Ffolkes,
I think I broke my brain…. without it, it’s hard to tell…. It’s that, or I’ve managed somehow to get switched with somebody else’s brain, and it doesn’t get my commands…. Most likely, though, it’s just doing one of its imitations of the Windows operating system, which can freeze up at any time, without warning, only to sit there, blankly staring at you out of a blue screen, undoubtedly getting a big kick out of watching you tear out what remaining hair you have…. Well, that’s the way it feels, anyway…. If only I could find my chutzpah, I’d be fine….
Without it, I have a hard time convincing myself that anyone out there wants to hear what I have to say…..Then, I remember that I don’t really care if anyone reads it, as long as it gets this shit out of my head before it explodes in there, or ferments to the point of rottenness….. I still have moments in my life when sanity is far, far away; at those moments, it all seems rather silly to try to get people to listen to what is most likely the most sensible crap they hear, just so they can save their sorry asses from their own stupidity. Most of the folks who are causing all the trouble are folks I’d rather didn’t survive any cataclysm that is coming, so I often wonder why I try….
Then, I remember I’m supposed to be compassionate to all creatures, even the dull and ignorant…. Okay, I can live with that….
But, I’m sorry, ffolkes, but there are a number of people in the world, a small, but important list, on which are listed those people for whom I am NEVER going to feel any compassion…. Pimps, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and all the other proven enemies of society are on that list….. and, I’m NOT talking about convicted criminals….. Most of the others on the list will never face prosecution for their crimes…
You’ll note, if you please, the phrase, “other enemies of society”…. You see, to me, this group includes ALL politicians, ALL preachers, priests, imams, sadhus, and all the other varieties of holy-rollers, 98% of the lawyers, 90% of the police, at least half the military, and most importantly, ALL of those whom I would label as shadowy corporate slave masters, the small group of mega-rich assholes who control 99% of all the money and resources on the planet….
Okay, except for them, I’ll feel compassion for all…. The folks on my list of those who would be ‘persona non grata’ in the New World order would see nothing from me but the back of me hand…. As I’ve said before, they’ve been fucking with the rest of us for millennia, so, I say, fuck them, hard, dirty, and as often as you can…. They’ll still never get anywhere near enough payback for what they’ve done, even if we tortured them for years….
Okay, I’ve ranted already, and I had no intention of doing so in the intro today…. I guess my sense of outrage is on full alert, what with all this BS going on in the Ukraine, with all the corporate assholes arguing over who’s going to exploit the Ukrainians…. Will it be the East, the West, or are they going to just fuck themselves over like little marionettes? The last choice seems as likely as any of the others, as I don’t see very many factions there who are any more acceptable than any of the others…. It’s all just an argument, as I noted, about who will get the franchise to fuck them over….
Before I get started again, on this new outbreak of insanity on the other side of the world, I’d better get on with the rest of today’s Pearl…. It isn’t going to write itself, I suppose…. I am a little bit prepared, as I have some archived material ready to put in, but, it still takes some time to edit, buff, polish, and update for current news, in the case of a rant about a specific issue like gun control…. Any who, let’s get on with it….
Shall we Pearl?…..
“Instead of all of this energy and effort directed at the war to end drugs, how about a little attention to drugs which will end war?” — Albert Hofmann
_____________________________
In the early days of this blog, the format of the Daily Pearls was somewhat different than it is now…. There was an intro section, followed by five more sections, each with a single pearl, and a discussion of that pearl…. Some were short, some longer, but, it worked for what I was doing at the time, still developing the chops I needed to get this stuff out of my head before it rots….
Later, when I began writing longer discussions, and began ranting more often, I switched over to the current format, as the Pearls were getting way too long…. They’re still growing in length, but that is now a factor of my skills having advanced to the point where I’m faster, and get stuff out more efficiently, if not with more style….
I found this pearl, which I think will give you a good idea of how they looked back then…. It’s a decent little blurb, and I’m kind of proud of it, as part of my learning process….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 2/29/2012:
“Waiting is.” — Robert A. Heinlein, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’
Taken by itself, in this format, without the supportive structure of the book from which it was taken, this seems a bit obtuse, too inscrutable. But when one adds in the philosophical background from which this statement springs, a direction is given to the path one’s thoughts must take to find and absorb the meaning, and the lesson, that these two words hold.
