Tag Archives: Cats

As the sole survivor, he’ll feel some guilt….

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Ffolkes,

“Go on, EMOTE!  I was RAISED on thought balloons!!”

~~ Zippy the Pinhead ~~

POTD-FROG-AND-BUTT_2862116k
London Daily Telegraph Animals of the Week, December 2014


Timing is everything…. the photographer who grabbed this image certainly knows this, now, if not before taking the photo. Of the three entities involved in this cosmic interaction, which do you think is the most clueless? I say the frog…. but, the human probably comes close…. The moth obviously knows what it is about; it stopped to pose on a frog whose skin color is a perfect match for its own wings….

Now my little fantasy is done, what shall we do? It’s hopeless to think it will have any real meaning, but, maybe we could go for some humor; that’s always a good way to start the day….. Okay, we’ll try it….

A guy calls 911; when the operator asks what is happening, he pants in a panicked voice, “My buddy and I are out hunting, and he just accidentally shot himself! What should I do?” The operator calmly replies, “Calm down, sir. Now, the first thing to do is, make sure he is actually dead.” The guy says, “Okay”, & the operator hears the phone get set down…. She then hears a gunshot, & after a moment the voice comes back on the line, and says, “Okay, now what?”….

There, isn’t that funny? No? What do you mean? I happen to know this joke was voted the best joke ever told in a survey a few years ago….. Well, I think it’s funny….

Well, that didn’t work so well, did it? Y’know what? I’m giving up. I don’t give a shit anymore. Y’all can figure out your own damn introductions…. Screw it, we’re outta here….

Shall we Pearl?

“One of the most perverse things about the universe is that it doesn’t care what you believe.” — Smart Bee

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

“The moving cat sheds, and having shed, moves on…” — Smart Bee

What else? Cats, doing cat stuff…. Being the sort of person who likes to leave things done merely half-way, this one is about an HOUR of cat’s displaying their funny side…. Enjoy, if you have the time to waste….


Funny Cats Video Compilation 2014

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“The world is wide and beautiful. But almost everywhere, everywhere, the children are dying.” — Edward Abbey

What a powerful lament! Mr. Abbey shows us, in one line, the true state of reality, as it concerns any person to whom honor is as necessary to life as is breath… In truth, I’d love to be able to rant about it, but, I just don’t have one in me today…. I will, however, find an appropriate entry from the archives, to speak to this issue, the best I may….

Ooh, ooh…. Wait a minute… I saw this yesterday, when the email notice from this site came in…. Here then, to fill the need for some words of warning about “those who would be kings”, a post from our friends at talesfromtheconspiratum, by our old friend Lou…. with an article to remind us of the extent of lying to the public by the government, that goes on here in the good old US of A…. Pay attention, ffolkes, this is all evidence based fact, not supposition….

http://talesfromtheconspiratum.com/2015/01/04/2015-reminder-government-word-is-worthless/

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/2015-reminder-government-word-is-worthless_012015

Now, be honest, ffolkes…. You didn’t believe them, did you?…. I didn’t, but, I was lucky, & found out some of the truth at a young age…. Most folks never realize this at all, going through their entire lives living by the lies they accept as truth…. SIGH…. You know it’s a piteous, pathetic issue, when even Shakespeare gets it right…..

But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he ‘s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.

~~ William Shakespeare ~~

~~ Measure for Measure — Act ii, Sc. 2 ~~


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

For some reason, this poem, the most recent of my own efforts, seems to fit perfectly with today’s themes, such as they are….

A dream, weeping….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~ gigoid ~~


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

Here is what I’d term a “normal” pearl of virtual wisdom, if such word may be used here; we do tend to stretch the meaning of it just a bit…. Chock full of good advice on how to live a life well lived, it also manages to bring us to the correct conclusion using humor, and deep insight into not just human nature, but, how to deal with being human…. Well, maybe I’m strange, but, it says all that to me…. Try it, ffolkes, you’ll like it….

“He ‘s armed without that ‘s innocent within.” — Alexander Pope — Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace, Epistle i, Book i, Line 94

“There’s more to living than not dying.” — Smart Bee

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.” — Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

“To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There’s no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers. No servant or disciple can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see.” — Frank Herbert

“The measure of a man’s life is the well spending of it, and not the length.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Consolation to Apollonius

“Keep the juices going by jangling around gently as you move.” — Satchel Paige

“Just the facts, Ma’am.” — Joe Friday

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

Finding myself here at the end of today’s post is a bit of a surprise; I suppose I got caught up in the sheer joy of an entire hour’s peace, found in the absence of my usual morning companions, pain and misery…. Not that they aren’t hovering, waiting to break through the distraction writing sometimes provides…. but, it’s nice to have a bit of space, which has been hard to come by…. We aren’t going to fall into a litany of complaints now, though, we’re going to take our leave, just as if it were planned that way…. Whether it was or not (and I wouldn’t wager on either direction….), I’m outta here…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, most likely…..

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Kowabunga!


À bientôt, mon cherí….


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Out of walnuts, again? Call the fusileers…

			
						

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Ffolkes,




“Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none.  


For we grieve only for what has happened, 


but we fear all that possibly may happen.”


~~ Pliny the Younger ~~


DTHalloween


     Today’s picture was found via my news reader, RSS Owl; it was originally the Astronomy Picture of the Day on the NASA website, a day or so before Halloween. On the NASA site where it is located, links are available to point out the Halloween-oriented objects in the sky, such as the Ghost Nebula, the Skeleton Nebula, etc…. It’s pretty cool, but, not as cool as the picture itself, showing the Devil’s Tower (from the movie re: first contact, Close Encounters of the Third Kind…), with the entire Milky Way spreading across the sky above…. Simply gorgeous, and inspiring to one who has always believed the stars to be our destiny….


At this point, usually, I’d make some comment about how we humans are denying ourselves our own destiny, by the acts we allow the predators among us to pursue in their mad quest for power over everyone else…. Today, however, I’m going to ignore the impulse to rant that I display so often, and get on with this Pearl, difficult though it is to bite my lip, or in this case, allow my hands to stop typing…. I even have the built-in excuse of pain to justify such a procedure, as it is still raining here in NorCal…. Hell, just getting these few paragraphs done will be an ordeal; I’m already just about ready to quit, or to take a break to spray on some magic rub…. good idea….


Ah, much better…. The problem now becomes obvious; where do I go from here? Oh, wait, there’s an idea…. Hold on while I try to pin it down long enough to see what it is….. Nope, that won’t do; it’s too specific; we need something a bit more general to play with…. How about…. no, that won’t work, either; too obvious…. Well, shoot, this is embarrassing, isn’t it? I feel like a computer with a loop of 404 messages, for sure. Hmm…. I know, I’ll cheat, just as if I were an elected official…


Hah! Fooled ya! No cheating going on here, boss. We don’t do cheating here; hell, I wouldn’t know where to begin, having not indulged in it in a very long time… Well, there was that time at Kaiser, but, they pissed me off, and deserved what they got…. I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to find a way to do so, but, I just noticed we are far enough down the page to legally end this…. which, as may be surmised, comes at a perfect time, right before we gave up entirely, and slipped into our old standby, nonsense and blather….


This intro section, I would guess, is also an example of blather, but, relatively well disguised as an intelligent discussion of current events here on ECR…. What? Oh, I guess it isn’t so well disguised, is it? Oh, well…. The hell with it, I’m outta here…. See y’all down below, ffolkes, I’m done with this….


Shall we Pearl?


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


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


“Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?” — Friedrich Nietzsche


I may be pulling my covers, but, I love these cat videos…. I can watch cats for a long time without becoming tired of it; they have more personality than most humans I’ve met, for sure…. Plus, this allows anyone who is jonesing for some quality laughter to indulge themselves fully…. Anyone who doesn’t at least smile or chuckle at the first video, shows proof they have NO sense of humor at all…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. and try not to waste the ENTIRE day on this….






10 HOURS Epic Funny Cats ! (BIGGEST Cats Fails Compilation in the World) 































 


 


 


 




“What comes from this quarter, set it down as so much gain.” — Terence (185-159 BC) — Adelphoe, Act v, Sc. 3, 30, (816.)


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Once more, I’m resorting to the archives, since I can’t type worth shit today…. It ain’t Sartre, or Ibsen, but it ain’t bad….


From 2/20/2013:


“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” — Mark Twain


As I sit here, I can almost feel myself getting older…. It seems to be a predilection of being this age, that one becomes somewhat introspective, looking back over our time here on Earth, and making judgments about what we’ve done, or are guilty of leaving undone, in our lives. This preoccupation seems to be innate, but, I don’t necessarily see a lot of it in others my age, in my experiences out in society at large.


Here, on WordPress, the normal demographics of population diversity seems to run a bit higher, in that respect, than it does out in the Big Blue Room…. probably something to do with the fact that those here on this site are, if nothing else, highly educated enough, and/or affluent enough, to partake in the Internet’s community dialogue…. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that there are still millions of folks out there who have never, and never will, see any of what transpires here, for whatever reason, educational, financial, or merely indifference…. In that group of people, those my age are concerned much of the time with survival, and tend to be directed outward, to deal with the mechanics of that critical issue.


To that group, introspection is a luxury they cannot afford to indulge in themselves, as it takes time away from activities and mental attitudes necessary for surviving. I have been living on the edge of that group for a couple of years now, and can only be thankful that I am close enough to the edge to be able to afford this luxury; I do have to make sacrifices to have it, so I appreciate it a lot. It was a pain in the derrière, literally, to have to leave home to find internet access, so, not having to do so is a big plus for me.


In my time of introspection, I’ve spent a lot of it fighting off guilt, for the things I’ve done in my life that don’t meet with my own approval, as so aptly referred to by Mr. Twain. We all have those things hidden in our memories, those failures of ethical or moral standards we set for ourselves, and looking back on them is hard, as there is nothing we can do to change it. We have to learn to forgive ourselves for such transgressions, because no one else, not even God, if ones choose to believe in the traditional dogma, can change the past. (Query: Can God build a wall so strong He can’t knock it down, or a rock so heavy He can’t pick it up?…. Just wondered; sorry, little side trip….)


