Tag Archives: Jabberwocky

Drowning democracy in an ocean of cash….

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Ffolkes,

So, there I was, in my bed, sleeping away, and what happens?…. Oh, wait, I can’t use that; I forgot I promised not to do that sort of stuff anymore, after it caused such a hullabaloo last time…. The authorities were NOT happy with me for all the overtime they had to put in rounding up those mental patients, who just “happened” to break out of the maximum security hospital at the same moment I perpetrated my apparently unwelcome outrage upon the written word, and the resulting mess became a bit more than they could handle with ease, or even unease….. It wasn’t MY fault, but, they didn’t feel that way about it, and you know how those authority-types can be when they are discommoded in any way…. assholes, every one of ’em….

As you can tell, I woke up today in a bit of a curmudgeonly state of mind; I’m thinking “grump” will be my status quo statement, if anyone dares to even ask…. My general appearance is somewhat large and intimidating anyway, and when I assume grump status, my expression and demeanor seems to have the effect of keeping people at a distance that seems safe to them, generally about fifty paces…. or, if they don’t feel quite comfortable that close, a short taxi ride takes them out of range in jig time…. I don’t mind, and I keep a cab on call…. it’s safer for everyone, and my insurance rates stay down that way….

I’m so on edge today, it took me about 15 minutes, and a number of curses, to decide on today’s title, which is obviously not as meaningless as is usually the case….. What you see is the compromise worked out with my angst-ridden sub-conscious, which wanted to make the title a rant in itself…. The rant-like state it displays is the least offensive of all I came up with, the best I could do under the circumstances, with anger driving the bus I’m on…. Feel lucky, it could have been a LOT worse….

As it is, I may get people today coming in with expectations of reading a treatise, or discussion about democracy, and it’s state in today’s world…. but, all they’ll find is this blathering mess, so, I’d best get on with putting together a Pearl worthy of the name, so as not to cause TOO much disappointment…. there’s always quite enough of THAT going on as a matter of course, without any help from me…. But, that, again, is not MY fault, nor is it my sole responsibility to clean it up for consumption…. I’ll assume that onus for my own words, but, I’m not copping to what Murphy does, no fucking way….

That being said….. There really isn’t anything better to do, so we may as well get on with this….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I’m pretending I’m pulling in a TROUT!  Am I doing it correctly??” — Zippy the Pinhead

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

As noted above, I am in the mood to rant…. However, the depth of my anger today is beyond all reason; I’m feeling extremely homicidal…. It will take ALL of my will power to NOT become proactive…. Think about that, and you’ll see I’m not in a very good mood at all; in fact, it’s been hard to keep myself from casually booting the cat through the window, or some other powerful release of what is bubbling and churning in my head and gut…. To go there, in a real sense, I would have to have already purchased the weaponry that is part of my ultimate plan, which, sadly, I haven’t completed yet…. It’s harder than it seems to find just the “right” weapon(s) for the purposes to which I plan to put it/them….

“Frankly,” he said, “I’m just trying to get to the end of my life without becoming an asshole again.” The Buddha couldn’t have said it better. — Slomo, aka John Kitchin, San Diego, last lines of the Mark Morford column, 4/16/14…. ( http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/04/15/the-saddest-job-in-the-world/ )

“Me, too”, he said…. The above article is a good one; it kept me from killing anyone for three whole days, before I had to replace the old restraining thought patterns that keep me from breaking down, & carrying out one of the many fantasies that parade through my head whenever I start thinking about the BRC, the Asininnies in general, or the state of the world at large…. It makes me positively homicidal….

Every time I look at the big picture, extrapolating what I perceive out into the future, I see our species ending its short stay on Earth in the all-too-near future, ignominiously choking out our last painful breaths of a now toxic atmosphere, dying in sheer agony, in a world gone mad, broken and sad, from trying to contain our common insanity….. I see the real world, full of uncaring, selfish, avaricious thieves who prey upon the rest of mankind, to the detriment of all, knowing, but not caring how much pain and misery they cause others….

When I look at these images in my mind this morning, I am enraged…. so much so, I must go take a short break…. When I return, I’ll put together an old-school pearl…. Maybe that will allow me to calm down enough to make them fit just the way I like…. I’ll be right back, ffolkes, after I calm down a bit…. God! I HATE adrenalin….. I spent way too much of my life under its influence, and it just pisses me off when it rears its ugly head again…. Ah well, I’ll be back….

“… And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the mother of invention.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.), “The Republic”, Book II. 369C

There! I feel better already…. finding a good pearl, that describes reality so closely in our current state, is always a good thing, in my book…. For the remainder of this group, let’s see what rant-like material regarding my favorite targets we can find today…. Enjoy…. and you can thank me later for not ranting….

“Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.” — P. J. O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991)

“Democracy can learn some things from Communism: for example, when a Communist politician is through, he is through.” — Jacoby Smirnoff

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

“Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin; the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” — Robert A. Heinlein — Lazarus Long

“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.” — Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

“Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.” — John Updike, Couples

“I am Porky of Borg. You will be assim…bdeh…assim…I’m takin’ over!”– Smart Bee

This is, perhaps, the strangest pearl I’ve ever composed….. I like it….

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

When I’m in this sort of mood, there is only one thing that will eventually bring me some peace of mind, and that, thanks to my bozoid nature, is always handy, and always welcome…. If you can’t guess, well, okay….. I’m talking about nonsense; I’m thinking a good strong dose of it is called for, so we’ll go with what we all know to be a classic of that genre….. “Go ask Alice….”, right? Right….. Enjoy!…. I intend to….

Jabberwocky

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

~~ Lewis Carroll ~~

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

I may not be burbling, but, I’ve been known to “stand in uffish thought”, which is just as good, in my book….. To finish off today, I’m going with more nonsense, this time from whatever Smart Bee can find for us with such a simple parameter…. Rest easy, ffolkes, it won’t always be like this, and old-school pearls are much safer when I’m in this mood, believe me…. Here you go….

I changed my mind (big surprise…)….. Here is a rant from last year, on gun control, which will serve, for the moment, to take a bit of the pressure off, so I can get on with my day, minus all this angst…. It’s a bit long, but, worth it…. to me, if nobody else….

From 6/5/13:

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

I’m rather hoping it is, in sooth…. if not, we all are in serious trouble, up the proverbial creek without a hint of a paddle. Not that it should be anything new or unfamiliar, as most of our history has been spent thus occupied. Of course, previous centuries didn’t have the distinct advantage of having either the Brady’s, or Zippy, in all his insane wisdom, as cultural icons, as well as ethical touchstones….. They had to make do with Socrates, and Plato, and stuffy old guys like that….. Aristotle was practically a rock star in his day, and remains a pretty smart dude, by all evidence, but I still prefer Carlin, I think, for the most cogent philosophy for modern times….

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” — The Constitution of the United States of America Amendment 6, 1791

For a moment, I wondered what my unconscious mind was thinking when it made me copy and paste this amendment into the pearl, as a pearl…. especially as it seems to be in conjunction with the Zippy quote…. Here I am, five minutes later, still wondering what the hell I was thinking…. It happens that way sometimes…. just give me a few moments here, and I’ll come up with it…. Aha! Got it! Naturally, I only needed to go back to basics…. The answer to the question of how the two quotes are related is…. Reality….

Aye, that’s right, Reality. It’s what we do here, explore Reality, and all its implications, ramifications, and delineations. Also, it’s temperature. Well, perhaps that isn’t the right word, but…. Reality, as is clear and obvious to the most casual observer, exists in varying degrees (hence: temperature…. see?). The degree of Reality that is included in an out-take from the Brady Bunch is clearly not the same degree of Reality that is implied in the Sixth Amendment. I’d say, the Amendment would hit around 8 or 9 on the real scale, with 10 being the Reality of Amber, where all roads lead. (See Roger Zelazny’s book, The Courts of Amber…..), whereas the highest the Brady’s could hope for would be a 2 or a 3 on that same scale. They’re too oppositional in nature to be rated otherwise, as well as being on opposite ends of the scale of Relative Importance to ME and YOU…..

Now we get to the meat of this matter…. Of late, there has been a lot of public discourse regarding gun control, as a result of the media’s steadfast love of gore and manipulation. Another school shooting took place a few weeks ago, wherein some crazy idiot got hold of some firearms and used them in an insane manner. This, of course, all morality aside, is still a reprehensible act, and, IMHO, most easily solved by just taking one of his own guns and using it on him, at the time of his crime. Bang, problem solved, and since he’s standing there over the bodies he has made, no question of guilt. In such cases, the why of his guilt should not matter; whatever it is, it is reason enough to put him down, in defense of humanity. The other questions can be answered after the children have been defended….

Sadly, there are two segments of humanity who don’t agree with this logical outcome. One segment is what I term the humanitarians, a misleading term, since it usually involves the denial of much of human nature. The other, of course, is our old nemesis, the BRC…. our Beloved Ruling Class…. Neither of these groups will agree that allowing people to have guns should be allowed, or that killing the killers is a proper solution for the issue. In both of these positions, they are dead wrong, and, more, they know they are. This serves to make their arguments more shrill, more emotionally based, and, in their eyes, more valid, in some strange form of weird logic….

“Everybody in this room is wearing a uniform, so don’t kid yourself…” — Frank Zappa

One of the most edifying parts of this discussion, for me, is how it makes it so easy to identify those who are wearing the uniforms, and from what camp they are from, according to their colors and insignia. You can tell the humanitarians, they’re the ones wearing the faux-camouflage pants, in support of the troops, they’ll assure you; they want the police to be the only ones who carry guns, believing, for some unknown reason, that police are somehow more moral or ethical than other people. (Of course, they also would have trouble if you asked them to define the words, “moral”, or “ethical”, in any other terms than those used in a philosophy paper they memorized in college, or in seminary….)

The BRC are always easy to spot, as their sense of entitlement provides them with all the armor against opinion, or law, they ever need. They want guns to be only held by the militia, (which they control), or the police (whom they also control), because it makes them nervous as hell to know there are guns out in the land, in the hands of people who would use them, for certain, if they attempt to perform their illegal lying, cheating, and stealing anywhere in their presence. It also makes them nervous knowing that they would be in danger for real, if the truth about what they do is ever made public with enough evidence to convince the masses to act…. They don’t want to have to worry they will be over-matched in firepower when that day comes along….

SIGH…. I’ve opened a can of worms, again, I know it….. I’m not going to claim to have all the right answers to the situation we find ourselves in today. Though it is a different world, technologically and culturally, from the time when the Second Amendment was written, deciding to abandon its precepts on that basis is not, and should never be, enough to justify any change in a law that is so important to the common man, the very people for whom the laws were created, to protect them from the self-same usurpation that is now being attempted. Once the law is amended, and weakened, the term “slippery slope” becomes very real, and a valid fear for those people.

To put a cap on it for now, I’ll say this…. Quite simply, I do not trust those who would take the right to bear arms from the people (added later: I reserve the same lack of trust for those who wish to amend, or limit in any way, the right to bear arms; ANY kind of change will ultimately be used as the basis for arguments designed to completely take the right away…). I have seen NO evidence, in history, or in recent current events, that ANY governing body, or ANY group, or ANY single person, of ANY persuasion can be trusted to have guns, and use them solely for the benefit of the people, without turning them to their own purposes, first. NONE. You can’t show me any, either…. Go ahead, I’m listening….

I have studied people every day of my life, and I know too much of human nature to ever believe what I’m told of another person’s intentions; even the best intentions can change in mid-stream, turning its back completely on any commitments made previously. People lie, they cheat, they break in their minds, and they can’t, as a whole, ever be trusted to act rationally on a consistent basis….. at least, not any more rationally than can I myself….

