Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say that out loud? My bad…. I guess I should either explain, or start over. Hmm…

Good morning, ffolkes! Yes, yes I did bail on the first beginning…. No explanations for you. “Too bad, so sad, try again next time,” he said, with a nasty smirk. That’s because he woke up in the weirdest fucking mood he’s ever experienced; in fact, ‘weird’ just doesn’t make the grade at all… He has no clue what person to write in, first, second, third, or weird; the latter seems the most achievable, at this point. In fact, we’re going to admit defeat, so we can get on with the rest of today’s mess, a process y’all realize just became even more volatile than usual…..

Why is that? Well, last time I had this issue, the stock market crashed. No, not really, but, I did feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if a million voices had all… wait, no, that’s Obi-wan’s line. Sorry, wrong page.

Okay, I’m busted, I guess. Since I didn’t, and won’t, have a clue as to how to find, or create, yet another exciting, passionate, obviously brilliant opening section, I figured this would serve to fill in. How’d I do? I know, it’s kinda sappy, but, hey, it’s better than most of them, I’d say. Of course, I’m pretty biased, as we all know, especially in THIS instance; I certainly have a vested interest in finding some way to make it work every day. It’s really too bad Reality is never going to cooperate in that goal, since it has absolutely no investment, or interest, in helping me out…. Asshole.

Oops. No swearing at Reality. It’s easily offended, and the payback is, quite simply, a…. you thought I was going to be vulgar, didn’t you? Hah!

Iconoclasm as a way of life… yeah, that’s the ticket!….

Okay, that’s plenty, I’d say. If we, or I, or y’all, or somebody doesn’t assume control here, we’ll be stuck here forever, listening to me try to achieve enough coherence to bring this to a conclusion (at this rate, that would be sometime in the next millennium….). I think it’s time for the application of another colorful metaphor, so to speak….

Fuck it. I’m through being nice…. Luigi, take us in!…..

Shall we Pearl?

“Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Beyond Good and Evil

I’m not sure how I should take that…. I AM an individual!…. I guess that makes me rare… or, perhaps, merely sane in an insane world….

Last posted 4/26/2014:

One of the hardest parts of blogging on a daily basis, I’ve found, is keeping the chosen material fresh, especially when I tend to rely on a small set of subjects upon which to rant on a regular schedule…. As you know, if you’ve been here previously, I do like to take my shots at the BRC, which consists primarily of the men who prey upon the rest of humanity for their own benefit; most especially, I like to take my best shots at those assholes who prey on women and children, enslaving them as sexual objects for their own profit and sick indulgence….

However, as I tried to explain in the last post in which I spoke of this, it is extremely hard for me to write about, as it tends to kick in my PTSD symptoms…. I get a large jolt of adrenalin when I start to think about this, and my mind turns immediately to buying weapons, ammunition, and starting the planning process to go hunting, for pimps, snakeheads, and any other assholes involved in the sex trafficking trade….

Bleeding hearts may proclaim all the sad stories they know, or speculate, stories that might explain why these assholes are the way they are, but, I don’t really give a shit how they got the way they are; to do what they do, a conscious choice must be made, and, to my mind, that is enough to warrant removing them from the society of decent people, permanently…. If that means I’m playing God, well, so be it…. I am liable to be as good at it as any of the delusional versions; I have the advantage of actually having a physical form that can be touched, so there’s no question of my involvement, or my reality….

Just writing those last two paragraphs has me so worked up, my breath is speeding, my heart rate has jumped over a hundred, & my musculature is loosening up, relaxing and stretching…. I’m starting to breathe more deeply, too, as the adrenalin widens all of my blood and air passages in preparation for fight, or flight…. Having spent eleven years living with random adrenalin attacks, while working at Atascadero and Napa State Hospitals, frequently wrestling with the violently insane to save their life, or my own, I am all-too-familiar with those symptoms…. which include the necessity for waiting for up to three or four HOURS for them to wear off completely…. It’s a pain, to be honest, and I don’t like it at all…

Which is why I am going to cheat…. I’m going to reprint a rant from the archives, one of several I wrote during the year it was first posted, when I first began to write about this issue regularly…. This is one of my better rants, so I hope you enjoy it…. I have added, here at the beginning, a perfect pearl that I found as an appetizer to what follows…. Here then, our rant for today…..

“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.” — Frank Leahy

From 12/4/12:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–Smart Bee

Note from 2014: To finish this, here is one last pearl, with a perfect description of the assholes who prey on their fellow men, or worse, women and children…. Pearls like this are good channel markers, for helping to identify the dickheads….

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” — Epicurus

Note from 2015: Thank goodness for the Tardis! I’ll leave you with another appropriate closing for THIS year….

“Sometimes I think the world has gone completely mad.  And then I think, “Aw,  who cares?”  And then I think, “Hey, what’s for supper?” — Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

“In the midst of winder I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” — Carl Sagan

“I have found power in the mysteries of thought.” Euripides

“Depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously towards himself will act so towards others, and vice versa.” — Lavater

Euripides says,– Who knows but that this life is really death, and whether death is not what men call life?” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Pyrrho, viii

“Blessed is he who has learned to laugh at himself, for he shall never cease to be entertained.” — John Powell

Bwahahahahahaha!….

However, let me assure you, I mean that only in the best of ways….. And, yes. I am endlessly entertained by my own antics, in making my way through this beautiful, ugly, puzzling, simple, wonderful journey called life…. But, that’s probably just me; what do I know?…. With a bit of luck, I’ll see y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….