Since we cannot change the past, nor go back and try to make things better, if nothing else, we must learn to hold those little kernels of painful memory inside us, and find a way to deal with the little nugget of discomfort that will always accompany such memories. It is a delicate procedure, as we must deal with chastising and scolding our own selves, while still maintaining our self-love, without which we can never be comfortable, or comforted. One cannot accept love from another unless they feel it is deserved; it will sour and spoil all the flavor of the interaction, dooming it to failure, and pain.


How do we maintain this self-image of someone who is worthy of being loved by others? Well, that, my friends, is a very long story, indeed, and one I’m not going to start here and now, as it could be days before I surfaced again, and we’re already at the point where most folk’s minds, as well as those of regular ffolkes, will be losing interest, unless I pull some literary magic, or set off some figurative fireworks. Currently, my supply of fireworks is low, so we’ll leave a deeper discussion of this subject for another time. For now, let me say this….


We are all creatures of a Universe that puts a premium on flexibility, especially of mind. This flexibility is enhanced when we spend time on ourselves, in introspection, and inner dialogue, and is ultimately part of what is the only way to ever really achieve any balance or stability in life. It gives us the proper perspective on how we fit into the rest of the picture, and points the way to the greatest degree of successful interaction with the other parts of that universe. It is the best way to stay in touch with what we are, and what we need to be, to survive, and to make our lives meaningful in some way.


“We are injured and hurt emotionally – not so much by other people or what they say or don’t say – but by our own attitude and our own response.” — Maxwell Maltz, “Psycho-Cybernetics”


Well worth a dollar, or a moment or two of your time, I’d say…. Try something new and different, spend some time in your own head…. Of course, one should (careful, there’s that word!….) be cautious in this, as with any potentially mind-altering activity like mindful introspection…. You never know when a preconceived notion will jump up and bite you….. and those ingrained prejudices can be hard to spot, as they tend to hide behind walls of ignorance and fear….. Remember yesterday’s pearl…. The Snark might actually be a Boojum…. Catch it, cook it, eat it with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, and then get on with your life….


🙂


Note from 2014: To end such a discussion properly, a pearl of appropriate measure should be included, to wit:


“Has the world always been like this, or have I been too wrapped up in myself to notice?” — The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy


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


Here is a three-fer of my own works; don’t worry, they’re all short, and to the point….




Tiny Truth, Just in Time


 I’ll leave history to say if it’s a crime,

    as it will always do…. 

Who may challenge the prerogative of Time?…. 

Nobody, that’s who….  


 ~~ gigoid ~~


————————————————————–


Striking Gold


Madness comes and goes, it’s true,

whenever it chooses to do so.

Living’s much like wearing a shoe,

when all you are is a toe.

~~ gigoid ~~


—————————————————————


Territorial imperative….


Beauty must define, as augment to existence,

  as life must be more than mere subsistence.

Nature demands more.

Truth helps.


~~ gigoid ~~




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


Today’s final pearl came together in spurts yesterday, with only the last two entries found, at last, this morning…. It’s getting hard to put this together, ffolkes, having to come back to it so often, due to necessary breaks in the action to go somewhere to moan piteously…. Ah well, it came out well, for all that, as a group of pearls to provide us with some of the better ideas we humans have stumbled across in our search for wisdom…. It’s a seven-star pearl, with a final, extra pearl to help point the way to the point…. All the great advice in the pearl can be absorbed by observing the truth in the last line….


“How did the great rivers and seas gain dominion over the hundred lesser streams?  By being lower than they.” — Lao Tzu


“Doing it the hard way is always easier.”– Murphy’s Paradox


“When washing your face, can you see your true self? When walking, can you feel the rotation of heaven? When speaking are your words without guile? When you shop are you aware of your needs? When you meet the suffering, do you help? When you meet conflict, do you work toward harmony?” — Deng Ming-Dao


“Beware of the “Black Swan” fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you – with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the “Gigo Law”, i.e. “garbage in, garbage out”.  Inductive logic is MUCH more difficult – but can produce new truths.” — Lazarus Long


“The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.” — Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) — Natural History, Book xviii, Sect. 31


“The supreme triumph of reason is to cast doubt upon its own validity:” — Miguel de Unamuno


“Give, expecting nothing thereof” — St. Thomas Aquinas


Remember, ffolkes, all the above starts with this:


“Doubt is the key to knowledge.” — Persian Proverb


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


“It was a big one, Pa, but, I beat it!”


Well, that’s the way it feels, anyway…. All in all, it’s not too shabby; it’s definitely done, which makes it perfect for our purposes…. Funny how that works, isn’t it? See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….




Y’all take care out there, 

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….


Sometimes I sits and thinks,

   and sometimes,

I just sits.


gigoid, the dubious


PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.


Kowabunga!






À bientôt, mon cherí….







		
	
					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
We’ll find some in the bargain basement….

			
						

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Ffolkes,




    Hello there… When I lay down last night to sleep, at 8:00 PM, or thereabouts, I had little idea I’d be up now, at 2:00 AM, asking myself why I ever thought I liked cats, or where I put the damn squirt bottle, so I could soak its evil little ass with sulfuric acid… or, with just the water in the bottle. The acid will have to wait until I catch it, preferably by the throat….


At approximately 1:45 AM, I was awakened by some hard-to-identify, weird scratching noises, coming from somewhere in the bedroom…. Investigation found the cat, underneath the laundry basket, digging at the carpet, just for fun, I guess…. I chased her out of the room, & decided to just get up, as I was now fully awake, thanks to the middle of the night search routine…..


This is fucking early, ffolkes, even for me…. I’ve been sitting here staring at this mostly empty screen  now for a good twenty-five minutes, with nothing but static running through my mind….. Great…. 


Now I’m stuck awake, without the boon of being able to write, or even thinking about writing, to help pass the time until the rest of the hemisphere gets going…. I’m smart enough to remember that the ffolkes on the other side of the world are already up…. as well as, obviously, too stupid to outwit a four-pound feline with a brain the size of a walnut….


I swear, though, this IS the cat from Hell you hear about so often….. She seems to have a direct line to Murphy’s office, where she gets advice on timing her acts of instigation to perfection…. I’ve never seen one better, as she seems to get us when we are least expecting it, every time…. 


She has her morning wake up routine down to a science, knowing she can get me up anytime at all, as long as it is AFTER my lady has gone to bed, so it will wake her up, too…. For some reason, the cat likes BOTH of us to be awake whenever she is, even if it is the middle of the night…. Neurotic little asshole…


Ah well, at least she’s stopped her old trick, of “accidentally” clawing one’s toes at night while stretching….. I declare, I really don’t miss that particular habit she used to display…. Waking up from sleep to excruciating pain in one’s toe is not what I’d call conducive to a restful night, and she used to get one or the other of us a couple times a week, before apparently giving it up….


I guess she must have gotten tired of flying out of the bedroom, as opposed to walking out under her own power…. I can be a bit irritable when awakened like that, and show a strong tendency to throw whatever comes to hand….. hard…. I know its cruel, but, hey, at that time of night, whatever comes to hand is gone before my mind registers what it might be…. living or inanimate, doesn’t matter at that point…. it’s going to fly….


Well, since there doesn’t seem to be much else to do at this time of the day, and, I’ve apparently blathered about nothing much for long enough to fulfill the local requirements for such documented insanity (too bad I can’t get a discount for how early I had to start….), I may as well get a head start on the dive for the day…. Of course, I won’t be diving right off, as today’s first section is set aside for a new-format pearl, but, I’ll get wet a bit later, for section three’s old-school pearl…. Whatever, right?….


Shall we Pearl?….


“Yow!  We’re going to a new disco!” — Zippy the Pinhead

_____________________________


So, today, we’re going to use the newest format for a pearl of virtual wisdom…. This is the one where I show you a link, to an article that, to me, demonstrates one (or more) facets of how bad, weird, strange, and/or screwed up the world has become, (or, as in one case today, how good things CAN be, if well-written), followed by a comment or two from yours truly, to highlight whatever point has been dug from the article’s subject matter for discussion…. Easy, right?….. Well, I like it, so let’s give it a whirl, okay?…..


Our first article is a discussion that shows, once again, just how low the butt heads in the cyber-security sector of our government will stoop to protect their asses from prosecution…. and just how far they’ll go to spy on whomever they can…. regardless of WHO it might be…



http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/S-F-judge-blocks-destruction-of-NSA-phone-records-5305045.php


I’m encouraged by this decision; it’s one of the first that indicates there might just be hope of putting a stop to their machinations, at least in this particular arena…. It’s getting harder for them to hide what they’re up to, thanks to our über-patriot, Eric Snowden, may he be forever blessed for his sacrifice…. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m just a little pissed off at the administration and the PTB** for their harassment of this man, and hope he is able to find some peace…. I also hope that, someday, he will be able to return home, to the hero’s welcome he deserves….


** To be clear, the “administration and the PTB”, along with their myrmidons, the NSA and other cyber-security agencies that steal data, or acquire and use the data gathered…. are the “their”, and the “they” of whom I speak above, (“their machinations” “to hide what they’re up to”), who are illegally spying, or manipulating data, or making false statements to attempt to deny or cover up their guilt….



http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Former-Christie-aides-to-judge-Quash-subpoenas-5305649.php


When I saw this, my first, immediate reaction to hearing these assholes say they don’t want to have to ‘fess up to what they’ve done was, “Oh, those POOR babies! They’re being SO persecuted…. and all they did was a) commit felonious activities while in a position of authority, for the purposes of political punishment, and b) act like the guiltiest bloody assholes they could when caught, attempting to cover up the incident, instead of just admitting to their foolishness…” As might be surmised, I’m not terribly sympathetic to their pain, as they are getting exactly what they deserve….


