Ffolkes,
“Failure to understand reality is not reality’s fault.”
~~ Bill Henneman ~~
Irish Cheese & Butter Factories, on break….
Okay, I have to admit, I’m tired. ‘Tis to be expected, I would suppose, after this long (approximately 172 hours) without any sleep at all, at all….. ‘Tisn’t supposed to happen every morning, not this kind of fatigue, though I hear it happens a lot, beginning at about this age. So be it. Once I’m past this cold-turkey slice of hell in a few more days, I can deal.
I’ve been tired before; when duty calls, fatigue is irrelevant; there’s no other choice but to carry on, & hope for the best. I will, however, provide the following small disclaimer, to wit: This Pearl could conceivably turn out really bad, or, worse, weirder than usual, so, if it’s starting to make y’all uncomfortable, just try again tomorrow. I’ll keep on doing this until I think I get it right, and, so forth with other platitudes of purposeful sincerity. At least my pomposity is intact!
Oops…. Tardis-fart. It’s now late night, my pomposity is, no doubt, intact, and probably doing what I’d love to do, which is sleeping. Since I’m not, I guess I’ll continue putting together today’s mess of a post, which, in truth, isn’t messy at all; it’s just organizationally challenged. Whether or not we call it one, or the other, is, as it always is here at Consensual Reality, a moot point, as it’s been called many worse things in its time, short as it may be. How much time things take isn’t important to us here…. Remember, Tardis….
Now some of y’all might wonder how we got our greedy little hands on a Tardis. And, you’d be right to do so. However, that information, in particular, is one y’all will have to learn to do without in your life, as I won’t tell you. It would abrogate the agreement we made when we took it, besides embarrassing the hell out of yours truly… I mean, we got a REALLY GOOD DEAL on it, and, it’s kind of unfair to everyone else, But, y’know what? This is one of those things where I take my stand with the asininnies, and don’t give a shit about being unfair.
Whew! There. Didn’t think I’d get the obligatory mini-rant in, but, managed to squeeze it in there at the last. Now we can get on with this, as we have thereby fulfilled our quota of nonsense and blather for one morning. Well, other than this, of course…. Luigi! Get us up in the air, before the authorities arrive….
Shall we Pearl?….
“Anacharsis said a man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.” — Plutarch — The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 11
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The Outlaws
Image from craigdailypress.com via Google Images
The Outlaws are a generic hard rock band who began their performing/recording career in the 1970’s; they play with a lot of gusto and immense driving energy. Here is a live concert from November 10, 1978 at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, N.J…. Enjoy!….
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The Outlaws
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“A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Madison, 1787 ~~
All of us educated in this country know about Tom Jefferson; he’s a particular favorite founding father of mine, as his writings so often parallel my own thoughts, I feel I’m channeling him from the 17th century. In fact, I’ve taken to describing my political attitude/beliefs as what would termed a Jeffersonian… Another of my favorite Americans, not a founding father, but, a writer around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, was Henry L. Mencken. He lived in the Western states, mostly Arizona, was quite a libertarian by nature, and a political satirist by choice. His ideas, as he wrote them in his simple style, always seem to ring the right note. For example, one of his thoughts on modern democracy was put this way:
“Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.”
~~ H. L. Mencken ~~
Wonderfully whimsical, to my mind, and all too accurate, if the way this twenty-first century is shaping up is any indication. In fact, Jackals and Jackasses seem to be nearly perfect descriptions of a) our Beloved Ruling Class (the Jackals), and, b) their victims, er, constituents, the Jackasses, or as some of them are called, voters. Unfortunately, too many of them also get called to dinner way too often; have you looked around lately to see how MANY people there are who are not just overweight, but, obese?
Trust me, there’s a LOT, thanks to Mickey D, the King, and their co-conspirators in the junk food world, which now includes most of the items on supermarket shelves…. I note the only real cheeses in those markets come from other countries, or, locally. But, no American cheeses seem to be made; they’re all “pasteurized, processed imitation cheese food”, many of which won’t even melt directly on a hot pan, forget the bread. Plus, about 80-90% of the shelf items have many more chemicals, preservatives, artificial colors & flavors, and other NON-FOODS than they actually contain of the food item listed on the box’s face. Like chicken…. or other actual FOOD.
Now, of course, the corporations want to start selling everybody only GMO (genetically modified) foods, NONE of which have ever had long-term testing done on them. They don’t know if we can actually survive using them as food, but, damn, aren’t they BIG, and SHINY, and TASTELESS!? Why, yes, yes they are. They also have a longer shelf life, and cost less to produce, though you can be sure the corporate snakeheads won’t be charging any less. I bet they actually try to sell them for more, because they’re bigger! It doesn’t matter at all to the snakeheads these foods probably are not going to be good for people; they’ll just send all those sick people over to their cohorts in the medical/pharmaceutical corps, so they can extract their share of the available profits, as well….
By now, y’all are probably wondering how this all relates to Jefferson’s quote. Quite simply, the rebellion to which Tom refers is long overdue; he stated, in that same letter, he believed we should never go twenty years without some sort of public insistence on reform, in short, a revolution. It’s been many more than twenty, and, I predict the unwashed masses of the public, who are being oppressed, and having all their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights abrogated daily by corporate slaves acting at the behest of the corporations, who are engaged in a massive world-wide struggle to maintain control over the seething BILLIONS of slave wage earners, who are becoming increasingly aware of how they have been duped for so many centuries….
