Hello, ffolkes, I’m back…. It seems Ernie H-II, the writing ‘bot I found, filled in yesterday with distinction, if not perfection…. I appreciate his help in a tight spot; I didn’t feel well, and left myself short of time to get it figured out, so, his willingness to pitch in on short notice saved the day…. It isn’t often you get that kind of cooperation from a ‘bot, especially an AI ‘bot, but, he is a VERY well-programmed machine, and it shows in his demeanor….

I’m still not feeling like busting out in song, but, I think I can pull it together long enough to put out a Pearl… with a bit of help from whatever impulsive absurdity I can come up with on the spur of the moment to keep it moving, or to supply the proper stimulus at the proper moment to keep it from flagging…. That last sentence could be considered a metaphor for this entire process, but, it’s a weekday, so we’ll leave the metaphors alone until they’re ripe, which only happens on weekends…

As you can see, taking a day off hasn’t reduced the size of my nose, or dulled its shiny red color; whatever comes out today is liable to be a bit caustic, or toxic, or at minimum, confusing, so, if I were y’all, I’d keep my hands inside the rails, and refrain from teasing any of the animals we may encounter, just to improve the odds of survival…. Oh, don’t fret too much, we have yet to lose an entire group; in fact, we’ve only lost a total of three individuals in all this time, and two of those were self-induced catastrophes, for which we were cleared of all charges…. The third guy was found to be an ex-Mouseketeer who had an obsession about oysters, and ate too many in the wrong season, so no charges were ever filed….

I mean, is it my fault if they snapped their cookies while reading my blog? No, it isn’t, even if what is written isn’t terribly helpful to those without the inner strength to use it; what gets written here doesn’t actually CAUSE insanity, it just skirts the edge of feeling it…. Besides, all we can do is all we can do, right? Right….

As is apparent, I’m not at my best today; chalk it up to whatever physical issues are still plaguing me, (about which I refuse to whine, or even comment on….) and we’ll get on with this…. I apologize in advance for any decrease in quality or relevance, and can only hope that any lack will be counter-balanced by increased humor, as I find my own debilities to be good reason to laugh at myself, for hubris, if for nothing else….

Life is pain, ffolkes… I’ve known this for a long time…. all my life, in fact. As such, it is well to learn how to deal with pain in an efficient manner, because, one way or another, we, as humans, will always have at least a little of it present in our lives, always there, to keep us aware of our mortality…. To me, that is both funny, and ironic, not to mention written in stone….

So, I’m gonna take my pain, and roll it into a little ball, so I can stick it under the table until I’m done…. That’s better than letting it have its way, and losing another whole day to weakness, and the concomitant misery…. If it works, great…. If it doesn’t, well, let’s hope I can find the humor in it, and put it down to share…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“Breaks balance out. The sun don’t shine on the same ol’ dog’s ass every day.” — Darrell Royal
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In an attempt to return balance to the Metaphorse, I’m going on a quest…. I’m going to gather a group of pearls together, whose subtlety, depth, and, perspicacity will bring tears to your eyes…. in response to the headache you’ll get from trying to figure out what the hell I’m talking about…. This one will be so obscure, you won’t be able to penetrate to the meaning without major weaponry, of nuclear capability. So, please remember to read this in the privacy of your own mind, and don’t let any of it spill over onto your neighbors…. It’s a good one….

“If possible, try to find a way to come downstairs that doesn’t involve going bump, bump, bump, on the back of your head. ” — Pooh in Winnie the Pooh A.A. Milne

“Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat??” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Ignorance of death is destroying us. Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything.” — Saul Bellow

“I love my country too much to be a nationalist.” — Albert Camus

“I may be a self-made man, but then, when I get to thinking about it, if I had it to do over again, I think I would call in someone else.” — Roland Young

“One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed.  As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king’s favorite horse to sing hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. “You will not succeed,” they told him.  “No one can.”  To which the thief replied, “I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die.  I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.” — The Mote in God’s Eye (Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven)

“Give me a lever and place to stand and I will move the world.” — Archimedes (c. 287-212 B.C.), Pappus, Synagogue, VIII, 10, xi

See? Plain as a black cat in a windowless room at midnight, with the lights off….. As recompense, should you find your way to the right place, it’s a very friendly cat….
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Some days, I’m in the mood for poetry that challenges the mind, as well as the spirit…. this woman’s words always do that….

Jacob: “You know sometimes I get a little worried that you’re gonna get my favorite planet blown up.”
Jack: “Yes. Which planet is that?”

— from Stargate

I’m always feeling a small bite of anxiety, in the back of my mind, as time passes, and we approach the End of Days for Mankind…. I’m not speaking about any predictions of doom related by supposed prophets, such as Rasputin, who predicted that today would be the beginning of the Apocalypse, or some such catastrophe, back in the day when he was known as the Mad Monk of Moscow…. No, I’m talking about the very real end of our stay on this planet, brought about by our own foolish belief that we are immortal, a belief that will find no basis in reality when we are all gone, victims of the physical laws we chose to ignore, laws we broke with what we believed was impunity….