“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.” — Oscar Wilde

Such being the case, I’d rather keep my guns, thanks. I’ll accept the risks that go with that freedom, which includes the risk of bad people getting their hands on guns, and doing bad things to others. Don’t worry, if they do it in front of me, I’ll help…. and not by running away and hiding…. Life is dangerous, ffolkes, and one either learns to get along with that idea, or one spends a lot of time worrying about shit that can’t be changed…. A very unhappy state of affairs, to my way of thinking, and not very realistic in the long run….

“When the panorama of human existence becomes chaotic and confused, it is quite soothing to watch the sun rise in the East.” ~~ gigoid

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This Pearl, having been composed under what may be termed as extreme duress, didn’t come out too badly….. I cheated a little, by going back into the archives, but, given the circumstances today, that is all for the best…. In fact, I am compelled at this point to admit that there isn’t anything more I can do, either to improve matters, or to make them worse…. That being the case, I’m outta here until tomorrow…. 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 the dubious

dozer3

Milly, I found the Senator! He’s stinking drunk!….

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Ffolkes,

I’m up, I’m up…. Even if I don’t want to be, I’m up, sitting here, blinking vacuously at the screen and wondering just what the hell I do now…. I’m SUPPOSED to be writing, but, hey, it’s only 0500, and I just got here; I’ve barely had time to sip twice at my salvation-in-a-cup. In my weak moments, I resort to old habits, and thank God for small favors, before realizing the He didn’t have anything to do with it: I’m the one who ground the beans, measured the water, and set the timer…. Besides, I think my coffee maker is so new, He would find it too hard to program, and would give up…..

I know, I know, it’s cheap, going right into blasphemy, first thing in the morning, but, let no one ever say I lack courage, or common sense…. Well, perhaps the latter could be a bit more of use to me…. However, I’m pretty sure none of the major religious leaders is up right now…. Most of them are old, like me, but, not all of us don’t sleep at night, as I don’t….. Well, I do go to bed, and I stay there for quite a while, but, mostly, that is to give my back a break from fighting with gravity….

Sleep itself is not necessarily on the menu, as a general rule, other than as a sort of tossing and turning, let’s try this position sort of way, with the occasional moment or two of actual deep sleep, when I accidentally fall into a more comfortable configuration…. This is usually about when I need to turn over, to relieve one sort of pain or another, which is enough to wake me from any real restful sleep…. It’s not pretty, but, ’tis my own way, and I’m getting used to it, such as it is….

Besides, it’s been a long time since I took any real shots at the religious morons out there…. They generally are less of a worthy target than the politicos, as some of them actually are trying to be good people…. They’re just deluded, and that often isn’t their fault, as most of them were indoctrinated into the church’s dogma before they had any defense against it. Take the Pope…. please….. (Thank you, Henny….)

No, really, take the Pope… Here is a very nice man, by all accounts…. a simple man of Christ, who actually believes the doctrine of Peace that Jesus of Nazareth preached way back when, and tries to apply the principles therein to his own life, with dedication and humility…. At least, he LOOKS that way, and, by all reports, he IS that way, so, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt….

But, he also has to be smart enough to know what a crock his entire church is based on, and how much of mankind’s misery the church has been responsible for over the centuries…. Any historian that will read history with their eyes fully open will agree with that assessment…. The churches, in conjunction with corrupt aristocrats and bankers, throughout the last four millennia, have worked diligently, and to great effect, to oppress and manipulate the common man into an obedient, malleable mass of humanity, controlled by the very delusions that cause their misery….

“L’homme est bien insense. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux a douzaines.” (Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen.) — Montaigne

If you doubt the accuracy of that claim, allow me remind you of one Pope Leo X, one of the papacy’s finest examples of corruption and perversion…. Leo X, who indulged in a number of heinous activities during his reign in the Vatican, including nepotism and the selling of ‘indulgences’, was also infamous for saying, to his cronies, way back in the mid-1500’s, “How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us and our predecessors.” Oops! Did he really say that? According to the reports, yep, he did….
Pope Leo X    These days, most of them are more careful in their language; they confine their corruption to their sexual proclivities, which are obviously bent all out of shape by their life-long celibacy, enforced at first by their own inability to relate to their peer group, thus becoming isolated and twisted from jealousy…. Then, when older, they “answer the call”, which apparently means taking up the standards of pedophilia, rather than the more common abuse of, and/or promiscuity with, women of their own age group, as practiced by the men of that belief group who are NOT in the clergy….

How else to explain the numbers of them that fall into that particular hole, than to assume there is something about celibacy that isn’t good for the human psyche?…. Besides, we ALL know that if we don’t get our pipes cleaned now and again, they clog up…. That’s just common knowledge, something anyone over the age of 15 knows, a fact of life which most of us come to terms with, one way or another, without becoming sexual predators against children…. In the Catholic Church, something seems to push them over the line on a more-than-regular basis…. It could be the sacramental wine, I suppose, a great many indiscretions over the years have been ascribed to its use…

Or, it could just be that they’re all seeing with a blind eye, ignoring any potential negatives altogether, as much as possible, because the entire profession is too profitable a scam to give up…. Since this is the sort of behavior that is most common to all men, I’m betting that it is also the case here…. People choose to believe whatever makes them feel the best; it is really that simple…. Anyone who can tell people, in a convincing manner, that if they believe what they are told, they will feel better all the time, then they will fall right in line, usually without ever looking at whether or not what they hear is at all the truth…. If someone in the pulpit, or on the TV, wearing a suit, tells the general public something, no matter how outrageous or unbelievable, most folks these days will just nod their heads, say “yep”, and fall right in line with whatever they’ve been told…..

Hmm, I seem to have fallen back into my ranting mode, without realizing it for oh, about six or seven paragraphs there…. Felt rather good, actually, and my head feels much lighter now…. I love it when a plan comes together, even if it wasn’t my plan…. Not only have I taken some rather good shots at the religious icons of the day, I’ve also fulfilled the daily intro requirements, in one swell foop…. Can’t ask for more than that, can we?….. Nope….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“It ain’t over until it’s over.” — Casey Stengel
_____________________________

Having sufficiently cleared out most of the dross I found in my head this morning, I’ll not take up the gauntlet to take a run at my other favorite targets of choice, to wit: the Beloved Ruling Class…. Well, at least, not a rant run, anyway, but I will condescend to throw some old-school style pearls at them…. Here is one with the parameters firmly set to pick out some critical comments, that point out how our own leaders tend to be our worst enemies…. Life is tough when you can’t trust those who are ostensibly looking out for your interests, but, for the most part, that’s what we’re stuck with here in the twenty-first century on Earth…… Pay heed, ffolkes, and stay alert…. Knowing the truth is our last best defense…..

“This just in from a Nicholas Notifier up north.  Everyone’s favorite farmer and political commentator off the interstate near Chehalis has just come up with the prize line of his career. “Limit congressmen to two terms.  One in office.  One in jail.” — Jonathan Nicholas’ column in The Oregonian, Friday, March 29, 1991

“From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared or feared rather than loved.  One might perhaps answer that we should wish to be both, but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” — Machiavelli

“I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: ‘The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that’s fair.’ In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.” — Bertrand Russell, Education and the Social Order

“I like the way ONLY their mouths move..  They look like DYING OYSTERS” — Zippy the Pinhead

(Do I really NEED to tell you of whom he speaks?…..)

“What part of “shall not be infringed” don’t you understand?” — Smart Bee

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.” — Alexander Frazer Tyler (1748-1813), — The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic

“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” — Montesquieu, 1742
_____________________________

Several moons ago, I used the following poem in a post, to reintroduce the poetess to my Gentle Readers, along with myself, as I’d forgotten her work, and her brilliance, for many years before stumbling across this poem. It remains one of my favorites, even though it also remains a mysterious panorama of images and meanings in my mind…. I always find something new in it…. Any who, please enjoy….

Witch Burning

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll’s body.
Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches.
Only the devil can eat the devil out.
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.

It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door,
The cellar’s belly. They’ve blown my sparkler out.
A black-sharded lady keeps me in parrot cage.
What large eyes the dead have!
I am intimate with a hairy spirit.
Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.

If I am a little one, I can do no harm.
If I don’t move about, I’ll knock nothing over. So I said,
Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain.
They are turning the burners up, ring after ring.
We are full of starch, my small white fellows. We grow.
It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth.

Mother of beetles, only unclench your hand:
I’ll fly through the candle’s mouth like a singeless moth.
Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days
I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone.
My ankles brighten. Brightness ascends my thighs.
I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

_____________________________

“If you can see a thing whole… it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives…But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful a life is, is to see it from the vantage point of death.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, Dispossessed

Whenever I stumble across this passage from the book, I am astounded, each and every time, at the vision it has the power to create….. It fills the mind with deeper and deeper meaning, revealing more with each passing moment of reflection, vibrating with power, resoundingly shouting out with the certainty of truth. To use it as the beginning of a discussion would only detract from its shine, as well as being a bit selfish, as if I were trying to share some of the glory of its creation….

To make the proper obeisance to dignity, I won’t do that…. What I WILL do is say, with sincerity and conviction, I think this is one of the most powerful, and most beautiful, passages in English literature, ever, and leave it at that…. Oh, and we’ll see what kind of grouping that SB can find to complement the ideas herein, sort of as a frame for its luster, so to speak… Best of luck to us (me and SB….), she’s a tough act to follow….

“The more people I meet, the more I like my cat.” — Smart Bee

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxom foe he sought
Till rested he by the tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

“Though leaves are many, the root is one ; Through all the lying days of my youth, I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun. Now I may wither into the truth.” — W B Yeats

“Before I sink into the big sleep, I want hear the scream of the butterfly.” — (The Doors) When The Music’s Over

“A gentleman reads and reflects.” — Rules of a Gentleman

Hmm…. Smart Bee seems to be unable to come up with a final quote, one that will finish this off with a flourish… I’m going to cheat, big time, and go with what I consider the most basic wisdom of everything I’ve learned in my life…. which is why it is part and parcel of my own philosophy…

7) “Do your Duty.  Honor the Truth.  Respect Life.  Share your Love.”

8) “Go back. Everything you need to know is in the first seven axioms.”– Axioms 7 & 8 of Peruaosophy, the Philosophy of Pearls,  circa 1980, by gigoid
_____________________________

I have a feeling about this one…. I only wish I knew precisely what feeling it is…. Let’s see what happened here to cause that….. Nope, still not a clue… but, oh, well…. such is life, as the French are wont to say, though, they say it in French, of course…. Any who, it’s done, enough, so, I’m outta here, to go see what’s up in the BBR today…. 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

Dozer

Saving the pieces for posterity…..

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Ffolkes,
For the first time since starting this blog, I’ve missed posting for two days, which one or two of y’all might have noted. On Saturday, I woke up with a raging head cold, spewing fluids from one chamber in my head to another with every cough and sneeze, and aggravating all my incipient pain. It has been, to be brief, a miserable two days, to be sure. I did write…. enough material, in fact, that today’s post won’t suffer for originality, at minimum. In fact, I’m adding an extra section today, just so I don’t have to sit on this stuff for too long….

Having done virtually nothing in the past two days but sleep, to the tune of about 19 hours a day, I’m feeling fairly rested, if still a bit congested. I’ve decided to acknowledge my age, and not test my limits by trying to act normal yet, so, I’ll get to the library later, to post this, but I’ll probably nap first, and afterward, to make up for the effort I know it will entail….. Another point for foresight, eh?…. It’s times like this I kind of wish I could have afforded to keep my car; it would be nice not to have to try to depend on bus schedules, especially with the cold, wet weather we’ve been having. Makes it hard on us poor folk, don’t ya know?….

