Tag Archives: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

May I see your license to glean, sir?….

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Ffolkes,

I know it’s going to be a tough morning when I get up….. That’s it…. When I get up…. THAT is the point in time when I know I’m about to make a mistake, again…. Yet, each day, I drag my sorry ass out of my nice, warm, comfy bed to come out here and go through all this, just to clear out the excess of corrupted files in my head.

I mean, it’s not as if anyone is paying me some huge amount of money to do this, nor am I, apparently, taking the blog world by storm, as my site traffic still isn’t what I’d call heavy, or even moderate…. In fact, I’d say it was pathetic, but, the few ffolkes who DO make it by each day are anything BUT pathetic, so that wouldn’t be appropriate, by any means….

Nor, it seems, is yet another attempt at a chatty, intimate, conversational opening going to cut it for long; I can feel this going wonky at me as I type…. Too many assumptions of real-time connection, without any actual control modules being hooked in, thus preventing many of the really neat things we COULD be doing if they were….. like graphics, and many other artistic flourishes, that often go missing in what we see happening around here….. I suppose it would help if I possessed even a smidgen of real artistic talent, but, the best I’ve ever come up with is a stick figure and stick trees under a pale blue sky…. and that was using Photo Shop!

Now, I know y’all can tell when I’m being facetious…. the lights automatically dim three times before each planned occurrence (when it happens inadvertently, we’re all on our own….). But, even with that, I don’t think we’re going to be able to salvage much from the wreckage of this opening. It’s gone pretty well off the rails already, and we’re only three paragraphs in….  I’m fairly certain, if I try to continue to beat it much longer, this dead horse is going to rise up and turn zombie on me…. Y’all KNOW how much I dislike having to deal with zombies…. It reminds me too much of watching televised Congressional hearings…. sheer torture….

Before I get any weirder, or become even less comprehensible, I’m going to abandon this mess. I don’t know exactly what happened, nor do I care much….. It’s over, which, as far as I’m concerned, is all I need to know right now…. We’ll go on, just as if we’ve had a regular, chatty little opening conversation, just like we do every day, thus putting the lie to our insistence on having reality match our description; today, it ain’t gonna happen, so we may as well get used to that…. However, we do have one saving grace remaining to us….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“In the first place, God made idiots.  That was for practice.  Then he made school boards.” — Mark Twain

A school board member, it should be noted, is the larval stage of a politician…. It’s the lowest, most local level of elected official in this country, and, as such, Mr. Twain’s description, labeling them as idiots, was far more accurate than he knew; to be an elected official, one must be, at minimum, a proven psychotic, so, as idiots, they fit right in….
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My ranting skills, while not ‘faded and gone away’ for good, are most definitely not in evidence today; I’m actually pretty fatigued in my head, all in all, from the events of the past two days, during which I waged a moderately tough battle with pain, with a large portion of my time spent in a happily-drugged stupor…..

Now that the pain is receding a bit, I’m still feeling the aftereffects of the battle, which can be more extensive than might be surmised….. It’s a tough row to hoe getting past such episodes; they require some rather strong applications of will power to ignore the pain at times, until the drugs can take full effect, and fatigue builds up rapidly, after a certain amount of time spent exercising that will….

Thus, I’m using another rant from the archives today, just because I can… This is from the period AFTER the last presidential election, in 2012…. It was beginning to become clear that though we had chosen the LESSER of two evils at the polls, our choice was still evil, as more and more evidence of cover-ups and lies began to emerge, lies that decried Barry’s promises of “transparency” in his administration. That lack of transparency has now been confirmed as a huge lie, so, this becomes even more accurate in its generally non-specific accusations of chicanery among the ruling classes…. Enjoy!….

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From 12/30/12:

“History is a lie commonly agreed upon.” — Nietzsche

I often wonder how people in the future, (if we have one…), will view these times, it being a given that the fabric of our society is based primarily on lies and/or delusions.* Which ones will stand the test of time, and end up in the books as being the one everyone agrees upon? It has also been said that history is always  written by the winners, and that seems to me to be fairly close to the real truth of the matter. It would be a bit more acceptable to me if it weren’t so bloody predictable, and that there was at least a small chance that the events we experience would be reported truthfully. Alas, I am not hopeful that will ever be the case…..

* (Note the use of the technique of the positively stated assertion, using the assumption of its truth as PROVEN, the very same technique of verbal argument used by ALL religious doctrines as the basis for their truth and relativity…. Just thought I’d make it clear at the outset, this is real, serious stuff, just like their stuff is….)

In all honesty, I’m not convinced that we, as a species, will HAVE much of a future. Given the current state of the environment, I can’t see us lasting more than a couple hundred years more, without some major changes to society, changes that are neither imminent, nor under consideration.

When I first started this blog, over a year ago, I posted a link, to what is called a World Clock, at Poodwaddle.com ( I love the human imagination!…..What a great word, eh? Poodwaddle…. I like to say it out loud; it’s even more exciting that way…..). You can find that clock here:  http://www.poodwaddlecom/clocks/worldclock/   

The clock has a number of faces, one of which shows exactly how much carbon-monoxide (CO), and carbon dioxide (CO2), along with unnatural amounts of other toxic substances, are being pumped into the atmosphere every second, by industrial and manufacturing facilities, and by cars and other vehicles. Other faces give real time statistics on other subjects common to the theme of the site, to wit: environmental activism…

I am a scientist, first. I chose the path of the scientist in my youth, before my tenth birthday, even before setting my feet upon the warrior’s path I chose to include as part of my later life.  In essence, scientists ARE warriors, and vice versa; battling the universe requires study in order for one to be effective in coping with whatever happens….

In addition, the acquisition of knowledge requires the curiosity and courage of a warrior, in order to find, and face, the Truth, in all its many guises. Each path complements the other, and, in my time, have combined to lead me on a journey of great beauty and wonder. My journey, though, is in danger of being ended before its time, by the mundane asininity of the human race….

There are some scientists who believe that humans do not have the power to harm the planet; nor do they believe the danger is as great as the evidence might indicate. In one respect, they are right…. I don’t think the planet ITSELF is in danger from what we are doing, though I’m sure it is suffering pain from the symptoms we’ve managed to saddle it with in our time. (Why WOULDN’T a planet have consciousness?… It’s large enough, and complex enough, and we don’t know, or perceive, all there is to know about the universe, or consciousness, for that matter…. Answer that first, before asking me why it would suffer pain….)

No, our activities, such as polluting the air and water, wasting resources, and indiscriminately killing the other creatures with whom we live, only endanger US, and the other life forms on the planet. Once we are gone, the planet will easily clean itself of the trash we deposited everywhere, and move on to the next evolutionary step in the parade of Time.

“Where man walks the earth hurts.” — Smart Bee

Many years ago, I used to believe in the ingenuity of scientists, to overcome the technological difficulties we’ve created, and find a way to keep us alive, perhaps by colonizing other planets in space, leaving the Earth behind. But, the figures don’t lie, and the figures say we don’t have the time to fool around waiting for space travel to solve the problems we have. By the time we could achieve any kind of significant progress there, we would be forced to live in domes, to wear protective gear to go outside, just to walk on the surface of our own world. That is, IF there are enough remaining resources to build the domes, and to power them sufficiently to survive.

Another, though less likely possible solution is for the ruling classes of our species to come to their senses, to reverse their moral compass, such that they start acting in the best interests of everyone, instead of just themselves. The entire problem with pollution we have today exists solely because the ruling classes, the people who control all the resources, don’t have any moral compass, or, choose to deliberately ignore its influence.

They choose, instead, to structure society in their own favor, so that they, and ONLY they, have the power, and the control over what society produces, while the rest of us try to survive on their leavings. It is the same picture that history has seen portrayed for all the millenia since we came out of the caves to live in cities; the 1% of mankind who are in control are not interested in helping anyone else, unless and until they have fulfilled their own desires….