What I worry about is that the end won’t come as I hope it will, in slow stages; that would at least give us a small chance of survival, on another planet, if not this one…. I’m afraid, though, it will come more quickly than I hope, fueled by the death throes of the ruling classes, who won’t want to believe that they are included in the sentence of death that we have passed upon ourselves…. They could conceivably make things even worse for the rest of us by their insane insistence on continuing the very actions that are killing us, and using force to keep on doing so…. I can envision such actions leading to a very ugly situation, as the declining resources of our planet, such as air to breathe, or water to drink, are fought over by the few remaining humans, with all the formidable ferocity of which we are capable…..

Forget about food, or shelter, ffolkes, the physics of these issues, global warming, and the pollution of the atmosphere, are a mathematical certainty, if the addition of CO and CO2 in massive quantities into the air continue at the current rate. Those figures, which cannot lie, show us a very ugly picture of ANY future that may result; ugly, in the fact that humans are NOT in the picture at all….. The oceans are getting warmer, as is the whole planet, and this leads to climate change; this is eminently clear from the geological and fossil history we already have proven to be true, and once the process starts, on a global scale, it takes time to stop it, or to restrict the changes that have been induced, time we no longer have….

But, this process is at least capable  of solution, physically…. It is the intransigence of the people who run things in our society, and the ignorance, avarice, and fear that controls them, that is keeping any possible solutions from being instituted, or even begun. This intransigence is not only holding things up, it could conceivably make it go faster, by creating upheavals in society that could cause the pressure cooker in which we live to explode into violence, even more so than it does now…

Such deal breaking events are already being seen in the news, as that area of our culture becomes ever more insane, right along with the rest of society…. For example, the current flap over the surveillance of email and phone conversations by the government is one that may eventually lead to more outrageous events, and be the cause of further increase in the rate we speed toward oblivion….. I’ve been watching the story unfold in the news, and become more flabbergasted as time passes.

The reaction of the government, in my mind, ever since this became public knowledge, has been characterized by disdain (by first denying, then admitting with a sheepish grin….), dishonesty (even in the face of their own documentation, they lie about the extent of the programs, and continue to do so…. see below….), and arrogant entitlement (they have neither admitted they were acting illegally, nor stopped or limited those illegal actions….).  In all of the public statements, I have seen no apology to the public, nor any real admission of wrong-doing; instead, the President talks about “having the trust of the public”, and issues a flurry of information that appears to show their commitment to controlling the surveillance, when all it really shows is that they aren’t doing much of anything to oversee the process….

Here are three articles that show exactly how much obfuscation and distraction are used as a technique for diverting the public’s attention away from the actual programs themselves, and focusing it on extraneous issues, that have no real effect on stopping, or limiting the surveillance. It just makes it LOOK like they are doing something….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Obama-defends-government-surveillance-programs-4755098.php

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/NSA-says-it-was-told-to-stop-collecting-some-data-4754364.php

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/NSA-collected-thousands-of-US-communications-4749853.php

Incredible amount of shadowy details, with no clear purpose in reporting them, other than distraction? Yep…. Plus, they admit right up front that their own attempts to restrict the collection have been relatively non-existent…. They speak of 56,000 emails that were “inadvertently” gathered up with some emails that “might” have come from terrorists…. What a crock! That number isn’t a fraction of a percentage point of the number of emails that go out daily, and doesn’t mention the fact that this collection was one of MILLIONS of times they mined such emails, or the BILLIONS of emails and phone calls that are monitored…. And, those 56,000 emails are the ones they’re saying they DIDN’T read….. as if they believe we’ll believe that….

Note also, if you will, the repetitive language used in the articles… showing clearly how the media fosters and maintains the lies that are being spread by those in charge, using words and phrases designed to encourage belief and trust in the BRC, as well as in the honesty and impartiality of the reporters…. However, to my mind, it just tells me that the media is supporting the agenda being promulgated by the government, and whether they are doing so unconsciously, or deliberately, they continue to be as much a part of the problem as those on whom they are reporting…..

Now, if some reporter would just ask the right questions, and report the answers accurately, maybe, just maybe we’d be able to shame them enough to actually make a change…. I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath, waiting for THAT to happen, though….

It is Maya!
Dost thou not know her?
Illusion — dreams — phantoms.
But, to the wise, Maya is more.
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But, to the wise, Maya is more.
Look around:
All that thou see’st,
Trees and shrubs, The grass at thy feet,
All that walks or creeps,
All that flies from tree to tree,
All is unreal: All is Maya.
Our bodies, our limbs, our very thoughts.
We ourselves are slaves to Maya.
What remaineth?  Who can say?
Love to the lover,
The child to the mother,
The song to the singer,
God to the worshipper;
These, wandering thro’ the world of Maya,
Are perchance shadows of that which is.

— Holst, Savitri (based upon the Sanskrit Mahabharata)
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“I’m in my own little world, but everybody knows me there.” — Smart Bee

Since SB came up with a perfect closing line, I’ll just see how the rest went…. Considering everything that has gone into creating this, it’s not half bad… As such, I’m going to go post it, before collapsing for the balance of the morning…. So be it, gigoid has spoken….

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

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