I wrote an intro section on Saturday, but, most of it has turned irrelevant in the ensuing time, so it is being done over. I hate to throw out anything already composed, but, it really was whiny, anyway, and isn’t any loss. It’s not as if I ever run out of stuff to write, is it? I can’t seem to shut it off, not that I’d wish to, but, some overt control would be welcome at this late date….

Strangely enough, my head is relatively empty this morning, at least of material I want to put down. It is most likely a good thing I already have enough done for today; last time I wrote too much ahead of real time, I got all lost and confused, if only in my own head, and it was a mess, figuratively speaking. Today, instead, you’re getting everything I did while not posting, just to get it out of my way….. Don’t worry, it’s not bad, and not TOO long….relatively….. Without further ado, Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its one sure defense.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910), Notebook, 1888

I’m positive I’ve used this in the past; it’s too good, and too familiar an idea for me to have passed it up. Since I have no idea when I did use it, it’s okay to use it again, according to the loose rules I go by around here…. This idea is one I embraced many years ago, even before the Beatles used the Blue Meanies vs. Laughter & Love as a metaphor for life, in their movie, Yellow Submarine. It seems I’ve always known that things that live and thrive in the dark, things that exist only to cause pain and misery in the world, cannot stand up to the light of laughter, or the power of love. It is almost a sad sight to watch a bully deflate and slink off when laughed at, rather than accommodated….. It might be sad,  if it weren’t so satisfying….

In the twentieth century, George Carlin was probably the best defender of liberty, one of the most adept at using irreverence, and original critical thought, to poke fun at the ruling cadre. He was merciless at exposing the true motives held by those rulers, making it plain for all how the crap that people put up with in life is deliberate on the part of the ruling classes. His biting wit was graphic, clear, and undeniably true, for he never made statements that weren’t drawn from real life experience, with vivid evidence of chicanery on the part of the elite, in support of his assertion of their evil intent. He did all this, and made us laugh about it, and at them, and, most importantly, at ourselves….. Only the very best can do that…..

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxom foe he sought
Till rested he by the tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

In today’s world, manxom foes are much easier to find, so thoughtful moments by the tumtum tree aren’t required as often. By this bit of nonsensical reality, I’m trying to make a point, one that escapes me completely, now that I’ve started the process. I really did have a thought that made this verse appropriate, or at least comprehensible from an odd viewpoint, but, for the life of me, I can’t find it anywhere in my head.

It had to do with bullies, and the Beloved Ruling Class (two interchangeable entities, to be sure….), and was actually, according to my memory, quite elegantly powerful in its indictment of the BRC as assholes….. It’s too bad I can’t remember it…. Just go look at a picture of a politician, or the Pope, or somebody of that ilk, and spit at the image…. you’ll get the idea, and feel better, too…..

“The last Christian died on the cross.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Now you’re talking! That’s the way, Friedrich, you tell ’em! I happen to agree with this statement quite strongly, and couldn’t have said it better. Tom Jefferson was of the same opinion, in fact, ….

“But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.” — Thomas Jefferson, [letter?] To S. Kercheval, 1810

Tom was quite outspoken in his indictment of the entire class of those who lie to others, for power and personal gain…..

“They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.” — Thomas Jefferson

Ah me, such rants as these can go on forever, if we let them. There is always more ammunition to fire off, so we don’t have to condemn all of them at once, I guess. We’ll leave some for a later date….. For now, let me leave you with more timeless wisdom from our favorite insane person…..

“I know things about TROY DONAHUE that can’t even be PRINTED!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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” I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear friend, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

This statement, to me, is the modern version of a literary Holy Grail….. Not merely the beauty of the ideas expressed herein, but the elegance of the expression is of such power it is almost magical. “…you will… live along some distant day into the answer.” Even though presented in prose form, this is poetry at its finest. I say it is the Holy Grail because I can only hope to seek such power and grandeur, such obvious compassion, and love for life, in my writing, and wish with all my being that I find it….. Here is a poem from Rainer….. for balance….

Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Reality is the flaw in the perfection of nothingness.” — Nyarlathotep, Reed College, Portland, OR –

“So sure are you! Tried have you? Always with you it can’t be done. Hear you nothing that I say? Try not. Do! Do! Or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda [The Empire Strikes Back]

“And I said to myself be still, wait without hope. For hope would be hope of the wrong thing. Wait without love. For love would be love of the wrong thing. Wait without faith. For the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting.” — T.S. Eliot

“Food, sleep, fear, propagation; each is the common property of men with brutes. Virtue is really their additional distinction; devoid of virtue, they are equal with brutes.” — The Hitopadesa (600?-1100? A.D.)

O love, could thou and I with fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Might we not smash it to bits
And mould it closer to our hearts’ desire?

— Omar Khayyam [tr. FitzGerald]

So, there I was, still in relatively massive discomfort, cruising through Smart Bee, and letting my unconscious mind pick out pearls to make a pearl. (Or are those oysters?…. Never mind….)  Once again, I am unsure of exactly what my unconscious is trying to say, but, damn, it sure said it well, didn’t it? In reality, or as close as we ever approach that state on this blog, it makes a very cogent statement about the structure of human nature, if not exactly claiming to be a complete explanation, or even representation, of that nature. Given my current mental condition, I think it’s the best for which we can hope….. It’s just been one of THOSE days, y’know?….. But, really, this isn’t a BAD pearl, it’s just obscure… so it should fit right in, right? Right?….. Well, maybe not….. Ah, the hell with it…..
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(This is an extra pearl, brought to you by the cold virus, rhinus virusii, and by the word, “plonk”……)

“When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.  When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.  When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.” — John F. Kennedy

For a long time now, I’ve been ranting periodically, about a certain flaw in human nature I have observed, a flaw that all of us possess to some degree. This flaw is the tendency to manipulate other people for personal gain, rather than mutual benefit. We all manipulate; if we didn’t, we’d starve. This is a lesson we learn in our first days on Earth, as we find out that our cries will bring attention, food, and comfort. To varying degrees, our lessons in this sort of manipulation of other people continue on to adulthood…. The difference in degree we learn arises from several factors, both environmental and genetic, and is the crux of the problem our species faces now…..

You see, after a certain point, most folks don’t wish to make others do for them what they can do for themselves; it is more satisfying to accomplish something when one knows exactly what one has done to achieve it. But, a certain number of people decide, at an early age, usually, that they enjoy the power of getting others to follow their suggestions, and start finding ways to make their manipulations acceptable to others, even though those ways are immoral and unethical. These folks learn how to lie with a straight face, convincing the naive to allow them to act or think for them, because it is to their advantage. In reality, the entire manipulation is designed to benefit only the perpetrator of the lies…..

So, time passes, and these trained liars become preachers, and politicians, and lawyers, and anyone else in society who learns they can have far more than they ever need, or deserve, by hoarding resources for their own use, by writing laws, by manipulating society in ways that are advantageous to them, rather than being a boon to society. They lie, they cheat, they steal, and they tell everyone they are doing it “for YOU!”  Most insulting of all, they use the pretense of “morality” to disguise their true intentions.

“Morality is the best device of all for leading mankind by the nose.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

These foul flibbertigibbets have their flunkies to make the laws for them in Congress, they have the hawks in the military to protect them from the “heathens”, they have their judges in their pockets to rule in favor of business rather than people. And, they have the preachers proselytizing the great, unwashed masses of humanity to control them, masses who never question anything they do, but continue to put their heads down and slog away, trying to win a game that was fixed from the start…..

When looking at JFK’s statement above, one might believe that he had the public in mind when he said this, and that he was indeed a champion of the people. Myself, I have a hard time seeing anyone worth over a billion dollars as a champion of the people, no matter how sincere they might sound. More likely, what he says above is merely a sop to public opinion, stated as a means of convincing the common man that he has something in common with them…. a tough sell for a boy who grew up in the biggest compound in Hyannisport, the bastion of the truly rich.

He would, by this assertion, have us believe that exposure to poetry will moderate the impulse to cruelty among the powerful, a statement which, if examined critically, is seen to be completely untrue. I haven’t seen ANYTHING in particular that has that effect, not in this world…. Technically, the statement may be true, regarding art as the touchstone of judgment, but asking me to believe that a Kennedy, a person who has never had to suffer any such judgments, actually AGREES with it, well, that’s asking too much….

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.” — William Shakespeare, “King Lear”

To my mind, politicians, and anyone else who lives by the insane dictates which they do, are like these gods to whom Will refers; they do what they do to us, just because they feel they can, and don’t give a rat’s ass for what anyone else believes. That may sound like a strong indictment, which, hopefully, it is…. In my own defense, I defy anyone at all to disprove the statement. Show me the evidence, if you have any, of how the government, or the churches, or the corporations, or the police, or the courts are acting in a way that is beneficial to the public. I’m willing to look at whatever anyone may have to show me, though I am quite convinced that nobody will be able to do so, as I don’t believe there is any such evidence……

“Perhaps we are wiser, less selfish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfectly all these good things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.” — Joseph Wood Krutch

This is a statement you may confidently place in the “fer shure” column, and forgeddaboutit.  All the wisdom we need is already present in the world, I think, but the amount of virtue, or rather, the amount of influence that virtue commands, is severely limited; it is that lack that our nature shows when put to the test of Reality.

It is unfortunate in the extreme that, in this world, there are those who exhibit the flaw, those who don’t, and literally, billions of folks who don’t know, and don’t have time or energy to care, what we’re talking about. The most unfortunate part of this, is that the former group comprises the Beloved Ruling Class, and will, in all their insane glory, bring the rest of us with them down the path to our inglorious demise, unless we can bestir ourselves to wake up and throw them all out on their asses…..

“Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes, and feel with their own hearts.” — Albert Einstein
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“We have standards and expect you not to exceed them.” — Smart Bee

Plainly, I have succeeded in not exceeding any standards whatsoever…. I am just content that I was able to piece together this Pearl; I wasn’t certain I was going to have the strength of will to push through all the residual pain hanging about. It’s done, though; that’s enough for me….. If all this stuff stays in my head too long, it can cause serious issues, and not just for me…. The rest of the world tends to have to put up with it, too…. Hopefully, it isn’t too whiny, or too self-serving; Yoda’s advice about not trying, but, instead, doing, is always timely, isn’t it?…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Credit given where due….

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Ffolkes,
Yesterday, it rained all day, hard, in the area where I live. A higher degree of pain than usual, with concomitant stiffness, meant I didn’t have it in me to walk the seven and a half blocks to the library in the rain, and I can’t afford the coffee shop this late in the month…. besides, it’s also over three long blocks away, with the same walk back UP the hill afterward, all in the rain. No thanks…. If I had tried either one, I’d be in bed still, come the New Year…. Also, no thanks…. Unhappily, this means my postings are a day behind, proving once again I am mostly human…… I’ve never been able to quite get it all right….

No worries, though… I decided I’m not going to stress about it; I just came back, fired the computer back up, and proceeded to write this little pre-disclaimer to maintain some clarity. I don’t think any of what is below is time-sensitive, particularly, so it will still be relevant…. and, who knows? I might even get the poem I feel percolating to drip down before I get to a posting point tomorrow, which, now, is today….. At any rate, this is a pretty decent Pearl, I think, so….. enjoy…..

Ffolkes,
I know full well why I am not a success. Wait…. Okay, that’s wrong. I know full well why I AM a success…. Wait…. Okay, that’s wrong, too…

Alright, this is the right way to start….