Human action on a societal level is very ponderous, due to the massive inertia needed to change any part of the established rules in place, often merely by long custom. It takes a long time for the pressure of oppression to build to a critical flash-point, but, when it does, there is no stopping the tidal wave of action, no matter what form it may take, for the amount of weight behind the wave-front is powered by the combined energy of everyone one alive, becoming the iconic irresistible force we hear so much about. When that flash-point is reached, as it will be in the relatively near future, we will see a world-wide uprising of anger against those in society who prey upon their fellow man….
Personally, I don’t think the oligarchy stands a chance in hell, but, they’ve been entrenched for a very long time, possessing a strong sense of survival, and of entitlement, so, their resistance to change will be violent, and may, indeed, end up in killing ALL of us in their own death throes. I figure, if that happens, so be it, for we humans have not exactly made the best use of our time on this plane of existence; it might be time to give another species the opportunity to take their own shot at glory….. I don’t think we’ll exactly be missed by the rest of the Universe, since it has no compassion anyway….
Well, THAT was certainly an outburst, wasn’t it? And, such a powerfully POSITIVE tenor to it, too! Bah! Humbug…. And, more succinctly, fuck it. We’ve been assholes, and, in my opinion, will deserve whatever happens, none of which portends much fun for any of us. Moreover, I don’t even think there are enough of us to make the difference, and turn the tide to the point where at least SOME of us survive. But, if we do, I certainly hope we can do a better job of it. This time around, as far as I can tell, we’ve fucked up pretty well, or, pretty badly, depending on your syntactical preference.
On THAT esoteric note, I believe it would be best to leave this where it is, without offering any solutions (which I don’t think will work, anyway), and, without any more whining, which, thankfully, I managed to keep to a minimum. To end this rather negative portrayal of reality as I see it, I’ll leave you with a somber, yet, at least positive statement of hope, from one of humanity’s most important poets…
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~~ Dylan Thomas ~~
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I haven’t posted this one in a while; it’s one of my personal favorites, as it’s mostly about my Dad, and the lessons I learned from him. Oh, not by listening; he had other methods. He lived, with honor and dignity, and let us watch…. I like it, even though it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, simply because reading it brings him back to me for a time…. I hope you enjoy it…. It ain’t Yeats, but, it’s a poem…. sort of…..
Ah Ain’t Sho, but Mebbe So….
Fried eggs got nuthin’ on me
Ah’m not even sure of mah name,
or how Ah come to be;
no idea from where Ah came.
Ah does like a mystery tho’,
puzzlin’ things out so’s Ah knows,
good from bad, fo sho,
Ah sho don’t want no rock pillows.
If’n Ah cain’t figure out what’s best,
Ah just falls back on mah Daddy’s words,
seems he knowed just whut’d stand the test,
‘n how to gentle the scaredest birds.
‘Course, he’d lived a good long time,
‘n had lots of stuff go on by;
Went to a war, n’ lost a piece or two,
never once used it fer an alibi.
He tol’ me once Ah’d best learn to learn,
school’s only cool if ya ain’t already a fool.
Yer own good measure you can earn,
by startin’ yer learnin’ with the Golden Rule.
Always seemed to me as Ah growed up,
he mostly only spoke if it wuz true,
‘n by doin’ that clued me to what’s up,
kept me from stuff that’d a made me blue.
Without ever sayin’ the word itself,
Ah learned ’bout honor, ‘n helpin’ others
not some fake stuff from some shelf,
but, knowin’ whut’s right, ‘n that we’re all brothers.
Ah’ve been around long enough now, Ah think
to get around the block at least two times.
I s’pose long as my head don’t shrink
Ah’ll keep on doin’ right, ‘n makin’ these rhymes…..
~~ gigoid ~~
Written 4/6/2013.
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The icon, as with the initial pearl, gives away the direction of this pearl; it can only be called an Aristotelian offering, for all of it is information of which Ari would have approved. In fact, without even looking, I’d wager good money all of the remaining eight pearls were based, at least in part, on wisdom and/or ideas Aristotle had left for us…. His mind, and its power, has influenced every thinking person who lived, in all the thousands of years since his death…. So, I’d say, beginning a nine-star pearl with one of his aphorisms can be called ‘well begun’, wouldn’t you?
“Well begun is half done.”
~~ Aristotle ~~
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.” — Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” — Charles DuBois
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” — George Bernard Shaw, “Annajanska”
“It is dangerous to make man see too clearly his equality with the brutes without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart for his vileness. Is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to show him both. Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both.”
— Pascal, Pensees, n. 418
“An intellectual is a person whose mind watches itself.” — Albert Camus
“There is this difference between happiness and wisdom; he that thinks himself the happiest man really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.” — Charles Caleb Colton
“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” — Walt Whitman
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne’er a transport know
That never feels a pain.
~~ Lord Lyttleton ~~
~~ Song ~~
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I suppose, when one is trying to fill in a large number of hours distracting oneself from the misery & bother of reality, a Pearl of epic proportion isn’t particularly surprising. It certainly is cathartic. Now, if only it would stimulate some semblance of normal sleep, I’d be content, if not completely ecstatic. We can hope, anyway, Why not? It’s the thing with feathers, that never stops at all, according to Emily. I think she’d know. And, now we know, for what it’s worth….
On that strange note, I’ll take my leave. This one may not be the ultimate Pearl, but, I think it’s pretty shiny. Still, I’d best try again tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I’ll have more than enough time on my hands, what with twenty-four hours to work with, all of which I’ll most likely be conscious, if not coherent. So, I’ll see y’all then…. if they don’t catch me, first….
Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch
À bientôt, mon cherí….
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