yesterday’s remorse
fight heavily to keep a straight course.
Rash moments, bright, and routinely immense
Give us pleasure, bereft of common sense.

Still the night comes soft and eternally dear
to bring out wishful dreams so vitally clear.
Life’s myrmidons give freely in protest
lifting with skill, soul pieces first to infest,
Loudly brash, with no such voices to remain
Sealed in infamy, branded ugliness all too plain.

Now come brave signs of chapter and verse
Shielded by ignorance, irritable and terse.
Gravid portions of in-between retaliation
leave only pale marks of initial gestation
With hope even pallid warriors grow brave
Leading all humanity, to a warm, stale grave.

Hope never falters, nor leaves any trace
Yet lingers forever in a welcoming space.
Cheerful faces yet shine out of time
for tricking and fumbling sweet melody sublime.
Fill in the spaces with a long, strong retort
life is ever visible, if only as last resort.

~~ gigoid
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“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

See? There, now, I’ve been saying this for years, and here’s old Marcus Aurelius, that Roman cogitator extraordinaire, putting it straight out there way back around the time of J.C.’s failed attempt at societal reform. A very cogent, yet poignant description of human nature and the preponderance of Ego that drives most of humanity to act out of their own ignorance, rather than consider the veracity or usefulness of someone else’s ideas. This format for stating this answer to one of the great questions is one that all the best philosophers choose when creating aphorisms; clear, simple language and brutally honest self-examination, which provides us with true wisdom, like it or not……

What particularly gets me about people at large is the high percentage of folks who fall into the trap that Ego sets; for some reason, people seem to prefer the cozy blindness with which ignorance can cover them to the cold, harsh light of self-knowledge. The very ego that sets them apart from the rest of the animals who inhabit this planet becomes also the greatest threat to survival, when it is allowed to dictate how one views reality.

The state of society in today’s world rests on the brink of total collapse; any number of issues currently in play in the world can lead us to upheaval unseen since the last Ice Age. Pollution, created by mankind, is pumping tons of carbon monoxide into the air every minute, and all those precipitates are eventually bound to cause changes to climate that we will have no power to stop, or reverse.

The economy of the world is constantly on the verge of collapse in these times, due mostly to the unacknowledged crimes of the 1% of mankind who controls 99% of the money and resources. These crimes arise, again, out of Ego, as the elite of the world believe that they are “different” from the rest of humanity, and deserve to make all the decisions, which oddly enough, are only beneficial to themselves….. again, the power of Ego trumps virtue…..

I’m a smart guy, pretty much, but this is a problem for which even I cannot find a solution, other than the age-old, time-worn, and always ineffective war between the classes. That solution has been tried innumerable times throughout history, and each time the same structure of society re-settles into the same old shape, with a few people at the top, making all the important decisions for the rest of humanity. All because we, as individuals, and as a species, cannot learn to control our ego, to persuade it to act for the benefit of all, rather than just looking out for itself….. I figure that whatever happens will be what we deserve, and I can’t say that I think it will be very pretty, for the species….. or for a lot of individuals…..

Maybe there is a solution…. as a matter of fact, there is one that has been around for as long as mankind has been writing stuff down…. and it’s always the same little piece of advice, a little idea that can change one’s entire life and world-view….. but only if it is accepted, and believed, and applied to reality…… Everybody knows this, but, how many actually live it?…..

“Do unto all as you would wish to have done unto you, and reject for others what you would reject for yourself.” — Mohammed

That’s right, the Golden Rule…. a basic tenet of EVERY philosophy that Mankind has ever formulated; even most religions will acknowledge the wisdom of this, though it doesn’t serve their interests as well as they would wish. But, throughout history, we have always known what is the right way to act…. we’ve just always chosen not to apply the principle in interacting with others…. Instead, we allow our ego to dictate how we behave, thus bringing us to the current world, with all of its problems and dangers…..

SIGH….. It’s really quite easy, and it’s the only answer that will work, in the long run. It really is too bad that most of humanity isn’t buying into it, isn’t it?……
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Well, that wasn’t so bad…. only about a two hour Pearl to get it right…… Felt pretty good, too….. But, reality bites, and I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get posted in the next two or three weeks…. I’m shooting for every day, but that will depend on how well my back holds up to going somewhere each day to get it posted…. Eventually, I’ll get an ISP at home, but meanwhile, I’m mobile….. and I’d best be off to get that done…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

Food just isn’t for eating…..

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Ffolkes,
Farnsworthy, my valet, my gentleman’s gentleman, has neglected to show up this morning, so I’m once again up late, and have no one to press my clothes, or fix breakfast, or tidy the room after me. Oh, right…. oops, sorry, this is Farnsworthy’s year off……I forgot I gave him this year off to go visit his guru in India. I was sure I could get along without him, but, now, I’m not so sure. My clothing is looking a bit tattered and worn, and my shoes could use a good polishing. And I keep running out of brandy…… Ah well, he’s expected back before the monsoon season, which corresponds to our winter time, so that’s not far off…..

It is always a good thing to start out the day with a pleasantly harmless delusion. Whether or not it is true is immaterial, though a good delusion could hardly consider itself properly composed if it could be held as true. The trick is to have it there just to make you feel good about yourself, which is a positive way to start the day, even if a bit damaging to certain parts of the psyche. Delusions are pretty harmless, for the most part; their danger lies in holding on to them too tightly, and not being able to let go of them when life makes it necessary to face reality. If you can’t let go then, you may have a problem….. but, if you can hold onto them for a time, then put them away neatly, they can be very helpful, just like those little umbrella thingies you get in those tropical drinks…..

