Like milk, spilling out of a cereal bowl, fog poured over the rim of the mountain, white, cold, pushing frigid gusts of wind ahead as it rushed down the side of the hills, swooping swiftly toward the camp in the trees at the foot of the peak. As darkness begins to thicken among the trees, the camp’s inhabitants snuggle deeper into their blankets, secure in their tents, heedless of the mist gathering between, turning the air surreal in the twilight. Dim shapes of sentries move around the perimeter of the camp, rifles at the ready; fog made their job more difficult, causing each to narrow eyes to peer into the gloom, and grip their weapon tightly, in fear of what could no longer be seen….

Enough, already…. My old friend is back, and I’m not a particularly happy camper, myself, this morning…. hence, the little fictional opening, to loosen up the old neurons, hopefully with a bit of style, while waiting for my magic cream to take effect enough to let me sit…. Great fun…. But, I’m determined to get this done, regardless of how I feel, so, I may as well get on with it…. no whining allowed today….

I am going to cheat a bit…. I have a lot to do today; this will need to get done, so I can do it all before I give out…. an event I can already predict to occur sometime around 11 AM…. By then, the pain, and gravity, will knock me down and out for an hour or two, so I can get something else done this afternoon…. Sheesh, you’d think I was still working, or had kids or something…. No, just duty, and obligatory completion of same, so, as I said, no whining allowed….

However, that is why this intro is so short, and lacking in rational organization; I just dived in without any plan, other than to get done as quickly as I can…. I am even going to resort to method #4, early in the game, to get us out of the intro without any fuss…. In fact, I see it coming up now, so, I’ll see you in the next section….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen.” — Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

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The following is a fairly long diatribe, that served me well a few months ago; it was first posted two years ago, and by golly, is still valid…. so, please enjoy…..

From 1/12/2014:

Yet each sense is such that it works WITH all the others, in ways we don’t really understand, to give us the pictures in our heads that show us how our minds perceive the world outside us…. We, being the imaginative creatures we are, have evolved all sorts of ways to organize and utilize our perceptions, all of which are again connected (remember that complexity part…) to another facet of Reality, which is our motivation for what we do, an outgrowth of our judgments of what we perceive…. We perceive, we judge, we act on that judgment, all according to our basic outlook on life, and how we choose to accept, and use, what we perceive….

This subject, I know, is a  bit esoteric for such a venue, but, I’m leading up to a point, which is this…. We all perceive the world differently, but, that doesn’t mean the world takes that into any account…. It’s one of our hardest lessons to accept when we are forced to admit that the Universe, in all its majestic glory, couldn’t give a tiny little crap for us, or for what we think of the way things are…. If we choose to interact with it in such a way that we are breaking the basic rules that everything works by, then we will have to pay the price, in the only way that the Universe uses to exact payment, to wit: extinction….

Now, given that, it seems to me that my ranting about all of this*** is a bit like that ant crawling up the elephant’s leg, with belligerent intentions…. In short, it’s not really a productive way to achieve whatever it is I’m trying to do, as I can see only one possible outcome, which, the odds, and logic, would tend to dictate doesn’t include any need for any worry on the part of the elephant…. All that is a long winded, pedantic way of saying that my rants, while satisfying on a personal level for the release they provide, are mostly a waste of breath, in a practical sense…. Nothing will change because I rant, in spite of the need for change being the whole purpose behind the rant…

The major part of that reason, I think, lies in the fact that I’m preaching to the choir…. None of the ffolkes, or folks, who read my blog, (with the possible exception of any bored NSA drones who may be assigned to do so merely because of my anti-government stance, shown by the  use of key phrases indicating my opposition….), are in any position to make any of the changes themselves, even though many of them would be willing to do so, I think…. But, the people who inhabit the halls of our government in Washington, and in other capitols around the world, DON’T read my blog, nor do they agree with most of the things about which I rant….