I can only hope that the shit they flung around in their mad attempts to hide their guilt gets all over that major asshole, Chris Christie’s, shoes and coattails, and is dirty enough that he will be forced to drop the insane idea that he is an appropriate candidate for a major office…. I don’t think the rest of this country is quite ready for a New Jerseyite in the White House…. That particular state has always had its own strange methods of political action, which is, quite simply, too frigging crazy for the mainstream….


Think about it…. it would be like “Goodfellas” in lock step with a Tea Party Congress…. Brrr…. the very thought makes me shudder….


http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/Continents-roam-people-come-and-go-5304865.php


As usual, Jon Carroll applies his particularly acute vision and his very personal, companionable writing style to say a lot of the same stuff I’ve been ranting about over the last few months…. and says it more engagingly, and much more clearly than I…. I’m not ashamed to say he’s better at this than I am; I’m a realist, and I’ve always appreciated his intelligence, and his very balanced outlook on reality….. A good piece, well worth a read….



http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Feinstein-blasts-CIA-over-torture-probe-documents-5307500.php


I’m not sure how to take this article…. Dianne the Gargantuan has been one of the most vocal supporters of this administration’s policies on the subject of illegal surveillance, even going so far as to throw her support behind the potUS, making a number of supportive statements as part of the program (pogrom?) of persecution against Mr. Snowden….


Now, however, it seems the table has been turned, and she, along with her oh-so-powerful committee members on the  Combined House and Senate Intelligence Committee have been the targets of the outrageous spying being done, this time by the CIA, in conjunction with the NSA, the FBI, and all the other federal agencies who have a hand in the “War on Terrorism”…. They’ve been messing around with trying to hide documents that prove their complicity in torture during numerous interrogations, which occurred, naturally, under the Shrubs….


Now that this sacrosanct committee has suffered at the hands of these out-of-control dogs-off-their-leash, who aren’t afraid to steal from, and manipulate, whomever they see as an enemy, she’s all a-flutter, and very angry that this agency, an arm of our own government, has been spying on, and manipulating data at the expense of their own governing members!!   Me, I wonder why she is so surprised, even if I understand why she is so mad…. Welcome to the club, Di-Fi…..



http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Jose-police-officer-charged-with-rape-5306907.php


I really don’t think I need to comment much on this…. It’s pretty clear that this is just one more example of how the police forces in this country attract the most aggressive, angry individuals, with the accompanying sense of undeserved entitlement, to work for them, refusing to consider that their recruiting tactics, and their own lack of ethical discipline, are the very reasons they continue to have these kinds of incidents take place….


It is my firm opinion that the job of police officer, military officer, fireman, or any other type of public service job that has people put into positions of authority over the public, should ONLY be filled by people who have passed certain psychological tests, to weed out those people who will, if given a chance, take advantage of their position….


I believe this should be the case now, and should have been the case for a at least 50 years, since our knowledge of psychology advanced to the point of being able to test for these attributes in people….. If we tested applicants for these kinds of public service jobs for the possibility of  aggressive patterns of behavior, it might just prevent some of the problems that NOT testing has created, to the point now where over half the police on the ground are what I would term as, if not insane, neurotic as hell, with issues of low self-esteem, aggressiveness as their first response to crisis, and a lack of ethical discipline….. As a point of evidence, I would submit this question…. When was the last time you saw a police car use a turn signal correctly?…. Think about that for a minute, and you’ll begin to understand whereof I speak….


I found myself having to stop gathering more articles, as I could have kept collecting them all day…. Then, we’d NEVER get out of this section…. As it is, I’ve taken it upon myself to end this here, with just the following as a closing thought for today….


“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” — George Carlin

_____________________________


I decided I wanted to put in a poem of my own today, one from further in the past than most of what you’ve seen lately…. I found these two, from a couple of years ago, and couldn’t make up my mind…. so, being the egotistical fool I am, you get them both…. I hope you enjoy them….




Dreaming, I wait….


In the most patient moments of rationality

kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,

fallow thoughts speed first from equality

to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.


Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law

shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,

intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,

falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.


Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,

it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,

foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,

alive, always eager, willing, and pale.


Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few

with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.

No solemn royal version may pass in review,

true love for man, never to remain unhidden.


Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,

calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,

With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,

swimming in the oceans of natural delight.


When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,

roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,

Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,

and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.


Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night

aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart

Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,

tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art….


~~ gigoid ~~


Random Visions/Coloring Between the Lines of Grief


Everywhere is dark, and shining,

    with points in dissonant pain.

Sharp, senses dull past divining,

   tears burn, a torrential rain.


Escape! Flee within to cower,

    find an unconscious cave.

Call on Morpheus’ power

    deny reality’s beckoning wave.


Light breaks, drawing the inner eye,

    leading to the slippery slope.

Risk is critical, we may only sigh,

   yet welcome, for bringing hope.


Sanity seems far out of reach

    Insanity’s a stronger friend.

Decisions made will merely teach

    our way toward Death to wend. 


Lost, while still on familiar ground,

    the future yet undesigned.

Making way on paths unfound,

    to Now, as yet undefined.


~~ gigoid ~~


_____________________________


Now comes the fun part, for me…. I’ve written rant-like material, and poemed, so now it’s time for an old-school pearl, to loosen up the old mental muscles, for those among us who enjoy keeping those muscles in the same kind of condition that any world-class athlete enjoys…. To keep any muscle conditioned it takes regular, consistently challenging exercise, that pushes the muscle to its limits before slacking off, preferably for just a bit longer each time, to increase stamina… The mind, though not composed of the same kind of tissue, nevertheless responds to the same sort of challenges; they are simply of a different nature than those that work the muscles attached to our skeletons….


I only wish I could still use those other muscles, the big ones on my body, to stay in the physical shape I was in until my mid-forties, when my injuries began the progressive decline I’ve seen, in my strength, and stamina. Now, sadly, my mind is in much better shape than the rest of me, though I’m still pretty tough…. I just have no stamina, and trying to use my strength and/or skills as if I were younger, stronger, and still limber is more expensive than it is worth, in terms of the pain that comes after such use. As I’m fond of saying, I can still do anything I used to do, but now I pay a much higher price to do so…. So, mostly, I don’t do so…. Now, I’m more likely to say, “I spend my time avoiding pain…”….


I’m uncertain as to how this devolved into a short intimate discussion of my frailties, but, since it did, we’ll just have to ignore it the best we can, and go on to bigger and better things, if that is still possible…. I think if I can just shut myself up for a minute, I can jump in the water before any further incidents of sharing TMI can occur….. Like, right now… Just for the record, no known parameters were used in the collection or inclusion of any of the following pearls…. They’re all fresh from the oyster, just as Mother Nature intended them to be…


“Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.” — Albert Camus (1913-1960)


“Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Roman Apophthegms, Cato the Elder


“He is the best of men who dislikes power.” — Mohammed


And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,

Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.


— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book xiv, Line 520


“These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the scriptural parable, the bland lead the bland.” — John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 – )


“The art of government consist in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens and giving it to another.” — Voltaire


“We have only two things to worry about:  That things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.” — Smart Bee


Well, in today’s case, parameters might have been a good idea…. But, since this one is done, and it’s fairly decent, all in all, I think we’ll let it fly…. I mean, they can’t all be immediately obvious, or for that matter, indelibly relevant…. All they have to do is make you think, and NOT make you feel bad about anything that doesn’t deserve it…. Which, I suppose is what Life is all about, yes?…. Hey, I’ll take whatever metaphor that presents itself, and turn it right into an assertion of consensual reality…. it’s what we do here….

_____________________________


Okay…. I’ve stretched this process until it screamed…. I’ve taken breaks… (in fact, I’m taking one now…. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice…)…. I’ve perused the news, I’ve searched SB for the best pearls I could find. I’ve pre-edited & pre-proofed, which means there will be, without doubt numerous errors in syntax and/or typos which will drive me batty when I find them after I’ve posted this… I’ve racked my brain to find something new, and funny, or compelling to write, which was obviously unsuccessful in the extreme…. I’ve subjected myself to reading a number of my own poems, along with several of Emily’s, and Keats’, before settling on subjecting y’all to a two-fer of my own…


All of that, and it is now 5:09 AM…. The wind here in Northern California is currently blowing at a good semi-typhoon speed, swinging our plant and wind-chime all over where they hang on the porch…. The cat continues to seek out whatever mischief she can find, and I am desperately wishing I could fall back asleep…. Alas, that isn’t to be, at least, not for a while yet…. I may as well post this, and get a bite to eat…. Then, having completed all the tasks involved in my day, I can begin another, while everyone else is up, too…. SIGH…. See ya tomorrow, ffolkes….


Y’all take care out there,

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….




—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes,

I just sits.


gigoid the dubious


dozer3



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Preparing to salivate on command….

			
						

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Ffolkes,


Living with cats is always more than one bargains for; they have a strong connection to the forces of chaos and entropy, and dealing with their capricious natures is as difficult as, well….. as difficult as trying to herd cats…. a well-used, and well-deserved cliche, if not actually an iconic adverbial state…. The potential volatility of a close relationship with a feline can be especially true when one is dealing with a cat with “issues”…… Now, you may ask, what kind of “issues” could such a “wee puir beestie” as these adorable creatures possibly have? Well, I’m here to tell you, they can be quite nasty issues, driven by dark emotional states, and made worse by the lack of human capability to understand the nature of Cat…..


At this point, I would be expected to outline some of the cuter, or perhaps, funnier episodes with our cat that demonstrate how adorable they are, and what wonderful companions they make for us seniors…. and, I would, if I could….. However, OUR cat does NOT do cute, or adorable, or even funny, for that matter…. She just does psycho…. She does that quite well, but I can’t say that as much of a recommendation, as her unfortunate destructiveness tends to keep us scrambling to the store to replace knick knacks at an alarming rate…. We’ve got Bed, Bath, & Beyond on speed dial from having to check their inventory so often, due to PC 14666,destruction of private property by a feline perpetrator acting in the guise of one of Satan’s minions….