Even without the book’s help, using the phrase as a focus of meditation is very soothing, almost healing. It may be the shortest koan known to man; I can’t think of any I’ve seen that are simpler or deeper than this. And using it is so simple! Merely close the eyes, relax, and say the words, inflecting them as a question, and follow the march of your thoughts and images as they lead you further inward, toward the center, where balance lives….
(Note from the future: In retrospect, I find that a slightly better meditation technique is to say the words silently, in the mind, and changing the inflection in an alternating fashion, as a question, then as an answer, then again in query, and so on…. This technique is also useful in leading to a place of great serenity and inner peace…. I can personally testify as to the truth of that….)
_____________________________
While cruising the archives, where I found the above, I also came across the following, from April of 2013, written during the National Poetry Writing Challenge…. Enjoy!….
Softly steals the night,
everywhere is darkness,
but for in the heart.
~~ gigoid ~~
I know I’m in the now, if only…..
Oh, there it is again, fiddle faddle;
Begone, I said, vamoose, skedaddle!
It looked at me as if I were insane:
Scoffed, it did, filled me up with pain.
Where does it come from?
Where does it live?
I’d stick out my thumb,
if I had more to give.
If only, should, would, could it be?
It went away again, this time free.
It will be back again, this I know;
or I’m wrong, and it won’t show.
Who cares?
Who hears?
Such goings on wobble the sphere,
I wish it wouldn’t do that here.
I’ve been wrong before…..
~~ gigoid ~~
_____________________________
Yesterday’s Pearl had a fresh rant, talking about the NSA, and the illegal spying by the US government, brought to light by Eric Snowden, the whistle blower who formerly worked at the NSA….
The rant was stimulated because a book on the subject was published, entitled “The Snowden Files”, written by one Luke Harding, a journalist who works for the Guardian, a tabloid newspaper in the UK, the publication in which the spying revelations were first revealed to the public….
Late last year, I wrote another rant on that same subject, regarding an article that came out at the time I wrote it…. It’s still quite valid, and in light of the new book, bears repeating, if only to keep the material fresh in people’s minds, where it belongs….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 10/31/13:
Well, I waited until now to begin ranting, which is probably a good thing. Perhaps this will be a bit more effective as a call to action than in the usual position, or wherever it’s been of late that has kept it from at least making me feel a bit better for having ranted…. What a mouthful! And so on topic, too! Gotta love us amateurs, eh?….
At any rate, I found this article yesterday, buried back a few pages, probably because everyone is so tired of hearing of yet ANOTHER outrageous instance of the NSA breaking the law, by once again going far beyond the scope of their legal mandate, in the ever-widening quest by our own government to become the true Evil Empire…. I know, that’s some pretty high-powered language to use to in discussing an agency of our own government, but, as always, I believe in calling a spade a damn shovel, not an indigenous individual digging device, type 2…. and you may as well get used to it….
These assholes over at the NSA have gone completely bonkers; they assumed that because they got practically all they wanted in the way of legal coverage by the administration, they may as well just go ahead and do whatever else they wanted, believing that the people who set them loose on the trail of ostensible terrorists would protect them from any critical attention and/or interference by something as mundane as the law, or the will of the people….. and, for a long time, they were justified in that belief…. But, now that their clandestine activities are being brought to light by that national hero, Eric Snowden, the rats are deserting their ship, and leaving them to their fate without any real support….
Talk around Washington is that the President is going to, belatedly, stop spying on the leaders of our allies, and will move to put limits on what the agencies are allowed to access in the data that is generated by the general public. This is a complete reversal, and I can only hope it is in response to the pressure put on them by the public’s obvious displeasure, and not as a temporary measure to appease while they figure out a diversion in some other area of the public venue, where they can cause some problem that will draw our attention away from this issue, allowing them to continue their illegal, but, in their eyes, oh so necessary theft of the people’s identities….
(Note from the future: As it appears now, the purported restrictions the potUS was supposedly putting in place were merely a sop to the outrage. The restrictions, as such, don’t restrict much at all, and, as of now, five or so months later, they’re still covering it up, and nothing has been actually DONE about putting any restrictions on the NSA’s spying…. It was all just a charade, put out so the public believes that something will actually happen, when in reality, they’re going to stonewall it for as long as they possibly can….)
In the article, the most significant part of what is there, to my way of thinking, is that the companies involved say they had no idea they were being compromised, even though their own security measures are considered to be nearly impenetrable… Well, they SAY they had no idea; one must remember they ARE a corporation, and, thus, are very familiar with telling the public what they wish to hear….
However, it appears that the American and British spies went in, got their data, and left, without ever notifying Google, or Yahoo, of what they were taking, though such activities are still illegal, according to the laws in place…. (Not to mention rude…. The spying mandate they have doesn’t extend to what they stole, theoretically…. Of course, they can say they didn’t KNOW that, but, then, lying is their entire purpose, and the single most critical part of their entire modus vivendi, is it not?…. Even in the Art of War, Sun Tzu acknowledged the importance of the spy in warfare, calling them the most powerful of all types of warriors…
Of course it is, just as lying and cheating come naturally to anyone in a nationally elected office; it’s part of their job description these days, even if it is written in invisible ink….. Since Google, and Yahoo, and the other agencies that were hacked, are all corporations, and have pretty much the same characteristics as shown by the BRC pundits, (i.e., a tendency to lie at the drop of a cliche…), it’s a bit hard to tell who is more guilty here…. Most likely, they’re ALL lying, to each other, as well as to us….
Is it Google and/or Yahoo, who are gathering all sorts of data about its users without their knowledge or permission (I don’t regard those passive advertisements that one can “control” what data is gathered by adjusting their “preferences” as real permission…. they take whatever data they want, and tell you about it later, if at all….)….? Or, is it the government spy agencies, who are stealing that same stolen data from the corporations, that fit the bill as the villain?
It should make for an interesting contest, to see how this fake argument plays out….. I mean, I can’t really believe that the BRC, who is controlled and supported by the corporations (go ahead, disprove that!….), will continue to try to take data from those corporations without their knowledge. It’s more likely they are playing out this faux-dispute in the public venue in order to confuse the public about who is on their side in this issue…
It seems to be working, as always, as the public is pretty much ignoring these latest revelations, and looking around for almost anything to take their minds elsewhere for a while… I’m almost interested, in a resigned, doubtful sort of way, to see just what they come up with next to draw the public’s attention off this issue…. Probably more to do with the recent roll-out of health care reform laws, which seems to be a hot button for a lot of people….
For me, all of it is dross and spittle…. I believe, absolutely, that if there is an official statement made by anyone in the government printed in the news, it needs to be examined in the light of what it is NOT saying, to ascertain about what it is lying, or what it is trying to hide by distraction, not merely for what it says….
Their motivation in making ANY public statement is manipulation of public attitudes; they’re not trying to make anything better. They lie, they leave stuff out, they point us in all kinds of useless directions, but they almost NEVER tell us what is actually going on, unless we’ve already caught them at it… In those cases, we see all sorts of backing and filling, as they come up with all sorts of “plausible deniability” in order to convince the public that their lies are really the truth…
What a crock! If it wasn’t so damn sad and depressing, it would be amusing…. SIGH… Enough is enough…. Stay alert, ffolkes, because they’re lying to you every day, and doing all they can to improve THEIR lot in life, not yours…. Let them know you’re on to them, at every opportunity…. If nothing else, it will make them nervous, which they deserve….
“You can fool all of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time; and that should be sufficient for most purposes.” — Smart Bee, quoting from the true bible, used by both politicians and preachers…..
“The ideal robot, after all, is simply a properly processed human being.” — Edward Abbey
_____________________________
Well… it seems that I’ve cheated my way to a complete Pearl…. The only fresh material today is in the intro section, a few introductory remarks for each section, and some commentary that was inserted at various points in the material; all of the rest is from the archives…. Strangely enough, it all is also quite valid and up-to-date, in terms of how it relates to current events….
Sadly, this has an obvious and unfortunate implication…. It is clear, from a standpoint of considering the ethical and/or moral evolution in people at large, which is a sea-change desperately needed to be made to our inner spirit, made necessary for us to survive in this universe by our own selfish actions…. well, ffolkes, it’s pretty obvious nothing much is changing over time….
We, as a culture, are still pursuing the same ignorant modes of behavior and interaction that will eventually kill us all…. a behavior which, as has been proven throughout history, is the sign of a dying culture, one which spends enormous amounts of negative energy to maintain the status quo, rather than embracing the change that is natural to the flow of Reality….
Okay, so there’s a mini-rant for you, right there at the end, where you can easily step past it to get to the door leading out, and away from this nonsense…. You may as well, because we’re done, and I’m outta here…. 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
gigoid 