As might be obvious by now, I’m again short of material for the intro, and have retreated into my fantasy world, where I keep all the stuff to build fables and/or stories of valor and glory. It’s always holiday time there, and everyone eats well; the girls are pretty, and friendly, and the guys are honest and brave. Nobody hates anybody else (excepting, of course, Barney, the creepy dinosaur…. everybody hates him… even his creator….) and injuries never need stitches or a doctor’s care; Nurse Lovely is capable of fixing anything we come up with in that area, and she is always happy to do so….. no cranky nurses here! Come to think of it, while I’m waiting for my SS to get approved, I should spend more time here; time passes quickly when you’re having a good time, and that’s the only kind of time there is in my fantasy world….

Ah well, such is life….. one can’t spend all one’s time in fantasy; people will talk, and nothing gets done. Of course, there is little to do, other than write, or read, or listen to music, or watch a vid, and boy, I’m sick of doing all of those, for sure…. but, life goes on, regardless of how we feel about it, so I may as well enjoy it….. in the meantime, shall we Pearl?…..

(1) Everything depends.
(2) Nothing is always.
(3) Everything is sometimes.

I find that 3 implies 2, therefore 2 is not necessary. Further, it is interesting to note that 2 does not imply 3 because: Always U Sometimes !=  Universe of all possibilities (e.g. Never) Therefore the choice between 2 and 3 is not arbitrary, you really must keep 3 and drop 2.  I find 1 is unrelated.  — John Colosi

I want it clearly understood that I’m totally confused. —  Smart Bee, reading my mind…..
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“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.  Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.” — Tom Paine

Here are two quotes from famous American patriots, of proven nature; one lived at the beginning of our nation’s creation, and the other more recently, right up to the latter half of the 20th century. Both seemed to have had a less than sterling opinion of government, no doubt from long experience of dealing with its denizens. I can’t add much to either one, except to say that both continue to be true, and both are good to remember as we go into this year’s election. It’s important this time to pay attention, and make sure that we vote the lesser of the two evils into the hot seat for the next four years….

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency… Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it   by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded.  Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.” — General Douglas MacArthur, 1957

This policy is obviously still in place; witness the paroxysms of fear mongering that took place a couple days ago, on the anniversary of the attacks on 9/11/01. Eleven years now, and the government is still using those events as a reason for abridging the rights that Mr. Paine and his cohorts secured for us so many years ago….. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m not willing to give up my liberties for ANY reason, much less because some political pundit, who has never worked a damn day in his life, tells me I should be afraid of some group of insane fundamentalists from another country. As far as I’m concerned, OUR OWN GOVERNMENT is what we need to be afraid of now, for they are trying to turn us all into slaves to our own fears…..

“Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. In democracy, what you get generally is bad government by a bully, tempered by the pen of several newspaper editors.” — George Bernard Shaw — Man and Superman (1903) Maxims for Revolutionists: Democracy

I can rant on this subject for a very long time, without repeating myself much, as there are so many examples in daily life that point out how far the degradation of our liberties has progressed. For now, I need to go take care of some business, so I’ll leave this one right here. But, don’t let that keep you from staying alert, and guarding against any further take-aways of the Bill of Rights…. it’s been pirated enough…..

“Government, today, is growing too strong to be safe.  There are no longer any citizens in the world; there are only subjects.  They work day in and day out for their masters; they are bound to die for their masters at call.  Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.” — H.L. Mencken
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A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

i{My Soul} I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
‘Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul
i{My Self}. The consecrated blade upon my knees
Is Sato’s ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady’s dress and round
The wooden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn
i{My Soul.} Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And intellect is wandering
To this and that and t’other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.
i{My self.} Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery —
Heart’s purple — and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier’s right
A charter to commit the crime once more.
i{My Soul.} Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
i{Is} from the i{Ought,} or i{knower} from the i{Known — }
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue’s a stone.
i{My Self.} A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;
The finished man among his enemies? —
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what’s the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?
I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

William Butler Yeats

It’s a bit long, but it fits right in with my mood, so….. enjoy!
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“The important thing is not to stop questioning.  Curiosity has its own reason for existing.  One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.  It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.  Never lose a holy curiosity.” — Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a true genius, unique in many ways. One of those is how well he was able to share the wisdom he possessed with other people. He had a very simple style of speaking, and a very clear way of expressing what he thought in words that anyone could comprehend. I particularly like the above quote, as it is something I believe implicitly as well. One of the things I’ve noticed about people my age is a certain loss of curiosity, and a resultant loss of interest in living.

A time to mourn, and a time to dance. — Ecclesiastes 3:4

The physical challenges that come with the aging process seems to have a mental side effect of dulling that particular sense in many of us, and I believe that is why so many folks have a hard time as they get older. They make it harder on themselves by losing that interest in life, that enthusiasm to learn new things, to try new foods, to see new places, and meet new people. I think keeping that enthusiasm is what extends our lives beyond the normal; avoiding the mundane is stimulating, and that vitality spreads to the rest of our lives, making them fun, no matter how hard it is physically to get on.

Life goes on, whether we can run alongside, or trail behind, and we need to remember that there is still beauty and wonder out there to be had, if we only leave ourselves open to perceive it, and have the courage to grab hold, and make it our own…..

Non carborundum illegitimi.  (Don’t let the bastards wear you down.) —  Smart Bee
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Today’s effort seems a bit fragmented, which perhaps is to be expected, as my writing routine is severely disrupted…. and my email readers are probably in a panic, or semblance of such, since I can’t seem to even get logged into gmail.  Ah well, it will have to do for the nonce…. things will be better, some day…. which I hope comes sooner than later……  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!