Tinny pegs, and tall….

Posted on September 13, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Fortune is unstable, while our will is free.”

~~ Diogenes Laertius — Epicurus, xxvii ~~

Deeper Dreams/Eireänne

Good morning…. I use the term, not JUST loosely, but, in full knowledge it’s unreasonably optimistic, even now, when any good at all would be, well, good.

Hmm. That didn’t come out quite right, did it? Not quite as planned, either…. Oh, well…. So be it, anyway.

Hi, there. I’m back. Sort of. Are we confused yet?

Oh, good. Me, too. But, it’s okay, because at least I’m home to BE confused. Here, if and/or when I must spew, I know where to go, whether the need(must!) be mental, physical, or spiritual…. Each, as you know, of course, requires a different receptacle, all designed to prevent cross-contamination, of which none wish it so…. No, we all wish to keep them separate, in sturdy, attractive, thoroughly-tested nocturnal urns of great beauty, which I keep in numerous handy locations at home. (Doesn’t everyone?) In public, or on the road, as we’ve/I’ve been recently, one can’t always arrange matters so neatly, not ahead of need, anyway.

I wasn’t sure whether to go into moderate piles of detail, a lot of detail, or no details at all, at all, regarding my recent trip; there is certainly a LOT of stuff I need to process in my own mind about what occurred while I was gone. For the moment, since I’m still pretty effing tired from the rather extreme effort I had to expend to reach home, I’ll forgo any long diatribes, merely alluding to the entire episode as my Latest Slip/Slide/Ride Around the Learning Curve…. It has a nice, obscure, yet enticing ring to it, I think…. How ’bout y’all?….

Oh, don’t worry…. I don’t expect a lot of comments on that. Almost purely rhetorical, it was, so, relax. mates…. But, feel free, of course, to add one at the end, should you be so moved. No blockage encouraged here; we don’t even like the word. We like the word moved better. Speaking of which, if I DO decide to discuss the trip, you should find it in the ranting section, since I’ve already perused the news, observing nothing upon which I would comment, other than a lack of stuff on which to comment…. Ahem.

There. That will do. It will have to do, because that’s it for the intro…. In fact, look, it’s an old #4! Better duck, hang on, or go back to sleep….

Shall we Pearl?….

“When you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” — Bishop Desmond Tutu

Well, maybe that’s a little grim for a first day back; let’s try again, shall we?….

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw

Better…. Let’s do this….

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

15112676-wolfgang-amadeus-mozart-1756-1791-on-engraving-from-1908-one-of-the-most-significant-and-influential

To keep from overtaxing my brain, which is not yet fully recovered from our ordeal (See? Getting there…. it’s OUR ordeal now, which means the various parts of my shattered psyche are now within shouting distance of each other; first time in days…), I’ve chosen a rather mundane, average, unknown to me mix of our default music from You Tube, simply because I know it will do for our purposes today…. And, who knows? I can use all the healing power I can get…. Enjoy, ffolkes…..

***********************

The Mozart Effect
Heal the Body

***********************

https://youtu.be/7vL3kHYZIDQ

***********************

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

Typical Irish Pub in Galway

Being the sort of person I am, I could easily write a million words about my trip to Ireland. In my head, I’ve already done so…. Sadly, I don’t think I can keep up with all that typing, as the little bit so far required today has taxed my rusty skills, and my carpal tunnels. So, here is a short, two pearl rant on my thoughts re: the oligarchy, and its ubiquitous attempts to shove its collective ass in everyone’s faces, all the time, everyfuckingwhere in the everfuckingworld…. There are only two, remember, so, try to keep up….

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” — Will Rogers

“Once, there was NO fun… This was before MENU planning, FASHION statements or NAUTILUS equipment… Then, in 1985.. FUN was completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP…. It contains 14,768 vaguely amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled snack cakes!” — Zippy the Pinhead

There you go. Now we can get on with the small amount of detail I am allowed to share regarding my time away…. Who’s saying what’s allowed? Oh, no worries, I am…. Who here would care what THEY would allow? Hah! Give me a break…..

Sorry, cheap hack crap, I know. Let’s start again, or, over, or, something….

So, I went into this pub in Galway, where I proceeded to have pizza. Wait. It wasn’t a pub. Walked around the Spanish Arch FOREVER looking for a relatively quiet place for a bite, but, could not find any, it being the night prior to their local version of the Super Bowl, to wit: the Irish Football championships, with Galway playing Kilkenny for the premier league title, for the 8th year in a row (Galway having lost the previous 7 times….). Needless to say, the place was jumping, and, yes, finding a seat anywhere was a challenge.

It took so long, I apparently reached what I discovered was the very end of my rope. Feeling tired but normal, I ordered a second glass of wine after a decent pizza marguerita in an Italian restaurant (in a place called the Spanish Arch, in an Irish town, with a Romanian waitress and a Polish bartender….). I took one sip of that wine, then, stood up, & quickly retired/teleported myself to the nearest restroom, where I proceeded to toss the entire remaining contents of the day’s consumption into the commode, calling desperately for RALPH! With the help of relative strangers, I made it to a taxi, back to the B&B, and into bed, where I remained, essentially, for days….

Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better
Some other time it will all work out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better
And it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
You have the answer;
You know who you are and what you want.
There is no need to turn outside
For better seeing.
Rather abide at the center of your being
For the more you leave it
The less you learn.
Search your own heart and see
the way to do is to be.

~~ Lao Tzu ~~

SIGH…. At the time, I’m afraid the sheer genius, and truth, of Lao Tzu’s famous lines left little impression on me, though, now, it makes perfect sense why my subconscious mind chose it for that spot in this missive. Naturally, there was no one else who could make the necessary decisions, so, with the aid of one particularly strong, compassionate person, I was able to get myself home from Galway before I, a) died, b) killed someone, c) first b, then a, d) a+b+c, or, e) started the revolution right there and then….

So, without getting into too many details, other than to say, gee, thanks, doctors, you fuck heads…. I’ll just say this…. Trying to exist without perpetrating violence upon STUPID sheeple for 28 hours straight, while confined in a closed space, with intermittent, all-too-frequent, alternating chills, nausea, muscular twitching, severe stomach pain, and, periods of panicked anxiety, all enhanced by various painful joints, muscles, and/or every single molecule in my body on full alert…. but, don’t move around the cabin!….

Great fun…..

End of rant, and, end of complaints. It’s all getting better, little by little, as I rest, applying the missing pieces to the puzzle of why it happened…. which I do happen to know, and am dealing with in my own fashion…. I’m hoping another day or two of rest will do the trick; it will take that long just to get my internal clock right, I should think…. Ah, well, so much for the world traveler, eh?…. More later on all this, ffolkes….

“I grow old ever learning many things.”

~~ Solon ~~

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

Stray Cats

The veils that billow and fold
between dreams and reality
may sometimes part,
showing the visions of one to the other,
blending, bleeding as one,
only to bring us up short,
closely jammed against immovable fate.

Still, we keep our watch,
seeking to find the vision
that brings with it the mark of reality’s regard,
a humble mind, and a compassionate heart.

Events of broad impact draw us away again,
distracting with shiny glitter and tinny music,
leaving our feelings raw and bruised,
the victim of universal disregard.

Now, in the twilight of years, the music is fading,
and the glitter has all gone….
yet the memory of visions remains sharp and clear,
melancholy reminders of reality’s promises,
unkept….

~~gigoid~~

Written 4/12/2013.

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

This is a really old-school old-school pearl, which I now don’t have time to explain….. It’s okay, though, because this one will stand up no matter what…. Go ahead, try to knock it over….

“Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 50

“Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms … but a *dying* culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Loss of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” — Friday’s boss, Mr. Two-Canes Baldwin, from “Friday” by Robert A. Heinlein

“Most people would rather give than get affection.” — Aristotle

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” — Ovid

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

“To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is aneternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.” — Soren Kierkegaard

“Always be a little kinder than necessary.” — James M. Barrie

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

No, I don’t know what happened; all I know is I’ve been at this for hours, and it’s done…. Now to see if I can post it…. We’ll try again tomorrow, ffolkes, if I’ve regained some energy, or, have decided to give in to the demands of Fate. Hmm…. Not bloody likely, I think. We’ll see….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Approaching mundane bogosity, captain….

Posted on August 29, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.

~~ Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1816-1841) ~~

~~ Life a Duty ~~

Supermoon, July 2015, Madrid

Image from an article on Space.com

Good morning…. I’ve decided to throw out the last two days; there doesn’t seem to be much point in remembering such an extended period of misery. Oh, not that it’s been exactly Hell; Hell’s probably hotter than 94º, the average for the last 48 hrs. But, the roller coaster ride of pain, from extreme highs to complete absence, and back again, over the course of an hour or two, every couple hours like a damn clock, sure makes telling the difference a distinct challenge. Faugh! Basta! Begone from my mind!

Please?

Ah, me. Such is Life in the Big City, I suppose. If I didn’t like it, I’d probably move. Hey, wait! Is that….? No, sorry, it’s not her; it’s just the arrival of our delivery of indigestible parables. Not to worry, Luigi will sign for them. Okay, where were we? Ah, yes, about to consider emigration to the wilds of Northern Cali, due to the massive influx of insanity here in the Bay Area. The level of bogosity present out in the BBR is becoming more than merely annoying; it’s getting downright dangerous for us curmudgeons; the act of obtaining one’s bagel in the morning has become a challenge of major proportion…..