Even the lies upon which we all agree, in all of our written history, show this to be true, so I don’t think there is a huge chance that we will see any significant changes before it is too late for them to matter. I just don’t see those in the beloved ruling class, all of a sudden, suffering a change of heart, reversing the entire course of the history they’ve chosen to write in their name; it is not in their nature to be altruistic to even a small degree. We are either going to have to rise up and throw them out on their asses, or suffer an ignominious death, when the air we can no longer breathe begins to choke us, as we walk down the street toward our destiny….. a destiny which, at this point, leads us straight to a coffin…..

“I can’t decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB GUCCIONE has these problems!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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What often amazes me when I read poetry by one of the classical Chinese poets, such as Li Po, is how beautifully the translations were written…. It takes a high degree of insight to be able to not only create a poem in translation from one language to another, but to make the translation as beautiful to read, or to hear if read aloud, as was the original piece…. It makes me want to learn to speak Chinese, if only to gain some understanding of the process involved, in creating such beauty in either language…. Enjoy!….

Amidst The Flowers A Jug Of Wine

Amidst the flowers a jug of wine,
I pour alone lacking companionship.
So raising the cup I invite the Moon,
Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us.
Because the Moon does not know how to drink,
My shadow merely follows the movement of my body.
The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while,
The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring.
I start a song and the moon begins to reel,
I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely.
While I’m still conscious let’s rejoice with one another,
After I’m drunk let each one go his way.
Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings.
Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.

~~ Li Po ~~

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Oh, yay…. I am filled with enthusiasm and excitement…. NOT…..  I am, however, mildly pleased (about as strong an emotion as I’m capable of just now, I think…) to have reached this final section, where I can lay down my insane need to appear normal, at least for long enough to put together an old-school pearl to finish off today’s effort…. which has, indeed, been an effort…. I’ll keep the parameters simple, as well as hidden, so the point of all of this may, or may not, be immediately obvious… So, what else is new?….

“Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) — The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, i

“Invincibility depends on one’s self; The enemy’s vulnerability on him.” — Sun Tzu

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

“You speak truth,” said Themistocles; “I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus;” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Themistocles

“What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place.” — Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), Musician, the Grateful Dead — Rolling Stone magazine, (November 30, 1989).

“Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.” — Muad ‘Dib

“I’m a GENIUS!  I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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I make no apologies, nor do I make excuses, even though the process of making them up can be a lot of fun…. (My dog pooped on my homework after he ate the cat…. you know, like that….). But, when one has taken on the creation of a daily Pearl of Virtual Wisdom as a personal Duty, in spite of all the advice and counseling, in spite of all the urgings of his family and friends, in spite of the obvious humiliation and embarrassment he causes to others, as well as himself, well…. there isn’t a lot of wiggle-room for getting out of it, so making either apology or excuse becomes undignified, as well as counter-productive in the sense of maintaining one’s self-esteem…. whatever THAT might be!….

In spite of the tone and tenor of the intro section, I’m a bit disappointed this is already done; I’ve had more fun than I thought would be possible when I began…. About half-way through getting this completed, my brain woke up for real; as a happy result, the latter half of this process has been much smoother than the first half could possibly have been, given the handicap with which I started the day…. I was pretty mushy-minded at first today…. Truthfully, I’m kind of pleased with myself for showing the grit to get this done the way I did…. Now that I’ve strained my shoulder, patting myself on the back, I’ll go put on some of my magic cream, so I can make breakfast…. 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

dozer3

Only the finest of hydrogenated motor oils served here….

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Ffolkes,

Though my morning hours are becoming more regular, my brain is not, and the fear, unwelcome, unwanted, yet remains…. Paralyzing, unreasonable, it strikes me each day, as I gaze in terror at the blank screen, wondering how the hell I’ll come up with something new and fresh, when every thought in my brain feels old and wilted, like a three day old salad…. I probably resemble that remark more than I realize…. I’m not green, yet, though…. I’m guessing that’s something about which to be encouraged…

Encouragement seems to be the only positive to be found just now, so, we’ll take it and run with it…. I’ll just keep repeating this affirmation to myself, “I’m not green yet!”…. I’m not green yet!”…. I’ll say that over and over to myself, and somehow, about an hour from now, I’ll believe it… Of course, I’m going by what I’ve been told by some New Agers, followers of some guy named Jack Handey, who’s supposed to be the newest guru of the self-enlightenment crowd…. Having achieved my own enlightenment many years ago, while sitting under a baobab tree, I …. wait, that wasn’t me, that was the Buddha!…. What was I thinking?….

Hah! I guess I fooled you this time, didn’t I? You thought I was going to take credit for the Buddha’s enlightened words, didn’t you? Hah! So there! You can’t catch me like that! I’ve been boasting, er, sharing, yeah, sharing, that’s it…. sharing my knowledge of enlightenment, for many years now, and you won’t catch me so easily as that! You may as well go look for some other lightweight, sucker….

Where were we? Oh, yeah, enlightenment…. Yes, many years ago, I found inner peace. I was actually looking for some aliens I heard had landed near there, but found it laying under a rock…. I sold that batch to a guy on Forty-seventh Avenue for forty bucks, which bought me some very nice ganja uptown. The next time I found it, I couldn’t find a buyer (it was during the Bush recession, the first one….), so I just tossed it in the river, as it wasn’t doing me any good there on the streets….

Sometimes, I actually feel as if a lot of people in today’s world would react the same way as I did, if they did happen to accidentally find inner peace…. Hey, many of them most likely wouldn’t be able to recognize it anyway…. Today’s modern person lives under such pressure, with so many mental distractions from the internet, TV, radio, and now smart phones, they would find it hard, first, just to know they were in need of some inner peace, and second, what to do with it if they found it….. But, not me…. I happen to know there’s a good market for it on the street… the hard part is finding a sucker, and one of those comes along every few minutes, especially in the parts of town where I hang….

For now, though, shall we Pearl?….

“An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.” — Konrad Adenauer
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Today’s Pearl was partially constructed ahead of time, due to an irresistible need to rant that snuck (that’s my new/old replacement for the just-plain-silly “sneaked”…..) up and struck me, right upside the head, of all places, all of a sudden, yesterday, just after noon…. Since the rant that spewed out onto the page at that time inarguably fulfills any possible requirements for length, by a factor of about, oh, three or four, I’ll just put together a bit of an old-school pearl here, of the random, harlequin style, which I’ve found to be the set of parameters that best fits the need for a fresh, yet well-balanced pearl that we have here today…. Balance, as we know, is the key, as is timing…. hence, I give you this fine little grouping, freshly picked from only the finest of oysters…..

“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant”

“Truth and falsehood are both whatever, and simultaneously not so, rather than not.” — Tim Larkin, March 31, 1993

“Faith does not offer the least support for proof of truth.” — Nietzsche

“I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.” — Thomas Jefferson

“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” — Agnes Repplier

“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.” — Albert Einstein

“There is the state religion of mindless consumerism, which is the real message of all advertisements. The state religion is more powerful than any other force; the wise person practices patience and stealth. The wise person creates images that can be unpacked to deliver other messages.” — Jon Carroll, S. F. Chronicle, March 7, 1996

Aha! I see that it turned out to be a Miss Manners pearl, giving advice on how to live with honor, dignity, and a bit of good, clean fun, taking pot shots at political and/or religious pundits at every opportunity….
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There is just something charming and attractive to my mind about the image that Li Po presents, historically…. An amiable, brilliant, always drunk poet, wandering around the Chinese countryside, observing the world in his own inebriated way, composing poems from the depths of his genius, poems describing the beauty he saw, in all he saw, for the rest of us to enjoy…. which we have, for the past thirteen hundred years, or more…. Even if he lived a life completely different than the stories one hears, it wouldn’t matter, for his poetry is timeless….

Alone And Drinking Under The Moon

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.

~~ Li Po ~~

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I intended to write a rant about the following article (see link below….), about how the White House has been yanking the chain of the American people over this whole issue right from the start of the problem, when Eric Snowden first released the information he took from the NSA (an act of sublime courage, with full knowledge of how he was affecting his life, destined to be labeled a criminal by his own country, in turn itself engaged in criminal acts, on a much larger scale than his alleged theft……), thereby embarrassing the administration….. THAT is the offense for which they cannot forgive him, as it undermines their license to lie with impunity….