This poor little devil started life with some handicaps, unfortunately, which are, sadly, compounded by her relatively obnoxious personality, an unfortunate trait caused by being raised feral for the first month of life…. She’s never really recovered all of the veneer of civilization that more domestic cats assume; she’s got a wild edge she has a hard time controlling, and which causes her, and us, a bit of conflict….. You see, she bites…. the little asshole never learned that it isn’t polite, or acceptable, to bite humans, not even for affection, and certainly not as a habit in anger…. Kitties who develop this habit often end up as recreational flying toys, aka, Frisbees, after having been unceremoniously been tossed on the interstate after biting their human in a pique of anger or warning….


This cat also has the usual cat arrogance, and a number of prerogatives upon which she insists; for example, upon arising in the morning, she informs whoever is up that she wants food, water, an open window, and company, NOW. Actually, anything she wants is required to be furnished NOW, but, this trait is one I don’t worry about, since to a cat, or dog, or other creature of their ilk, NOW is all there is….They don’t spend any mental time in the past, or in the future, so they always want whatever they want right away, simply because, for them, that’s all there is to time….


Now, if only she could learn that counter tops, refrigerators, cupboards, computers, and other parts of the house and furniture are NOT all her domain, and she does NOT have free rein to jump on or into everything she sees….. She also tends to believe that whatever falls on the floor belongs to her, but, in this, at least, she will negotiate, if one is prepared to give up some crumpled up paper, or, even better, tinfoil, in any compromise exchange of favors…. It’s lowering to have to negotiate with a cat, but, they’re very good at hostage situations, so, one must deal on their terms, at least until whatever she’s hidden is found, or rescued….


Now that I’ve demonstrated that we too have a cat, one that can provide nearly unlimited material for study or exposition, merely by existing side by side with us in our domiciles, I suppose I can get on with what we came here for today….. Learning the techniques needed for certain types of literature are well practiced, and better learned by writing about animals….. and, one will find, after a time of watching them closely, describing their behaviors can be a full-time, frustrating job; learning to do so well can be considered excellent training for any writer…. One MUST know how to set a scene, and make the reader see what the author wishes them to see; learning to describe the actions of a Cat are the perfect method for learning to do that well….


None of the above even begins to consider all the material that is also available in this category, of a more complex, personal nature, to wit: writing about our complex, loving, yet adversarial personal relationships with the cattus domesticus with whom we may end up sharing space…. People’s relationships with their cats are as deep, and loving, and complex as those they have with any person…. This, of course, gives us a fertile field from which to draw our subject matter, and makes writing about cats a staple exercise for anyone who wishes to consider themselves to be a competent author….


It’s also quite fun, re-living whatever experiences one has with their cats, who are, in truth, as much our best friends as dogs….. The long-standing agreement we humans have with the cat species is much different than the one we hold with dogs, but it is just as ancient, and just as strong on both sides….


Now that I’ve completely gone off, far afield, in a direction never before taken, there must be some way to get back on track, and get my butt into the water, diving for pearls to create some thoughts in those empty heads out there…. It seems I’d best get to it quickly today, too, as my carpal tunnel has picked today to act up, numbing my fingers as I type…. Oh boy, this will be FUN!….. NOT!  Oh well….


Shall we Pearl?…..


Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,

Is those things arms, or is they legs?

I marvel at thee, Octopus;

If I were thou, I’d call me us.


— Odgen Nash (1902-1971)

_____________________________


Ohmigosh, Most Puissant Keeper, Protector of the Forever Dubious, help us! Do not desert us in our hour of need! Give us this day our humble desire, for sustenance to feed the mind, to help them grow to become worthy tools in the hands of our Gentle Readers. (Hmm…. okay, to all those Gentle Readers out there today….. please ignore any and/or all anatomical inferences, or references, in that last little statement…. I’m afraid I got my metaphors mixed up with my euphemisms, and the results are a bit confusing…. so, never mind….. ) Let Smart Bee, that most excellent of databases, find and offer up the most intelligent, the most ironic, the funniest pearls, no matter how old, dusty, or what dark corner in which is was found….


There you go, ffolkes, my version of prayer…. Let’s hope Ohmisgosh was listening….


“Every day should be passed as if it were to be our last.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 633


“Reality happens when you don’t make it to the bathroom.” — Smart Bee


“It does not matter whether the cat is black or white.  So long as it catches the mouse, it is a good cat.” — Deng Xiaoping


“Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.” — G. K. Chesterton, G.K.’s Weekly, 4/10/26


Men must be taught as if you taught them not,

And things unknown propos’d as things forgot.


— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Criticism, Part iii, Line 15


“Power must never be trusted without a check.” — John Adams

(Side note: When I first saw this, I read it as “never be trusted WITH a check!”….. but, it works either way, doesn’t it?….)


Knowledge by suffering entereth,

And life is perfected by death.


— Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861) — A Vision of Poets, Conclusion


Hmm…. Smart Bee is showing off, I think…. That, or it feels as if the contractual obligation for obscurity hasn’t been met, and is just doing its part to help the team…. I won’t bother to remind it that it’s only January, and we have a very long time to get that done…. It was a nice gesture, even if it does leave us scratching our heads a bit…. I suppose it’s one of those pearls that will sit in there, in our heads, until it ripens, whereupon it will explode, leaving us all in awe at the sheer genius thus displayed….     Or, maybe not…. Only time will tell, once again…. Funny how that keeps happening….

_____________________________


“Verbing weirds language.” — Calvin (from “Calvin and Hobbes”)


Someday, I believe Calvin & Hobbes will be on a par, reputation-wise, with Pogo, Doonesbury, Dilbert, and a few other comic strips that are, because of the genius of their authors, as much social commentary as humor. Calvin’s display of all of the most dramatic human characteristics, including the vices, is perfectly counterbalanced by Hobbes brilliantly wise (both in creativity and common sense…), compassionate, grounded yet wildly original, commentary, whether presented in an existential framework, or something more mundane. With the little complaint above, the creator, Bill Watterson, articulates a particular pet peeve of mine…. in three words…..


I am in awe of this statement, much as when I find a piece of poetry that displays such an innate understanding of language, while simultaneously showing the power of using it well…. Using verbs as nouns, and vice versa, is a habit of modern culture I deplore as much as any other in the field of language usage; seeing it is an issue for others is a big relief to me, especially in a media venue that can influence a lot of people’s attitudes….


Of course, it’s something that will fly right by those millions of folks who DON’T read, either books, or newspapers, but, hey, one can’t have everything…. Those particular folks won’t be worrying much about what a verb is, or a noun, anyway, and won’t be deliberately switching them around to try to appear clever…..


There, now you can never say I don’t just ramble incoherently for no reason at all…. I just saw the quote, and it ticked off this little mini-rant against a very minor form of linguistic ignorance…. As we say around here…. never mind….. Here’s a nice poem to make it all better….. You didn’t notice the spoiler above, in the intro section?…. Don’t worry, neither did I, until the proofing stage…. Our minds can play funny tricks on us, can’t they?….




Adventures Of Isabel


Isabel met an enormous bear,

Isabel, Isabel, didn’t care;

The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,

The bear’s big mouth was cruel and cavernous.

The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,

How do, Isabel, now I’ll eat you!

Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry.

Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.

She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,

Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

Once in a night as black as pitch

Isabel met a wicked old witch.

the witch’s face was cross and wrinkled,

The witch’s gums with teeth were sprinkled.

Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,

I’ll turn you into an ugly toad!

Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry,

Isabel didn’t scream or scurry,

She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,

But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.

Isabel met a hideous giant,

Isabel continued self reliant.

The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,

He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.

Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,

I’ll grind your bones to make my bread.

Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry,

Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.

She nibbled the zwieback that she always fed off,

And when it was gone, she cut the giant’s head off.

Isabel met a troublesome doctor,

He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.

The doctor’s talk was of coughs and chills

And the doctor’s satchel bulged with pills.

The doctor said unto Isabel,

Swallow this, it will make you well.

Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry,

Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.

She took those pills from the pill concocter,

And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.


~~ Ogden Nash ~~


_____________________________


I did a search of the morning’s headlines when I sat down to begin today’s effort, but, found nothing worthy of a rant, or even minor outrage, other than the usual critical view I have regarding the media’s choice of what news is fit to disseminate…. To be fair in their defense, I also try to keep in mind that I don’t have access to, or time to look at, ALL of the information that is out there to be absorbed…. So, I content myself with what passes for mainstream news, without falling into the trap of getting it from any site or organization that has a vested interest in what is to be brought forth…. such as, say, Fox News, MSNBC, or any of the major networks or their affiliates…. In short, I don’t much trust any of the news outlets that have ANY connection to a vested interest, so, it can be hard to get the straight story on many events….


In the long run, this, along with just about anything else one might think of, is a moot point, which only serves to illustrate the reason today’s Pearl won’t have what might usually be expected in the way of a rant, or as my good friend Lou puts it, my “bitching” about society’s ills….. Due to the (apparent) sparsity of my audience, loyal as those few are, I can’t argue that what I’m doing often FEELS like bitching…. That’s okay, though, because I’m only concerned with the message, and getting it over to people who need to hear it; there’s no denying, for that purpose, bitching is good. Well, it feels good, anyway, so, I’ll keep at it….


In the meantime, though, in order to fulfill the formatting requirements of this blog, I have to put SOMETHING here…. This means, of course, it will have to be a random, old-school pearl, with no particular rhyme, reason, or parameters for inclusion, other than…. it must SOUND as if it means something….


“The most important reason for the drug laws in this country is to encourage a healthy distrust for the law.” — Smart Bee


“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge


“Orthodoxy is not thinking – not having to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” — George Orwell (1903-1950), “1984”


“Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.” — Goethe


“In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.” — George Bernard Shaw


“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” — Oscar Wilde


“If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on its headstone might well be:’It seemed like a good idea at the time.'” — Rebecca West


Sometimes, this process works better than I know…. Upon due reflection, this may be one of those times…. Any ideas?….

_____________________________


Well…. instead of going into such a deep subject, or relying solely on what may be the oldest bad joke in the English language, I’ll just go on about my business as though nothing undue or immoral had occurred here…. which, you will note, it didn’t…. technically….. On that relatively positive note,  I bid thee adieu, until tomorrow….