Not that there’s anything up with the bagels; it’s the mundanes one must wend one’s way through to get it. They’re everywhere, spreading their ignorance and cluelessness wherever they walk, confusing themselves and others, as they try to understand a world in which they cannot comprehend the rules of engagement. It makes the effort to remain non-homicidal VERY hard to repress; they’re EVERYWHERE, asking dumb questions, making dumb mistakes, honking their horns, walking into light poles as they walk down the street obsessively gazing into their phone…. It’s enough to make an old fart regret not carrying his gun… or, a nice, big, sharp knife….

Oh, gosh. I guess it IS a little early for homicidal impulses, isn’t it? Okay, I’ll quit now. It’s just being indulgent, anyway. I’ve sworn off killing mundanes for at least another month. If I hadn’t decided on a hiatus, I would have reached my legal limit before October. It’s too expensive to get an extension; maybe next year they’ll up the limit….

I reckon that’s enough. I can’t expect y’all to take it forever, can I? Nope. Let’s go see what kind of trouble we can get into down below…. If Luigi ever gets those parables stowed away, we can…. Oh, good, we’re ready. Let’s get on with it, before it’s too late, again….

Shall we Pearl?….

“If the average man is made in God’s image,

then such a man as Beethoven or Aristotle

is plainly superior to God.”

— H. L. Mencken

Ipse dixit!

Q.E.D.

So be it.

gigoid has spoken.

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

royalty-free-clip-art-vector-logos-of-black-and-orange-floral-acoustic-guitars-by-seamartini-graphics-6573

I’m lazy; big surprise, eh? In this case, that’s a good thing. This collection of music touts itself as the “Best” relaxing classical music on the Beach. You tell me if that’s so, okay?…. Enjoy, please….

***********************

The Best Relaxing Classical Music on the Beach

***********************

https://youtu.be/KHg8wBoj_3M

***********************

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

First Dog on the Moon: Cybersecurity

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/sep/09/first-dog-cybersecurity

The cartoon was reproduced, without permission, but with full attribution, from the UK Guardian news site…..

I decided to give y’all a break from a down-to-earth, makes-you-think sort of rant, opting instead for a bit of educational entertainment, first, with the chosen graphic from the UK Guardian’s own First Dog on the Moon, followed by a rather smarmy old-school pearl, with parameters set to make us laugh at, or jeer at. the Asininnies, of whatever variety we can find, or, you may choose your own to fill in the blanks…. Enjoy! Where else can you find such interactive fun, eh?…. Okay, so, not all of it is funny, or fun. Some of it’s just Truth…. I think you’ll recognize those without any help….

“Believe 1% of what you see, and none of what you hear.” — Dubious Bee

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” — Thomas Jefferson to A. Stuart, 1791

“I’m all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.” — Leo Szilard

“Crime does not pay. Unless, of course, you get to make, enforce, or interpret the laws.” — gigoid, the dubious

“I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* — I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is ‘prisoners’; i.e., citizens of a provider state.” — Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

“The apathy of the born freeman is worse than the docility of the born slave.” — Grant Singleton (1890-?)

“A special cleaning ordinance bans housewives from hiding dirt and dust under a rug in a dwelling.” — real standing law in Pennsylvania, United States of America

“A kitchen in every pot. I mean, a pot in every — I mean, a chicken in every…” — George Bush, 1988

“The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.” — Charles Macklin (1690-1797) — Love a la Mode, Act ii, Sc. 1

“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.” — Henry Adams

“Keep a very firm grasp on reality, so you can strangle it at any time.” — Realistic Bee

“The higher you climb, the more you show your ass.” — Alexander Pope, “The Dunciad”

I must stop here… my fingers are hoarse. In addition, thirteen pearls of this nature is probably enough; we all know what can happen to the Space/Time Continuum if we go to fifteen…. It isn’t pretty….

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

Penance, Made Simple

After all the dross is sent away
a celebration can begin,
time will face up to space, to stay
willing, to shine from within.

Anger and confusion come in to share
brushing reason aside,
eager to welcome all that is fair,
alert to danger, eyes wide.

Re-gift the wicked with their own pain
stand with the just;
fail to partake of the ill-gotten gain,
living in honor, the only must.

Standing fast in the face of wrong
is its own prize and reward.
Holding on to truth makes us strong,
well worth working toward.

Little is left to chance by fate
our lessons are never free of cost.
Seldom does reality make us wait
only when alone, are we lost.

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 10/23/2012.

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

This one is about being human; the good, the weird, the ugly, the wondrous…. but, mostly, it’s about the duality of nature, and, our own inner nature, with which we constantly battle, inside AND outside ourselves… It’s not easy when the only way to win, ultimately, is to keep battling; if either side becomes dominant, imbalance disallows longevity; eventually, whatever is created destroys itself, whether overbearingly good, or obsessively evil…. Sounds a bit confusing, doesn’t it? Yeah, to me, as well, but, it DOES go a long way toward explaining a lot about most people’s reaction to much of what happens to them in life….

SIGH…. Ah well, if they would only learn to listen to the pearls that live inside them…. If not, well, they could always come read some of these; I don’t see how it couldn’t help things. Nothing much else seems to have done so….

“Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is night hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, iv, 17

“The measure of man is what he does with power.” — Pittacus

“Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“You know what they say about paradigms – shift happens!” — Witty Bee

“To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness,what he has seen in the light.” — Coventry Patmore

“His red right hand.” — John Milton — Paradise Lost, Book ii, Line 174

“Arms are instruments of ill omen… . When one is compelled to use them, it is best to do so without relish. There is no glory in victory, and to glorify it despite this is to exult in the killing of men…. When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe mourning rites.” — Lao-Tzu

“Mongo only pawn… in game of life.’ — Alex Karras in “Blazing Saddles”

“Sometimes I think. And sometimes I am.”

~~ Smart Bee, using Peruaosophy as a koan ~~

☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬☬

What the…? How did we get here? Oh, wait; okay, I get it. Sorry, the Tardis was set to put me here at a certain time, & I forgot. Okay, we’re done, right? Right. I suppose I’d better go see what happened up there, before I let this loose on the world….. Hang on….

Hmm…. I think it’s best if I don’t comment on any of that. I’ll just say this; it’s done. That fulfills all the legal requirements, so, I’m going to use some common sense & get us the hell out of here, before Reality is stressed any further…. I’ll be back tomorrow, ffolkes….. Hey! Oh for goodness sake, stop with the wailing and lamentations! It’s not a threat, calm down. I don’t THINK we’ve even made any of the do-not-fly lists yet, so, it’s just another walk in the park. Sheesh…. Besides, what’s your beef? Did you pay for this? No…. Well, not in anything other than a karmic sense….

See ya, ffolkes; that’s a promise…. I don’t make them lightly….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Kindly inform the sublime Pasha his hot dog is done….

Posted on July 29, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“How could the drops of water know themselves to be a river?

Yet the river flows on.”

~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~~

Europa’s Ice Wolf watching Pluto from Charon

https://europasicewolf.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/smashing-the-final-planetary-frontier/

Good morning…. The odds on that have improved a bit, thankfully…. Mind and body yearn for more sleep; five hours, though welcome, doesn’t quite make up for the weeks of 2-3/day I’ve just gone through. I have to admit, though, more, in this case, is better. Not that I’m a bundle of energy, by any means, but, it is nice to not have to summon my courage just to stand up….

Today’s Pearl promises to be something of an anomaly, though why that should be is still unclear…. It’s a sort of background hum with which we are familiar, from the identical phenomenon in my nervous system; when it’s there, tension reigns, though the underlying reason seems hidden…. It is only when it stops we note we’ve been so tense; the relief is immense. Sadly, there isn’t much that relieves it for my nervous system; for Pearls, I have yet to even identify the root cause, much less figure out how to get it to stop…. So, we end up with weird, which may not seem all that odd, but, trust me, it will be…

Since I can’t seem to find much of anything to say here, and don’t want to completely bore anyone in the intro section, we’ll take this slow on the road…. Luigi! Fire that sucker up, & let’s hit it! Time’s a wastin’…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself.”

~~ Robert A. Heinlein ~~

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

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a You Tube video, which I enjoyed so much I’m including it here today. It’s a verbal performance of a W.B. Yeats poem, The Stolen Child, one of the most famous poems in all of English literature. The accompanying original video and music are the perfect enhancement to the poem’s beauty, and though short, one of the most intense doses of beauty I’ve ever been fortunate to experience…. I hope you enjoy it….

***********************

The Stolen Child – W.B. Yeats

***********************

https://youtu.be/g9hnUYV06t4

***********************

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

“Justice is incidental to law and order.” — J. Edgar Hoover

For someone of my ilk, such a statement, with its inherent arrogance and sense of entitlement, is an obvious invitation to rant; one might say, metaphorically, it’s a red flag to my bullish intellect…. But, that would leave me open to too many bad puns on referring to myself as a bull, or with bovine qualities to my thought processes… I certainly hope NOT…. Nonetheless, whichever metaphor we end up with, if any, I’m going to rant…. J. Edgar is just too much of an asshole to pass up the chance to chew on him. He was SUCH an asshole, I am prompted to pearl….

