Ffolkes,

“Top of the morning to ya!” “…and the rest of the day to you!”  Cheerful buggers, those Irish…..but what can you expect of folks who drink tea in the morning instead of coffee? (which makes me wonder….do Irish hackers drink caffeinated tea?). Let’s be off into the realm of reason, or a reasonable facsimile thereof…..

“All cruelty springs from weakness.’ — Seneca

Little needs to be said regarding this quote; it is pretty well complete just as it is, and far be it from me to take away from that. I will remind y’all though, it IS a good thing to remember once in awhile, as it helps explain a lot of the stuff that we see on the campaign trail coming out of the mouths of the ‘candidates’…..
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“Although war is cruel and brutal, it is also dangerous and stupid.”  — Yakko Warner

Yakko, for the uninitiated, is a very odd creature. He resembles Felix the Cat physically, with some minor differences. They have the same wildly insane look about the eyes, though. His voice, when he troubles to use his own, sounds kind of like Ringo Starr pretending to be high on life.

With his sister Dot, and brother (blank mind space), he performs cartoon mayhem on Saturdays on the Warner Bros. Cartoon show. The writers, as with many new cartoons, write their dialog with adults in mind, often with broad caricature or obscure innuendo, and Yakko seems to get most of the Zinger lines, that poke fun at society, politics, or whatever. I really like the line above, as it typifies the kind of gentle propaganda that gets shoved in alongside the other cartoon nonsense, teaching them to question reality and authority. THAT is a good thing……
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“What is wrong with us?” “It is in the air we breathe. The things we do. The things we say. Our books.  Our papers. Our theater. Our movies. Our radio and television. The way we behave. The interests we have. The values we fix.” “We are, on the average, rich beyond the dreams of kings of old. Yet something is not there that should be — something we once had.” — Louis Seltzer, Cleveland Press editor, 1952.

There is a lot of this kind of attitude going around, both in newsprint and online. Someone with half a coherent thought begins or ends their treatise with a lament about “the good old days”. I always feel as if I should take them aside and chastise them thoroughly for such nonsensical talk, but they never listen, and I’m tired of hiring lawyers to keep from spending jail time for clocking some fool. What is it about regular people that makes it impossible for them to accept reality just the way it is, and not always wish for better times?

Okay, sure, maybe society was simpler, and easier to deal with back in the g.o.d.’s, but that is somewhat overbalanced by having to walk through the snow to another building to use the commode. And sure, we were better people then, right? Wrong…people throughout history have always pretty much been a__holes, but back then there wasn’t a world-wide network of news outlets reporting every evil deed they can find, because that’s what people want to read about (or so they tell us).

There were no ‘good old days’. They’ve always been exactly the same as they are today. But we humans think there has to be something missing, or something wrong with today, because we are not self-aware, or able to confront reality without the protection of their rose-colored glasses. This lack of courage regarding the nature of reality is one of several insidious little characteristics of the human species that eventually will take us to the end of the road we are on, to extinction. All because we are unwilling to accept what is, without wishing it was not…..well, that and a lot of avarice…..
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Here in my heart, I am Helen;
I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I’m Salome, moon of the East.

Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O’Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.

I’m all of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
— Dorothy Parker

Dear Dorothy….she had such a fine mind, but was never able to get past the mental chains wrapped upon her by a society that had no chance of understanding her. She spent a great portion of her life, it seems to me, using her mental skills to fight in the trenches of the War between the Sexes. Her wit, such as demonstrated above, was sharp, and she wielded it with great style and panache.

But I can’t help feeling that the world would have seen a much deeper, more productive output from her pen if she had been able to set aside her resentment at how women were treated during the early 20th century. As it is, her acerbic wit was most likely an instrumental factor in the suffrage movement, encouraging women to think for themselves, and to push back against the repressive mores of the time. Whether Ms. Parker would have been happier living today is too hard to tell…..we can just be thankful for what she did leave as her legacy.
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Facts are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premises.  The truth depends on, and is only arrived at by a legitimate deduction from all the facts which are truly material.

This little truism is more important than it seems, as it highlights a part of the reasoning process that is often left out by those whose agenda is not limited to scientific truth. It appears to me that every single politician alive uses the first half of this idea, and leaves out the second part, or using it only to puff up some otherwise irrelevant fact, making it seem more important than it is.

Here’s a tip: next speech you listen to from one of the candidates, check to see if their facts, when put together, actually supports or justifies the rest of their assertion. I’m betting, (and I’ll bet big…) that you will find that the facts don’t support their ideas, or their facts aren’t facts, but assumptions or erroneous interpretations of actual facts. But these pseudo-factual assertions they make sound so real! And guess what? They are….almost….real. But, almost doesn’t count in communication……nothing counts except the truth…..

Enough folderol for one morning. It’s a Monday, and my Judeo-Christian upbringing is pushing at me to be productive. You  know, the old “idle hands are the Devil’s workshop” and similar nonsense. My usual reaction to this ancient tape that runs through my head is to rebel, and spend the day doing absolutely nothing. Hmmm….. that actually sounds good. I think I’ll do that…..meanwhile, y’all take care out there….

gigoid

Kowabunga!