Y’all take care out there,

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….




—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.


gigoid


dozer3



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
By all means, make it palatable….

			
						

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Ffolkes,

Having survived, and even thrived, through another morning’s immersion into the mundane issues of physical demands, I sit to write with clear head, and burgeoning hope. The clarity of mind is welcome, if a tad surprising, and the hope is undefined, but welcome nonetheless for its bolstering qualities. Heretofore, I have been tempted to rail and rant against the inevitable presence of our resident nemesis, but even Murphy cannot disturb me this morning, as I bask in the glow of….. Wait, that isn’t me. I don’t bask, nor do I glow, so what is that doing in my paragraph? And Murphy ALWAYS disturbs me, it’s his job….


Must have been some imp, fussing with my typing hands, slipping that in on me when I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Mischievous little suckers, those imps…. Well, then, good morning, again, or, on looking, initially….. The perfect word to describe my current SOM (State of Mind) would be “discombobulated”, a word of fine pedigree and stately pronunciation, and perfectly descriptive of how it feels this morning to use my brain. Of course, that right there should have been a clue, when I first sat up in bed; one isn’t normally accustomed to “feel” one’s brain when it is working, any more than we “feel” a muscle move when we ask it to perform a task, or “feel” our fingernails growing….. “Feeling” the brain in action would seem to indicate a certain stiffness and/or a degree of dysfunction….


But, then, dysfunctional brain issues are nothing new in my world, so it doesn’t surprise me that I didn’t notice at first how things were going to be today. There are steps I can take, and will take, to reverse the course of my brain’s initial direction, so it isn’t a catastrophe, merely an inconvenience. Hmph…. inconvenience…. there’s another word that I’ve become all too familiar with in the last couple of years, at the behest of the federal government…. Ah well, inconvenience has yet to transform into impossibly frustrating, though it does approach that level regularly, so I guess we’ll just accept this as one more day started out with less than normal smoothness, and get on with it….


With all of that noted, whatever it was, we should now proceed to our daily attempt to bring some degree of comprehension to reality, to try to stimulate some random coherence amongst the population, with the overall intent of increasing the total amount of thinking that goes on in any particular day on this planet…. The more thoughts floating around, the better chance we have of one of them helping the situation, desperate as it may be. All you can do is all you can do, and this is what I do….. Shall we Pearl?…..

__________________________________


“I always have a quotation for everything  — it saves original thinking.” — Dorothy Sayers


I knew there was something about Ms. Sayers I liked! Besides her books, of course….. My muse seems to be taking a short sabbatical, and I’m stuck here, trying to figure out something about which to write, or rant. I really do feel like I’d like to take some shots at the government, but an appropriate pearl doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. However, some others have surfaced that will do quite nicely for an old school pearl, so I’m forced, as it were, to fall back on that format….. Here then are some relatively random, but pointed thoughts on government, and the peripheral co-conspirators of those who delve into that cesspool of human ambition….


“Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is the governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the king, and yet another will think he is God.  Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy, and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967)


“A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome.  Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.” — H. L. Mencken


“Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.” — G. K. Chesterton, G.K.’s Weekly, 4/10/26


“A man attains an elevated position only when his mediocrity prevents him from being a threat to others. And for this reason a democracy is never governed by the most competent, but rather by those whose insignificance will not jeopardize anyone else’s self-esteem.” — Nicolo Machiavelli


“Men often believe — or pretend — that the “Law” is something sacred, or at least a science — an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments.” — Smart Bee


“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.  Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.  Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.  Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” — Patrick Henry 3 Elliot at 45, Debates In The Virginia Convention


“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.” — H.L. Mencken


I LOVE this job! Oh, wait, that’s right, nobody’s paying me…. well, it’s probably a good thing, then, that I enjoy it so much….. That last line turned this from an merely average poke at the PTB, aka our beloved ruling class, into quite an adequate rip. So be it….. and let us thank our lucky stars I didn’t fall into a rant, which, by the look of the above, would have been a doozy….. (I must have used that word previously, as Spell Checker ignored it completely…..)

__________________________________


“All men are poets.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson


“All poets are mad.” — Robert Burns



‘Perhaps not to be is to be without your being.’


Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,

without your going, that cuts noon light

like a blue flower, without your passing

later through fog and stones,

without the torch you lift in your hand

that others may not see as golden,

that perhaps no one believed blossomed

the glowing origin of the rose,

without, in the end, your being, your coming

suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,

blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:

and it follows that I am, because you are:

it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:

and, because of love, you will, I will,

We will, come to be.


Pablo Neruda

__________________________________


All of us have our little illusions about life, and how we fit into the big picture. For example, I like to think that I am fortunate to have been born with more than an average appreciation of the world in which we live, or perhaps, a deeper understanding than most of how it works, and just how beautiful it is. This isn’t to say that I am better than any other person in any way; it’s just that my perceptions have always been faster, and deeper, and more accurate than those of my peer group, by all the evidence I can muster. It is not just a blessing, either, for it is just as much a curse, tending to cause a certain distance between me and others, one that takes time, and familiarity, and a certain willingness on my part to adapt, to keep that distance from becoming a problematic issue…..


“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.” — Jean Jacques Rousseau, “Emile, ou de l’education”, 1762


To look at this blog, it would seem that I am one who knows little, as I tend to ramble on incessantly, seeming to care not at all that I am exposing my potential ignorance to others. And, quite simply, I don’t care…. For most of my life, I spent a lot of time keeping my mouth shut, and my opinions to myself, even though I could see that what I was thinking was more accurate, and certainly more reasonable, than what I was observing others to perceive, and/or think. Or, in many cases, what passed for thinking….


Over the last 60 years, mostly, I kept my silence on a wide range of subjects, to preserve peace, and to ensure that my opinions, which were often radically different than those of my peer group, did not produce enmity among them. Since retiring from work, and reducing my social interaction to the lowest level of my life, I find that all those opinions and thoughts are pouring out of me at an almost alarming rate. I also find that I quite simply don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it….


Invictus


Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud

Under the bludgeoning of chance;

My head is bloody but unbowed.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll;

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.


— Henley


Not that I will not listen to opposing viewpoints; I am always ready to consider reasonable contrary evidence. But, if anyone gets offended, or upset in their emotional status in any way, by what I’ve written, well, all I can say is, too bad, so sad….. Any such will just have to learn to live with disappointment, I guess…. Actually, now that I’ve gotten used to being able to express myself without any self-imposed limitations, outside the boundaries of good taste, and compassion, I enjoy hearing what others may have to say about my thoughts. Dialogue with a challenging mind can be an intense pleasure, for sure, and I like it when people argue with me with passion, and reason.


“Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.” — Slovenian Proverb


However, I have also found that this piece of advice to be a valuable one. Sometimes (most times, actually….) it is a good thing to say what is there to be said, and then leaving….. This allows the other party to assimilate the ideas, and to come to some conclusions about it, without having the distraction of my presence. If their reaction is one of great passion in a negative sense, then it is better that I’m not there to either witness it, or to suffer its perpetration upon my psyche; in extreme cases, it saves me from having to duck and cover, or to defend myself on a physical level, neither of which is a preferable outcome to peaceful dialogue. So, I tend to say my piece, then boogie, as it were, to avoid any potential unpleasantness….


Having now submitted nearly eight hundred words in support of the first aphorism in this section, I’ll try to bring this to a logical close. I guess I’ll do it like this….. I saw a picture on Facebook, with some accompanying text that is the perfect ending for this small diatribe…. It’s a small piece of advice, well-stated, that summarizes what I’m saying quite nicely, to wit:


“If you really want to learn how to not care about what others think, just study your cat….. Seriously, they don’t give a shit.”


Pax ominbus……

__________________________________


Not too shabby, for one created sans any help from my muse…. Though, come to think of it, that last section may have been a late gift from them….. Hmm… I guess now I’ll have to apologize to them for doubting their loyalty and work ethic…. So be it. Now that the delusional portion of the program is completed, it must be time to send this on its way through cyberspace into the internet cloud…. as soon as the library opens….. 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


Kowabunga!



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
The rules call for wearing magic knickers….

			
						

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Ffolkes,

I am damned. In fact, I am damned by God Himself…. He told me Himself, back when we were kids together in Jerusalem, oh, two or so thousand years ago…. You see, we didn’t get along very well. Our families lived in different parts of town; His was from the Golan Heights district, up there where all the priests, and political figures, and all the other rich folks lived. Mine lived downtown as far as you could go; the river was my backyard…… He called himself Yeshua back then; what I am called doesn’t matter any more…. but you can call me by the name I am known by in history books…. you can call me Judas…..


Well, that would certainly make for a decent story…. easy to write, too, as a lot of the action has already been covered by history and religious books, so I could pick and choose what stories to include…. all, of course, looked at through my mind’s filter, and twisted just right to fit into the story line….. It would probably be fun to write, but it might not be the best activity I could choose from a karmic standpoint…. Many ffolkes consider it rude to make fun of religions, and, concurrently, making fun of their constituents.


Me, I enjoy it. The stiff, prudish people who make such complaints are, in my mind, the perfect targets for such barbed humor, as they have chosen to have no sense of humor, and are a pain in the ass to be around, for anyone with more than two functional brain cells…..




But, that’s all just camouflage, this morning, anyway….


The truth is, I’m out of material…. can’t think of a damn thing to write about, and Smart Bee isn’t cooperating. I spent a half-hour last night searching for some pearls for this morning, and could only come up with more Shakespeare BS couplets for my growing collection. It’s beginning to look as if I’ll have to break down and use….. no, I won’t do it. I won’t go to my last resort….. It can’t be THAT bad yet. I refuse to go there….


Instead, we’ll just go diving, and hope for the best…. shall we Pearl?…..

___________________________________


Unwrapped Morning


A jewel of deepest green, sparkles by firelight

Held fast by time, and space

Leaves only passive passion, pale and bright

Naught but grief, yet but a trace.


In morning’s bright parlor, burning for hate

Unspent moments fall, seeking pain

Spilling blood forlornly, cowed by fate

Left with nothing, life in vain.