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” — Oscar Wilde

I’m sure Oscar must have been thinking of J. Ed; I think he met him as a child…. I mean, J. Edgar was a child…. Oscar was already nearly dead at the time…. In fact, it’s a little known historical fact the sight of J. Edgar’s face at the age of three, was the event which actually kicked Oscar over the edge…. (Little known = I made it up…. But, imagine it. Remember J. Edgar’s face when he was at the FBI? At three he must have been a truly scary sight; probably never had to buy a Halloween mask in his life….)

Okay, I’ll stop picking on the dead FBI guy. We’ll get back to what he said above, which, as far as I can tell, is just about as far removed, philosophically, ethically, and morally, from the ideas and concepts involved in the US Constitution, as it can possibly get. I don’t believe the framers of the Constitution had that sort of brutal single-mindedness in mind when they drafted the document; it’s completely foreign to the same view of, well, everything…. The intent of Mason, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, and the rest was to secure Justice for the people, not place it in the hands of the faceless myrmidons who have taken over the police forces, not to mention the courts, of this country.

“All I kin say is when you finds yo’self wanderin’ in a peach orchard, ya don’t go lookin’ for rutabagas.” — Kingfish

Yesterday, when I began this rant, I had the firm intention of dissecting Hoover, and the ridiculous, self-centered attitudes he espoused, which have, sadly, become the modus operandi of almost every police force in this country…. The more I think on it, however, the greater is my feeling of futility, as I so often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir when I rant; the people who NEED to see, and think about this material, almost never do see it, as they’re not interested in changing their minds. Hell, most of them aren’t even aware they HAVE a mind….

So, I’m gonna sublimate, to please myself. We’ll find some statements, about politicians, dogma dogs, snakeheads, myrmidons, pimps, and all the other assholes who are dragging us all down to Hell with them…. Let’s see what SB can come up with today to poke a few holes in their misguided sense of adequacy…. Ah, what the hell; we’ll poke a LOT of holes today…. How about, say, oh, 13 holes?…. Hope they bleed a lot…

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children’s circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What’s never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone’s unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

~~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), “Was There A Time” ~~

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

“The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), “Prejudice”

“Our “neoconservatives” are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.” — Edward Abbey

“If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.” — G.K. Chesterton

“Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess.” — Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

“With rank goeth privileges- so it ever shall be. But also with it go responsibility and obligations, always more onerous than the privileges are pleasant.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue” — Bertrand Russell

“Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.” — Confucius

“I’m going to have you wrapped in a U.S. flag and burned personally by the President, in high octane American gasoline!” — The Firesign Theatre movie, J-Men Forever

“Ignorance is Strength.” — George Orwell’s 1984

“Remember: there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.” — Frank Zappa, “He’s got 20 million dollars in his heavenly bank account.”

Ye shall know the” truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”

~~ Aldous Huxley ~~

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

Here is a poem I haven’t re-posted since first written… Don’t know why, as it may be one of my best, such as they are…. I hope you enjoy it…

Dreaming, I wait….

In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.

Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.

Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.

Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.

Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.

When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.

Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night
aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart
Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,
tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art.

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 9/18/2013.

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

Our final pearl is, apparently, a small, if significant part of what makes today’s effort such an anomaly…. Created in only two sessions at the computer, it came together quite easily, which is the first sign of possible oddity. After a bit of rearrangement, I realized it’s actually a pretty good pearl, for a certain type of mind…. The others who read it may find it a bit hard to penetrate, but, s’okay, not everyone likes peanut butter, even the chunky kind…. Enjoy, ffolkes; I think you can figure it out from here….

“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.” — Immanuel Kant

“Remember what the dormouse said… FEED YOUR HEAD…” — Grace Slick

“A good reputation is more valuable than money.’ — Publius Syrus — Maxim 108

“A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.” — Bob Edwards

“The worst deluded are the self-deluded.” — Christian Nevell Bovee

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” — Baltasar Gracian

“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, ix, 16

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.” — Walt Kelly, Putluck Pogo

At this point in the process, you may ask, what the hell was that all about? I have only one response….

[dignified silence]

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

Y’know? Maybe I’ll make that last line my standard response to ALL queries…. Yeah! That’s the ticket!….

Then, again, that might tend to stifle any potential dialogue…. Okay, we’ll continue to use it only when appropriate…. Now we have that settled, I’m outta here, with energy, a bit of the ready in me pocket, and time on me hands. It’s a big world out there in the Big Blue Room outside the place where my computer lives…. I think I’m going to go see what kind of trouble I can create today…. Not get INTO, mind you, just create…. I’ll try not to involve any innocents, but, they would probably be better off staying off the streets, anyway…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if I don’t run into anyone faster than me….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Pilot fish? Biscotti? Auroral halos? What IS all this?….

Posted on July 21, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.”

~~ The Beatles ~~

Image of Guangxi Province, China, found on the UK Telegraph Website

Good morning…. There is hope! As a scientist for most of my life, I am willing to change my theories in the face of new data that is indicative of the need for a change. For some weeks now, I’d about given up hope of ever sleeping more than a couple hours at a time, having been so disrupted by the forced medicine change perpetrated upon me by my own doctors. But, last night, I actually slept, with some small awakenings, for a full eight hours, or close enough as to make no difference…. The difference in my own state of mind is astounding, once one gets past the astonishment, filling me with the hope I can repeat the experience tonight…

In short, Right Fucking On! Or, as we used to say, Yippee, hippie! Well, okay, we didn’t say that, but, we felt like it!….

And, now, we can get on with this mess, without any further nonsense…. Another YAY, if you please….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Virtue is the beauty, and vice the deformity, of the soul.”

~~ Socrates (B.C. 469-399) ~~

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

Today’s musical video choice is a form of celebration for last night’s gift, a long rest in the arms of Morpheus…. This, however, will NOT put you to sleep. It’s one of my favorite old rock bands, famous for hard-driving, brilliantly improvisational southern rock & roll, in a concert from their heydey, in March of 1971. I give you. the Allman Brothers Band, at the Warehouse, New Orleans…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. I’m going to, for sure….

***********************

The Allman Brothers

***********************

https://youtu.be/kg7ssACzQhc

***********************

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

Our world is poised on the cusp of an uncertain future; in my most optimistic examinations of the evidence all around us, there is conflict coming to society. All I can see is turmoil and human pain, in an ever increasing spiral of insanity, as the long-awaited collapse of the current system of economic dominance, to wit: capitalism, enters the final death throes, shaking itself apart at the very seams, which are merely illusions, held together by ideas long out of date, and ultimately self-destructive. In short, the house of cards is coming down, ffolkes, and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it at this point.

Oh there are signs of hope, but, they are almost buried by the obvious signs of corruption and decayed morality which will, ultimately, spell our doom, unless we can find a way to change human nature in the next, oh, five minutes or so….. You think I’m being facetious, but, I’m not; that is a very literal warning, in real time…. My assessment is based on too many pieces of evidence to ignore, or deny, and I’m not particularly happy about it, but, then, Reality very seldom asks our permission for anything, now, does it?

One of the ways our species seems to use, to its undying regret, is to attempt to legislate behavior, or morality, which is the cause of the behavior, into a moral guideline, supposedly for the benefit of all. This, of course, is sheer nonsense, for you cannot legislate human feelings or motivational emotions. It just isn’t possible to make a law that causes people to stop committing offenses of morality; laws do not reach into the human psyche like that. Laws of society have no effect whatsoever on how people feel, or act, and to think so is sheer folly. Yet, for centuries, people have tried to make laws to adjust behavior; I defy ANYONE to show ONE TIME in history in which it worked…. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you look….

I’m pretty confident you wont’ find any such examples…. I’m full of energy, having slept well last night for the first time in, literally, months. As a result, I think I could keep ranting on this for some time…. But, I know y’all have better things to do, so, I’ll sublimate the rest of my angst into an older rant, on a subject which highlights our subject today….

This country has attempted any number of times to abrogate the Second Amendment of the US Constitution; regulations already exist which have decreased its universality, placing restrictions on the process of obtaining and licensing (!!!) a gun…. The following rant was written in response to one writer’s suggestion for a change to the Bill of Rights, which he felt would be useful. This is my response….

From 9/19/2012:

A while back, I wrote a comment regarding another blog, concerning the proposal made in that blog of writing some new amendments to the Constitution. Most of the suggested amendments made good sense, as they removed most of the entitlements that Congress had awarded itself over the years. However, there was one suggested change with which I wholeheartedly disagree…. this is the response to that suggestion… the address of the original blog is included, in case you want to read it first….. To wit:

In Response to a Proposed 35th Amendment:

From the blog site at:

http://lennemi.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/a-proposal-for-a-new-bill-of-rights/#comment-234

After reading the above blog, I posted the following comment:

Sir, or madam,

Excellent post, well reasoned and presented…. I have a few comments, if I may….

It has long been a delusion in human society that morality can be enforced, or induced at all, by legislation. This is, as proven time and time again throughout thousands of years of human history, an idea that is doomed to fail, every time it is attempted. That is not speculation, or guesswork. Look it up…..