I like to follow up on any intentions that I believe to be righteous in nature, so, let’s rant….. Mr. Snowden’s release of information, reportedly taken from his former employer, the NSA, is, because of the nature of the information, in my mind, and the minds of many Americans, not an act of treason against the people of this country.  Rather, it was an act I believe to have been one of high patriotism, based on his concern over what the government was doing to normal people like him…. I would love to see him get the civilian equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, though I know it will never happen….

So, how does the administration respond when his act of courage brought on an outcry of indignation and anger, from the public, from Congress, from other countries and their leaders? They promised to form a committee, to “review the signals intelligence policies” that they have been using SINCE 2008! Ooh, boy, that’s going to resolve the issue, isn’t it? A committee…. Well, I suppose it COULD be considered a start toward a resolution… except that a committee, no matter what it finds, has no legal binding on the administration’s actions….

This committee was picked by that administration, no doubt with the intent of hearing a favorable report, but, instead, the group managed to come up with a report that showed, essentially, that A) they lied, and continue to lie B) they exceeded their authority and C) they need to consider  stopping…. However, since the administration PICKED them, they aren’t bound by any law to follow their recommendations…. an event whose unlikeliness to have EVER occurred approaches the infinite…. Face it, ffolkes, they never meant to stop, or in any way discontinue what they’ve been doing without compunction for five years now….

Ffolkes, this administration, which promised to be the “most transparent ever” has been spying, much more than they want to admit, for the entire time they’ve been in office… This, despite the clear mandate by the American people that they wanted a “change” from the policies of clandestine activities and secrecy that characterized the previous administrations, run by a former CIA director, and his son….

Instead, they not only adopted the Bush policies on spying, they increased them tenfold, all by having the NDAA, the underlying authorizing document for the spying, signed as an executive order, on New Year’s Eve, with Congress recessed, and the nation drunk, at the behest of the retailers…. all without the authorization of Congress, or the courts, or the voters…. just the POTUS and the now unassailable, hidden commanders of the NSA, the Cyber Command, and the ever present CIA….

They won’t discuss any leniency or immunity for Snowden, not when they won’t even ADMIT they’ve done anything wrong…. see the language used by the White House yesterday, when it met with all the leaders of the tech giant companies who have been the biggest victims (in terms of amount of data stolen) of the spying…. There was no admission at all of any wrongdoing on their part, or that they may have gone too far…. none. They don’t intend to do anything but stonewall this, and hope the public will forget, as is the usual case…. Well, not this time, not if I can help it…. I’m really pissed off at all of this, and am really tired of having the people in whom I expect a high standard of behavior, as the recipient of my trust as indicated by my vote, essentially and regularly, piss on my trust….

By now, I suppose, I should know better than to place ANY trust in ANYONE running for an office, but, I had hopes during the last two elections, that perhaps things might just have a chance to change for the better…. I have to say, however, that hope has been pretty thoroughly dashed by the revelations of the past three or four years, more so by the reaction of the administration, than by any of the revelations themselves…. The denial, the refusal to accept responsibility, the repeated and ever-increasing lies, the stubborn refusal to see or accept the public’s displeasure and disgust at their actions, all of this has been more disturbing than the actual information presented…. because it is ALL making them look even guiltier than we know they are, yet they don’t seem to care….

There is a simple reason, ffolkes…. and I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell y’all…. It doesn’t matter… They will do what they will, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it, because WE ALREADY GAVE THEM THE POWER…. and, guess what? They won’t be giving it back, that’s for sure and for certain…. not without a severe struggle…..

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/White-House-task-force-urges-limit-on-NSA-snooping-5074958.php

If y’all don’t see, from the tone and words used by the White House, that they know they’ve got the upper hand, then, I encourage you to go back to wherever you have the little piece of sand, where you have the hole in which you prefer to hide your head in the presence of danger, and put your head in there for a good long while…. Things out here in the real world aren’t bound to change, except to follow the course away from liberty, as it has been doing for some time now, all with the approval of the most ignorant set of voters to ever grace a planet…..

Okay, so, today, you get a two-fer…. The above rant was based on the article, but, the thoughts and some of the evidence isn’t new; it’s old, like I’m getting to be, with some reluctance, but hopefully, some dignified acceptance for the process, if not the end results…. where was I? Oh, right…. the following rant is constructed upon the same base, but using the thoughts going through my head in July of this year…. I had intended to use them to support the article, but, that seems to have stimulated its own support, so, just view this as “more thoughts on the same subject”….

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“One of the merits of democracy is quite obvious: it is perhaps the most charming form of government ever devised by man.  The reason is not far to seek.  It is based on propositions that are palpably not true — and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true.” — H. L. Mencken

With this statement, Mr. Mencken has put his finger on the pulse of America, that is for certain. It goes a long way toward explaining why so many people in this country are so willing to believe the outright, egregious lies that are told to them every single day by the officials they elect every year at the polls that characterize our alleged republic…. They do lie, you know, with almost every statement that comes out of their mouths….

They begin with the most important lie they tell, from which all the others spring, and that is the lie they tell when they tell you that they want to be elected so they can work for YOU! Each and every politician learns early in their career, if they are at all to be successful, they MUST portray themselves as a public-spirited, honest, and tireless worker whose only purpose is to make life better for their constituents….

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth…. NONE of them are at all concerned with any of that nonsense; they are there to carry out their own agenda, which has very little to do with what is good for the general run of mankind…. No, they are there to serve the interests of the men and women who pay them, those lobbyists and special interest representatives who run the businesses of the corporate masters.

The people on the street cannot provide them with the perks, or the cash, that the clandestine rulers are able to come up with, other than peripherally, by electing them in the first place…. Once elected, their true colors come out into the light of day, and it can be easily seen how their actions are never congruent with what they have promised to the people who elected them….

It’s all about power and money to these folks, not service. In my entire life of observing politics around the world, I have yet to see a single elected official who could be shown to be honest, not at the national level. The one who came the closest was Jimmy Carter, and his presidency was marked by how little got done, because he was so honest that the true politicians in Congress blocked every reform he tried to institute during his time in office. His actions during that time showed him to be the exception to the usual rule for politicians, which is why, I believe, he was so ineffective as a legislator….

“Invest in America — Buy Japan!”– Smart Bee

Other than Carter, I have seen concrete proof that EVERY President of this country has lied to the American people, not just once or twice, but continuously, about nearly everything. Time and time again, public outcries are heard or seen in the news about some new revelation regarding something some politician lied about, just like it is breaking news or something, when it is actually the normal state of affairs….

I don’t know why it is, but if a man on a TV set, wearing a suit and tie, makes a statement to the public, the general public will believe it, sometimes fanatically, without ever examining it for whether or not it is true…. Then, when it turns out they were lied to, they get all upset and vocalize their displeasure, never once admitting it was their own cupidity that allowed the lie to occur in the first place…. It makes me wonder what happened to people in this country, to make them go soft in the head….

“Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.” — Anton Chekhov

Did you ever notice how many politicians were lawyers, first? Most of them, as it turns out, for the simple reason that learning to be a lawyer gives a politician two advantageous types of training…. One advantage is that law school teaches the student how to lie in every imaginable way, in order to ascertain which kinds of lies are legal…. The other advantage is their primary motivation….

If asked, a very large percentage of lawyers will tell you their reason for becoming a barrister in the first place is that it is a good way to get rich, (without mentioning, of course, that this is true only as long as one doesn’t give a shit about other people, and what that might do to them).  In other words, they make their money by taking advantage of people’s misery, holding them as hostages against their own destiny, in order to gain resources, i.e. money, and its sidekick, power….

Then the lawyers realize that their training is perfect for politics…. The ability to lie with facility comes in very handy to anyone who wants to be in the public eye, as that is how one gets elected in the first place…. Tell people what they want to hear, and they will vote for you, every time, coming back to the same trough to eat, even though they get screwed, time after time…. Having the facility to ignore what happens to others, due to their own actions, is the other skill so important to the political set, and the training one receives as a lawyer fits right into that category….

“Watching the democratic party in a presidential contest is like watching a washing machine with a defective bearing:  It starts up smoothly enough, but soon, it begins to wobble and shake, jumping violently from place to place, until it tears itself to pieces, spewing dirty laundry all over the room.” – Smart Bee

Some people will say that there ARE some good lawyers out there, and I won’t argue that…. but, they’re still lawyers, not politicians, aren’t they? They’re doing what they can to help ffolkes find their way through the morass of our legal system to get what they need, even occasionally finding some justice…. But, they aren’t going further, and going into public service, are they? They’re still in place, where they can help, but, they are so few and far between, they are hard to find, and so are very busy, seldom having the time or resources to work against their less honest colleagues. Plus, they really are very few in number, as altruists seldom become lawyers in the first place….

I can see that this has evolved into a full scale rant, and we’ve just begun the day, so I’ll call a halt here. I often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir, anyway, when I go through this stuff again…. It’s all familiar material around here, so it isn’t as if I’m presenting new ideas for your examination…. No, this is all old stuff, and, sadly, doesn’t seem to ever create the outrage that I feel in very many other ffolkes…. which is too bad….  I forget who said that “if you keep on doing things the same ways as you always have, things will always be the way they’ve always been….”, but, they were absolutely correct…. We are on a path to our own destruction, clearly, but, nobody seems to care.

Nobody, that is, who seems able to DO anything about it, and they are the ones who will need to make the changes…. The people in authority over the rest of us are wearing blinders in this respect…. The idea that what they are doing is wrong, and will eventually kill us all, doesn’t fit into their world-view, so they won’t believe it, and will continue to refuse to make any of the changes needed to re-direct our steps onto a path less dangerous.

It is up to the rest of us to get it done, and that may entail overthrowing the current crop of rulers, either by the vote, or by the less agreeable option of using the necessary force, while making sure the new crop will act in OUR best interests, rather than their own…. If it does happen, it will be the first time in history, which is fine with me…. just as long as it is not the LAST time in history….

“… democracy is not something you believe in, or a place you hang your hat, but it’s something you do.  You participate.  If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles and falls apart.” — Abby Hoffman
_____________________________

Well, I seem to have a problem with stopping, once I get started on a rant, don’t I?…. Today, I even extended the guilty piece with an even longer supporting piece, that, despite its length, is of such good fit, I can’t bring myself to leave it out…. it just makes the whole thing complete. I can see, though, that some ffolkes may not get all the way through it, which is okay, just this once…. Next time, it will ALL be on the quiz….

Besides, what I wrote today is of the category that people really need to think more about, because if they don’t start paying attention to what I’m saying, they’re going to reap the rewards of the inattention they’ve been putting into their lives, in regards their beloved ruling class, and the degree to which they allow them to victimize the public without consequence….

And there I go, right back into the rant…. Let’s go proof, and see if this is ready to fly…. One thing is for sure…. nobody can accuse me of not getting it all out…. which, as we know, is exactly WHY I do this…. Better out than in, I always say…. But, they also say, say what you have to say, then, shut up… so, I’ll do that now, so nobody can say I can’t take advice…. See ya….

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

Even subliminally, it can smell risque…..

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2

Ffolkes,

I am currently in the throes of putting up the seasonal decorations around my place…. Yes, the lovely new attack dog is going out in the front yard, (right next to the new gun emplacements….), to make sure none of the usual door-to-door sales types will make it up the steps long enough to ring the bell, thereby annoying me…. I’ve gotten one of the latest models, animals trained to hide the body after they’ve run them down and killed them….. You can’t imagine the FORTUNE I’m saving in disposal costs….

I’m also putting up my holiday decorations….  spreading around the chewed-up briefcases and Awake magazines from former sales people who came into the yard, the bloody clothing, the chalk outlines, …… Oh, yeah, and I’m putting the barbed wire over the chimney so that fat asshole can’t get in anymore…. We’ll have the usual crowd of hired thugs outside, too, haranguing whomever walks by, shouting at them to go home, and stop being such well-trained consumers….

Seriously, here it is, just Thanksgiving, and I’m already sick to death of all the Christmas decorations, and the Christmas commercials that have already started dunning everyone on the vacuum tube, reminding them of how little time to spend they have, or what the latest hot item to spend money on looks like, or shouting about how much more they need to spend…..

Constant reminders of how many “shopping days until Christmas” are left to endure rain down on our consciousness at every turn, in stores, by the roads, on the airwaves, on TV, everywhere one looks is another visual and/or auditory barrage upon our senses, applying more psychologically designed pictures and phrases to stimulate the training that we as consumers have been programmed to receive….

I’m sick of it, with still almost four weeks to go to the main event, followed by the after-holiday push to spend more, so that the business ass wipes who run things in the world can squeeze out every possible penny of the disposable income of the middle class, and all the possible extra pennies left in the pockets of the lower classes…. Every little cent that their targeted victims, i.e., EVERYONE, can be persuaded to put toward the foolishness of manufactured desires, instead of using it to buy what is absolute necessity, is what they’re after, and they’ll get it….

But, the commercials don’t care, nor do those who make and pay for the commercials…. They don’t care that the parents of those children they’ve targeted with their ads cannot afford to buy the toy, or other unnecessary item for which they’ve created the obsession, making it so it becomes an issue of status for the child to not have one of the favored items to show in school, or in the park…. The assholes who create this entire commercial frenzy this time of year aren’t going to give up the period of time when they make the most profit, since they can mark everything with a higher price at this time of year, knowing people will buy anyway, because that’s what people do when they’re brainwashed….

Yes, ffolkes, you’re all brainwashed to spend money during the holidays…. There are even articles that help people get over the depression that this brings on at this time of year, depression that actually has a legitimate cause to exist, as it is made clearer to many folks that all of this fuss and bother is a complete fabrication…. The honest truth of the matter is, at this time of year nobody really gives a rat’s ass about Jesus, or compassion, or about anything other than corporate avarice, and making more money this year than last….

The few people who do suffer some qualms about all of this either stay out of it (like me, mostly….), or they get depressed, or they just shake their head, bury their feelings, and try to pretend, along with most everybody else, that they’re really having a good time…. I don’t know about y’all, but, starting now, and right up until the third of January or so, I will be completely ignoring the television, and trying not to even SEE all the ridiculous decorations and signs everywhere, all for the purpose of getting me to spend more money on crap that won’t last beyond the new year….

Oh, and maybe, just maybe, I will try to keep from ranting in the intro section…. even though it does fill up the space rather well….. I have a feeling it’s not the way to pull ffolkes in to read further…. Just a hunch, but, a good one, I think…. Any who, since I’ve once again filled up this section with ranting and complaining about society’s moral compass, or lack of one, there’s no need to carry on any further down that path; we’ll go find a new direction to take, one that, hopefully, will be more entertaining than this…. even if I’m right….

Shall we Pearl?….

“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.” — Horace

(Around here, this is sometimes a good thing to remember….)
_____________________________

“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.” — Albert Einstein

Originally, when I saw this, I thought it would be a perfect start for a discussion of public ethics, or societal morality, either of which could be supported by its premise, logically speaking…. But, then I thought about what I had said above, in the intro, and decided that the two subjects are similar enough to bring tears of boredom to my eyes, as well as, arguably, having the power to glaze over ANYONE’s eyes in a New York minute…. Ethics and/or morals don’t usually make for the most stimulating rants; they tend to be critical enough to tune out even the most hardened DIY’er, such as a graduate of an EST program, or a survivor from a Sterling Men’s Weekend….

But, old-school pearls are a perfect venue for such critical outpourings…. they can deliver the same degree of displeasure and disgust at the acts being described, but in such a way that the humor makes the criticism more palatable for those who are in need of the knowledge… Well, that’s the theory, anyway, which has always held true in the past….

This format just makes it simpler to get the points across, and in such a way that the receiver doesn’t automatically dismiss it, out of hand…. We can hope, anyway, right?…. Right?… Besides, this is more fun, and much easier on my head, my back, and my hips…. Let’s see how Smart Bee is feeling today, shall we?…. Today, we’ll be looking for pearls that point the way to an honorable life, or, at the least, a life of honorable intent….

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“So you see, the only true proof of what you are is in the way you hear the truth.” — Lemmy Kilmeister

“The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.” — Albert Einstein

“Whatever became of eternal truth?” — Smart Bee

“I used to wonder about the meaning of life.  But I looked it up in the dictionary under L and there it was, the meaning of life. It was less than I expected.” — Dogbert

“There is Moral Sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it.” — Mark Twain

“How’s the wife?  Is she at home enjoying capitalism?” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

More genius, unadorned….

Death Wants More Death

death wants more death, and its webs are full:
I remember my father’s garage, how child-like
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were escape-
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass
only to spin and flit
in that second larger than hell or heaven
onto the edge of the ledge,
and then the spider from his dank hole
nervous and exposed
the puff of body swelling
hanging there
not really quite knowing,
and then knowing-
something sending it down its string,
the wet web,
toward the weak shield of buzzing,
the pulsing;
a last desperate moving hair-leg
there against the glass
there alive in the sun,
spun in white;
and almost like love:
the closing over,
the first hushed spider-sucking:
filling its sack
upon this thing that lived;
crouching there upon its back
drawing its certain blood
as the world goes by outside
and my temples scream
and I hurl the broom against them:
the spider dull with spider-anger
still thinking of its prey
and waving an amazed broken leg;
the fly very still,
a dirty speck stranded to straw;
I shake the killer loose
and he walks lame and peeved
towards some dark corner
but I intercept his dawdling
his crawling like some broken hero,
and the straws smash his legs
now waving
above his head
and looking
looking for the enemy
and somewhat valiant,
dying without apparent pain
simply crawling backward
piece by piece
leaving nothing there
until at last the red gut sack
splashes
its secrets,
and I run child-like
with God’s anger a step behind,
back to simple sunlight,
wondering
as the world goes by
with curled smile
if anyone else
saw or sensed my crime

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

_____________________________

I’m having a bit of pain this morning, a surprising event, considering all the sleep I’ve gotten the past four days…. Ah well, c’est la vie…. The net effect of that, though, is that I am getting lazier by the moment, and have decided to go in a new direction altogether…. I’ve been collecting links, to articles that I intended to rant about, or use to justify a rant, however one wishes to look at it… Laziness, however, always takes precedence over ranting, so, instead, I’m just going to provide you with some reading material, should you choose to follow the links to their sources….

What you will find is a group of articles that will show you just how avarice, and immorality, and corruption, and, and, and,….. almost every human failing that brings people into conflict with one another, are not just present in modern life, but, have become the standard of our cultural interactions….. Each of these articles discusses a segment of society that is engaged in some kind of behavior that is unethical, or paranoid, or corrupt in some way…. well, except for the last one, which offers a solution, of sorts, to a lot of the tension and stress caused by the manifestations outlined in the other links…. The last one, as radical as it is in its language, its spirituality, along with its author’s mildly abrasive approach, is perhaps the sanest article in the whole lot….

So, read these, if you’ve got the time…. Then go and try some meditation, or whatever method you choose to get back in touch with your center, which is where we all need to learn to exist….. Strange, isn’t it? How such a simple idea, existing at one’s own center of being, is really and truly the key to a happy life…. Yet, there it is, in all its simplicity…. All we have to do is pick it up, and use it….. Hey, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Nothing else seems to be working, if these stories are any indication…..

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-lays-down-steps-us-must-protect-data-142411846.html

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Spying-on-online-sex-lives-raises-red-flags-5017893.php

http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2013/11/27/san-jose-cop-charged-with-writing-bogus-tickets/

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Holiday-shopping-season-begins-on-Thanksgiving-5019245.php

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/11/26/meditation-for-the-damned/
_____________________________

This one took some doing, it did, so it only gets a cursory examination for errors…. which I’m doing now, even though you can’t see me…. Some days, this process shows me more than just the usual justification for its evolved state…. That may sound a bit obscure, but, that’s okay, because we’re done for the day, and it won’t hurt at all, unless you get all huffy and try too hard to figure it out…. Don’t fret, amigo, no está importante….. See ya 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

They MIGHT have picked the plastic flowers…

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5

Ffolkes,

We people are a funny lot, aren’t we? Funny, strange, that is, not funny, ha ha…. Okay, perhaps “odd” is a more accurate assessment, for the purposes of labeling, a practice which, now that I think of it, is not particularly productive when applied to humans, since we, as a species, tend to make the application of labels of little use….. This is mostly due to our inner nature, which reflects the principle of Peruaosophy’s axiom #2, to wit: “The nature of the Universe is Change. Unpredictable, innovative transformation of Reality is the Norm. If you have a hard time with this, you are in for a rough ride in Life. ”

My ride through Life has lived up to this principle, a factor which, arguably, contributed to its formation, as well as providing living proof of its veracity, and relevance….. It’s not that I have a hard time with Change; no, indeed, far from it. I’ve cultivated the acceptance of Change since I learned the importance of doing so, way back in my early teen years…..

It just seems as if Change, at least much of what I’ve encountered in that respect, has come at me more quickly, and with more innovation (Is that the right word?…. Yes, yes, I think it must be…. It’s close enough to what actually happens, and no other candidates have stepped up….) than I seem able to cope with, at least at the same pace it arrives…. I always end up getting to the right place, in my mind, and in Reality, but, it’s often more of a struggle, and takes longer, than it seems like it should….

You may be asking yourself, at this point, exactly how does this apply to this morning’s Pearl?…. Well, it applies, sort of, and then, again, it doesn’t…. You see, I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, at least, not in terms of having a real, actual event over which I’ve been agonizing, waiting for it to change into something else perhaps less intimidating, or less complex….. Everything in my life, currently, is proceeding smoothly, with few bumps, and no really fast changes of direction…. So, nothing pressing is on my plate, nor am I particularly stressed over any other potential changes taking place….

Well, I THINK everything is okay…. I’ve been stoned a lot of late, augmenting my pain meds with some attitudinal adjustment, so I might have missed a few events that otherwise may have provided some challenge, but, I don’t believe I’ve missed out on anything significant, or important in a moral, or ethical sense…. If I did, it wasn’t important enough to have left me a note, or a summons, so, I think all is well in that respect….

No, I was just sitting there when I started today, staring again at a blank screen, and thought about how all of the above applied to me, and everyone else who lives on this old ball of mud….. whereupon, I had to laugh, because, otherwise, I’d cry…. I also experienced a small feeling of poignancy, and an appreciation for the strangeness of the human psyche, that can thrive on what seems to be chaos, and can learn to surf the wide ocean of Reality, riding on the edge of the changes that are constantly taking place, whether we notice them, or not….

I’m not really sure where this is taking us, which is NOT a good thing, given the fact we are still in the intro section, trapped here because, once more, I’ve written myself into a corner, and can’t find a dignified way out…. But, then, when has dignity entered into this equation, eh? Never, I say, nor will it…. While I DO try to maintain a relative degree of sobriety, or, a degree of relative sobriety, and at least a modicum of respect for others, dignity has never been one of the key characteristics I’ve cultivated…. It’s just too  hard when I’m so damn silly most of the time…..

It’s also just a bit too hard to maintain ANY sort of dignified mien, when a large, glowing, red bulb is growing out of the middle of one’s face, a feature which tends to give off a loud, abrasive, “HONK!!!”, at the slightest provocation…. For us bozos, dignity isn’t part of the picture, nor will it ever be, especially given my own predilection for bozoid tendencies….

That’s okay, though…. Y’all may, or may not, have noticed that I’ve once again managed to get enough written to call this a legal introductory section…. I know, I cheated, but, I do that a lot here, anyway, in the quest to get this done each day, so, we’re going to act as if it never happened….. Call me “funny” if you wish….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“He’s a real Nowhere Man, sitting in his Nowhere Land, making all his Nowhere plans for nobody. Doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to, isn’t he a bit like you and me?” — The Beatles, ‘Nowhere Man’
_____________________________

I wrote the following politirant in February of 2013, which, though it is not so long ago, being still in this year, nevertheless, seems like a very long time in the past…. At the time, I still had some time before the end of my ordeal of obtaining Social Security,  and, thus, living in a state of near poverty, not quite enough to become desperate, but challenging and humbling, to say the least…. a state which had been my lot for two-plus-a-little-bit-years, which found me living, as they would say in an English drawing room comedy, “in reduced conditions…”, Fortunately, I was not without more resources and support than many folks, and/or ffolkes, might have had; I did have medical insurance, which many do without….

It was definitely one of the most challenging periods of my life, and without my friends, I wouldn’t have made it as well as I did….. Now, nine months later, I’ve spent soon-to-be more than a month on board three, soon-to-be four, cruise ships; I’ve visited, or, traveled to and/or through four states, six countries, and the independent island of Guernsey, which is a bit confused as to their precise allegiance, other than to their cows, I guess… Any who, I’ve been busy, having also moved, with my love Patricia, from two apartments where we lived separately, into a house, of sorts…. not a long move, physically, but, still, a momentous event….

Nevertheless, what I wrote here remains as valid as the day I wrote it…. It’s good enough to use again, and this subject can’t be overdone, to my way of thinking. It is one I am passionate about, even though I have never owned a gun, after giving up the last air rifle of my youth,  when I was still a pre-teen.

As a life-long scientist, a life-long warrior, and a boy growing up in America, I knew of guns, of course, and how to use them, (I DID grow up on Army bases, and had been taught basic gun safety by my father, as every child should be, by the time I was five years old….). However, my MIND has always been my weapon of choice, followed closely by my own hands and feet…. If an intelligent man has failed to think ahead far enough to avoid any situation requiring the use of a weapon, and only then to defend a life, then that intelligence has failed him….

(This also applies to women, of course, but, I happen to be a man, so, to avoid confusion, at least in my own mind, I’ll just use whatever pronoun comes to hand, okay?…. Where was I?… Oh, yeah, okay….)

For a warrior, when weapons MUST be used, the weapon must be suited to the purpose, and the battle; when used for other purposes, they are merely dangerous toys, and not worthy of consideration, beyond the necessary preparations for dealing with the problem of defense against them…. In the final analysis, any interaction where a gun, or any weapon, is brought into play, the issue remains merely another test, a contest of will, between two minds…. The faster, more trained, more experienced mind will prevail in any such contest, whether that mind’s body is holding a gun, or not…. The gun is only the vehicle that manifests the will of the bearer; the will must be applied for a weapon to function at all….

As a warrior, I’m no fool, and if I’m faced with guns, then, I’ll get one, and use it…. More significantly, I’ll know to bring one, if needed, provided I use my mind correctly, ahead of any danger, to not be caught unprepared…. Heretofore, I’ve been both fortunate, and accomplished at foresight, as I’ve always been able to deal with whatever I’ve encountered, able to use my martial arts training to control the violence with my hands….

There have been only two occasions in sixty-three years where I found it necessary to employ a weapon, (NOT guns…. once a knife, and once a stick….). Both times, the weapon was only needed as a threat…. I figure, considering those two incidents are part of a statistical universe containing over 750 occasions of having to deal with violence, usually directed against me by a mentally ill person, I’m doing pretty well at not having to resort to using a weapon….

HOWEVER…. In spite of my own lack of need for guns, I recognize that they are an important tool for anyone who wishes to retain ANY level of freedom, in a world where there are a large number of people who have no morals, or restraint, who tend to attempt to use their own guns to force THEIR will upon those who will not, or cannot defend themselves….

This statement of human interaction is not a guess…. It is not an opinion…. It is not a question, or a suggestion…. It is a fact of life, and a quality of human nature; not admitting the presence and capabilities of such corrupted humans is not only foolish, but, in the long run, as well as the short, a very dangerous failure of intelligence….

Perhaps not so much, I suppose, if one is careful in their choice of parents, (hah!), but, there are times when Fate, in the guise of Entitlement, or Insanity, or Desperation, or some other iconic force of emotion that can drive a human to pick up a gun, and use it indiscriminately on innocent people…. well, Fate will act in spite of all our caution….

Believing that schoolyard shootings, or mall attacks on shoppers, or shootings in work-places, or churches, will cease to happen, if we only banned guns, is the dream of a child, with no understanding of reality…. It isn’t that simple, and giving up the right to defend yourself, for the promise of being protected, is naive, and, well, sorry, but, it’s stupid…. Any who, here is what I noted about the issue earlier this year, before I got so busy with living….

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

“The media are now the tool of tyrants and despots. Tyrants and despots encourage fear, because fearful people will accept extreme political solutions, will demand extreme political solutions.” — Jon Carroll, S. F. Chronicle, January 8, 1997

Jon Carroll, on the political scale, would be considered to be just a bit left of the center, maybe a foot or two, as he tends to side with liberal ideas more than conservative. Over the years, I’ve found his take on life and society to be, most of all, even-handed, and reasonable. He avoids the trap of becoming overly critical of conservative ideas, while at the same time showing absolute fearlessness in addressing difficult questions and issues. As a media member, for him to make this statement was most likely painful, in that he had to admit his own culpability to do so. He does that, quite well, without becoming overly pedantic or shrill about it, while still nailing the controversial point at which he is taking aim….

The recent hullabaloo over gun control is a perfect example of the process he describes, in action. Whenever a madman grabs a gun and starts shooting people randomly, or even targeting one group or another, the media immediately descends in hordes on the location of the shooting, giving out endless bulletins with the latest news on the events, interviewing police, victims, bystanders, and pundits to provide “balanced coverage” of events the public “has the right to know”…. regardless of how degrading, or painful, or ignorant, or insane, or stupid it may sound, or how much pain it may cause the victims. No stone is left unturned to examine and evaluate every emotional nuance for the viewing public, without any regard for morality, or justice, and definitely without any regard for compassion, or empathy.

After the event has ended, the media then turns to the “discussion” of the meaning of the events, which means it gives the Beloved Ruling Class a free source of advertisement for its agenda, which, allow me to reassure you, has nothing to do with what may be good for YOU. All the talk you hear from politicians after these shootings is aimed at increasing the fear of the public, to make them believe they are powerless in the face of a madman with a gun; it is in their interests if y’all believe that, if only the people would allow ONLY the police and government to have guns, why, everything would be fine, and there would never be any more shootings at public schools.

I’m sorry, but, I’m afraid I can’t buy that…. There are over seven billion people on this planet, and there is simply no chance at all that banning guns is going to prevent some of them from going crazy, getting a gun, (or knife, or poison, or grenade, or dynamite, or…..) and using it on other folks. Believing such nonsense is, I’m sorry, just stupid….. It won’t stop, and there is nothing that will stop it, unless we figure out a way to change human nature…. a quest that, so far, has been completely unsuccessful, and isn’t likely to ever be otherwise…. People have violence in their nature, and thinking that the government, or any other entity, can change that is, well, not too bright….

But, fear is strong in most of society, and those folks have no clue, in general, that they are so easily manipulated. They tend to allow anyone who promises them to stop the fear to tell them what to do, just so they don’t have to think about it, or face it themselves. Governments have known this for centuries, as the quote below, from Hermann Goering, the Nazi general under Hitler, indicates clearly…. It’s a practice by no means uncommon among governments throughout history, up to and including the present day version….

“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”   –Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

Yep, ffolkes, that is indeed what it means…. most people are cowards. Combine that with their deliberate stupidity, and they are easily manipulable, plain and simple…. When it comes to their own fears, they won’t do much of anything in the way of conquering those fears themselves….

They would much rather let the politicians promise them to keep the streets safe, if only they will give up the right to defend themselves, or allow a preacher to tell them to submit to earthly authority in order to receive eternal life…… Or, in other words, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today….” — Wimpy, Popeye’s friend, and metaphorical common man….. The media, whether out of ignorance, or out of deliberate dispassion, will continue to give them a public platform from which to perform their manipulations, and never blink an eye in guilt….

Me? I’ll pass on the hamburger, thanks, and make sure my powder is dry….

“I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.” — Ronald W. Reagan

(Back in November now…..  My powder, had I any need of it, would still be dry…. I know for sure that my knives are sharp and numerous, as are the other not so obvious weapons that I tend to keep near at hand, where they can be easily procured, when… er, ah, IF they’re ever needed…..    😉   …..)
_____________________________

Today’s Pearl is being constructed in an unusual fashion….. Not a bad thing, all in all, but, different, to be sure…. In such cases, when uncertainty is the order of the day, and entropy rules the process of making any decision, it’s always safest to retreat into that which we know best, or, more importantly, that which we trust to be exactly what we expect it to be, which is, as always, unpredictable…. It’s the only way to cope with what is happening, without giving in, to run screaming into the day, having lost all grip on reality….. A bit of Emily’s magic will always save the day, for me….

Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With “This was last her fingers did,”
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then ‘t was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,–
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.
 
~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

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Fortune, they say, favors the brave…. or, was that the foolish? No matter, either one works for me… Therefore, I’ll stand up to fate’s demands for compliance, even if I have to defy that demand…. What that means, here and now, is another old-school pearl…. I’ve ranted more than enough above, and don’t really have much more in me to say…. So, I’ll give Smart Bee its head, and see what comes up…. Generally, when I do that, the pearls seem to come out better than might be expected…. Let’s hope that’s the case today…..

“Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own  life – is the source from which self respect springs. ” — Joan Didion

“Never to have changed – what a pitiable thing of which to boast!” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We have art that we do not die of the truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.” — G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography, 1937

“Times are bad.  Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

“Nothing is good in moderation. You cannot know good in anything until you  have torn the heart out of it by excess.” — Oscar Wilde (to Andre Gide)

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.” — Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam, 1926

Not bad, not bad at all….
_____________________________

I imagine, since I’ve been at this for a couple of hours, minus the necessary breaks to go off somewhere, to moan and stretch, there isn’t much more significant harm I can do…. I’ll be right back, after I collect enough data for a report to the damage control center….

Fortunately for all concerned, the data that was collected was immediately classified as top secret, so only the NSA will have access to it… and they’re welcome to it, such as it is…. Having thus thumbed a nose at them, as I am committed to doing at least once a day (and, believe me, when one is a Bozo, nose and all, thumbing is more of an ordeal than otherwise might be thought….), I’ll take my leave, sans dignity, but with much aplomb…. See ya…..

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

Yet another display of consistently obscene pathology….

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Ffolkes,

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not one is willing to put up with the universe’s demands upon our time and energy, when deciding which of the many different types of cereal to have for breakfast. I mean, there’ the question of sugar versus aspertane; the question of rolled oats versus wheat or corn flakes, the  question of puffs versus flakes, or the whole concept of cut-up fruit, and other accessories to the breakfast experience. And, then, just when you’ve decided on one thing or another, they ask you whether you want home fries or hash browns with that!…..

Life is hard, isn’t it? Decisions await the application of our will around every corner, every hour of the day; we can never really get away from the need for making hard decisions in life. Trying to do so only causes further difficulties, as Murphy has an entire department of imps just waiting to help us make decisions in life that are guaranteed to drive us insane, by feeding us false, or erroneous data about what we have to decide, thereby ensuring we make the wrong decision, thus, affording him and his minions hours of free entertainment, as we gnash our teeth and wail out our complaints to an uncaring universe….

Me, I stick to coffee in the mornings, leaving the decision-making to other folks to enjoy. I refuse to give Murphy the opportunity for any more free shots at me than he already takes. If I want to eat, I stick to pastries, or other stuff that won’t cause a big mess in the kitchen. That room is too full of too many dangerous objects; knives with sharp edges, fire, heavy pots, scalding hot liquids…. No, thanks, I’ll pass on all that in the morning, in lieu of making weekly trips to the emergency room to deal with Murphy’s latest version of what he thinks is funny, which, naturally, frequently causes me to leak one kind of body fluid or another…. another image I probably could have skipped using…. SIGH…. Oh, well, I can’t be responsible for the state of people’s stomachs ALL the time…..

Hmm…. compared to what generally passes for an intro in the mornings around here, this is pretty mild, and actually somewhat engaging, if you have any interest at all in breakfast cereals…. If not exactly your cup of tea, well, we’re serving coffee, over there in the corner, where Murphy and the gang are, of course, taking advantage of my hospitality by hogging all the condiments; you’re free to join them, at your own risk, naturally. He’s already had his way with me today, so he’ll be glad of the company. Me, I’m going to go pearling, as if it were the most natural thing in the world…..

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

Yesterday, Smart Bee was a bit off center at times, but, with good grace, and a willing heart, it managed to get me what I needed, and threw in a few extras for today’s post, which I dutifully saved, recognizing them as the lustrous gems they were…. I’ll now go search out a few more, to fill out the dimensions for a proper indictment of the beloved ruling class, and the panorama of human folly we call “politics”, which, as, I believe, Ambrose Bierce pointed out, is a combination word, coming from “poly” meaning “many”, and “tics” meaning “blood sucking insects”….. a perfect description of the general run of that sport’s participants….

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H.L. Mencken, “Little Book in C major”, 1916

“Can there be a republic that does not slump under the weight of so much human desire?” — Michael Scully

“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. . . . the human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

“‘Tis better to be alone than in the company of fools.” — Bobby Matherne, American Philosopher (1940-)

“I had too much to dream last night.” — Electric Prunes

“In our society, the Republicans set out to prove that the Democrats can not  be trusted to run the government. And the Democrats set out to prove that the Republicans can not be trusted to run our government. The real problem here is that both the Democrats and the Republicans have come up with  something which is absolutely true and perfectly correct. This means that the people get to pull some sort of horrible trick on themselves and live with their choice for four years.” — Smart Bee

“Now I’m concentrating on a specific tank battle toward the end of World War II!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Okay, silly, I know…. but, look closely, and you’ll see how true all of them really are, when compared to reality…. Here, if it’s that big a deal for y’all…. here is a final word, that pretty much says it all… but, without the buffer of humor….

“…when all government… in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1821
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Poetry is sometimes so powerful, it only takes a few meager lines to impart an incredible amount of inspiration, wisdom, and beauty….. Emily was a master of this principle….

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


“We have art that we do not die of the truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
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I’m still feeling a bit silly, so I’m going to give in to the impulse to let that out into the light of day, and go with another old school pearl, this one gathered with the idea of ‘smiling’ in mind…. Let’s see what SB has to say on the subject…..

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.” — Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844-1900)

“Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.” — Joseph Wood Krutch

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.” — Murphy’s Eighth Law

“OH, STOP YOUR WHINING!” — Smart Bee
(ref: Peruaosophy, Axiom #6, to wit: Axiom #2 X axiom #5 = And God so loved the world, He said, “Quit whining!”)

* Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO
* Many newspapers feature “JUMBLE”
* Hourly motel rates
* Vast majority of Elvis movies made here
* Didn’t just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention
* Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies
* Our well-behaved golf professionals
* Fabulous babes coast to coast

— David Letterman’s “Things we can be proud of as Americans”

“The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.  — Jane Wagner”

“A day without a laugh is a day wasted.” — E.E. Cummings
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I love it when a plan, etc…… Due to time constraints imposed upon me by the BBR, (Big Blue Room, for those with memory impairment issues….), I had to sort of rush through this morning’s post… Sometimes that affects the quality, or, at least, the format that is employed in creating the pearl. Today, I think it went well, so, let’s see….

cute owlYes, yes, this pleases cute owl! Well, it pleases me, anyway, and that’s all that counts in the ultimate sense. Cute owl is only here as a hired consultant…. Now that I have demonstrably gone completely around the bend, I’ll leave you to treat your wounds in peace….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

A desperate scenario, indeed, oberfuehrer….

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Ffolkes,
“Freeze!” I stopped my stealthy movement toward the connecting door, and slowly straightened, with my hands out at my sides. Turning to face my captor, I saw a young Felsian soldier, no more than a boy, but holding a very adult-looking automatic weapon pointed at my chest. His wide, frightened eyes were fixed on my face, and his large, oddly pretty hands were gripping the weapon as if he were afraid to let go, lest he fall. “How…. how’d you get in here?”, he stammered. I gazed calmly into his eyes, and said, in a soothing tone, “Easy, son, don’t get twitchy…. why don’t you lower your weapon, and I’ll show you my authorization papers….”

I moved my left hand toward my pocket to draw his eyes, and, as soon as they moved to follow, I allowed the small tube to fall into my right hand. As he reached for the papers I held out to him with my left hand, I smoothly raised the right hand, and pricked his wrist with the needle attached to the tube. He fell instantly to the floor, sleeping like a baby.  Letting out a breath of gratitude that I hadn’t been forced to kill the poor lad, I dragged his unconscious body behind an armoire, where he could safely sleep until found, or, until he woke up in about 8 hours, with a raging headache, trying to remember why he wanted to be a soldier….. I moved on, further into the palace, now intent on my original goal…. the Thousand Precious Jewels of Nanoska, Crown Treasure of the Kings of Fels….

Well, there you have it, another in a long line of interrupted stories, pure invention to start my day. SIGH…. one of these days the story will grab me, and I’ll have to keep writing until it’s done….  I wouldn’t hold my breath, though, if I were you….. No, I consider most of these intro paragraphs as throwaways, just words strung together in practice for the real writing I do, about reality and life…. Fiction writing is fun, but, my mind needs the sense of release, and healing, that ranting, reading and writing poetry, and discussing ethics, morality, and the joy and pain of living gives me, through the process of putting down my thoughts and feelings. It helps me to keep it all straight in my head, and gets the stuff out of it that would otherwise sit there and rot, or stir up trouble with my emotional state…..

Maybe I could, and should, figure out another method of creating intros, but, I’m too stubborn to give in to any impulse that uses the word ‘should’ to get me to do anything. I regard that word as one that we only use when we are playing our “tapes” in our head, and I try very hard not to let any of those old tapes affect what I do at all, as most of them, provided to me by parents of other kids, priests/preachers, ignorant teachers, and busybodies of all kinds, are standards of behavior and attitude that were designed to benefit someone else, i.e., our early-childhood brainwashing….

You know, all that stuff you were told before you had any reasons not to believe the adults were telling the truth…. or, more aptly, before you found out that most of it wasn’t true, and that adults lie all the time…. It is a sad, but powerful experience when we realize that most of the people in the world aren’t telling us the truth, but are modifying it at will, to achieve their own ends. Most of the people who lie to us are doing so because they believe what they are saying to be true; that is what makes it hard to tell. But, what they are saying, most of the time, is stuff THEY were taught when they were children, and they have never examined it for its veracity, or ever considered that they were told lies from the very beginning…..

“Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Damn! There I go again, ranting away, and I’m not even done with the intro…. See? I’ve got to figure something out, and soon, before I drive myself crazier than I already am!…. SIGH…. (That’s a long, drawn out Clare County sigh…. and, a short drive….) I’m feeling a desperate man, I am, so it’s probably best if I get on with my dive, before I implode…..  Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“The thinking that we are doing has brought us to where we have already been. In order to go somewhere else, we must think in a different way.” — Albert Einstein

One can always trust Albert to state profound ideas in the simplest way…. you gotta love that. Here, his insight has pinpointed the root problem with which our species has to contend if we are to survive to the next millennium, and illuminates the necessary element in solving the issue, all in two short, simple statements. We humans have made a real mess of things, to put it mildly, and now are faced with a dilemma never faced in all our history as a species…. that we know of…. Perhaps Atlantis fell for exhibiting the self-same lack of ethics and moral advancement as our society has done, and Mother Nature stepped in previously, as she is close to doing now…. There is no way to know for sure…. What is certain is that our own time is nearing an end, unless we make an unlikely change in our attitudes and habits….

This is the root of the problem we face, that the necessary changes need to be made in the human psyche, our souls, as it were, and it just isn’t going to happen unless each and every person alive makes the change. The assumption that we have the right to use the resources of the planet for our own benefit ONLY, to strip the physical world of all the materials we want to use for our own purposes, no matter what effect it has on the rest of what exists here has only one outcome possible, and that is our own self-destruction, taking many innocent species with us… The plants, the other animals, the immense beauty of the physical world in which we live are all being wasted by mankind’s insane rush to obtain and hoard anything considered useful to themselves, at the expense of all else…..

This attitude indicates an inferior spirit, one whose moral and ethical advancement is arrested, and even reversed, until all that is left is pure, unadulterated avarice and greed, and complete dispassion for other life-forms. If you have ever seen an open wound, an ulcer, then you know just what the spirit of such a person is like… and the pain they cause for everyone else…. Unfortunately, this ulcer cannot be treated with ointments, and a clean bandage…

To my mind, the necessary changes that can save us are obviously spiritual in nature, and will require some kind of spiritual awakening in ALL humans on the planet, a realization that we are part of a larger scheme of things than merely our own concerns, and that our participation in that larger view of reality is necessary for us to survive. If we continue to deny the reality of this, then our selfish destructiveness will be brought to an end by our own actions. Unless we can get those who care not for anything but themselves to alter that state of mind, we are all going to die, because there won’t be any breathable air, or any non-toxic water, or any food that will sustain us… We will have fouled our own nest unto extinction….

“Our humanity were a poor thing were it not for the divinity which stirs within us.” — Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Francis doesn’t get much air time on this blog, since most of what he says is crap; he tends to hide a nimble mind behind a screen of religious fervor that colors most of his thinking. In this particular phrase, he is close to a truth, but where he uses the words “divinity which stirs within us”, I would say, “the divinity of which we are part.” Robert Heinlein’s character, Valentine Michael Smith, in Stranger In A Strange Land, perhaps said it best when he said used the phrase, “Thou Art God”…..

Only when we come to understand that we are part and parcel of everything else that exists, no more, no less than any other part, can we reach the understanding, and the compassion, that will be needed to overcome the problems we have created through our specie’s deliberate ignorance and avarice….. We must accept the responsibility that comes with divinity, to cherish and protect all the different parts of reality that make up the whole of our being, instead of using whatever we see to increase our own creature comforts, at the expense of the rest of reality.

Our species MUST undergo a spiritual awakening, or we will surely be condemned to an ignoble end, much like the thousands of species our kind has already added to the list of those who have disappeared from this plane of existence. I wish I could say that all I’ve said here is speculation, but, there is too much hard evidence that supports what I’m saying to ignore. The time we have to awaken our brothers and sisters who have been brainwashed into disbelieving their own power is growing very short, I’m afraid…. I’m also afraid that it isn’t going to happen, and that would indeed be a great waste……

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai E. Stevenson “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!” — Smart Bee
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After writing the above, I’m a bit depressed, as can be imagined….. When I’m down, I turn to classical poetry, and always find something to take my mind away, especially with the romantic poets, and always with Yeats…. I’ve used this before, possibly more than once, but, I don’t much care, as it’s one of my favorites, and worthy of inclusion any time… Enjoy!  I did….

A Faery Song

{Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania, in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.}

We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:
Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told.

William Butler Yeats
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Ah, me…. I always feel better after some Yeats… I guess I should memorize some of it, so I can recite it to myself at will…. Any who, another rant would arguably be a poor idea, and, as I have no wish to lose anyone to boredom or fatigue, we’ll do our usual dance of avoidance, and go for an old-school pearl. I’ve had some good luck recently using the harlequin method, so we’ll go with that…. Here, then, you will find a group of pearls, randomly picked for random reasons by my unconscious mind, which I allow free rein in such matters….. Let’s see what comes up, shall we?…..

ASS, n.  A public singer with a good voice but no ear.  In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey.  The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate.  Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, _lib. II., De Clem._, and C. Stantatus, _De Temperamente_) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also.  Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other.  This is no small distinction.  From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivaling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible.  It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

“Hail, holy Ass!” the quiring angels sing;
“Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!”
Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”
G.J.
— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“America … just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.” — Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”

“Any time that is not spent on love is wasted.” — Tasso

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) — Maud Muller, st. 53

“Among mankind money is far more persuasive than logical argument.” — Euripides

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” — Thomas Paine

Well, there you go…. makes sense to me…. Bonus points if you can identify the quote that exemplifies today’s post most closely….  🙂
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Well, THAT was an adventure, to be sure….. Let’s see how it hangs together…. Patently, it won’t win a Pulitzer, but arguably, it ain’t bad…. to paraphrase Andrew Greeley. As such, I feel no qualms whatsoever in declaring it done….. Consider it declared. Since I can’t think of anything else to say or do that wouldn’t cost my karma at least a few hit points, I’ll let it all go at that….   🙂    Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3