Pallid purpose calls, to that fallow ground

In bold fashions, aflame

Conscience falls aside, value unbound

Death calls, forever lost, the game……


gigoid


Hmm…. not too bad, all in all. It certainly ripped out a piece of my soul, and laid it out there for all to see….. and if nothing else, it counts as a pearl…..  🙂

___________________________________


Here we have an old school pearl, on a subject which, though not near and dear to my heart, is nevertheless often in the forefront of my awareness, such as it is…. Aging gracefully in a world designed to prevent any such dignified efforts….. let’s see what Smart Bee and his cronies have to say about it…..


“I don’t want to be young again, I just don’t want to get any older.” — Smart Bee


EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

1. Share everything.

2. Play fair.

3. Don’t hit people.

4. Put things back where you found them.

5. Clean up your own mess.

6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

7. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

8. Wash your hands before you eat.

9. Flush.

10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

11. Live a balanced life–learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

12. Take a nap every afternoon.

13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

15. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup–they all die. So do we.

16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned–the biggest word of all–LOOK.

— Robert Fulghum


“He’s so old his blood type was discontinued.” — Bill Dana


Remote from cities liv’d a swain,

Unvex’d with all the cares of gain;

His head was silver’d o’er with age,

And long experience made him sage.

— John Gay (1688-1732) — Fables, Part i, The Shepherd and the Philosopher


“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” — Smart Bee


“A desire not to butt into other people’s business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom… and the other twenty percent isn’t very important.”

“You butt into other people’s business.  All the time.”

“Who said I was wise?  I’m a professional bad example.  You can learn a lot by watching me.”

— Lazarus Long, from Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein


And what, pray tell, has attaining this advanced age brought in the way of wisdom?  Just this…..


“Just smile and nod. You’ll get through a lot of life that way.” — Richard Langellotti

___________________________________


Okay, since I’m not finding anything in Smart Bee, we’ll go lazy….. here are some pictures of cats, found on Facebook, that are pretty self-explanatory…..




___________________________________


This may be the laziest Pearl ever….. other than the poem, which is always a painful process, I’ve pretty much avoided any of the usual long-winded rants and/or essays that are staple for the normal state of events here. This could be a good thing….. I guess we’ll see…. 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!



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
All washed clean with decadence…..

			
						

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Ffolkes,


Unheard murmurs of savage rage,

Unseen images of screaming terror,

Unknown, adrift in a sea of ignorance and folly

Chained to reality with shackles of hate and fear.

Breathing in hope, while exhaling despair, cannot

Bring balance to broken intention.

Knocked down twice,

Get up thrice,

Strive to serve Life/Death

Children’s laughter, in a large, colorful cup.


Hmm….. It’s not bad, for an off-the-cuff effort. It is definitely a product of my sub-conscious, because none of this stuff was part of my thought stream this morning, until I started to type. I admit, it’s a bit grim, and I went for a ‘modern verse’ feel, by not trying to rhyme any of it, but, I’ve done a lot worse, and it did break the ice….


Rather than frighten you off any further, I think we should just forget all this, and go find some oysters….. Shall we Pearl?…..

___________________________________


“Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.” — Voltaire

    And, they provide us humans with daily examples of how to live life with compassion and unconditional love…. We could all stand to learn those lessons well….

___________________________________


“There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying.” — Josh Billings


Without me having to say a word, you may be able to guess who comes to my mind when I see this. Yes, indeed, Mitt the Twitt, who continues to amaze the world with his uncanny ability to find his mouth with his foot, no matter what the circumstances may be. His most recent attempts to make the Top Ten Idiot’s du Jour list came in England, as he spent three days there spouting gaffe after gaffe, insulting the English people, and generally making a fool of himself on an international stage. 


I can hardly wait to see what he says and does in his next stop, which I believe is Italy…. That should be interesting, especially if he sees the Pope…. the richest Mormon in the world talking with the richest Catholic in the world…. they should get along like bacon and eggs…..


That’s all…. surprise, surprise!  I thought I’d give y’all, and me, a bit of a break, and not overdo it with the Twitt bashing today. A one and a half paragraph rant is all it really takes, anyway. He is, by far, the easiest political target I’ve ever had to work with, given his habit of shooting off his mouth, with a deadly aim, right at his own foot, on a multiple-times-daily schedule. So, enjoy the break today…. just keep your eye on the news, and rest assured, he will have provided material for more ‘discussion’ before the end of the day today….

___________________________________


A man sought medical aid because he was crippled and could hardly walk. The foot doctor suggested surgery. After the operation, nothing changed. The man then consulted a bone surgeon, who suggested surgery on his legs. After this second operation, nothing changed. The man went to a chiropractor for six months, and no change was effected, although he was told his spine was out of line. Finally the man consulted a psychiatrist at great expense, and the doctor told him he was totally suicidal and would die within months. Despondent, the man went out and spent a great deal of money on a new wardrobe. At the shoe store, he ordered the finest, a size 10. The salesperson said he needed size 11, but the man insisted on a size 10. “Look here,” said the salesperson, “if you were a size 10 you are going to get crippled and wish you were dead.” — Smart Bee


“More people died from worrying than ever bled to death” — Robert Heinlein


“Do not let trifles disturb your tranquility of mind. The little pinpricks of daily life when dwelt upon and magnified, may do great damage, but if ignored or dismissed from thought, will disappear from inanition. Most men have worried about things which never happened, and more men have been killed by worry than by hard work. Life is so great in its opportunities and possibilities, that you should rise confidently above the inevitable trifles incident to daily contact with the world. Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the nonessential and transient… Ignore the inconsequential.” — Grenville Kleiser


I’ve included these three quotes here for a dual purpose…. The first is to give my readers some good food for thought, and I can think of no better than this lesson for that. We all tend to forget this truism, and forget what we all heard as a child, to wit: “Don’t sweat the small stuff….”  


If you didn’t hear that as a child, well, either somebody forgot to tell you, or you grew up on another planet. Regardless of the reason, it’s something just about everybody knows, and seldom does…. And that segues into the second purpose, which was to give myself a boot in the ass for forgetting it! Mission accomplished there….


I know perfectly well how important this is; it is one of the basic concepts that helped me overcome the worst of my depression years ago, right after the incident which triggered it. “Don’t sweat the small stuff….”   Why?  Because there isn’t anything to be done about it. All you can do, is all you can do…. and don’t you forget it……   🙂

___________________________________


The picture used today was found, as usual, on Facebook, with no attribution given….. It’s been a long, strange trip today, from there to here. I think I should go do something else now…. 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!



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Methodical methods for modified slavish sycophants….

			
						

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Ffolkes,

Today, I am a man. I was a man yesterday, too. Tomorrow, I’m turning in my papers, and will be out of the door, and well on my way to a better existence, as a cat.


Yep. A cat. I’m tired of this mankind nonsense…. this species has none of the characteristics with which I would prefer to live my life, spending it instead in mad paroxysms of idiotic warfare, abuse of women and children, and self-hatred disguised as racism and bigotry. Cats don’t do any of that stuff, and after long negotiations with the gods of reincarnation (they’re pretty nice once you get to know them), I have secured an appointment to change species…..


Day after tomorrow, my biggest decisions will involve when and where to nap, whether to annoy a human or comfort one, or whether to eat now, or later….. I won’t have to worry about Mitt the Twitt threatening to destroy all the progress our society has made in the last 100 years. I won’t have to worry about taxes. I won’t have to worry that some asshole banker wants more of my money, or that some politician is spreading more lies. None of that will have any more bearing on what I’m doing, and boy, am I looking forward to it…. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Just ask any conservative American church-goer….. you can find a passel of them hanging around at the Westboro Baptist Church….


Today, however, I am tasked with once more heading into the breech, taking up the challenge, and producing a Pearl of Virtual Wisdom (affectionately known as “Pearls”…). Since that is a task that promises to be quite a challenge today, I’d best be about it….. Shall we Pearl?…..

___________________________________


“Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.” — J. R. R. Tolkien


What we think is less than what we know:

What we know is less than what we love:

What we love is so much less than what there is:

and to this precise extent, We are much less than what we are.

— R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience


Psychobabble, by any other name, could not be any stupider than this. And that is a period at the end of that sentence, which means  no more that needs to be said about it. Since that goes against all the rules here, I’ll have to say this…. R.D. Laing was first caught spouting the above nonsense just about the time I was in Psych. Tech. school at Cuesta College/Atascadero State Hospital, and was one of the psychotherapists we studied in that school. At the time, he had a lot of followers, though not many in our class; our exposure to the individuals who received treatment at ASH made his techniques rather useless. But, it is another example of the power of human stupidity, and how it permeates every level of society….


A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Criticism, Part ii, Line 15


Any fool can read a book or two, then write one that makes fun of those books. Then, they start spouting nonsensical, meaningless aphorisms such as the one above in public, on radio and TV talk shows, and go on a whirlwind tour of bookstores to encourage more people to buy the book, and spread their nonsense out over the whole of society. This is proof of Mssr. Pope’s first line, “A little learning is a dangerous thing,”, as the little bit of learning the author has engaged in becomes his/her tower of information, their bastion of expertise,  unassailable by either logical or intuitive reasoning, until their brand of ignorance joins the top-ten list of humanity’s follies, right up there with religion, and politics…..


“How many people eat, drink, and get married; buy, sell and build; make contracts and attend to their fortune; have friends and enemies, pleasures and pains, are born, grow up, live and die – but asleep!” — Joseph Joubert


Our culture is dying, if not already dead. When it reaches the point where 20 million people, or more, will choose a man like the Twitt over the incumbent president, just because his skin isn’t white, (yes, racists, all of them. They just use the healthcare, birther, and other issues they jump on to sublimate their fear of the “darkie” in the Oval Office….), then culture is dead. If not now, it certainly will go down in flames should that fool be elected, as he tries to guide society back to the Stone Age. Should he enter that office, I shudder to think of how our image to the rest of the world will suffer, as Mitt the Twitt knows NOTHING about other countries, other than how their tax laws may favor him in his goal to become a modern Croesus….