Therefore it is my suggestion that you forget #35, in favor of the Second Amendment already in place in the Bill of Rights; this concept is based on a false assumption, and making a flat statement of what (YOU believe) my rights are, or should be, is not acceptable to me as a citizen of this republic, or as a human being responsible for my own actions .Bearing arms is not a privilege, nor will I, and most likely at least 150 million, or more, other people in this country, accept that idea for a moment, a fact that should be obvious to any one with practical understanding of reality.

I do not, nor will I ever believe that Federal, State, or Local jurisdiction have either the right, nor the authority to say differently, and I doubt seriously that there are very many in this country who do believe that. I reject utterly the statement that they, or you, or anyone else, has the right to decide for me what I will or will not own, or keep, or use in my defense. After guns, free speech would be the next to go….any bets?

That, my friends, is a fact of life, and of human nature. We only have those rights we can defend…. and, this is merely another doomed attempt to legislate morality into human nature. Violence exists. Period. Get used to it, because you are not going to remove it from people’s core nature, or from reality, any more than attempting to remove guns will stop crime, or killing, or the tendency toward violence that is part of the nature of Man. Better to understand the impulse, to work toward educating people in how to cope with that part of themselves constructively, rather than destructively…..

The rest of your amendments are perfectly in alignment with what I believe is needed to improve the conditions of inequality and elitism so prevalent in today’s society, and would likely receive my full support.

To be honest, up to recently, I never owned, or saw a need to own a gun. As one who has followed the Warrior’s Path since my early teens (and probably before; I was raised on army posts from birth to age 10), a long-time student of martial arts, and the theories of war, I learned how to deal with violence in many ways, with many techniques, a large number of which I had to apply in my work for years, physically controlling out-of-control psychotic mental patients, without hurting them, or getting hurt. I got pretty good at it, especially in recognizing it before it manifested fully, and diverting it. I am very familiar with violence, in a great many of its guises. So, I can generally deal with whatever physical violence may occur in my immediate vicinity.

Now, however, I’m not as fast as I once was, nor as well-conditioned; I’m better at foresight, though, it comes with age. Moreover, I can foresee a time when I could conceivably need the equalizing factor of a weapon like a gun, in order to live up to my standard of handling events without injury, as far as I can….. So, I’m probably going to buy one or two… because of that aging, and even more, because of insane (sorry, don’t mean to flame; but, it isn’t fully sane to attempt to change human nature) talk such as this, of watching society willingly slip on their slave collars… It is NOT going to happen in my little corner of the world….

If anyone, or anyone’s brother, or anyone else, tries to take away the Second Amendment rights I now have, well, I can only say, good luck with that….. and bring lots of friends… You’ll need them….

Oh, I’d also keep in mind…. Those folks like the police in Sanford, Florida who were complicit in covering up the murder there (of Trayvon Martin), aren’t going to disarm themselves, now are they?…. How far will you trust them to behave with honor, and respect for YOUR rights? Get real…..and I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but in hope that you will open your eyes to what is plainly there to see….

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

Near the end of next month, I’m planning to return to Ireland, to spend some time exploring the country, and the culture…. One of my grandmothers was born there; the other was born in a small village in England. I intend to try to find both their birthplaces, to see where some of my own roots were originally planted…. To celebrate in advance, here is a poem I wrote back in my time of poverty, prior to securing my retirement the way it is now. It shows fairly well how I feel about the Emerald Isle….

Days and Nights of Eire

Comforting, a dream creeps oft into my mind
On the elven hills of Eire lives the vision I find.
Elegant, gracious, everlastingly draped in beauty
Just payment of simple homage lives as joyous duty.

Fairies and druids walk abroad in ghostly parade
Gracing each hearth with its own welcoming shade.
Castles and heroes yet live in tale and song
Proving love for the land in each heart strong.

From cold of winter into glorious young spring
Brown, and gray, to emerald green songs to sing
Soft rains always follow winter’s great tempest
Eire dons its emerald coat from east to west.

Old and strong, connections call out in dreams
Nothing that was known remains as it seems.
Immersion in ancient runes and battle hymns
Offering sanity in place of grievous whims.

Time and place can tell a much different tale
Judgment should never be a final sale.
Yet something solid and real calls me to go see
Where dreams of loving beauty may actually be….

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 11/3/2012.

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

Today’s final old-school pearl is destined to be a classic. I was careful in creating it, to choose just the right quotes to fit the point(s) made, as well as the Apple configuration elements (the ‘look and feel’… Yes, it’s an ironic dig at Steve-O’s sense of entitlement…). I believe it may be one the finest examples of the genre I’ve ever put together. Every one of the quotes has a significant piece of advice or point about living with virtue; anyone who can make these a part of their life is bound to find peace within themselves, for together, what we have here is a road map to happiness, and freedom…

I might also add, I’d wager serious money all of these will be on the Final Quiz waiting for us at the door to the next world, so, paying attention could make all the difference in where we end up…. Think about it….

“You’re only dancing on this Earth for a short time
And though you want to last forever,
You know you never will.
And the good-bye makes the journey harder still.”

~~ Cat Sevens ~~

Love is not something you have; it is something you do. — Limon

“Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.” — Horace

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to.” — Bob Dylan

“Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” — Anne Herbert, Co-Evolution Quarterly, 1983

“Cultivate only the habits that you are willing should master you.” — Elbert Hubbard

“Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, iii, 5

“Our life is short, but to expand that span to vast eternity is virtue’s work.” — Shakespeare

“I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore, there be any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” — William Penn

“Don’t try to have the last word. You might get it.” — Lazarus Long

Do not stand by my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am a diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush.
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand by my grave and cry.
I am not there… I did not die.

~~ Prayer of the Makah Indians ~~

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

It’s probably not smart to think what happened today will ever happen again, but, we can hope. This one came together like billy-oh, as they used to say, which, no doubt, is directly attributable to the massive sleep I from which I arose a while ago. Still, it’s nice to have it work the way it is designed to work. In fact, I think it would be wise to take the money, which is never anywhere to be found, and run for the border….. and, no, I’m not going to Taco Bell. Haven’t subjected myself to that in years….

See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes. That’s both a promise, and. a threat….. We only threaten misguided concepts, so, not to worry, right? Right. See ya…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Buffed up laces with worn out traces….

Posted on July 9, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“If at first you doubt, doubt again, and again …”

~~ Smart Bee ~~

Dancing Ferryboats, Victoria Harbor, B.C.

Good morning…. Or, actually, wait! I was wrong. The meter doesn’t read “good” morning; it says “frood” morning! I should have known, as the ambient atmospheric pressure is obviously way far away from anything approaching “good”. I can’t say just what “frood” means, but, it’s clearly not what we expected…. Ah well, given the presence of dancing ferry boats, I think we can give the universe a break, & just go along with whatever it has to say…. Otherwise, we’ll never get out of this intro….. Trust me, I’ve been here before…

Since that’s the case, I’m making an executive decision, to take us onward, in spite of our lack of any clue as to destination. I guess, when it comes down to it, that is true of every day here at ECR. And, that’s fine with me; the journey is much more valuable to me than the final destination…. Okay, let’s do this, ffolkes….

Shall we Pearl?….

“A new broom sweeps clean, but the old brush knows the corners.” — Ancient Human Proverb

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

Gandalf & Shadowfax arrive at Helm’s Deep

Today’s video selection will be appreciated by all those with an imagination… Oh, right…. Okay, enjoy, ffolkes….

***********************

The Lord of the Rings
Animated Version

***********************

https://youtu.be/2WH1fxl3iAg

***********************

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

And the people bowed and prayed, to the neon Gods they’d made.

~~ Paul Simon ~~

No, it’s not the wrong icon; it’s deliberate. Today’s ranting section will consist of an old-school pearl with a group of comments, thoughts, and observations on the subject of religion, which, as I’m sure you have guessed by now, is one we here at ECR reserve primarily for those occasions when we are feeling a bit snarky, with a side dish of smirk. Some of them may be offensive to those who hold faith as more valuable than reason; too bad, so sad, move on…. The rest of us shall enjoy the fun….

“They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!” — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.” — George Bernard Shaw

“Ridicule is the best test of truth.” — Lord Chesterfield

“It would be well, if some who have taken upon themselves the ministry of the Gospel, that they would first preach to themselves, then afterwards to others.” — Cardinal Pole

“To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.” — Joseph Addison

“No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step.” — Sidney Hook

DEVIL: A popular character in mythology, commonly blamed by Christians for everything from plagues to burnt toast. Of course, if the devil ever actually appeared, it would scare these people shitless.” — Daniel Bowen’s TOXIC CUSTARPEDIA

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.” — Garrison Keillor

See? Relatively painless, as long as one chooses not to wear blinders…. Onward, ever onward we go….

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

Being the compassionate, kindly sort, I wouldn’t wish for the other categories of Asininnies to feel left out of the fun today, so, here, to go with our persecution of the faithful, we’ll have a bit of fun at the expense of the Talking Heads, those pompous, avaricious gobshites who compose the elitists of our Beloved Ruling Class, the Politicians and Pundits!…. And, we’ll do so without involving the delicate reputation of any other of our society’s poets, by using one of my own outbursts…. Enjoy!….