Why is that, do you think? Why don’t the people who govern us agree with any of what I say in my rants? It’s all stuff that can be proven, and is certainly important enough to all of us to warrant discussion… But, they don’t agree… They have their own agendas, which don’t look like anything that anyone in the great unwashed masses could come up with, even though they supposedly represent US…. These are our representatives, ffolkes…. I found this short comment in an old Pearl, which I think sums up most of my point pretty well…..

(From May 12, 2012):

“Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?” — John Milton (1608-1674) — The History of England, Book iv

Did you ever wonder why a group of crows is called a congress? I didn’t. It makes perfect sense to me…. Dark, sinister looking creatures who act in odd ways, even for birds. Their behaviors tend to lean toward stealing shiny objects from wherever, or stealing the food of people or other animals and birds. When they speak, it is in a voice that grates on the ear like fingernails on a slate. In groups, they mill around, cackling and grumbling and jostling each other, until they all fly off to different areas to carry out whatever nefarious schemes they have hatched among themselves.

No, I have no problem envisioning a congress of crows; in fact, I believe they are in session, now, in Washington, D.C. …. Why, look! Here’s a list of them now!…..

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/01/10/congress-is-mostly-full-of-millionaires-but-who-are-the-richest/#19551101=0

Them’s some affluent crows, ain’t they?…. That’s what happens when any politician is given the keys to the treasury….. One last query…. Who gets to say how much money members of Congress get paid? Answer: They are authorized to set that themselves…. Okay, one more… Who authorized them? Why, they authorized that themselves, of course….

I’m tired now…. I’ve managed to spout off now about the Asininnies, or, at least, about the 545 of them who inhabit the top levels of OUR democratic bureaucracy, for a good, oh, thousand words or so, and once again, it will end up being read by those who mostly agree… (I’m making the assumption, reluctantly, but, with confidence, that if they DIDN’T agree, they’d leave a comment to say so…. I know MY Gentle Readers would do so….), so, I’m perfectly aware that no changes will happen because of what I’ve written….

I don’t FEEL any better, either, damn it!…..  😦

***  It must be noted that “all of this” should be understood to include: global warming, and the impending ecological disaster, overpopulation, criminality of the Asininnies, most especially the egregiously selfish actions of the Beloved Ruling Class, the Shadowy Corporate Masters, Snakeheads in general, (human predators…. pimps, slavers, pedophiles, and the ilk…), and the Priestly Hierarchies….. Oh, yes, and, on the rare occasion,  exposing Pooh’s evil twin….

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As is my wont, here is a poem of my own, to prevent sharing the blame, which is more certain around here than sharing the wealth…. there isn’t a lot of that floating around…. I’m wealthy in friends and family, but nothing that could be deposited in a bank…. This MAY be my best poem, period; it was written 2/2/2012…..

Fortunately for us all, old-school pearls don’t take a long time to create, as long as Smart Bee isn’t playing games at Murphy’s behest…. We’ll see how it does before settling on an archived example…. We’ll leave the parameters random, so SB doesn’t feel constrained to stick to our usual subjects, & see what happens…..

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” — US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

“I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed  psychiatrist is our “friend.”” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.” — Kehlog Albran, The Profit

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” — H. G. Wells

“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” — Maya Angelo

“If the government doesn’t trust us with our guns, why should we trust them with theirs?” — Smart Bee

“What you think means more than anything else in your life. More than what you earn, more than where you live, more than your social position, and more than what anyone else may think about you.” — George Adams

“Is this an out-take from the “BRADY BUNCH”?” — Zippy the Pinhead

Hmm… I suppose one can’t complain about quality when in a hurry like this…. It’s okay, it’s just not going to wake up the Pulitzer committee…. I can deal with that, since I’m done…. HAH!

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You know it’s been a tough Pearl when I come this close to including the Desiderata…. which is fine, but, a bit sappy. I know it’s just a made up philosophy, thrown together by a song-writer in the early twentieth century, but, a LOT of what is in there has been of very good use to me, in terms of being good advice on how to live life with some dignity and grace…. But, that’s a story for another time…. This Pearl is done, and I’m outta here…. See ya, ffolkes….