Face it, ffolkes, this election isn’t about healthcare, or jobs, or women’s rights, or immigration. It is about race, and the time has come for those of us who are aware of this to speak out, to shout out, and point out the ignorance and lies that are being bandied about like candy at Halloween. The forces of Evil are at large, and have taken control of the fanatic zealots on the conservative right. In addition they have recruited all those in our culture who are closet racists, supplying sublimation issues for the real reason they fight so hard against this president. It is the responsibility of those who are on the side of Reason to fight back, as best we may without resorting to the methods used by the other side, which would put us in the same hypocritical boat.


Stay alert, ffolkes, the time is coming when hard decisions will need to be made…. be ready, or we will all be going down the road to Hell in the same handbasket….. and remember….


“It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

___________________________________


A clock stopped — not the mantel’s

Geneva’s farthest skill

Can’t put the puppet bowing

That just now dangled still.


An awe came on the trinket!

The figures hunched with pain,

Then quivered out of decimals

Into degreeless noon.


It will not stir for doctors,

This pendulum of snow;

The shopman importunes it,

While cool, concernless No


Nods from the gilded pointers,

Nods from seconds slim,

Decades of arrogance between

The dial life and him.


— Emily Dickinson


I was in need of a bit of esoterica, to bring some balance after ranting, and this little piece of Emily does the trick just fine…. enjoy!

___________________________________


Fetch the holy hand grenade …. — Smart Bee


I am perplexed. Perhaps you can help?….. This tagline popped up in front of me twice in a three-second period this morning while searching for pearls, so I figure Smart Bee wants me to use it pretty badly. Unfortunately, I can’t, as I’m uncertain as to its exact meaning.


Does the fact that it is holy come from being blessed by some earthly representative of a holy figure? Or was it created from nothing, a virgin-birth sort of thing, by God Himself? Or is it a holy hand grenade because it blows up holy stuff, or maybe because it leaves places all holy (full of holes…)? These are important things to know before I can commit to using it as basis for a rant. Ranting is a delicate undertaking, and it could be potentially embarrassing to rant for a while, then discover my subject is completely 180 degrees removed from what I thought it was; I blush easily, and don’t enjoy making such mistakes…


Ah well, it doesn’t matter in the long run, I suppose. Whether it is one, or the other, really shouldn’t matter to me; as a writer, I should be able to use it either way. But, I’m a stubborn old cuss, if nothing else, and I insist on knowing beforehand exactly who it is I am defiling, or exactly what weapon I’m using to cut through the bullshit to the core of meaning. It’s just a Ned-thing, you wouldn’t understand….


Four paragraphs of prattle isn’t too bad, especially on such short notice, so I guess we can call this a pearl, if just barely. I’m getting very close to 400 posts here on WP, and over a thousand pages of material have been created to fill those posts, so, as might be suspected, I am getting very short on material upon which  I haven’t previously expounded. Hence, fill-in material such as this, where I can waste a good three or four hundred words just fooling around, without ever approaching anything remotely important or relevant to our purpose. It’s a gift…..  🙂


Now, if you would please, sit down, remain silent, and no one will get hurt…. I don’t wish to harm anyone, but I will not be thwarted in my quest to finish this pearl on a dignified note. Just where that dignity is supposed to come from, I haven’t the foggiest notion, but, having done all I could possibly do to find some, I find myself stuck for an ending line.


Please, stop me! This damn pearl won’t let me finish. It keeps wandering from one non-concept to another, and dragging me along like a stupid dog. I guess I will have to resort to a hard re-boot. Here goes…..    Eureka! I have found it!  And I’m not giving it back….

___________________________________


Well, that was interesting….. a new method of wasting time and energy. As if I needed any more…. Ah well, c’est la vie! 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!



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Justifiable lyrics cost more today…..

			
						

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Ffolkes,

Perhaps, as some say, fate is already set in stone, and our own desires and actions cannot change what is written there. Others will say nay to that, holding that we are the masters of our own fate, and determine its reality as we move through time. Me, I don’t really give a shit as long as my beer is cold, and my coffee hot. The rest can just go and take a flying hike (which is obviously a euphemism for ‘go f___ yourself!’), because it don’t matter to me.


Actually, that’s a wad of gobshite, too. Although true enough, at least about the coffee & beer, I’m not quite as calloused & indifferent as I like to pretend to be. The sad truth is that I cry at the slightest bit of stress, empathetic pain, or even romanticism, a happy left-over from my time in Hell (aka, when I was buried in the blues….deep depression, yes?).


But, mostly, the entire issue of fate doesn’t weigh heavily on my mind. I figure that if it is already written, then there’s no sense worrying it to death, or trying to change it. And if it isn’t, well, I’ve probably got time to figure out the best way to approach that bit of responsibility, before it gets out of control. Either way, it doesn’t seem to require that I pay a lot of attention; the perpetual motion machine that is the Universe trots merrily along on its own, blissfully indifferent, unaware and uncaring of either my support and approval, or of my frustration and resentment…..

___________________________________


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

— Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxvii


Just as an exercise, think about this statement, and determine if it is true, or false. If you are like me, about half-way through the second sentence, a ripping headache will blossom quickly in your head. You know the kind: your eyes narrow, and your brows furrow; it creeps swiftly up the back of the neck like a lance of electricity, spreading up through the cranial cavity to sit just over the temples, throbbing, sounding a discordant crescendo, with nausea churning in response, and a diffuse feeling of impending doom. A real Chernobyl of headaches. And that is prior to actually considering the propositions; you really don’t want to know what that will do….


It’s too bad actually. Back in the day, when I was young, and invulnerable, I could read something like this, and chew it up like penny candy. But I was much more pompous then, full of my own sense of importance (ah, yes, the illusions of youth!), and not yet worn down by the millstone of Time. Today, my usual response to a request to put myself through something of this nature is to tell the person to get a clue, and go take a nap.


Back in the day, though, I did think about these statements, and found them to be, as far as they go, true. They are useful, in the way they encourage close attention to appearances. But in general, in this form, with this sort of complexity and weight, these principles will send most folks off to have an ice cream sundae, rather than stimulating them to think…. one needs to be a little tricky to stimulate thought in your average Joe…. it’s just not one of the general public’s strong suits…


“Oh you who are born of the blood of the gods, Trojan son of Anchises, easy is the descent to Hell; the door of dark Dis stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps and come out to the air above, that is work, that is labor!” — Virgil, The Aeneid

___________________________________


“They smell, they snarl and they scratch; they have a singular aptitude for  shredding rugs, drapes and upholstery; they’re sneaky, selfish and not at all smart; they are disloyal, condescending and totally useless in any  rodent-free environment.” — Jean-Michel Chapereau, on cats


For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat. (Jean-Michele obviously has been….and still resents it..)


In fact, learning to live with, and appreciate, a cat can teach us a great many lessons about interpersonal, and inter species, relationships. Cats do not have the same relationship with us as dogs, or other pets. There is a certain formality, a very strict set of protocols, that must be observed in order to live peacefully with a cat; in addition, they do not appreciate changes in their environment, hate surprises, and have no compunctions about expressing their opinions if these protocols are not faithfully fulfilled. One learns quickly to understand this, the first time they get up in the morning to find their cat’s opinion of something deposited in their shoes.


Once a human has agreed to observe the niceties, cats are excellent companions. They are neat and tidy, and don’t take up much space, especially as they can fit themselves into spaces much smaller than they appear to be, as well as possessing the uncanny talent of being able to get into a room with no open windows or doors. It is a bit disconcerting at times, to open up a kitchen drawer to find a cat taking a nap, or find them in the library, enjoying a postprandial bath, after just seeing them in the kitchen, eating from their bowl, mere seconds ago.


But, they don’t run up big phone bills, they don’t leave clothes all over the common rooms, they never borrow your favorite sweater, or ask you for a temporary loan. They will insist that when they want your attention, you will stop whatever you are doing to give it; this generally happens when you are reading or typing, and your furry, compact roommate decides he want a lap for a nap, so they sit on the book, or walk across the keyboard, tail up, ass in your face, complaining that you’re not living up to your responsibility. It is not generally a hardship to give them what they ask for, because the rewards are worth it.


When you are feeling blue, your cat will come sit with you, and purr with contentment, sending out vibes of love and approval to heal your troubled spirit. They will entertain you with silliness, skill, and quirky behaviors that bring a smile to your face, every time. They will protect you from attacks by invisible beings from other dimensions, that only they can see (what did you think they were doing staring at that empty corner, or spot on the wall?).


They will provide you with fashion advice and decorating tips, usually in the form of a sign of disgust toward the object that offends their sense of taste or sensibility. They will provide you with a rodent-free domicile, company, affection, and love. All you have to do is fulfill your part of the bargain, by providing food, shelter, laps, toys, and the occasional bit of attention. It’s a pretty good deal, all in all……


Great! My cat has been cashing my reality checks again!

___________________________________


“It’s a buck dancer’s choice my friend, you better take my advice.

You know all the rules by now, and the fire from the ice.

Ain’t no time to hate

— there’s barely time to wait.

Wo ho, what I want to know: where does the time go?” — Robert Hunter


Where does the time go? And who says so? Where does your lap go, when you stand up? Where are all those socks that have been lost over the years in the wash? If it’s an unknown soldier, whose side was he on, and how do we know? If Billy stays at his work, baiting lines on a tuna boat, a long time, does that make him a Master Baiter? If Time is a river, or a road stretching out before us, how does it fly? If a butterfly flying away from its cocoon can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, what happens when an elephant poops? Why on Earth did kamikaze pilots wear helmets? Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?


These are the kinds of things that trouble mankind? Well, no, but I tend to think about them a lot. I’m curious, and there are still a lot of things I have to learn; one can only learn when they admit they don’t know. Why, you may ask, do I spend my time on such nonsense? That’s an easy one. Because I damn well want to, and it’s none of your damn business what I do inside my own head. But, since you’ve asked so nicely, I’ll put down my curmudgeon cudgel, and tell you. It all started when I was young, and my brother accidentally stepped on my nose. You might wonder what my nose was doing under his foot, but you’ll be disappointed to learn that you’ll never know, because it’s not relevant, or germane to our discussion.