A Few Words of Note

In place of ranting and raving about assholes every day
maybe I’ll try something more fun.
Rather than throwing words at all the assholes on public pay
I’ll switch to shooting at them, with a gun….

Should I actually hit one, purely by mistake,
maybe it would wake them up.
Maybe, if they had to think, or actually cut us a break,
we’d see a chance to win at life, to take a step up.

Our nation, such as it is today, was founded by men who told the truth;
that morality disappeared long ago.
Simple ethical strength so bright, so prevalent in our country’s youth
was soon corrupted, corporate interests now run the show.

Nothing would please me more than to fire off some rounds,
if only to gain their attention.
But, I can no longer run, I’ve gained too many pounds;
so, my keyboard and intellect must serve to fulfill my intention.

I won’t stop, of that you may be sure
I love my freedoms, and the philosophy from which it springs.
Tom, and Ben, and John, and Pat, those patriots pure
gave me their example, and the inner peace it brings.

If bullets won’t persuade our elected liars to toe the ethical line,
I’ll throw my most powerful words…..
If nothing else, it will make them wriggle to escape, or voice their pitiful whine,
thus exposing themselves for what they are…. plain and simple turds.

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 7/19/2014.

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

“I think I am. That’s close enough.”

~~ Peruaosophy, axiom #1 ~~

Okay, ffolkes…. I have no excuses today. I was up early, but, somehow, just couldn’t seem to pull it together (SB wasn’t much help at first, but, came through in the end). The parameters for this old-school pearl were set to find quotes on ‘reason vs. faith’. I have no idea how it came out the way it did, but, I could probably figure it out, if I bothered to think about it…. It just seems easier to let it all work on the underside of your consciousness, in a semi-subliminal fashion…. Oh, right; you might want to hide your credit cards; ya never know what might happen when subliminal suggestions start affecting your brain….

Stupidity is no excuse for not thinking.” — Smart Bee

“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.” — Mark Twain

“If error is corrected whenever it is recognized as such, the path of error is the path of truth.” — Hans Reichenbach

“By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, iv, 3

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” — Albert Einstein

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” — Oscar Wilde, “Oscariana”

“Only a brave person is willing honestly to admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers.” — Rodan of Alexandria

“True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blonde Hero–really look–and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. ‘You must change your life,’ he said. When the true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.” — Ursula K. LeGuin

“Yeah, but you’re taking the universe out of context.” — Hacker wisdom

Time and again, example proves the best teacher; I reiterate, it’s all in the wrist….

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

Well…. that was…. something. I’m going to let it fly, simply because, in spite of the casual nature of the above, putting it together seems to have exhausted me…. Go figure. Ah well, it has the very attractive quality of being ‘done’, so, I’ll take it. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if the past nearly four years are any indication to go by…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Kindly observe all pertinent regulations; screw the rest…

Posted on June 28, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot...”

~~ Zippy the Pinhead ~~

The Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland

Picture stolen from an email advertisement

Good morning, let us hope…. As promised, or, at least, suggested on Friday, today we return to something approaching normalcy, as nearly as we ever do…. By that we really mean, we have a complete Pearl for your morning psychic yoga, which may, as it sounds, indeed, have the ‘look and feel’ of actual mental exercise, but, in reality more closely resembles tendencies toward self-flagellation, of the milder, less pornographic sort, naturally.

I’ll also promise, with the usual caveat, to try to find a mode of first-person expression, and stick to it; it is, I know, confusing when we slip into the royal “we”…. But, it’s so much more fun with company!….

Routine is good, it seems, as long as it isn’t worn as a strait-jacket. Especially after a solid 5.5 hours of sleep, all actually in a row…. amazing. Any who, it’s good to be back, but, we have a long row to hoe, so, let’s grab a long-handled, freshly sharpened gardening tool of our choice, and be on our way to the oyster beds…. Quick, before Murphy is fully awake…

Shall we Pearl?

“He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires and fears, is more than a king.” — Milton

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

Suffering only minor blockage, today’s video selection is actually an audio selection; the process used to choose involved some negotiation, some compromise, and only a couple decisions where the use of dice was necessary to resolve the conflicting issues. In the end, naturally, the choice settled on the default, classical category. Here, then, for your morning listening pleasure, are the Brandenburg Concertos, No.s 1 through 6, by J.S. Bach…. The story of his creation of the concertos is an interesting tale; you should Google it sometime…. Enjoy!….

***********************

Johann Sebastian Bach

***********************

https://youtu.be/uKOzcuWRW2o

***********************

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

I’m probably just using denial, but, there doesn’t seem to be enough stored-up angst inside my gut to fuel a proper rant… I know, let’s go this route…. Here’s a bit of a shake to the Tree of Reality…. I’ve related in the past about how our old friend Winnie the Pooh has a very, very dark side to his small yet ursine nature…. Brain, or no brain, he’s a dog…. If you need some proof, I offer the following statements in his own words, as collected by some of his admiring hacker friends, conveniently collected into one source…. You will see that our little Bear of Little Brain is not exactly what y’all thought him to be….

— Bother! said Pooh, as he sashayed into a Gay bar.

— Bother! said Pooh, after he spoke the Lord’s name backward.

— Bother! said Pooh, and lit another joint.

— Bother! said Pooh, and robbed Tigger at gunpoint..

— Bother! said Pooh, and shot Owl with his .357..

— Bother! said Pooh, and smacked Piglet for not paying up..

— Bother! said Pooh, as Christopher Robin pleaded to be spanked again.

— Bother! said Pooh, as he beat the bound and helpless victim.

— Bother! said Pooh, as he carved Eeyore’s name in the black candle.

Image stolen from Facebook, long ago and far away

Gee, he’s not the little bear y’all thought he was, is he? He’s gotten himself into some nasty shit, eh?…. Oh, well, onward, with fewer illusions about Reality…. in a manner of speaking….

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

I’m tired, even though fairly well rested; a natural enough result, probably, considering the past 48 hours. This, of course, brings out my lazy side…. There are probably more than a few who might snicker, and mutter something about “every side”, but, we’re not going to listen to them, even if we slipped a bit on our vow to remain in singular mode…. Before this deteriorates even further into sheer nonsense, thus demanding free verse, let’s do this…. I’ll stick with “I”, and use one of my own poems…. It may not be the most palatable solution, but, it does keep us moving along….

Accentuated Lessons

Bold statements of calculated intent
Become common rule of the malcontent.
Avarice assumes such attractive wear
Beguiling deception, illusory and fair.

Grasping and pulling with ghostly hands
Legally proper in all the signatory lands.
Seeking and finding each vulnerable soul
Anguish as payment for exacting the toll.

Wraiths of commerce’s invisible dead guards
Still haunt the dreams left in sad empty yards.
While absentee nobles sit in stiffly elegant splendor
Served by sad-faced detainees in abject surrender.

Escape from reality is illusory at best
Often we falter and fail its daily test.
Only when focused on inner strength
Does peace stay with us for any length.

Peace lies within, always…..

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 9/27/2012.

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

SB decided to play with me this morning, waiting until the last section to turn stubborn, & hold back anything worth using…. I tricked it into supplying me with just enough pearls for a standard run of comments on Life at Large, and learning to do it right…. I won’t go into the definition of “right” this time, which will save us all a bit of time…. Just use your own definition, & it will work fine….

“When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.” — Buddha

“Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway.” — Mignon McLaughlin (The Neurotic’s Notebook)

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” — Henry David Thoreau

“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” — ee cummings

“Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you.” — Aldous Huxley

“Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, iv, 50

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” — Aristotle

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

Whew! That was tougher than I thought it would be…. It’s done, though…. We definitely know what to do with a Pearl that’s done, don’t we? Well, yes, we do…. and, we’d best do it quickly, before we get PERMANENTLY stuck in the royal WE…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if I can remember who we are….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Still dubious after all these years….

Posted on June 22, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“It is in changing that things find repose”

~~ Heraclitus ~~

A Case in Point for Heraclitus

Good morrow, by all reports…. We’ll try to keep it that way…. In fact, we’ll do that now….

Shall we Pearl?

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

~~ Confucius ~~

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

You might think the logo for today’s video section is an error; it is not. I am doubtful (what else is new?) I will find a rant in me today, as I got much of my built up angst out with yesterday’s outburst…. To sublimate, today’s video will be our rant for today, with an indictment from our friend John Oliver against the most hated organization in our government, bar none, save perhaps the assholes we personally elected….

***********************

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The IRS

***********************

https://youtu.be/Nn_Zln_4pA8

***********************

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

Yesterday, I ranted quite a bit against the machine, so to speak; as the following proves, this is not the first time I’ve explored the particular aspect of current events under discussion there. Back in 2012, prior to the presidential election, I wrote a politirant in a very similar vein, which, in some respects, goes even further toward explaining the issue clearly…. Here then, to continue the discussion began yesterday, from a bit less than three years ago….. (SIGH…. not much progress has been made, has it?….)….

From 7/31/2012:

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people…” To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” — Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1791

I had intended to write here a sober, reasoned discussion of the above from my second favorite Founding Father (okay, George Mason is my fave….), but decided first to search a bit more to see if I could find something to accompany this, to lighten it up a bit…. this is what I found…..