Most folks in the mainstream would NOT call me successful, I suppose, though I know full well I am. The reason for this discrepancy is a different understanding of the definition of the word itself, along with a somewhat different idea of what determines that definition. To the average person in our world, successful means rich in money or property; you aren’t even in the ball park if you don’t own two cars and four TVs to go with your house and boat. This, as mentioned, differs widely from my own idea of what makes a person successful, as mine has nothing whatever to do with gelt…..

I am rich in friends. I am rich in my children. And, I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice in my mind, which is all I ever wanted. When I was very young, before the age of 10, I remember hearing the phrase “If you want a life full of trouble, fill your house with treasure.” I thought about that, decided that it sounded perfectly logical, and made up my mind there and then to never make the seeking of money, or things, an important goal in my life. There are far greater riches to be found in any random Mark Twain story than in any bank, and this I believe, implicitly…..

Oh, sure, it’s nice to not have to struggle financially, and I’m smart enough that I’ve never before had to struggle as I am today with money issues. Once, back in my early twenties, I went without work for a couple of months, and it was tough for a few weeks, but then I found a job, and all was well…. The rest of the time I’ve spent just enough effort to make enough to take care of myself, and my family, once I started it, and never felt any need for more. I can’t say I’ve felt deprived, at all, for not having experienced more in the way of the rich lifestyle, as I have had all I ever wanted…..

So, in that sense, I’ve always been extremely successful, for I have always done exactly as I wished to do, and been successful at attaining all I wanted. And, I can truthfully say, I have never had a moment of worry or anguish over being threatened with, or experiencing, being robbed. It’s easy, when you know there is nothing about which to worry, for there isn’t enough to tempt any robbers. It makes for a quite serene lifestyle, all in all…..

The other side of this coin under discussion is that I simply don’t give a crap about what others think, and never have….. Maybe it’s a gift, I don’t know, but I’ve never felt that what anyone else thought about ME had any bearing on what I was to do, or think. It just never occurred to me to let what anyone else said have that kind of influence over me…… It’s always been relatively easy for me to say “f___ you” to anyone (figuratively, of course….) when they try to tell me what I SHOULD do or think….. Gift or curse, I don’t care, it works for me….

Well, now, I was going somewhere with all this bilge water; where could that have been? Ah, yes…. the fucking feds & staties….. Sorry, when I write their names, the “fuck” is mandatory; that’s the law. Since the California State Department of Social Services has decided to draw out the time during which they can fuck with me about my own money, I am once again consigned to the confines of financial purgatory. They decided, because I mentioned a word they hadn’t heard before, (to wit: diverticulosis), they decided they’d better send me to another doctor about it, thus extending the process another three or four months, minimum. This puts me right back into limbo, where I’ve languished now for close to two years…. By the time these guys finish dicking around with my case, I’ll be eligible for my regular SS, at age 66, four years from now…. Bloody Assholes!….

I could rant about it for a long time, but this intro is already past the standards set for normalcy around here, so I’d best let it go for now….. Suffice it to say, I am once again NOT A HAPPY CAMPER! Wish me luck with my patience, please, I’m going to need it….. For now, I’m going to go for a dive, to try to take my mind to some other point in the universe, where things aren’t quite so dreary and depressing as they are around here just now…. Thank goodness for books and literature, they’ve saved me all my life, and continue to do so now….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Anyone who isn’t confused doesn’t really know what’s going on.” — Edward R. Murrow

To Mr. Murrow’s assertion, in today’s world, I would add, “Anyone who isn’t worried, isn’t paying attention.” I saw in the news yesterday that the President has offered up Social Security as a sacrifice to the Republicans in the Congress, to bribe them into signing some other tax bill. I can’t say it surprises me, as I have said all along that I don’t trust the President, any more than I trust any office holder in this country. But, given his most recent statements during the election run-up, I’m concerned that he is already turning what he said at that time into a lie; he promised, then, to protect senior citizens, and Social Security, and Medicare, from the depredations of the conservatives. To start abrogating his duties before he is even sworn in is not a good, or hopeful, sign for the future.

This particular threat is a serious one; the cuts proposed would have a very deleterious effect on my income, and that of every senior under the aegis of SS. One article claimed it could decrease the average senior’s yearly income by more than $3000, and possibly more over the next ten years. This, without any doubt whatsoever, is a reprehensible idea, and the person(s) responsible should be taken out an shot, without ceremony or delay. These politicians seem to think that the money that is in SS is theirs, when in fact, it belongs to me, and those like me, who have been pouring a percentage of our pay into it for our entire lives. It is NOT theirs, nor should it be thought of as even public money. It belongs to the people who put it there, and should be protected from the rapacious assholes who can’t stand the idea of anyone having something they don’t control….

ROBBER, n.  A candid man of affairs.  It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling companion lodged at a wayside inn. The surroundings were suggestive, and after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn.  “Once there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues.”  Saying nothing more, he was encouraged to continue.  “That,” he said, “is the story.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

Thomas Jefferson, in certain of his writings to other patriots, mentioned the danger to the Republic from corporations, bankers, and preachers. He was particularly clear-sighted in this respect, and saw that once the legislators had voted themselves the power to control the treasury, both the income and output, the public would be in danger of continuous, and ongoing theft of public funds. He stated this many times, but, did anyone listen? Not enough of the right people, apparently, because everything he feared has come to pass.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken

The legislature in today’s modern world is completely under the financial influence and control of the banks and corporations, aided by the preachers’ continuing repression/distraction of the public, to confuse the issue, and help obfuscate their actions, hiding them from public view. Anyone who does not believe this to be true is under that same influence, and should be referred back to our original statement above, i.e., you don’t really know what’s going on…… or, you are not paying attention…..

Now that Barack no longer has to worry about re-election, he can begin to show his truer colors, and screw the rest of us in the process. I told you all a while back; NO POLITICIAN can be fully trusted, either to tell the truth, or to act in the public’s interests, for they all suffer from the same issue of moral failure, and that is that they WANT to be in power.

“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them [public offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 1799

That desire, to have power over others, is a mental disorder, plain and simple. It is insane, both in my mind, and in scientific terms, to want to control other people like that. Even if the desire is motivated by what could be termed a moral impulse, the urge to help, the actual wielding of the power is corrupting, and soon overcomes any leftover morality, in favor of expedience.

Call the White House, and the Senate. Write them. Email them. Tell them we aren’t going to stand for this flip-flop from the President, and let them know that the true power really still does reside with the people. If we don’t, we may all end up regretting we ever listened to them….. again…..

“A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation.  A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.” — Georges Pompidou

As far as I can see, there are no statesmen alive today, only politicians….
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And, as in uffish thought he stood
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame
Came wiffling through the tulgey wood
And burbled as it came
— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

If it isn’t clear to y’all by now, I love nonsense. For me, it provides the balance so necessary to a harmonious existence, as the rest of reality is so often dreary, grim-faced, and sober. (see section one, above, for clear evidence of this assertion….) And, since poetry makes anything in words better, nonsensical poetry is sheer joy for me….. It doesn’t get any better than the above, which will provide adequate balance for whatever I find and choose to go in the latter half of this section…. so, enjoy, both the poetry, and the contrasting styles…..

To Congress, with Love

Politicos don’t care much ’bout seniors and their ilk,
except for their money, I thinks;
Though they talk as if they’d cozen them in silk,
what they actually do, it stinks.

“The banks are failing, we can’t allow that!”,
steal from the aged, that’s their plan.
“Their life’s ending, that’s plainly where they’re at,”
lie shamelessly, because they can.

Maybe just once, if we all act together,
it couldn’t miss.
Right on their shoes, no matter the weather,
take careful aim, and piss.

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid

Well, gosh, who knew that was in there?…..
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“Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you!” — Smart Bee

Last week, or maybe earlier, another blogger and I were both ID’d as being a bit paranoid, (self-identified, I might add) because we happen to believe at least some of the conspiracy rumors continually floating around the internet. Each of us took comfort from the above sentiment, knowing it to be 100% true, and have mutual agreement in that belief. He seems to be pretty tech-savvy, posting a lot of different types of media on his blog, so he must have similar knowledge as I of computers, and the functions of which current technology is capable. This knowledge, along with a deep understanding of human nature, is the root cause for our paranoia, and, it’s justification…..

“No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.” — Aristotle

The little laptop computer upon which I type to create these Pearls of Virtual Wisdom is an amazing machine, and fairly representative of what is available to the public these days. It has, quite simply, more computing power in it than was present in the ENTIRE WORLD when the first laptop was on the design boards, when I got my first clunky 386. What this simple fact(oid) implies is this: the government, and its supporters, the bankers, corporations, and churches, has available for their use, enough computing power to record EVERY piece of communication, of EVERY type, created each day in the ENTIRE WORLD. Along with that capability, to monitor ALL communications, it has the capability of mining that huge amount of data for significant words, phrases, and patterns that will inform them of anyone, anywhere, who is speaking in a way that is potentially against their interests.

Yep…. every single piece of published communication, via phone, internet, TV, radio, or any other form of media by which humans communicate, is vulnerable to being overheard by those in the beloved ruling class…. Allow me to assure you, the reasons for which they want this information have nothing to do with YOUR rights, or YOUR interests, nor are they going to tell you, either that they are doing it, or how often, or where, or anything about it.  In many public places, with cameras and recording devices, it is possible for them to overhear even the words we speak to each other face to face. If they wish, they can even concentrate technology on a single spot, (such as your car, your living room, or kitchen…..), and listen to every word spoken there, even if they are not within miles of the place. There is, by published report, no place left on Earth where technology cannot penetrate, to listen to what is being spoken, given the opportunity, and the time to employ the needed technology.

So, my friend and I are well aware that what we write and publish here online is perfectly available to those who care about such matters, and they WILL be listening to what EVERYONE is saying, even, or, perhaps especially, us. Since I have a tendency to rant against the very people who are listening, I doubt that my name is missing from several lists of theirs. In fact, I’d be surprised if it was missing from those lists…. if it is, they’re not paying attention…..   🙂

As I’ve said before ffolkes, be alert; the world needs all the lerts it can get. You are being watched, and listened to, whether you choose to believe it or not, so it would behoove you to, perhaps, take that into account. Please, don’t fall into that, “oh, you’re just being paranoid,” attitude, or the “well, if I don’t say anything wrong, they can’t get me,” fallacy…. One of the primary characteristics of those with the power-mongering gene is a certain irrationality that is inherent in their make-up…. They have an unfortunate tendency to act on belief and faith, not on fact, so their actions, while fairly predictable, are somewhat irrationally chosen, and don’t necessarily make any sense to those of us who use our minds for other things than reclining upon…. Remember, as Lazarus Long advises, “Always cut the cards.”…..

I have read and understood the above.  X ______________________
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Today’s effort certainly doesn’t lack for original material….. It’s understandable, to me; I’ve got a lot of stuff to say, no viable, compelling  reason not to say it, and plenty of good reasons to do so. (“Stuff” being my most versatile word…. such flexibility of meaning!…..) Having said a lot of it, I’ll leave thee be to pursue thy own ends, for the nonce. You can’t say fairer than that….. Oh, yeah, happy holidays, I guess….

Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

She rides swiftly through dark shadows, pale and grim….

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10

Ffolkes,
I should know better…. Having applied for my SS Disability, I had thought that, since my last job let me go as “unfit for duty”, and since I AM unable to work due to back pain and my other physical challenges, the Federal Government, in the guise of the SS Administration, would be able to see that yes, I do need to get paid all the money I put into SS ahead of my 66th birthday.

However, in spite of my clear presentation of the facts, they denied my claim, having in their wisdom, without ever interviewing or seeing me in person, decided that I am well enough to work, able to stand for 6 or more hours a day (I can’t stand for more than 5 minutes before pain increases in my hips and back), lifting up to 50 lbs. on a regular basis, (which I can do, once, if I want to spend the next three days in bed, writhing with spasms all over my back), and working at a job for 8 hours/day (all I do now is sit in my chair, and I can’t go 8 hours without a nap being hard NOT to take….by the time I’m up for 5 hours or so, I’m exhausted, generally, from fighting against pain…).

Ah well, it isn’t unexpected, and I already have a lawyer who will no doubt be appealing the decision today. It just means that it will be probably 4-8 more months before I see any relief for the near-poverty level income I’m now living on…. oh, well, it’s a good thing I like Top Ramen……

There, whining finished for the day… no sense in worrying too much over stuff I can’t change… time will tell the tale, and all will be well…. I just have to survive until then, so, no worries….. and, it does leave me lots of time to dive for pearls. Now that my email is under control, in fact, I’m swimming in extra time. Hell, at this point, I have no idea what to do with myself once I’m done here for the day….

I guess I could be a good citizen, and get my tardy taxes done (I did finally get the forms from the library….)…. who knows? Maybe they’ll owe ME something this year…. though it would be a surprise. I haven’t found the IRS or the tax laws to be my friend in the past, so why should I expect any different now?  Oh, well, I suppose I won’t know until I do it, so…. now I have a project for the day…..

But not until I Pearl, which I have now delayed significantly with this little personal chatty session…. sometimes I just can’t shut myself up…. handy for a writer, but inefficient at times….. let’s Pearl, okay? Okay…..
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“Ignorance can be compounded, made denser, until the light of our spirits is smothered.” — Deng Ming-Dao

As I read this pearl, my immediate thought was that it is a very clear, very accurate take on the 2012 election process that is currently unfolding before us in the daily news. The end of the political scale that is represented so raggedly by what is left of the Republican Party, and the mislabeled liberal end of the scale who claim to be Democrats, are both engaging in ongoing battles to see who can display the deepest ignorance.

The leading candidate for the “loyal opposition” to the party in power, Mr. Romney, seems to have a proclivity for alienating the very people from whom he is trying to win votes; women, immigrants and Hispanics, animal lovers, seniors, teachers and students, all have been told, in no uncertain terms, that they matter not at all to him. His plan? We’ll stop taxing the rich altogether, and that will fix everything…. Sometimes I wonder if he is getting all of his information on voter wants and issues of importance from old newspapers from the 1980’s, or the 1890’s, because he certainly hasn’t a clue as to what is happening out in America in this century….

The other party, led by our first Black President, is busy hiding what the left hand is doing by distracting everyone with the tax and healthcare issues, to keep them unaware of how few of the Bill of Rights are left to us. “Executive Orders” signed by the POTUS this year, beginning on New Year’s Eve, while the voters were all busy celebrating the advent of the new year, include provisions that allow police to stop, search, and arrest any citizen of this country whom they suspect of any form of terrorism, or even of protest against the provisions of those orders.

These same police are not required to tell ANYONE that they have arrested and imprisoned a citizen, nor are they ever required to provide any evidence of their suspicions in a court of law. Even though there may be no evidence, they can subject these CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY to torture, to obtain a confession, or whatever it is they are after. There is no oversight to these orders; they don’t go before Congress to be approved, nor are they reviewed by the courts. Both of those particular checks on the power of the Executive Branch are completely out of the loop on this…. and they aren’t even complaining about it!

Does it physically hurt to be that stupid? — Smart Bee

My guess at the answer to this is, No. It can’t hurt very much to be that stupid, as we continue to go out each time there is an election and vote these same lying, cheating, avaricious assholes back into the same positions from which they have been oppressing the American people for oh, a hundred or so years now. I’d say that around the time of the Great Depression was when the first real strangle-hold on the national throat was first achieved…. the pure bullshit that was spewing back then can be seen to have been the first real time that the government’s outrageous lies were swallowed whole by a reluctant public, who had nothing else to eat, and thus nothing else to risk…

“He was born stupid, and greatly increased his birthright.” — Samuel Butler

So, how does it feel? Does it physically hurt to be so stupid as to be part of the crowd that continues to buy into all the bullshit lies that our own government heaps upon us every day? To keep going to the polls, just as if it really matters who gets elected? Get real, folks.

You will not find a name on the ballot that belongs to someone who is not a willing tool of the powers of oppression, the money-changers who are the power behind the scenes of every government in the world. Not going to happen; they’ve been the real power in the world for centuries, and they’re not about to give up all they have, just to be nice, or because they’ve all of a sudden grown a heart.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty fucking tired of being lied to, and cheated, and looked at as just another idiot for them to shit on….. and I’m not going to put up with it for much longer, without some kind of return fire….. Believe it….

I don’t think I am alone in this, either…. No way to tell for sure, but I find it hard to believe that EVERYONE is falling for all of it…. No matter; even if I’m alone in this, I refuse to knuckle under any further, and can only say that I will do all I can to see things turn in a direction that will return my Rights, and those of the rest of the American people…. or at least those not stupid enough to hand them over without a fight….

“He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” — Winston Churchill

Churchill is one of my heroes. His devotion to the principles of curmudgeonry is legendary among those of us who believe in those principles of interaction. This little insult is what I like to call “classic” in its simplicity. No extra words, just those needed to jab the sharp point right into the eye of the beholder, while the speaker steps back to avoid the blood splatter. Not only is it a perfect insult to use in cocktail conversation when discussing anyone who isn’t there to defend themselves (always a clever way to avoid being fired on unexpectedly….), but it is quite an accurate description of many of our beloved ruling class.

A number of public figures come to mind if I consider this, and all of them are wearing a blue suit, a white shirt, a red tie, and a flag pin on their lapel. Many of them are still breathing, and giving us the dubious benefits of what passes for wisdom amongst that mystical group who are the ancient enemies of the Illuminati, the all-knowing, all powerful, and very rich, order of the Ignoramitae…. an organization so secret, so powerfully capable, that most of Mankind has never even heard of them.

Hell, I wouldn’t have known of them, if their existence weren’t a mathematical certainty. There is no other explanation for the course of human history…. only a powerful force, acting behind the scenes, could have achieved such a long-term effect on the events that shaped our culture. Ignorance HAD to exist in such a form; nothing else makes sense….

Then, someone like Winnie comes along, and provides a sure-fire way to spot them…. just think about those folks who are always around in the background when you see photos of world leaders making nice…. the powers that truly be wouldn’t let their charges get together without at least a couple of their “handlers” present…

Well, I wouldn’t, if it were me, so I’m betting that they are nearby, just in case one of the beloved ruling class gets a wild hair, and tries to say something that actually makes sense…. I guess, if nothing else, it makes for good TV….. But, don’t count on ever getting a glimpse of one of the actual rulers of this planet… they avoid the light, like the creatures of the dark they are….
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JABBERWOCKY

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And thou hast slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
— Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”

It was time…. I haven’t used this in several months, I believe, and every once in a while it’s good to bring it out for perusal, just to give everyone that little jolt of joy that good, solid, sheer nonsense gives. I love to have this read aloud while I close my eyes and envision the Jabberwock, whuffling through the wood, the vorpal blade going snicker-snack, and the beamish boy galumphing back with the head…. absolute bliss! It is particularly effective after reading the daily news, to give one a sense of balance…. enjoy!

“Universe: All-purpose poem.” — Ray Hand
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“My girlfriend was crushed by Bambi meets Godzilla…” — Smart Bee

Well, I don’t blame her…. so was Bambi…. (You will only get this if you’ve seen the actual film short, “Bambi meets Godzilla”, which, IMNSHO, is quite possibly the best cartoon short ever made…. seriously….) (If you have seen it, well, convince me I’m wrong… )    😉
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“He had come to that time in his life (it varies for every man) where a human being gives himself over to his demon or to his genius, according to a mysterious law which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself.” — Marguerite Yourcenar

Hmm…. a nicely expressed observation by Ms. Yourcenar (No, I have no idea who she is… give me a moment to commune with Google….)

It turns out she is a very interesting person, of whom I have never heard…. just goes to show we all have a lot to learn… Here is some information from Wikipedia on this literary jewel from the twentieth century….

“Marguerite Yourcenar (8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980.

In 1951 she published, in France, the novel Mémoires d’Hadrien, which she had been writing with pauses for a decade. The novel was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim. In this novel Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who writes a long letter to Marcus Aurelius, the son and heir of Antoninus Pius, his successor and adoptive son. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing both his triumphs and his failures, his love for Antinous, and his philosophy. This novel has become a modern classic, a standard against which fictional recreations of antiquity are measured. ”

Fascinating, and a whole new author to read…. Serendipity strikes again! Before I became distracted by the author, I was going to say this about her statement….

I find myself feeling both sad and glad that I have not yet come to this point in my life. Sad because it is unfilled destiny, yet glad for the same reason, as it means that it is still something that I have to look forward to experiencing, all but guaranteeing that I have enough time left on my clock to come to that point in my journey. Whether it is truth is not clear, but it is certainly a reasonable observation, insightful as it is in looking into the nature of Man, and this gives me hope…. for as long as I can keep my cynical side from looking at it too closely….   🙂
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Whew! Made it…. it was looking a bit chancy there for a little while, but I think it all came together pretty well. It’s a moot point, anyway, because no way in hell I’m starting over now…. This will have to fly under its own power, or not. I’m confident it will miss the ground, thus achieving its basic task…. and if not, well, there is always tomorrow…..

Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

A twig of myrrh, a rasher of bacon, and a swift boat….

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2

Ffolkes,
The winds of fate are blowing, stirring our nascent memories of future pasts, pregnant with the possibility only the future can know. But mostly, we ignore it, in the face of what most concerns us at the time; car payments, taxes, doctor bills, all take precedence over what might be, or what could be. Funny, isn’t it? All our lives we make the same choices, never realizing that choosing to defy fate, or even enthusiastically embracing it, are both better options for us than ignoring it can ever be. Only embracing our fate, or standing up to it, no matter how frightening, can show us the path leading out of the mundane existence to which our misguided choices have led us, and back into a world filled with possibilities, and promise.

With that little nugget out instead of in, we may proceed to the next order of business on the agenda. Fortunately, I make the agenda, so let’s see what’s there for us today….. oh, look! Here is a nice list; I must have written it down last night while I was dreaming….

1) Answer knock on door; accept $25 million check for lottery win…

2) Take call from magazine editor who wants to pay me for Pearling; verify bank deposit of $5 million signing bonus….

3) Attend White House ceremony awarding me Citizen’s Medal of Honor, for my solution to the problem of world peace (which was signed into law at the world court day before yesterday. The necks of all the world leaders have all been fitted with their explosive collars, and the controls given to children all over the globe; peace now reigns, a bit nervously on the part of the leaders, I’d say….), and

4) Take a nap…..

hmmm, sounds like a solid plan to me….. until the knock on the door interrupts us, let us Pearl….
___________________________________

“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.” — Alan Watts

Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small.
— Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) — Horace, Book iii, Ode 1

A plague is loose upon our houses, an unseen and unwanted scourge of pandemic disease, and nothing is being done about it, at all, at all, except by its victims……

In today’s society, there exist many difficult issues and problems that affect all the diverse segments of our culture, not all of which are acknowledged. One of the most perniciously insidious of these hidden and/or ignored issues is that of the deeply offensive existence of the illegal, and in some places, legal sex trade, possibly the worst plague that has ever afflicted our race, one which has, sadly, been present for untold centuries, sucking away at the health, morality, and vitality of society with impunity.

The abduction and slavery of women, girls, and even boys in some cases, condemning them to a life of sexual bondage, is being perpetrated on a daily basis, in every culture in the world, organized by, operated by, and  in the process, making rich, the evil, sociopathic, misogynistic so-called men  whose self-hatred and ignorance is acted out upon unsuspecting, vulnerable women and children, robbing them of their very humanity, and leaving all of them severely damaged, emotionally, physically, and behaviorally (I confess to some hesitation in naming these creatures men. I see a man as something completely unrelated to any of these wastes of sperm).  It is, I believe, as pervasive, and equally as damaging in its hold on society, as the issue of racism currently flooding the news after the egregious, obviously racially motivated murder of Trayvon Williams.  But, I guarantee, the utter disregard for human life, and the craven cowardice of the men involved, the same as is so obvious in that sad event, is no less ubiquitous in the sex trade…. but no one is talking about prostitution on a national, regional, or local stage.

Back before human society became so complex, men who murdered, or men who were cowardly enough to abuse women & children, were dealt with, quickly and finally, and without appeal, by the other men of the tribe, by common consent and custom, and there was no doubt among the other members of the tribe as to the honor of such actions. This is the principle historic basis for honor among men, to my mind, and has been lost, or at least misplaced, as society has become more complex, blurring the once-clear limits drawn to proscribe such destructive anti-social behaviors.

Now that my own awareness has been awakened, my eyes opened fully at last, I am of the opinion that it is time for the real men in this society to take up the mantle of responsibility that they have long ignored or rejected, and begin the process of removing this stain from our collective honor. We, as a group, have failed to meet our Duty as humans, as men who are part of a society, to protect and defend the vulnerable and the weak in that society against the men, and even women, who would take advantage of that vulnerability for their own diseased purposes. To regain our honor will require us to act, with purpose and dispatch, to defend the subjects of our Duty, to the death if necessary.  It is the only way we can regain the honor we have lost through our unwillingness to see, and our failure to act.

In order to encourage the acceptance in today’s society of the need for action against the perpetrators of this atrocity, to hasten the release of those still held in thrall, and to promote the cause of those women whose strength and spirit have enabled them to save themselves from their enslaved state, I pledge to re-blog to this site every post I can possibly find written by one of these survivors who has found the strength and courage to tell their story, for as long as it takes, until my death intervenes to stop me, or the scourge, and those responsible for it, are eliminated from this plane of existence.

I’m happy to note that there are a significant number of these once enslaved, and now empowered women, who have found each other, and found strength in the unity of feeling and purpose that being supported has given them. As more links to their work come to my attention, I will be passing those on to my followers, who will hopefully do the same, until the necessary message has reached enough people who care to see that the needed changes in society are encompassed, not ignored or forgotten, as has been true for centuries now. It can only benefit all of us, and I’m not going to stop making noise about it, period, as long as it continues to exist. You can count on it…..

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxom foe he sought
Till rested he by the tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought
— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?
— Buddha
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So much depends
Upon
A red wheel
Barrow
Glazed with rain
Water
Beside the white chickens
— William Carlos Williams, _The Red Wheelbarrow_

In poetry, creating and displaying contrasting images can create their own strong responses in the brain, responses that can affect our every act in hidden ways. When you read the above poem, what do YOU see?  There are a series of sharp contrasts in the poem, created in part by the words themselves, but also enhanced by the position of those words in the structure of the poem. This will create a different response in every brain, I believe, and points out what I believe is true of all poetry, for all the people who read it.

In short, I believe that there is a special and significant part of the human brain that is solely responsible for our reaction to the poems we read, a part separate and distinct from that part of us that learns by reading prose. This part of us is connected directly to our sense of beauty, our sense of proportion, our sense of wonder, and our sense of justice. Each of those senses is one that is powerful in its hold on our behavior, and each plays an essential role in aligning our actions with our principles.

The direct effect this has on us is to immediately assign a high priority to whatever reaction in us the poem stimulates, a higher priority than might have been assigned from reading the same concepts in prose form. Thus, it frees our reaction, aiding it in achieving swift implementation, adding power and purpose to the ensuing actions. Essentially, our brains are able to make faster decisions, and develop faster responses to whatever the universe may dole out for its amusement, and in many, many instances, all documented in history, swift, decisive actions have a much higher success rate than do those less swiftly found and applied. And, as we all know, timing is everything……

“Literature. . . is the union of suffering with the instinct for form.” — Thomas Mann

And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world.
— Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) — Musophilus, Stanza 97
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“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.” — George Santayana

This is a lovely and useful viewpoint to take as one’s own, but the message could have been presented with a bit more flair, I think. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard for philosophers to become pedantic, or just plain boring, when faced, as so often happens, with the task of trying to convey a subject of subtle depth and complexity to an audience not constitutionally prepared to receive it. I think the point could be made more attractive to, and more easily digested by, that subset of humanity if it were presented thus:

Being positive in life is all well and good,
and optimism will give you a half-full glass.
But in the end, to find the way out of the wood,
Doubt is a far better way to cover your ass!

gigoid wrote that….. for what it’s worth…..

“It has come to my attention that nothing I never said has caused me any harm. When I am gone, you will be sorry you never heard me say what I don’t usually. But if you had, it would have been memorable, which now it isn’t because you didn’t. I have enjoyed these occasional flashes of silence so much, since they enhance my conversation so delightfully. It is a pleasure for those who do not listen, so they don’t have to hear what I do not say, which is one of the major reasons why I don’t say what I do not do. I hope this clears up all the confusion.”
— Anonymous

🙂
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“It is probably not love that makes the world go around, but rather those mutually supportive alliances through which partners recognize their dependence on each other for the achievement of shared and private goals.” — Fred Allen

When I first came upon this, I started chuckling about half-way through, and it wasn’t until finishing that the reason why occurred to me. At the final word, my mind said to me “Hilarious! What a ridiculously superfluous train of thought, expressed with far too many words, and completely losing the clarity, relevance, and simple grandeur of the initial phrase.” (Well, it was a little pithier than that; my internal editor re-phrased it for me on the way to the page….) This man obviously had far too much time on his hands, and should have found something more useful to occupy his mind for that period of time when this was produced. He, and the rest of the world, would have been far better served had he turned his oh-so-mundane powers of perception on say, bathroom etiquette, or mushroom farming, or something he was more qualified to comment upon; it is clear that if he himself was ever in love, it was with an accountant……. ah well, it takes all kinds, I suppose…..
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“If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” — Thumper (1942)

I used to believe this to be the single best thing a Disney character ever said. And, all things considered, it is still a good policy for maintaining good everyday relations between people; what you don’t say can never be held against you.  But, I can no longer hold it as my standard for all avenues of expression; if so, I’d have to give up writing altogether, as saying stuff that isn’t very nice comprises a significant percentage of my output.  I do try to maintain a certain level of dignity, but with some of the issues I’ve come to be passionate about, I’m not going to limit myself to merely the nice stuff. Positivity is fine, in its place, but I’ll be frank; it’s not universally applicable in certain situations, and I won’t accept it as a limit to my choice of potentially useful actions. In short, it is not always the right path to success, an idea long expressed in our success-oriented culture as “nice guys finish last.”

Over time, I’ve come to realize that there are instances when the civilized man must put aside his civility, and connect with a baser side of his spirit.  If, for example, I were ever to find myself alone in a room with a man I know to be involved in trafficking of human flesh, of prostituting and abusing women, for whatever reason he may have in his sick, tiny little brain, I will not be speaking to him nicely, or make any misguided attempts to appeal to his better nature.  Most likely I wouldn’t speak with, or to, him at all; I’d probably just kill him in silence, quickly, without hesitation or mercy, like the vermin he is; with my bare hands if possible, for my sense of satisfaction, but with a bullet between his eyes if not. And then I would walk out the door, leaving his useless carcass there to rot.  But that’s another story, for another day….. Besides, hearing that might scare Thumper, and that’s just wrong….
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As we approach the end of another morning of self-indulgent self-expression, I find myself unusually tired. Of course, that may be a direct result of only four hours sleep, followed by two hours of unfettered, energy consuming thought, and the creation of today’s offering. Probably doesn’t indicate any superiority of the results of that effort, but it does speak to the perseverance I’ve shown on little sustenance of a physical nature….

Long story short, I think I’m gonna eat some breakfast, and go back to bed for a couple hours. I know, I know, terrible for my overall health, exercise-wise, but much more attractive in my current state than the concept of me outside, running, or even walking faster than a stroll; a terrifying prospect at best. No matter in the long run…. it’s my karma, and I’ll ignore it if I want to….so there…..   🙂    Y’all take care out there…..and watch out for stobor! They’re vicious this time of the year…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Luminescent triangles of pewter, on stolen coasters….

Posted on by
12

Ffolkes,
“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.” — May Sarton

Man, I certainly hope so! If not, what the hell am I doing here? I’m sure as hell not spewing out my guts every day just so people will like me; it’s nice when they do, and helps me appreciate the good that remains in this sad old world, but I’m too old to spend any more effort worrying about how what I say when I write might upset somebody’s applecart. I write to get the stuff in my head out where I can look at it objectively, or at least editorially, and where I can make a rational decision as to whether or not it needs to be eased out, gently and persuasively, or spit out, decisively and vehemently.

I try not to spew too widely, to actually aim what I’m throwing, so that individuals don’t get mistakenly drenched in vitriol, but I can’t keep some folks from taking things too literally, or too personally. I think that, considering how forcefully I have been known to rant, I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve never had what I consider to be a flaming response; everyone who’s ever commented has been polite and encouraging, even those who not fully convinced of my sanity. I’ve met a lot of really nice folks here on WordPress, and online in general, and I thank every one of them for their time spent reading this drivel, and for what I get to read in return. I’m a lucky guy…..  So be it….. let’s Pearl….

“…If I seem to give a damn, please tell me. I would hate to be giving the wrong impression.” — Anonymous, but it could’ve been me….  🙂

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“…Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth.  Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old.  Well, I haven’t ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice.  Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts.  Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards.  Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes.  Postjudice is not terrible.  You can’t be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also.  But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence.  In some circles it is even encouraged.” — Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46

This response by Carl Sagan to one of his fundamentalist detractors shows an important side of the entire argument (re: creationism vs. evolution) that few folks either acknowledge, or understand. In addition to this important point, the manner in which he couches his response is also to be admired…. He states, then examines the claim made by the one contending with him over this question, in a very calm, reasonable, and reasoned fashion, and explains exactly how the claim departs the realm of truth.

Carl is gentle with his opponent, indubitably nicer to him/her than I would be; I tend to grow impatient with such nonsensical conversations quickly. But he is very polite in taking the time to show how what he has done is completely different than what he is accused of, for the simple reason that the accuser made his accusation based on an assumption that could not be either proved, nor justified by reasonable argument. On the other side of the coin, and the street, Carl makes his point, with a small smile, and then, with a short, pithy observation at the end, he twists the knife, hard, and adds a touch of irony and sardonicism that most likely went flying merrily, right over the head of his opponent…… Beautiful!…..
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“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” — Sun Tzu (fl. c. BC 500)

The appeal of this statement is chiefly seen in its quality of simplicity, that allows even the simplest of minds to grasp and partake of its wisdom. But the grandeur, and the very depth of this piece of knowledge, often go unseen, and are little understood among the common folk. To fully understand this concept in its subtlety, one must place Sun Tzu in the correct context.

As the author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu remains as one of history’s most important figures, both in a military sense, and in a more culture-wide view of his accomplishments; the precepts in that book are still used in military schools world-wide, including West Point and Annapolis. One of those few in human history whose worth was well-known in his own time, Sun Tzu revolutionized thought on the purpose, and the very nature of the structure of armies, strategy, tactics, on the political uses of force, and on the conduct of those who would be warriors. One rumored legend claims that he never lost a battle; I see this as an exaggeration, most likely, but demonstrates the esteem in which he was held by both his supporters, and his enemies.

The strength and grandeur of this statement to which I refer is rooted in what it says, in contrast with who and what Sun Tzu was. Here is a man universally acknowledged to be the greatest warrior of his time, possibly of all time; a man who has spent his life thinking about, and practicing the art and science of war and weaponry. And what is his secret, according to him? That his work is best done when not done at all….. a paradox of unlimited possibility. Attitude, preparation, position, timing, all are key factors in a battle or war, but all are most efficiently utilized when they are never deployed for use….. this may be the single most difficult lesson a true warrior has to learn over the course of life on the warrior’s path, but learning this one key attitude provides the truest context for any other actions one may consider, and the most elegant solution to any problem of conflict…..
___________________________________

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

Now, on most days, I would include all of the first four stanzas of this classic piece of Victorian literature (which may be recognized, mostly, for it’s irrepressible need to break beyond the oppressive cultural standards of reserve at every opportunity. To be silly was to be, somehow, less than British….). But, today, upon reading this, what immediately went through my mind was, “well, shit, that happens to me all the time!”……

I ask you… is that a normal response? I have no more idea what this means than the next bozo, (without closing my eyes and channeling Zippy…) and I defy anyone at all to say they do, without first showing their certification as recently graduated from therapy (or theology: I think we all confuse those two….. both have their uses, but are extremely annoying to keep around for very long…. not to mention the expense of either one…..) (preachers are always asking for more on top of the 10% tithe they guilt everybody about, it’s what the 700 Club is all about; and let’s not get started on doctor’s fees…. $110 for 50 minutes?  You’re shitting me, right? Psychiatrists are getting as arrogant as lawyers, and we all know what we’d like to do with them…..)

But, all reasonable objections aside, what is a psychiatrist, or even a priest, going to be able to tell me about this? Are they gonna cure me of understanding gibberish? Will they drive this devil out of my fevered mind, to the everlasting regret of my soul? (Not to mention the clean-up after an exorcism; no one ever tells you about that part, do they? It’s the worst part, having to clean up all that blood and vomit that gets spread everywhere…. and who’s gonna ask the priest to do it, eh?….. it’s always the ‘nice’ brother who gets stuck with that crappy chore…..)  No, they’re not, and not merely because I’m pointing a shotgun at them… they can’t…. if I want to understand it, fuck ’em, ain’t none of theirs…. and knowing what it says, well, that’s priceless…..
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“Beauty is a form of genius–is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.” — Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)

Sometimes, when Oscar speaks, it is almost an onomatopoeia, (woo-hoo! spelled it right in one!….). For those of you who, like me, are a bit unclear on the word’s exact meaning, having not used it, or seen it for close to 45 years, well, it may not be unreasonable to expect some confusion. But, as you most likely did, or will do, I looked it up to make sure I remembered correctly what it meant. Since I did, what I said is, for me at least, quite true…. to me, being able to write like that is a thoroughly admirable trait…. I would guess I’m not alone in hoping that my writing will someday achieve the same quality…. to serve by its very existence, structure, and most importantly, its sound, as a perfect expression in Reality of what the words describe.  “Beauty is a form of genius”….. “like sunlight, or springtime, or….”  Just reading the sentence takes one’s mind and imagination precisely to the spot in Reality where that concept resides, where one may look at it, touch its face, and breathe the perfume of its grace and charm…..
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It is the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It is the dream afraid of waking
that never takes a chance.
It is the one who won’t be taken
who cannot seem to give.
And the soul afraid of dying
that never learns to live.
— Bette Midler, The Rose

Well, it seemed to take forever to find the last pearl for today, but serendipity stepped in once more to grace our presence with its bounty…. the above is one of my all-time favorite songs, both for the simple depth and beauty of the poetry, and for the same simple depth and beauty of its performance by Ms. Midler.  If you are not familiar with it, take a couple moments to Google it, or ask You Tube to find a video version; it will be there somewhere. (I think she also sang it in one of her movies, title not in memory, but the one where she and her lover are performers for the USO during WWII….)

Listen closely to the lyrics, not just this stanza, but the entire song, chorus and all.  You won’t regret it, unless, of course, you have left all sense of taste in your other pants….. no lessons here, just let it make your day…… it has that power….. hell, it’s so good, I didn’t even have to go listen to it; it’s playing nice and softly in my head right now…..
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“Don’t try to have the last word. You might get it.” — Lazarus Long

Well…. like most authors, I tend to forget this little bit of important wisdom in the heat and distraction of the creative process… after a while, pounding the keyboard just seems like the natural response to outrage, or angst, or even just incipient boredom. But, it goes hand in hand with another fine old truism from Eastern philosophy, “be careful what you wish for, you might get it”……. Y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

A real live subject…..humility….

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3

Ffolkes,
    Today’s posting(s) will be a bit odd….of course, there’s nothing new in that. But, for the first time, I will be writing for a defined purpose, and composing for two audiences….a bit of history is in order, I think….

    In 1997, as re-training after an industrial injury, I attended a school for the relatively new computer technician sciences; shortly after entering, I got my first home computer (a dinosaur by today’s standards–a 386 running Windows 3.0). Only a few of my friends owned one, so most of my email buddies were people I met at school. This was when I chose my user name…gigoid the dubious…. and started sending out Pearls of Virtual Wisdom. Through the intervening years the list of folks who received their daily Pearls grew to about 150 folks, mostly from where I worked, at a state mental hospital, mostly. This makes the Pearls about 15 years old now, as a process. When I retired, at the beginning of 2011 (long story there, too, for another time), I was without a computer for a couple of months before I got my current box, which, being state of the art, has more available memory that was present in the entire world when I first got my 386, and with a Gigabyte of RAM, is faster than well….it’s fast, believe me…..

    When I got back on the Net, in February of 2011, I started up the Pearls immediately, and have been sending them via email since then. I started posting them on my first blog site, as a user of SFGATE, a San Francisco Chronicle website, in March. Later that year, in August of 2011, I found WordPress, and have posted the Pearls here every day since then. Here at WordPress I have found a veritable treasure chest of new friends and writers, of poetry and prose, as well as other types of artists who post here. Every one has been very encouraging, and I’ve been exposed to a whole new world of writers; I have yet to find one I don’t like. People from all over the world I now consider to be my friends, and they enrich my life every day with their own vision of the reality we all share.

    Yesterday, and one day last week, three of those new friends surprised me, one by “Tagging” me, (Linda Vernon at lindavernonhumor.wordpress.com) one by nominating me for a Sunshine Award (by gr8listener.wordpress.com….that one’s a big surprise to me! I always thought I was a curmudgeon…..) and an Inspirational Blogger Award nomination (another surprise, from one of my favorites, Dolly, at allaboutlemon.wordpress.com). There are some rules that go along with these awards, and I’m cheating a bit, but will hit them all. First, thank the one who nominated you: Linda, Dolly, and gr8listener…..thank you, thank you, thank you. I am humbled, and very, very grateful, not only for these awards, but for all the encouragement and friendship you have offered me. All of your blogs amaze me, for what you write, for the technical expertise shown by your site, and your posts, all of which inspire me to learn more about how to use WordPress more effectively.

    Now this is where the cheating begins. The other part of the rules are to share some things about me that let folks know who I am and what I’m about, to show links back to my nominators, and to nominate a number of other bloggers to receive the awards, or tag, making them It…… I’m uncertain of just how to accomplish some of that, from a technical standpoint; since coming here to WP, I’ve concentrated mostly on writing, and have not figured out a lot of the tricks and functions available to bloggers; I have a hard time just getting a picture where I want it to go, and adding a bunch of links is going to take me a while. So, the cheat is this…..this intro to today’s Pearl serves as my Thank You to Linda, Dolly, and Gr8listener (though I will say it again, read on>>>), but the award logos, the revelations about me, and the nominations with the links, will all go into a post I’ll create later today. I know, it’s not kosher, but then, I’m not in the Tribe, and it’s my blog right? So I can change the rules if I want to (see yesterday’s blog, “Hidden behind a glass partition”….).

    So, I will post twice today, and the other will be the fulfillment of the rules of engagement here on WP. A big thank you, and another virtual hug to all three ladies who were so kind as to nominate me for these awards. In the meantime, we will now return to today’s regularly scheduled Pearl of Virtual Wisdom…….
___________________________________

“There is no sin except stupidity.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), “The Critic as Artist”, 1891

    This is a sentiment that has been expressed by a great number of philosophers throughout history, each of which provides more evidence of its truth. It’s so true that it may be considered as a natural law, one that applies to every creature that exists. For millenia, the truth of this proposition was enforced with the death penalty; if you were stupid enough to ignore this law, you died. It was that simple. In today’s world, unfortunately, this has become less dangerous. Now, the world is much more tolerant of the less well endowed of society, and folks who are dirt dumb can survive to pass on their stupid genes to future generations. SIGH….. it’s too bad, really, for I doubt that all of humanity’s advances were not made with this intent, but they nonetheless have done so, to the everlasting chagrin of those who can see beyond the end of their own noses. But, I suppose that is part of our charm; we act from the highest principles, but end up face-down in the mud all too frequently. It’s all so frustrating…..so much so, I’m gonna go have a beer….. or at least another cup of coffee…..

“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful — just stupid.)” –Lazarus Long, from Time Enough for Love, by Robert A. Heinlein 
___________________________________

       JABBERWOCKY

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
   The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
   And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
   The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
   He went galumphing back.

“And thou hast slain the Jabberwock?
   Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
   He chortled in his joy.
 — Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”

    No comments here, none needed. Just a daily dose of whimsy……enjoy!…..
___________________________________

    I’m running out of taglines….I just spent 40 fruitless minutes searching my database for an appropriate subject to discuss. This is just a place marker….I’m going diving, and it will help me find my place when I get back with something to write about…..see you soon…..

This sentance has threee errors. — Unknown, the brother of Anonymous

    If you can identify all three errors above, then you have some experience with publishing posts. Nothing ticks me off at myself like reading through a post I’ve already posted, only to find typos I missed in my proofing. I’m sure it bothers all of us who post; I’ve heard the same complaint from others. Without outsourcing, I’m not sure there is a viable solution to the problem, and who has the time or money to hire someone to do what you can do yourself? I guess it comes down to this: “I think we’re all Bozos on this Bus!” –Firesign Theater from the album of the same name. That’s right, we all have big red noses, that often are so distracting, we cannot see over it to the errors in our work. But, it like it says later in the album, “Yes! Living in today’s complex world of the future IS much like having a hive of bees living in your head. But, there they are!”  Indeed, there they are….. this is where that vaunted patience and tolerance for our own frailties comes in. All you can do is all you can do, so relax and enjoy the ride. Nobody’s counting our mistakes except ourselves, and there will be no quiz…..
___________________________________

Pluralitas non ponenda est sine necessitate.  (Multiplicity is not to be asserted when it is unnecessary.) — William of Occam [Occam’s Razor]

    I first encountered Occam’s Razor in my early teens, as a paraphrase of the accepted logical law seen here. It was in a Robert Heinlein book, which one I haven’t a clue, as that was oh, 48 or so years ago. The paraphrase, known as Hanlon’s Razor, is “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity,” and is widely known and quoted in the computer world, especially by hacker culture. It is a logical tool whose relevance has been tested out many, many times, and is considered to be proven truth. It is a very useful tool for picking apart those lovely statements of nonsense we hear from talking heads every day (talking heads being defined as those fools who make pronouncements on the political stage, as if they were commandments sent down from Mount Olympus). And it also is a valuable everyday tool for discovering the truth of any proposition, when used correctly. It’s fairly obvious that this is not well-known outside the hard sciences; otherwise, we wouldn’t be burdened by all that nonsense. If it wasn’t so funny, it would be sad, and vice versa…..

Flee at once, all is discovered.
___________________________________

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given the the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory is a benediction.” — Bessie A. Stanley (b.1879), in Notes and Queries July 1976

    In my not so humble opinion, this is just about perfect. Ms. Stanley has hit upon virtually every good quality one can find in any human being, and hit upon them with a hard and precise blow. Love, humor, Duty, respect, humility, trust, inspiration, all are covered in her description of a live well-lived. One can only hope to come close to achieving all this in one lifetime; most of us would settle for half of it. But, as such, it provides us with a pretty good list of goals to add to our personal lives, goals that will not only make us better people, but will enrich all those with whom we come in contact throughout our lives….. better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, or even a dull one…..
___________________________________

    Whew! Quite a struggle today, as I figured. Only one more posting to go, then I can start in on the 40 some emails this morning, letting me know that the 60-some blogs I follow have posted. It’s beginning to take a significant portion of my day, just to deal with emails and stay current with everyone’s blogs. I like staying busy though, it’s a good method of not dwelling too much on the negatives in my life, and I get to see and read a lot of good stuff. Any who, I’d best be about it, so until later today, y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

 

Image

We believe the correct term is “Zounds!”….

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9

Ffolkes,
It’s bloody cold out here today! Out in the main room, not outside, though if inside is any indicator, it’s cold out there, too. And I didn’t mean to get into a whole weather report, so let’s just start over….

Buon giorno, ohayo gozaimas, buenos dias, and howdy….. I’m feeling somewhat international today. It’s probably a side effect of wanting to travel….. anywhere. I’ve been stuck too long in one place, and my itchy feet are dunning me to hit the road, to go somewhere on the planet where I’ve never been, to meet people I’ve never known, to see things I’ve never seen. Way too long, indeed…. the last real travel I undertook was over a year ago, and that was a nightmare; the last day and a half of it would make a pretty funny movie. Funny for others at least; it wasn’t funny at all from my perspective. Any who, I can definitely hear those wild geese calling me, urging me to pack my bag and be on my way…… soon enough, compadre, soon enough…..
___________________________________

crust, sauce, toppings, cheese. — The Four Food Groups

I find it odd, to say the least, but this is true; crust is a carbohydrate, sauce is made of vegetables, toppings are generally protein and/or vegetable, cheese is a dairy product. So, if one really stops to thinks about it (such as at those times when I sits and thinks…) pizza, and pasta, too, for that matter, can be considered a balanced meal all by itself. This may be why it appeals to so many people in America; we, as a group, are all about one-stop-shopping. If we can tell ourselves that a pizza is healthy food (and it is!) then we can eat without guilt. Since guilt is one of our other preeminent characteristics, an unwelcome one, eating pizza, for us, is a win-win, and is useful at any time to maintain a happy, guilt-free lifestyle….. 🙂  Abondanza!….. I’m a chef, it’s all true, I swear! Trust me!…….

“There is a difference between eating a varied diet and chowing down on a cup of lard and sugar once a day. Programmers know this instinctively: they balance their daily menu among the four major food groups: caffeine, sugar, grease, and salt.” — From John Walker’s The Hacker’s Diet
___________________________________

I’m sorry, but I’m giving up on this Pearl. I’ve spent the last hour and a quarter searching desperately for a quote, an idea, or even just a joke to place here for discussion. What I’ve found is nada. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Not even a hint, or a random finger pointing in a direction where the last idea was seen. It’s bloody frustrating, I’ll tell ya…. and I’ve got stuff to do today. So, I’m giving up. This will have to remain blank. Just think of it as a user documentation manual from the old days at IBM, where it was common practice to put “This page intentionally left blank” on a large number of pages. At least this is my first time….. even now, I’m breathlessly awaiting serendipity, hoping after hope that rescue is rushing down upon us, to leave us with something, anything at all, to put here….. well, I’m waiting…. and waiting…. and waiting….. ah, I knew Murphy wouldn’t let me down…. here is the perfect piece to drag this odd little paragraph right into the realm of respectability, because the message intended in this poetic classic is the perfect counterpoint…..

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe
— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

See?…. I rest my case….
___________________________________

“Syzygy, inexorable, pancreatic, phantasmagoria–anyone who can use those four words in one sentence will never have to do manual labor.” — W. P. Kinsella

Easy money…..

“Even a terminal pancreatic cancer patient can observe the inexorable march of the planets culminating in syzygy, as in an eclipse, if no other way, as a phantasmagoria, a hallucination stemming from their radiation therapy.” — gigoid, 2/25/2012.

See, no problem. Anybody else have a challenge for me? Feel free to leave them in the comments, and I’ll give them a shot. As long as I can find out what each word means, I think I can string them together, and the ensuing results promise to be as strangely interesting as this one……does this mean, since I don’t have to do manual labor anymore, that I’m getting paid now?….
___________________________________

“Do you believe in and afterlife?  I think this is it.” — Brown

This is an interesting notion… if true, it would explain a lot about this life that we have attributed heretofore to supernatural, or to as yet unknown, laws governing the universe. For example, it would explain why what we call our lives are incredibly brief, in comparison to almost any other part of the physical universe. Stars, matter, worlds, rocks, moons, all last for billions of years, unless acted upon by great forces, whereupon they merely change form, but do not vanish.

But our consciousness, no matter how deeply we think we understand reality, must bow to the simple fact that we only exist, consciously, for a mere few seconds of the eternal clock. When considered in this light, the above statement becomes absolute truth, and bears contemplation. The answers found may just reveal how immortal we actually may be, though the evidence may not indicate such……
___________________________________

“We must learn not to disassociate the airy flower from the earthy root, for the flower that is cut off from its root fades, and its seeds are barren, whereas the root, secure in mother earth, can produce flower after flower and bring their fruit to maturity.” — Kabbalah (BC 1200?-700? AD)

Mind and body are one? Yes….. it fits. Over a thousand years ago, and folks were developing subtle, yet complex, answers to ages-old questions. This one indicates to me that the author, or the philosophy about which he discoursed, was aware of the duality present in the fabric of reality. It acknowledges the two separate qualities that coexist within each of us, that state of mind/body that both tests and verifies its own nature. We perceive two things, mind and body, whereas the universe only sees one thing, a human.

It is thus a mistake to act out of the belief that we are not connected to the rest of the universe, that our perceptions, based on the duality inherent in the nature of reality, reflect what actually is real. Reality does not acknowledge any such separation of spirit from matter; what happens to one affects the other just as strongly. It is much more prudent, or rather, more effective as a strategy, to include the knowledge of this duality in our contemplations, and base decisions on reality, rather than fantasy….. life is much more congenial…..
___________________________________

Well, that was interesting…. I think. It will fly, though, I’m pretty sure. And if not, well, tomorrow is another day. Since I started of with weather-talk, I’ll finish the same way. Today promises to be pretty nice here is Northern California, though the forecast is calling for some drizzle later in the afternoon. A little bit of everything, eh what? Not much to do about it, whatever happens, so I just try to enjoy it….. y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

A particular quality of light….

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2

Ffolkes,
I’m feeling a bit curmudgeonly this morning; I’m down to instant coffee until I can get to a store, and having to drink this nasty stuff has me close to biting myself in irritation. Fortunately, one of my friends is coming by, and will be bringing coffee with him. One of the advantages of advanced years is the improvement in forethought skills; we knew he was coming over today, and arranged to have him pick some up on the way. Too bad it doesn’t improve the flavor of this instant crap…….
____________________________________

Deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not have him do to thee hereafter. —  _The Mahabharata_, c. 800 B. C. (Sounds suspiciously like the Golden Rule to me)

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” — Sun Tzu (fl. c. BC 500)

As the same fire assumes different shapes when it consumes objects differing in shape, so does the one Self take the shape of every creature in whom he is present. — Upanishads (c. B.C. 800) (Metaphysical logic, as sound as it gets….)

“Nothing endures but change.” — Heraclitus (540?-480? B.C.) (Obviously, Heraclitus was no stranger to Reality….)

All of the above statements were recorded (on paper or other form of tablet; t’was all they had then) prior to the birth of Christ, the seminal date upon which our calendar is based. It is fascinating to me to read these, which were all written about 2500-3000 years ago, and to reflect on how little apparent progress has been made in advancing human thought and behavior. The above remnants of the culture of the time clearly indicates an ability to reason that surpasses, or at minimum, equals the best of today’s philosophers. As an example of just how far we have come, or not come, to be more accurate, here is an example of how one of the most revered leaders in recent history, a man known as the Great Communicator, felt about ecological issues in general…..

“A tree is a tree.  How many more do you need to look at?” — Ronald W. Reagan, 1966

Kind of scary, isn’t it?………
____________________________________

“Do not settle for less than the best your own excellence can command.” — Anne McCaffrey

I identify closely with this; it parallels Axiom #4 of my own philosophy, Peruaosophy, which reads “Excellence is its own reward.” This has been one of the guiding principles of my life, though I do occasionally encounter some resistance from the outside world in trying to achieve it. For some reason, it seems to make other folks feel nervous and threatened, and sometimes even antagonistic. I don’t worry too much over that; I figure its their problem, not mine, and paying too much attention to what other folks think or feel about what I do just encourages them to think its okay, when it is not. Its merely a distraction, and unfortunately, a potentially hazardous one, should my detractors turn from the relative confusion of a simple lack of understanding, to the dangerous rage of ignorant fear and loathing. But one of the more important skills that is learned by the process of seeking excellence is the ability to see a broader perspective, and plan for unexpected dangers during the process of sharing one’s excellence with the world. Forethought is a good thing…..(oooo, deja vu all over again….)
____________________________________
JABBERWOCKY

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And thou hast slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
— Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”

No comments here, I just like this a lot; reading it makes me happy…….it can work for you, too, if you like!…….
_____________________________________

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
— Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
— Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires, Line 201

For some reason, probably buried somewhere deep in my unconscious mind, when I read this I was struck by a mental image of the last couple of Republican debates, which I must admit have provided us all with a wonderfully comic sideshow, complete with outrageous statements, vicious lying and in-fighting amongst the candidates, curiously obscure positions, and dubious economics. It’s been great, and provides tons of material to write about. But it also gets too easy to forget the seriousness that lurks behind the silly false fronts that they all throw up to keep people from knowing their true agendas; each of those people is serious about their desire to assume the mantle of power in this country, and each of them would be a greater disaster than the others. Take your pick; if any of them come even close to getting into office, I’ll be heading for the farthest place I can find to duck and cover…….any one of them would accelerate the already out of control rush toward extinction, and would create messes that may never be cleaned up…..
_____________________________________

He who allows his day to pass by without practicing generosity and enjoying life’s pleasures is like a blacksmith’s bellows – he breathes but does not live. — Sanskrit Proverb

I hereby pronounce this to be good. We hear the same message a lot of different ways, so it is good to see a new way of expressing such an essential point, one that fully embraces the meaning of, and behind, the words used. So much so, that it really doesn’t need any embellishment from me, so I will merely say……engage, examine, evaluate, and effect a change in your life. You’ll like it….trust me……
_____________________________________

Well it took a bit of effort, but it all came out well, I think. It’s certainly good enough for a retired dilettante, and I should know….. y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!