What is relevant is this….. That event taught me that life is hard enough to deal with just as it is; there is pain, and suffering, and a seemingly hostile Universe with which we must contend every minute of every day. There’s no need to add another layer of difficulty by refusing to see the other side of that seriousness, that little bit of nonsense that is present every where and every when, in everything we do, and in everything that happens to us. We are all Bozos on this bus, and when the nose shows, you must let it grow. There will be time enough to be plenty serious when serious problems need to be addressed; whenever we have the opportunity to experience the lighter side of existence, it makes good sense to take it. Or, as so aptly put by Willie Wonka: “A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”…….. Cheers, and welcome to the parade!…….

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Sophie Tucker was unique. I know that it sounds trite, but if there ever was someone who deserved the attribution, it was her. I can still remember the sense of awe, and the chills down my back, the first time I heard her sing, sometime around 1957. The song was “God Bless America”, and she let that huge voice free on the high notes; I’d wager no glass containers were left unshattered in the studio where it was recorded. Amazing pipes! And she had a personality to match.


 Below I have listed three jokes attributed to her; the first I read in my quote database, the other two are from Bette Midler, told orally during her concerts….. enjoy a real lady’s sense of ribald humor….. In my mind, I can just see the huge smile and sparkle in her eyes when she related these gems of wisdom….


“From birth to age eighteen a girl needs good parents; from eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks; from thirty-five to fifty-five she needs  a good personality; from fifty-five on, she needs good cash.” — Sophie Tucker


Sophie and her boyfriend Ernie were making love…. Ernie says, “Sophie! Your t__s are small, and your p____y is tight!”  “Ernie” says Sophie, “Get off my back!” — as related by Bette Midler


Sophie was on the phone with her boyfriend, Ernie; both of them are in their 80’s. Ernie brags “Sophie, I’ve got a girlfriend who’s 20 years old!” Sophie replies, “Ernie, I’ve got a boyfriend who’s 20, too, and I’ll bet you a hundred that 20 goes into 80 more times than 80 goes into 20!” — as related by Bette Midler


SIGH!…. You gotta admit, she had style…..even if it proves to be an urban myth, it’s an attractive, and believable one…..

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I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it,

Time in hours, days, years,

Driv’n by the spheres

Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world

And all her train were hurl’d.

— Henry Vaughan  — The World


I don’t have a lot to say about this. It’s lovely, and deep. Reading it engenders the feeling of weight that one associates with Time, and its structural rhythm lends itself to a soothing train of thoughtful images, all of which make his message come into clearer focus. A very excellent example of the power that poetry has, in the right hands….

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Got a bit of a late start today; didn’t wake up until after 0615. Coffee was already hot & waiting (thanks to technology!) (why did it take so long to come up with a coffee maker that could start itself at a certain time? Seems like a no-brainer to me….) Any who, though starting late, it all came together pretty well, I think, so I’ll call it a day for this particular activity.


Now I can try to get caught up to the 20 or so emails of new posts by the bloggers I follow, a daily task growing larger each day. I love it though, it gives me a ton of food for thought. I feel bloated and replete, mostly in a good way, some mornings after seeing some of the stuff other folks are up to out there on the Net. Tasty stuff…. y’all take care out there…


 


—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.gigoid


Dozer
Kowabunga!



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Unraveling the Celtic knot….

			
						

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Ffolkes,

T’is morning again, and as the castle awoke, I strode down the chancel steps, thoughts focused on breaking my fast. Years ago, none were so bold as to tell me, but all looked at me askance, with questions and fear in their eyes. Aye, none would tell me, but all knew. They all knew that I, Raxom, heir to the throne of Saxony, had been abducted by a wizard when very small, and no amount of raging and blustering, and charging around the kingdom searching had brought me home.


At the end of a month, I was found, asleep in a basket, left on the steps of the scullery door. No marks, and no evidence of foul play were found on me, and being too young to talk, I could not tell them. I could not tell them that the old wizard who had taken me had changed me somehow. No longer a babe, I looked around me with bright, interested eyes; the scullery maids tittered and fluttered, as I peered at them from my basket, for I looked at them with eyes older than the sun. Pay heed now, as I tell the rest of my tale, a tale of power, and magic, and matters of highest import…….


There…. that feels better. Sorry, that’s been stuck in there for awhile; I’m glad it finally worked its way out into the light. They tend to fester if they stay in my head too long….. and now we can go on to something a bit more constructive, and more fun…..though, I have to say, this one was a delight to process; no stumbles or blockages noted…. a very polite little pair of paragraphs, if I do say so myself…..

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“Let us go forth not as defenders of the status quo, but as crusaders with a revolutionary idea – that government should be the servant and not the master of the people; that its purpose is to protect, not deny, each man’s freedom; that the purpose of a free press is to liberate, not enslave the human spirit.” — From the speech made by A. S. Hills upon taking office as President of the Inter-American Press Association


This noble aim seems to have fallen out of favor with modern media professionals. The Internet now acts as the limitless source of otherwise hidden information that accumulates around government activities, while the newspaper, radio , and TV reporters spend their time endlessly dissecting and discussing the details of the same shared stories. The unfortunate side effect that needs to be taken into account in using information from the ‘Net is the frequent and obvious slant to the information put out by some sites; these slants can be as misleading as the nonsense the “major networks” are spouting, influenced as they are by folks who, though not of the powerful elite, very much have their own agenda, one that has little to do with what is best for you and me…


Thus, finding sources of information that can be trusted becomes a critical element in the fight to keep up with the events that shape reality; it can be a time consuming effort, culminating in thorough testing of the information gathered against what we know to be real, before deciding whether to utilize it or not. Even when we have made such a decision, we have to regularly run the same test over all the sources we use, for safety’s sake…. annoying, but necessary. Using the old 50/25/0% ratio (one should only believe 50% of what is seen, 25% of what is read, and nothing of what is heard) it doesn’t take long to wean out the sources that are unfit for data consumption. This is important to know in a world where having accurate data is essential to solving the equation of life; starting with false assumptions, or false data, can only lead to erroneous outcomes…… and there are enough folks out there filling that evolutionary niche already….

___________________________________


They say that a dog never steps on a cursed object.


I would say this is probably true; as well, one might include cats in this category of creature, i.e., one who perceives more than what a mere human is capable of seeing. How often have you seen a cat sitting, perfectly still, staring with intense concentration at a point on the floor, or wall? I see them do that often; I figure they are using their mental power of telekinesis to hold shut a door between universes where bad/evil uglies are just waiting to cross over to our universe to steal our Kiss albums and recipes for homemade dumplings. It’s either that, or they are messing with our heads, a habit any cat owner will tell you is common in the species.


Dogs never do that, not purposely; they’re too nice, too innocent for such games. Cats can be nice, too, when it is in their self interests to be so; they can also be as disapproving and cold as your Great Aunt Minnie’s oatmeal. All in all, though, I’d say the collaboration between man, dog, and cat, a pact entered into many generations ago around a campfire, has, for the most part, worked out well for all three parties. I know for certain that I mostly prefer the company of dogs and cats over that of my fellow man; they’ve given me much more reason to trust them than 99% of the people I’ve met in my life….. and they’re mostly better company, to boot….

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“Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun.  At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact.  That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology.  Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates.” — Martin Gardner, “Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life”, — The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131


This is one of the clearest statements I’ve seen regarding this subject, and I was going to use it to poke more fun at the politicians in the news, but decided instead to just examine the concept for relevance. Evolution seems such common sense to me that I have a hard time believing that adult, presumably educated people can truthfully express their doubt as to it’s veracity. But, as a matter of fact, the two leading Republican presidential contenders currently hogging the headlines have both called evolution an “unproven theory”, though they are not able or willing to supply any physical, or even logical, evidence supporting that contention; it’s just their opinion, smirk, smirk, wiggle eyebrows…. My simple question for you is this….. are you willing to allow these people to have the power to launch nuclear weapons? To speak for us before the world? To have a mandate to force the rest of us to adopt their insanity? I didn’t think so……. neither do I…..

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“The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: “Of course it is none of my business, but –” is to place a period after the word “but.” Don’t use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”


I tend to use quotes from this book a lot; it’s a tour de force of much of Heinlein’s body of work, and includes a segment called “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”. The Notebooks are a compendium of quotations on life that come from the wisdom of a man who, by the beginning of the central story in the book, had already lived through 2300 years of human history.  That’s a pretty long time to hang around this old place, and in order to survive that long, some basic patterns of thought and attitude are revealed as being valuable for their usefulness in the Art of Survival. 


As a matter of fact, ‘useful’ may be one of the defining characteristics of all the quotations, and attitudes, that are included in the Notebooks. There are too many to cover in a short piece of work like this one (though  long/short is debatable when talking of P.O.V.W….), but I will leave you with one of the deepest and most useful of all the fabulous entries…..


“Always store beer in a dark place.”– Lazarus Long  (Think about it awhile; it will grow as you think…..)

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Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.


And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.


I’ve heard it in the chillest land

And on the strangest sea,

Yet never in extremity

It asked a crumb of me.

— Emily Dickenson


As is often the case with one of Emily’s poems, there is nothing I can add that will make it better, or better understood. I have a hard time saying why I like her works, anyway; I’m not sure the reason is available to my conscious mind. But it’s okay, because just reading it is enough for me……

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Putting this morning’s Pearl together was an interesting start to the day; I’m not certain just what it says about how the rest of it should go. I thought much of the time this morning I was struggling, mostly to find subject matter. But, the process is now over, and it seemed to go by very quickly, which is usually a sign of good things to come later in the day.  Now I don’t know what to think…. oh well, I guess I’ll use the old retired person gambit, and go back to bed for awhile….. meantime, y’all take care out there….




—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.


gigoid


Dozer
Kowabunga!