“History records no more gallant struggle than that of humanity against the truth.” — Smart Bee

Now, while I might suggest that the word “epic” is more apt, ‘gallant” still gives it an adequate emotional index rating. With either word, it rather goes beyond the statement by T. J., into the deeper issue of basic truth. Personally, I don’t understand the issue that most of humanity seems to have regarding the truth…. I’m not afraid of it, even though it is painful more often than not. Unfortunately, much of the rest of mankind seems to not have that sort of reaction to the pain it often brings, and will go to incredible lengths to avoid having to experience that pain, even if it means putting up with another, lesser pain in the process….

You can see, of course, the immediate similarity between those folks who avoid pain, and those folks who vote conservative, or are supporting the accomplished liar, Mitt the Twitt….. Sometimes, many times, in fact, the stuff that is coming out of the mouths of Romney and his supporters is a dead giveaway, one that shows their stark, malignant fear, fear that is rooted in their racism and bigotry. Their worst nightmare came true in 2008, and a BLACK MAN (gasp!) was elected President….

Without ever considering, or even looking at, his record while in office, these ignorant throwbacks will go to ANY lengths to elect ANYONE else, even if that person is actively trying to harm them, as is the case with Romney…. They don’t care, he’s white, so they’ll be more comfortable with him in office…. or so they think…. Should it happen, it will be a rude awakening when he starts his campaign to get the rest of any money they have left, and cheerfully squashes any hope of a better life that they might have retained…..

In reality, this discussion does relate back to Tom’s statement re: the rights of the people vs. the rights of the government. We, the people, have not tried hard enough to maintain the rights we were given, and those rights continue to be eroded. More and more, government is seizing control of various aspects of our lives that formerly were our own issues to deal with. The rights in the Bill of Rights are now amended, and every amendment is another nail in the coffin of freedom….

So, here is the truth, and painful or not, it would be wise to pay attention…. like Jerry Garcia said, “Choosing between two evils is still choosing evil.” There are no heroes on the ballot. No matter which party is in office, they will continue their assault on the freedoms that Tom says are ours, not theirs. Go with what your reason tells you to do, and don’t be distracted by the lies. Put aside the fear, and the bigotry, and the cowardice. Only one of the two choices is making any effort toward transparency, and you don’t need me to point out which one. Nor would I be so rude as to suggest which you might choose; I just lay out the truth, and you pick….

The truth is Obama lies at times, for expediency, just like any politician. But, he also is genuinely invested in making reforms that will actually help the middle class, and as far as I can tell, has not overly abused his powers (there are anomalous blips on that radar screen, but another time for that….).

Romney lies all the time; time after time after time, it has been documented that he lies just about every time he opens his mouth in the public arena. In addition, he is unapologetically indifferent to any claims of his doing so; he lies again by denying his lies, even when they are laid out in front of him. He has made it abundantly clear that has no interest in making things better for anyone but his own core group of friends, the rich and powerful who occupy Wall Street offices, seats in Congress, and the religious right. The fact is, he is so out there, his own party is starting to get nervous….

These statements are truth. They can all be proven, if necessary, using documentation that is available to anyone in public archives. What you decide to do with that truth is up to you, as it always is…. What will you do with it?…..

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

While looking for the rant you see above, I found the following poem, by one of my absolute favorite poets, which works very well in tandem with the material today…. Enjoy, ffolkes….

A Bronze Head

HERE at right of the entrance this bronze head,
Human, superhuman, a bird’s round eye,
Everything else withered and mummy-dead.
What great tomb-haunter sweeps the distant sky
(Something may linger there though all else die;)
And finds there nothing to make its terror less
i{Hysterica passio} of its own emptiness?

No dark tomb-haunter once; her form all full
As though with magnanimity of light,
Yet a most gentle woman; who can tell
Which of her forms has shown her substance right?
Or maybe substance can be composite,
profound McTaggart thought so, and in a breath
A mouthful held the extreme of life and death.

But even at the starting-post, all sleek and new,
I saw the wildness in her and I thought
A vision of terror that it must live through
Had shattered her soul. Propinquity had brought
Imagination to that pitch where it casts out
All that is not itself: I had grown wild
And wandered murmuring everywhere, ‘My child, my
child! ‘

Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall;
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave,
And wondered what was left for massacre to save.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

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

Today’s final pearl is a classic. Full of good advice on living Life at Large, and living it with honor and serenity…. It also came together in two short sessions with SB, so, hallelujah!…. Enjoy, ffolkes, this pearl is one for the ages…

“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.” — Zen koan

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.” — Erich Fromm

“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.” — Isaac Asimov, The New Hugo Winners

“Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.” — Octavio Paz

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 51

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

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

It’s probably a good thing today’s effort went as smoothly as it did; even now, being done, I feel on edge, as if the world is ready to shatter at the slightest bit of turmoil…. Ah well, probably just my subconscious, telling me to stay alert; the trumpets heralding Armageddon could conceivably blow any moment…. But, if we manage to make it through another day without committing species suicide, well, then, you’ll see me here tomorrow, delivering another load of nonsense, vitriol, and an occasional bit of rhyme…. See y’all then, ffolkes, if my luck holds….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

More harlequin than brindle, I’d say….

Posted on June 13, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Is consciousness just a special form of hallucination?”

~~ Frank Herbert ~~

Emma, suffering nappus interruptus

Good morning…. But, then, you know that already, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

I hope.

Regardless, here we are again. As a consequence of such consistency, (or, insanity. Take your pick….), I hereby pronounce this intro complete….. There, that was simple, wasn’t it? Completely legal, too….. Since we are, and, it’s where we wanted to be, let’s just take advantage of the unusual, yet, more than welcome opportunity to get on with it….

Shall we Pearl?

“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” — ee cummings

Me, too….

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

Image from rockbandaide.com via Google Images

This band doesn’t need much introduction to anyone near my age…. One of a number of aging groups, the Who have recently celebrated their own 50 year anniversary….. Here is a live concert; having seen them once, back in the early 70’s, I can attest they put on a good show…. Enjoy!….

***********************

The Who

***********************

https://youtu.be/VCWzPrwBTW8

***********************

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

My sleep pattern has lost all consistency, which makes me irritable, if not completely grumped out…. Since I can barely see, much less maintain a coherent train of logical thought, unless it has to do with the process of consuming coffee, we’ll go with a philosophical meander from the archives…. I always have fun with Descartes; he was so damned positive!…. Any who, enjoy!….

Or, not…. We like to give ffolkes the choice….

From 2/10/2013:

“…it is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had believed to be true since my earliest youth. And since that time, I have been convinced that I must once and for all seriously try to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and begin to build anew, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure for my beliefs.” — Rene Descartes, Meditations

And, after due consideration, he came up with, “I think, therefore I am.” That’s it…. after all his steady cogitation, all his heavy thought, he comes up with six words….. Seems like he might have gone a bit further with it, since he was already thinking, but, hey, that’s just me….. He probably got distracted solving a quadratic equation in his head, or something equally fascinating, and just wrote down the first thing that came to him….. I suspect a lot of philosophies start that way, if what is in them is any indication…. Many of the ancient philosophies seem to me to have been put together during a drunken night around a campfire, and copied down the next day while hung over….

Actually, Descartes “I think” statement is one of the more consistent and logical of the statements that speak to belief, and its origins. I cannot say it is logically unassailable, for it is not, but, it is consistent within its own paradigm. This logical flaw is one reason I modified the idea when I came to make my own set of philosophical assertions, Peruaosophy…. where I said, in Axiom #1, “I think I am…. that’s close enough.”….. Much more tautological, I would say, and not subject to the same sort of picking apart, as it has no holes in it. Well, actually, it’s so holey it doesn’t need air-conditioning, but that is what supplies that logical strength, as it is a flexible enough proposition to fit any size mind….

It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong,
It is not what we read but what we remember that makes us wise,
It is not what we earn but what we save that makes us rich,
It is not what beliefs we hold but what we do with those beliefs that make us what we are.

— Old Chinese misquotation.

You gotta love honesty…. I love that this is so aptly named as a misquotation; that kind of honesty just tickles my fancy, and makes for some good mental exercise…. In this case, it means trying to figure out WHICH part is misquoted, a process by which one can learn a lot, both about what is said in the quote, or misquote, and about themselves, and how their mind works. If it works, that is….

I am not sure exactly where this pearl is going…. it started out okay, but seems to be wandering a bit now, and I can’t seem to figure out how to find the way back to my original intent….. must be time for fresh coffee…. be right back….

“We begin life with a seemingly blank slate, and, though the writing that gradually appears on that slate is not our own, our judgment of the things written thereon determines what we are and what we will become. In much the same way, our work will be judged by the use to which other people put it…” — Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Codex of Riveda_

What, then, is the mind? What is consciousness? We know they exist, for we perceive ourselves as a separate entity from the rest of what we perceive. Encountering other minds serves as corroboration of our perceptions, while at the same time offering solace for our separation from the universe, trapped alone in the confines of our minds, with only our own thoughts as company. I don’t know about anyone else, but just knowing there are others who are in the same boat is a comforting thought….. It’s a big universe, full of dark and dangerous energy, as well as beauty and opportunities for joy, and it would be a shame to have no one with whom to share it all….

“The mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence.” — Sir Francis Bacon

I suppose I’m just wandering now, rambling around in my own mind, without a clue as to how to bring this to a close…. but, here goes….

“I think I am…. that’s close enough.” This is MY philosophy of life, and my take on consciousness…. As I see it, I know I’m here, and I know what I can do in my own mind….. and no matter what the rest of the universe is up to, or believes, that’s enough for me. I don’t need confirmation of my existence, or permission from a supernatural entity, or anyone else, to live my life the way I choose.

Mssr. Descartes statement is, to my mind, too stiff, too formal, and doesn’t meet the test of illogic…. We all interpret Reality in our own way, according to our own perceptions of that Reality, and our own set of decisions about how we will approach life…. our attitudes, as it were. We can make those attitudes whatever we choose, regardless of how clear are our motives to others; in my mind, all living creatures have that right…. with, of course, the caveat that whatever attitudes we choose must be able to merge with the attitudes of others, or, at least, not step on the other person’s right to the same freedom of choice…..

In short…. You were issued a mind when you came into this universe…. It would be a good thing, for you, and, for the universe, to learn to use it….

Just a suggestion…. The reason I urge each and every one to make this effort is my strong belief in Axiom #2 of Peruaosophy, perhaps the most accurate, and powerfully influential, of all the axioms therein…. to wit:

Axiom #2: “The Nature of the Universe is Change. Unpredictable, innovative Transformation of Reality is the Norm. If you have a problem with this, you are in for a Rough Ride.”

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

Because the poem percolating somewhere in my head isn’t ready, and, simply because I can, here’s another of my own poems from the archives….

Momentary Terror

Absently casual, memories pester endlessly
leaving only bleeding remnants, amiable and loving.
Coming awake, I cry to still the pain, shamelessly.

Elsewhen, time gives surcease, if only to live,
shoring broken pilings, worn and gray.
Passing on, I laugh at the pain, accept all it will give.

Time will build a shelter, warm and ever safe
save for Fate’s busy hands.
Enduring, I follow the pain, knowing it will chafe.

Fixed against a darkened sky of starry black
such beauty brings us to our knees.
Entranced, I welcome the pain, ’tis all I lack…..

~~ gigoid ~~

Written 2/10/2013.

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

Smart Bee is showing some recalcitrance this week, making the process of creating new pearls a bit sticky, as well as time consuming…. This one turned out pretty well, if a bit more esoteric than our usual fare…. As the logo icon indicates, it’s about Life at Large, with some ideas on how it might be lived with some dignity….

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!

~~ Edmund Spenser ~~

~~ Mother Hubberds Tale, Line 895 ~~

“Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.” — Cicero

“I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don’t respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier in the summer.” — Brendan Behan

“If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.” — Samuel Butler

“If it is not seemly, do it not; if it is not true, speak it not.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, xii, 17

“Cursed is he that does not know when to shut his mind. An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or may be found a little draughty.” — Samuel Butler

A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o’er-inform’d the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas’d with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms.

~~ John Dryden ~~

~~ Absalom and Achitophel, Part i, Line 156 ~~

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

Considering the state of mind with which this Pearl was begun, combined with the state now extant, it’s a damn good thing it’s done. I don’t think I’d want to be responsible for what happens if this were to go on any longer…. That said, I’ll add, it’s been completely real, ffolkes, but, I think we whupped ’em good…. If not, we get another chance tomorrow, as long as the sun comes up as it did today….

Odds are good…. See ya tomorrow, most likely….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Omigosh! It’s muddling again!….

Posted on June 7, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Th’ MIND is the Pizza Palace of th’ SOUL”

~~ Zippy the Pinhead ~~

Pannacotta

Or so it said. Looks more like Zabaglione to me….

Good morning…. Here we are again…. Since I don’t have anything particularly compelling to say right now, we’ll just get on with the scheduled mess, without any feeble attempts at wit so early in the day…. In fact, we’ll do that right now….

Shall we Pearl?

“Though one must first learn skill and ethics thoroughly, one must come to embody them so completely that they become subconscious. Reacting to a situation by asking what is right and wrong is already too slow.” — Deng Ming-Dao

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

Image from blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org via Google Images

When the best guitar players in the world get together, it isn’t easy to get them to agree on much of anything. But, when you ask any of them to name the best flat-picker who ever lived, the only name you will ever hear is this man’s…. He was, before his death a few years ago, the acknowledged Master of that style of playing, with, literally, no one else who came close….. Enjoy, ffolkes…..

***********************

Doc Watson

***********************

https://youtu.be/iGReRGvU4GE

***********************

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

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual & silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” — James Madison, Virginia Convention 1788

I am still not quite full of enough angst to prompt a fresh rant…. To sublimate my always-present anger at the BRC, however, I’ve found a pearl from a couple years ago to fill in. It’s a rather fun old-school indictment of the pathological liars who inhabit our governments hallowed halls these days, as Mr. Madison warned us about, having abridged the rights of the people by their “gradual & silent encroachments” upon the basis of our freedom. In short, the assholes have already screwed us….

Gee, I guess there IS a bit more angst in there…. Ah well, this will help…. Enjoy!…

From 8/6/2013:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“…when all government… in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1821

—————————–

Note from 2015: There…. doesn’t that feel better? To finish off this indictment, here is one last thought on our beloved leaders, an actual FACT, of which they are all fully aware, utilizing to their advantage on a regular basis….

“Crime does not pay … as well as politics.” — Alfred E. Newman

There you go….

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

Here’s one of mine we haven’t seen for a couple years….. Enjoy!….

Funny Bones

Dreaming the way home, lost, unseen,
from the dance, where
he felt so free, and clean.
Sorrow couldn’t find him there.

Waiting, filling up the hours, hoping,
some connection can be found
keeping busy as bees, coping.
Love creeps in, without a sound.

Fat days, skinny nights, passionate
visions of semi-conscious entities,
cannot seem to fully illuminate
or hide our innermost frailties.

Resolute, find the perfect sense, codify
simple rules with every breath
never waiting, anxious to modify.
fear nothing in life, not even Death.

~~ gigoid ~~

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

Today’s finals pearl is what I’d call an esoteric pearl about Life, (hence the ankh). Each of the individual pearls speaks to a part of Life important to living well, but, from a direction one often doesn’t remember to view….. Enjoy!…..

“Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.” — Francis Bacon (1561-1626) — Apothegms, No, 247

“Although war is cruel and brutal, it is also dangerous and stupid.” — Yakko Warner

“All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.” — Alexandre Dumas

“A child is a person who can’t understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten.” — Doug Larson

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” — Jack London

“Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 20

“For a man needs only to be turned around not once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost…. Not til we are lost…. do we begin to find ourselves.” — Thoreau, Walden

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

I have fulfilled my vow…. Well, at least, for another day. I’m tired now. I think I’ll go back to bed, & start again in a couple of hours…. Hopefully, this short episode of creative reverse peristalsis won’t have gone sour by then…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, provided Fate doesn’t have other plans for me…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

No tango tonight for you, Mortimer….

Posted on May 26, 2015 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“A man’s happiness, — to do the things proper to man.”

— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ~~

~~ Meditations, viii, 26 ~~

Just as if they had been dotted on top of the myriads of glowing suns in the Milky Way, this image depicts some of the brightest stars of the southern sky: on the right, in a rhomboidal shape reminding that of a kite, are the four stars of the constellation Crux, the Southern cross; in the lower left part, instead, shine the two most brilliant stars of the constellation Centaurus, the Centaur.

The Southern Cross

Image from Space.com

Good morning…. It’s a big world out there, and our last outpost of sanity is under continuous attack, by the forces of Entropy and Chaos…. This…. whatever this is, keeps them at bay in my little corner of Space/Time, as it has for close to four years now…. Join me now, as I once again take up the gauntlet, to do battle with every ounce of reason and rationality I can find…. Often it isn’t much, as is patently obvious…. But, we, or rather I, persevere, though there are times when we wonder why I bother….

Then, I look in the mirror, and see the dregs of sanity lurking there, and I am content…. It’s still a long road before me, so, I’d best get started…. As you might be able to tell from the state of this introductory section, it could be rather an uphill journey today…. Luigi, tell the tower we’re taking off, and not to worry about the fighter escort today. I’m feeling MEAN….

Shall we Pearl?

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” — C. G. Jung

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

Image from radiofreeamsterdam.com via Google Images

Yesterday we visited the days of old; today we’re returning to the same era, to listen to another all-time great…. Fats was the MAN, when I was young…. Nobody did it quite the same…. Enjoy, ffolkes; Fats is another cultural icon worth remembering….

***********************

Fats Domino

***********************

https://youtu.be/Z4vbSKOw-0g

***********************

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

Last year, in 2014, I came up with some pretty decent rants…. Here is one from August of that year, simply because I can, and I’m lazy today….(Whattyamean, today?….)(Oh, hush…) Enjoy, ffolkes….

From 8/31/2014:

“Stupid is as stupid does.” — Mama Gump

Yesterday, during a rant in section one of the Daily Pearl, I made a comment, wherein I accused Bill Clinton of being an idiot, and a husband, in the same breath…. While his persona exhibits elements of both adjectives, neither one fits completely comfortably; if it was a suit, you’d think it was poorly tailored. He IS an idiot of course; letting one’s lust control their actions while in the White House as the President, is kind of a give-away on that…. and he IS a husband; it says so right on the license available for anyone to see somewhere in what, oh, yeah, Arkansas, or Alabama, or wherever it was they got married… Who knows, maybe it was in D.C. after they left Little Rock, or whatever… But, obviously, he isn’t terribly good at either one….

Any who, I wanted to clarify that, while also acknowledging that, in truth, Bill is a VERY smart guy…. I don’t care who you are, you don’t get to be a Rhodes Scholar if you don’t have a few neurons to bump together… He also plays a pretty mean sax, which is also an indicator of superior, or at least multi-talented, intelligence…. All of which goes to prove that intelligence alone has little, if any, survival value. Possessing a high IQ does not give one the ability, necessarily, to USE it in a way that helps one advance, in any respect….

Ethically, morally, or in terms of worldly success, as in being rich, famous, or celebrated in some fashion, smart guys don’t always win against the mundanes, simply because they are often not paying attention to what is important to those with less on their minds… In Bill’s case, he tried to take his multi-tasking to a new level, and failed, miserably…. Common sense often escapes the most intelligent members of this species; they tend to be a little less balanced out on the fringes of the bell curve…. too much going on in their heads, that ends up distracting them from what they’re doing in the real world, and that they are being watched, always…

That’s all…. just sayin’….. Smart don’t mean smart, if you know what I mean…. Sometimes, a little bit of street cred, a little low animal cunning, as it were, can go a long way to being more useful than having a degree, or being able to quote poetry…. Unfortunately, when someone like that learns the law, then turns to politics, there is no end to the harm they can cause…. Witness just about every president in my lifetime…. Most of them weren’t the most intelligent, though smart enough to get through law school; they are definitely the most corrupt, and the most vicious sociopaths, that is for sure and for certain, but, overly intelligent, they were NOT…..

Sorry, but, I just calls ’em as I sees ’em, ffolkes, and that’s the way it’s been for my life; I can count, on fewer than the fingers on only ONE of my hands, the number of presidents I respect, at all, and only one of those is still alive…. That one will go down in history as an ineffective president, because he had the unfortunate quality of possessing both intelligence, and integrity, not to mention compassion…. which are three qualities that no other president since 1962 has possessed. to any appreciable degree, and definitely not together in the same man, other than the one…. If you disagree, fine…. comment, and tell me why, so we can discuss it…. But, please, make it worth my time, because there isn’t a lot of evidence I’m aware of for you to choose from..

Any who, that’s it…. just wanted to make clear why I thought Bill was an idiot husband…. I’ll avoid any comments as to WHY he is uncomfortable as a husband, married to a woman who is just as sociopathic as he is…. a woman completely lacking any sort of real compassion for others, because it is subsumed in the vast furnace of their ambition….

There is no room for compassion in one who wishes to lead a nation, especially one with the power and resources of this one, along with the historically traditional imperative, and true national pastime, of proselytizing democracy, and our twisted versions of Christianity, on anyone in the world who doesn’t have them…. whether they want them, or not….

Sometimes, that interference in the lives and interests of other nations in the world in the guise of business, to spread our capitalist markets, which require constant expansion to prevent collapsing under their own weight…. Or, our insistence on playing busybody is justified with the pretense of humanitarianism, with rationalizations ranging from saving them from godless communism, to fighting the evil of “muslim extremists, and/or rebel insurgents” who are fighting terrorist civil wars, “killing their own people, including, gasp, children and old people!”

These wars, though being fought over what seem to me to be all-too-familiar sounding, minute, yet firmly idiotic differences of interpretation of scripture, are still CIVIL wars, even if religiously motivated …. I won’t comment on this scripture, allegedly also “divine” in origin, in the book of collected dogmatic delusions that were left to guide them by their version of a mortal, yet, somehow, also immortal, and, thus, divine, (by the time-tested use of “ipse dixit” reasoning) prophet of the ONLY god, or Allah, or Baha’u’lah, or whomever they worship/idolize/follow/are enslaved by…. Well, I wasn’t planning to comment, but, I suppose I just did….

However, my point remains valid, despite my opinion of Islam, or Christianity, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other religion…. As far as I’m concerned, they are ALL the possessors of a SMALL piece of the Truth about Reality in this Universe, but, they have erroneously chosen to misinterpret the meaning of their piece, and have beaten their dead horses, killed by that error, into a sad, bloody pulp, unrecognizable, and useless for anything other than making everyone’s life more difficult, and divisive…. I can’t say it much clearer than that, about religion, or politics, either….

Instead I’ll say that it’s a shame there is probably no one to run against Hillary who can win, because she’ll be, unfortunately, as cruelly self-serving, as dishonest as, well, a politician, as unaware of, and as little concerned with the plight of the common man, and as falsely “transparent” in their actions and words, as any man who has ever held the office…. including Tricky Dicky and LBJ, who were about as underhanded, and corrupt as any politician who ever lived….

The scary part of that, if not the scariest part of the whole shebang we call the future? If there IS anyone who can win against her, things in this sad old country, and, no doubt, the rest of this sad, old world, will go from bad, to very much worse, in a very short time…. Think about it….

Just watch…. I hate being right in these cases, but, my track record is, sadly, practically unblemished, as I have called just about every election at the national level, for all those years of repetitive foolishness I’ve witnessed….

“It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” — Noel Coward

“…there are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data
available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven’t noticed already.” — The Illuminatus! Trilogy — Robert Anton Wilson

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

Three final notes on this subject from 2015, as it becomes more relevant each day:

“If you ever see me getting beaten by the police, put down the video camera and come help me.” — Bobcat Goldthwait

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. — Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke (1729-1797), in a letter to William Smith

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

As noted in the previous section, I’m feeling a bit lazy today; hence this antiquated poem from the archives…. Enjoy, for what it’s worth… Written sometime in 2013, it’s one of my favorites, such as they are….

Accentuated Lessons

Bold statements of calculated intent
Become common rule of the malcontent.
Avarice assumes such attractive wear
Beguiling deception, illusory and fair.

Grasping and pulling with ghostly hands
Legally proper in all the signatory lands.
Seeking and finding each vulnerable soul
Anguish as payment for exacting the toll.

Wraiths of commerce’s invisible dead guards
Still haunt the dreams left in sad empty yards.
While absentee nobles sit in stiffly elegant splendor
Served by sad-faced detainees in abject surrender.

Escape from reality is illusory at best
Often we falter and fail its daily test.
Only when focused on inner strength
Does peace stay with us for any length.

Peace lies within, always…..

~~ gigoid ~~

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

Today’s final old-school pearl is a tricky one…. All of the following are observations on Life at Large, in a manner of speaking…. At least one of them is a trick pearl…. It looks okay, and sounds okay, but, when one stops to look more closely at the concept, it turns silly on you…. which, somehow, doesn’t detract from its rightness…. Go figure, and, of course, which pearl that may be is left as an exercise for the Gentle Reader…. You should KNOW you never get out of here without having to use at least three neurons!…. Enjoy, ffolkes….

“Fear always springs from ignorance.” — Smart Bee, paraphrasing the Bhagavad Gita

“Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.” — Francis Bacon (1561-1626) — Apothegms, No, 247

“It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.” — Goethe

“With two hearts do people live; a small one of deep softness, the other of steel. And kindness is too often a shield, generosity too often a sword.” — Kahlil Gibran

“I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.” — Richard Feynman

“You’re never too old to learn something stupid.” — Smart Bee

“The best way out is always through.” — Robert Frost

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

Today’s process of creation felt a little choppy, but, hey…. we’re done. Y’all know what that means right? You’re on you own again…. Go do something constructive, or, at minimum, patently explainable in small words, of three or fewer syllables. Wouldn’t want to confuse anyone, now, would you? No, of course not…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if I can dodge the bullets….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

À bientôt, mon cherí….

gigoid

Ned Moore, aka gigoid, is a 70 year-old, (!!!… When did that happen?….), retired dilettante, who would rather read than eat, most days. His first blog, "gigoid’s folly", has been emailed out to folks he knows for about 18 years now. He still considers it his best defense against angst, and the ever-present specter of sheer insanity..... Due to rigorous curmudgeon training requirements, he has discontinued his Facebook presence, but still indulges in the occasional Twitter session... In essence, he's socialized, but, not overly sociable; all labels and stereotypes are forbidden in his presence... and he doesn't care what anyone thinks about that..... In fact, he doesn't want to talk anymore.... If you feel you MUST contact gigoid, his email address is: alphagigoid@gmail.com You can go read now.... Go on, beat it.... gigoid, the dubious

View Full Profile →

	katiemiafrederick on Are those Foster Grants to blo…
	katiemiafrederick on Funk-o-matic accessories are o…
	katiemiafrederick on Dodge those taxes with dignity…
	katiemiafrederick on Dodge those taxes with dignity…
	katiemiafrederick on But…. but…. what a…

gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: