Tag Archives: Murphy’s Law

All that? Over a few stale maraschinos?….

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Ffolkes,

….. And, then, I woke up…. only to find the same white screen staring me in the face, with, again, absolutely no idea what to put on it, to relieve the vast, frightening, vacant blankness….. I am faced with what is becoming my signature struggle, to come up with something catchy, or startling, or any other adjective that would lend itself to getting people to read this, and to providing some sort of incentive for them to come back for more….

It seems that much of the traffic I end up with are folks who are attracted by the title, which as y’all know, has nothing at all to do with what is in these Pearls…. It also seems likely that those who haven’t been here before, and drop in because of what the title promises, might be disappointed to find that, for example, Papal edicts do offer wholesale, not merely retail…. or, that paradoxes don’t burn….

Naturally, I know one cannot depend on statistics to show a true picture of reality, unless one has ALL the data possible, and knows how to analyze it…. requirements that are never true. Data is seldom complete, and people have a tendency to pick out the parts of it that support what they wish to say, usually ignoring the rest….. The implication is clear, to wit: relying on statistics is not conducive to finding the truth of any given matter. So, I keep writing, never knowing if what I’m saying is reaching anyone at all…. Good thing I’m not the nervous type…..  Wait, I AM the nervous type!…. Doh!….

So be it, as I’ve been forced to admit previously…. I can’t change the universe, and worrying about it is unproductive, to say the least. Change will happen whether I worry, or not, and I’m not going to sit around, moaning in despair, just because nobody is out there listening to me when I start shouting into the wind again…. It isn’t as if I am the only voice delivering this message to humanity….

A lot of very talented people have been shouting at the human race for some time now, all through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, into the twenty-first, and nothing of note has happened, nor is happening, to put a stop to those practices that will eventually kill us all…. We, as a species, have received a multitude of warnings in these last few hundred years, all of which point to our overweening avarice, arising from selfishness, and hubris, as the culprits responsible for our unresponsiveness to these exhortations…..

None of the warnings, no matter how elevated the reputations of those giving the alarms, have made the slightest degree of change in how the BRC and the corporate masters who control all the money and resources approach life; the results are being made more obvious as time passes, as the polar ice continues to melt….

I hadn’t intended to rant in this intro section; hell, I had no idea of where I started, much less where I would end up…. But, it’s all six of one, and also a half-dozen of another, so, what the heck, I’m going with it….. If nothing else, it got me this far into today’s effort, which, when I started, looked to be a losing proposition….  I suppose we’ll only know the whole truth when it’s all done, so, let’s get to that….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Evacuate?  In our moment of triumph?” — Governor Tarkin
_____________________________

“There should be more in American liberty than the privilege we enjoy of insulting the President with impunity.” — Austin O’Malley

Yes, yes there should…. Even though I don’t like using that word (should), this is a true statement, one that could only be true for our American society, as one of the most untruthful and corrupt ever seen in history. This form of government, as practiced by those professional liars who infest the system here in America, lies to the public at every turn, and, in general, uses the public platform of their offices to pursue their own agendas, no matter how little those have to do with the public good….

Don’t fret, I’m not going to rant again, though there is much in today’s world about which to be concerned….. I’m just commenting on the first of the group today, to kind of point the way, and let y’all know ahead of time where we’ll be heading…. This is new and different, I know, and there’s no telling whether such kindness and tact will ever be shown again…. but, hey, it’s here today, so, enjoy…. and, please enjoy the following group of pearls, all picked to use as a stone, or a sharp stick, to poke at the BRC, and the people in our world who care only about their own damn selves…..

“A great deal of information we consider to be highly personal, and of interest to ourselves and the town gossip our names, telephone numbers, marital status, educational accomplishments, job and credit histories, even medical, dental, and psychiatric records is now being sold on the open market to anyone who believes he or she might be able to use such information to turn a profit. These transactions usually take place without our knowledge or consent.” — Anne Wells Branscomb, _Who_Owns_Information?_,1994

“Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

“It is not lack of polling data or campaign contributions that keep many women from ascending higher on the political ladder. It is fear and loathing for the political system itself.” — Madeline Kunin

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” — Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), Sign of Four

“Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.” — Lily Tomlin

“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!” — Albert Einstein

“I’ve got an IDEA!!  Why don’t I STARE at you so HARD, you forget your SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Hmm…. well, it’s only 94% impenetrable…. I do like a challenge, don’t y’all?….
_____________________________

To go along with my confusion and presumptuousness, I think it would be timely, and reasonably suitable at this juncture, to throw in a small dose of egotism…. I don’t have a new poem yet; it’s still percolating…. but, here is one of my better old ones, though, actually, not so old, as it was written just a couple of months ago…. I like it, and it sort of fits in with the theme so far, so, we’ll all just have to deal….

Dubiously, Soft Morning

Idiosyncratic images, clamoring for regard,
fill up the white, white screen on which I view
my life, never seeing, nor invited to sup
ambrosial remnants of anything new.

Still, but almost in motion, allegory sails away
bobbing gently, quick and easy to find,
signs of one happy child, seriously at play,
blissfully immersed, focused joy in mind.

Formidable cries of outraged simple justice
echo plaintive relevance, in half the time.
Maladaptive infants, destined for hospice
salvage an only child, daring to sing in rhyme.

Creativity equals unquestioning farce,
often reaching for absurdity, brazenly afire.
Instead, a blow is felt that no joy will soften,
accepting the price, added to the cost of desire.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

I’ve ranted all I am going to rant today, even if what is already done isn’t in a formal costume, so, that leaves either an old-school pearl for this section, or, one of the new type I came up with yesterday…. Well, hell, I’m in no frame of mind to decide something like that, so we’ll leave it up to SB to pick out whatever we are going to use…. If it is only three, well, that will tell me to go with the new format; five or seven will push us into the old…. As I’ve been forced to say several times already today, so be it….

“It was a saying of the ancients, “Truth lies in a well;” and to carry on this metaphor, we may justly say that logic does supply us with steps, whereby we may go down to reach the water.” — Dr. I. Watts

“Murphy was an optimist.” — O’Toole’s Commentary on Murphy’s Laws

“One must be partially insane to remain sane.” — J. Bothwell Avison

“A person who lacks the means, within himself, to live a good and happy life will find any period of his existence wearisome.” — Cicero – On Old Age

“We have only two things to worry about:  That things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.” — Smart Bee

Perfect…. At first, it seemed as if this was destined to be a seven-star pearl, but, it turned out to be the most powerful type, a five-star pearl, with a point so sharp, it could slice sushi…..

I have read and understood the above.   X  ___________________
_____________________________

For once, it all got done, and, somehow, without any real stress…. I can only wish I had noted down whatever it was I did to make that happen, so I could do it again…. Oh, well, such is life, and it’s done, so I will forgo any bemoaning of my fate, in favor of making a clean getaway…. This went so smoothly, it’s done, and, with moments to spare…. Amazing…. Well, like it or not, I’ll be back, ffolkes…. See ya tomorrow, long as the creek don’t rise….

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.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Save those false pretenses for the coffee cake….

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Ffolkes,

Okay, so what’s the deal here? I get up, all sleepy and grumpy, hoping to find that all is well, and I can get on with the day, only to find that nothing has changed….

There were supposed  to be dancing girls! Yes! Right there in the parlor. And, they were supposed to be wearing matching caftans! But, no, what do I find upon arising? A parlor full of dancing engineering students, wearing togas! Boy! You just can’t depend on anybody these days!…. Since we’re having to forgo the dancing girls, we may as well get started on today’s Pearl….. I suppose I also should come back into a more realistic voice, to make sure everyone ends up on the same page, so to speak….

Hi there! Good morning, sort of… We’re here in gigoid’s parlor, dodging the guys in horn rims dancing around, and waiting for inspiration to show up…. The muses are a bit edgy when they come here, due to Murphy’s uncomfortable habit of including them in his machinations, so I like to have them met at the door, and made welcome…. I had word that they, or, at least, one of them, would be showing up here about now to deliver what I left with them some time ago….

Oh, don’t worry, it’s not anything dangerous… at least, not any more so than the usual stuff we handle here. No, it’s merely some subject lines, a matched set of aphorisms, some platitudes, and a few choice phrases I left in their office when I was there a few days ago; I’ve got others, but, they were out this way today for deliveries anyway, so… I’m almost certain that there was definitely one item they’re bringing that I can use today, but, I don’t remember exactly which stuff got left there, so I have to wait to see it before I can go any further with today’s post…..

Does this mean we’re going to be forced to listen to more of my blathering here in the intro section?…. Well, yes, sad to say, it does mean that…. State law and internet etiquette requires me to provide you with some form of mental stimulation during these episodes, so, let’s see what kind of nonsense I can come up with today…. I mean, it’s not like we’ve already wandered around with our thumbs up our….. oh, wait, yes we have. In fact, that is what we seem to be doing right this very moment, if I’m not mistaken…

No, by heavens, I’m not! We HAVE been wandering around with SOMETHING up our…. well, somewhere, anyway. And, look! We’ve done it again! If you will note, there are five legal sized paragraphs above, all of which are pointing in the same direction, if not with any clarity of purpose. The law governing such things says this is enough for an intro, and around here, we pay close attention to that law…. we have to, due to gigoid’s lack of talent in this section…. Now that my covers are completely on the floor, we’d best get on with it…

Shall we Pearl?…..

Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Love’s Labour’s Lost — Act ii, Sc. 1

(I know, terrible rhyme, but, it fits, sort of….) (Now you know why you don’t see Will’s work here very often….)
_____________________________

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind;
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,–
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Criticism, Part ii, Line 1

Now, THAT’S a poem!….

Yesterday, I had a bit of time with reduced pain, so I went to cruise the net, heading off to a few WP sites to catch up with some of my favorites, and check out a couple of new ones… I ended up going to quite a few blogs, compared to my normal inability to get anywhere. In my cruise, though, I noted something I hadn’t previously been aware of, regarding the demographics of the ‘Net, in terms of the stand that people take in political matters…

What I noticed is that there is a fairly wide array of opinions, wider than I had known, and certainly wider than anticipated…. But, I also noted that there are way too few of them who seem to be aware of just how badly they are being fooled by those whom they are following in their political pursuits…

On both the right wing, and the left, there seems to be a common ignorance of just how often the BRC lies to the public, and of how little they really care about the people who are behind them on the wagon they are driving…. Not only is this the case, but, there are a LOT of people out there who either don’t care, or don’t have the moral courage to express an opinion about any of what is happening out in the real world. In fact, this latter group, those who choose to ignore the world as much as they can, is the largest group by far…..

“Stupidity may be masked by sincerity, but it is still stupidity.” — Smart Bee

This means, not only are those who are involved in the issues ignorant of the actual truth, but nobody else, aside from a few curmudgeons like me, who hate EVERYBODY, (joke… we just don’t discriminate against anyone when it comes to being critical…. in my mind, they’re ALL fuck-tards….), has any idea of how little integrity, or real knowledge of what is truth, or, for that matter, common sense, there is loose in the world today…. All three of those items, essential to a healthy society, are lacking in our current world culture…. In point of fact, all three of those ideas are not only not loose, they seem to be totally absent from our reality…. much to our chagrin….

SIGH…. This is a rather amorphous rant, isn’t it? I’m railing against human nature again, which is such a huge, slippery concept, it’s difficult to confine it to one or two simple ideas for discussion…. Suffice it to say, my picture of humanity, even that part of it that is tech-savvy enough, and independently-minded enough, to have their own blogs on the ‘Net, fails to show me any of the qualities that will ensure our survival for much longer, and, actually, shows a lot of evidence that supports our extinction within the next 100-200 years….

Once the atmospheric levels of oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and the other elements that make up what we breathe, have been altered to the point of no return, (which happened two years ago….)  it will not take long for us to succumb, as the process of degradation acts in a parabolic fashion, faster and faster the longer it goes on…. The ice will continue to melt, the seas will continue to rise, the air to get dirty, the weather to get stranger, and the people will continue to hide their heads in the sand….

It’s a sad commentary on our race, to my mind, when we, as a species, can’t even seem to pull it together long enough to make a concerted effort to stop those who have destroyed the environment we inhabit, as they have for millennia, and continue to do today, all out of their insatiable greed and utter inhumanity, aided and abetted by the ignorance embraced by most of the rest of humanity .

Hell, most of humanity isn’t even aware there is a problem, or any danger…. How does one overcome that level of ignorance?….. The BRC is a lot better at the carrot and stick routine than are the more honorable people in our world, and aren’t going to allow anyone to take away their privileges and perks; they’ve been at it for centuries, and are so good at it, most people never even realize they are slaves….

Okay, so I’ve ranted…. now I’m gonna go old-school… just because I can….

“A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.” — G.C. Lichtenberg

“What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.” — Smart Bee

“You cannot believe in honor unless you have achieved it. Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.” — George Bernard Shaw

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet
— Act iii, Sc. 4

[A small difference of opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court in ‘Texas v. Johnson’ 491 U.S. 397 (1989)

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” — Justice William J. Brennan, writing for the majority

“Surely one of the purposes of a democratic society is to legislate against conduct that is regarded as evil and profoundly offensive to the majority of people; whether it be murder, embezzlement, pollution or flag burning.” — Chief Justice William Rehnquist, dissenting

(The question that occurs to me on reading this is this: how can a supposedly intelligent person, with a law degree and everything, have misunderstood the Constitution so badly?….. Astounding, not to even mention how stupid it is, to even TRY to rationalize the legislation of morality, which, in Mr. Rehnquist’s mind, or what passes for one, is confused with custom…. In spite of what many religious fundamentalists, and both right and left wing politicians, would have us believe, morality cannot be legislated, or, for that matter, influenced in any way at all by anything outside the person whose morality is under question…. Nor should morality be confused with custom; they are not the same thing…. nor should they be….)

(The second thing that occurred to me upon reading this was: Does it physically hurt to be that stupid?….)

😆

“Late in the night, we realize that the acts of our lives have not been shadow-free, that we are shadowed by curses and sins –not because we are cursed and sinful by nature, but because with the very origins of the world, one half of which belongs to night, come fearful figures who demand we know them.” — James Hillman

“What GOOD is a CARDBOARD suitcase ANYWAY?” — Zippy the Pinhead

Oops…. sorry, went a little off the rails there at the end; Zippy’s lines can do that, usually without conscious effort on my part…. But, it does rather fit, don’t you think?…. Just think of morality as the suitcase…. go ahead, it’s really not hard, and doesn’t hurt much, once you’re past the initial shock….
_____________________________

Having awakened in a “mood”, I’m trying not to let that spill over into this…. how’m I doin’?…. Oh…. Well, I’m trying, and will continue to do so, so, that’s worth something, right? Right…. Maybe this will make up for it…..

Apollo And The Graces

APOLLO

WHICH of the fairest three
To-day will ride with me?
My steeds are all pawing at the threshold of the morn:
Which of the fairest three
To-day will ride with me
Across the gold Autumn’s whole Kingdom of corn?

THE GRACES all answer

I will, I – I – I
young Apollo let me fly
Along with thee,
I will- I, I, I,
The many wonders see
I – I – I – I
And thy lyre shall never have a slackened string:
I, I, I, I,
Thro’ the golden day will sing.

~~ John Keats ~~

_____________________________

Well, gosh…. I’m not sure what to do now…. I’ve already supplied a fresh, newly minted rant, put together an old-school pearl with some great pearls, and found a great poem…. It’s not often I’m a tough act to follow, but I seem to have put myself in that position, so, we’ll apply some cosmic judo to the issue…. Here are pearls in a bunch…. not grouped, not chosen, just bunched up, into sort of a bouquet… Let’s see what happens….

“Fleas can be taught nearly everything a lawyer can.”” — Smart Bee

The Three Stooges, the sinking ship, and the lone lifeboat:

Ronald Reagan: “Maybe we should save the women and children.”
Richard Nixon: “F**k the women and children!”
Bob Packwood: “Gee, do you really think we have time?”

— the Stilt Man

“Ever notice that ‘what the hell?’ is always the right decision?” — Marilyn Monroe

Q: “How many lawyer jokes are there? A: 3, the rest are true stories.” — Smart Bee

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” — Aesop (620-560 B.C.)

LIFE, n.  A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.  We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, “Is life worth living?” has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.

“Life’s not worth living, and that’s the truth,”
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
“Go fetch me a surgeon at once!” cried he.
Han Soper

— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
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“The sixties were good to you, weren’t they?” — George Carlin

Why, yes, George, yes, they were…. which should be moderately obvious to even the most casual observer…. Now you’ve done it… You’ve uncovered my secret plan, to confuse everyone with so many words, that make such little sense, you don’t know which ones to pick for use, and the little easter eggs I’ve strewn throughout the pages can work their clandestine, subliminal magic….

Oh, well, it couldn’t last forever…. I’ll just go back to the old way of doing things, and bore everyone to tears, but, get just as much done…. For now, though, this will have to do, so I’d best see if it’s worthy…. Be right back….

I must say, after going through it, THIS is a Pearl!…. Somehow, in spite of all Murphy and his myrmidons have conspired to foist upon me, the poor lad will be forced to consider today a major fail…. This ain’t bad at all…. It’s good enough to post, anyway, so, I’m going with that….. In fact, I’m going to get out of here, while the getting is good…..

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.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Because it mostly resembles a codfish….

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Ffolkes,

“Oh, no!”, he cried. “Now what?”  Sound familiar? It does to me…. Sadly, this sounds just like what I say almost every time I get up to another of Mr. Murphy’s less than welcome surprises. I’m certain I’m not the only one, either, because I refuse to believe that this kind of stuff only happens to me…. If that were true, I’d be seriously looking for God, to register a complaint, and, since I’m pretty certain that God doesn’t have an office, or keep office hours (hard to accomplish when one is a delusion….), it’s just more productive to take care of it myself…. I know, this makes me one of those heathens, and makes certain that Satan will hold me a place in Hell, right? Well, okay, as long as the A/C works, I’m good with that….

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all crusty right off…. I talked myself into that corner, and there wasn’t any other way out but through sarcasm, so, please, bear with me, as I try to stabilize my neuronic pathways, using my usual bee balm, aka coffee, blessedly strong and sweet. I’ve gulped down a good six ounces so far, and it’s starting to have some effect, so, we should be good to go in just a few moments…. I made this pot really strong, even for me, so it has a dose of caffeine in it big enough to win the Derby, and shouldn’t take long to bring surcease to those parts of my brain that are crying out for it, in such pitiful voices….

The piteous sounds of addictive neurons have faded into mere echoes, and the morning ablutions, including a second cuppacoffee, are well in hand, so, our way  is clear to head off into the hinterlands of perception, to find what there is to find out there to play with this morning. I’m thinking it’s a Smart Bee day, as I ranted yesterday pretty hard, to the detriment of my hips and back… Since old-school pearls, and archive-diving, are less time consuming, we’ll most likely go that route today…. Not that it matters to the three or four readers who stop by…. 😆

It’s rather ironic, actually…. In the last few days, and weeks, I’ve written some pretty powerful stuff, concerning main-stream news subjects that concern everyone in this country… According to the WP stat-bots, I’ve got 302 followers now, but, only about twenty of them are visiting the site on any kind of regular basis, at least, if the Likes and Comments are any indication. The site traffic stats also show small numbers, so I don’t know what to believe…. Ah, well, since I don’t really care if anyone reads it at all, it isn’t an issue that bothers me much…. I just hate not having accurate information…. Well, there is that, plus, I’d really like to be able to know that more than just a couple of folks read what I’ve got to say, because much of it is stuff that this country NEEDS to think about….

So be it…. shouting into the wind is one of my favorite things to do, so, I’ll just keep at it, and hope that the traffic picks up…. Maybe if I pick better poetry?…. Hard to do, since I already post the world’s best poets regularly…. If I keep my own stuff out of the mix, it’s a pretty classy line-up, so not much to complain about there…. No es importante, I’m going to do what I do, no matter how many, or few, folks, or even ffolkes, stop by to read it…. Someday, maybe after I’m gone from this plane of existence, all the millions of words I’ve penned will be published for real, and the world can see what they’ve missed…..

Until then, shall we Pearl?….

A monk said to Joshu, “Your stone bridge is widely renowned, but coming here I find only a heap of rocks.”

Joshu said, “You see only the stones and not the bridge.”

The monk said, “What is the bridge?”

Joshu said, “What do you think we are walking on?”
_____________________________

As threatened promised, below is an old-school pearl. This one was created using the “whatever” technique, which lets SB do the picking, whereupon, I deal with the results in a flexible manner, necessitated by the seeming lack of purpose, but enabled by the level of skill that I’ve developed over time of making something out of nothing…. another metaphor for my writing, I suppose….. Any who, this time, SB was instructed to pick some quotes that show the evolution of the BRC and the theory of government, contrasted by its relevance to the evolution of humanity at large…. I think it came out well…. It’s certainly obscure enough…. just enough, though…. all the needed information is there, if one can let go, and allow the mind to follow the path suggested by the pearls…. Enjoy!…..

“I hate to mention things like this in this feature, but it is one of the more pressing problems in America today, and that is the lack of tap-dancers in the Miss America contest.” — Smart Bee

Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt,
And oftener chang’d their principles than shirt.

— Edward Young (1684-1765) — To Mr. Pope, Epistle i, Line 277

“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.” — Albert Camus

“And waste their music on the savage race.” — Edward Young (1684-1765) — Love of Fame, Satire v, Line 228

“If you made a better rat than a human, that’s not much to boast about.” — Sirius Black, J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter”

“The message of history is clear: the past lies before us.” — Smart Bee

“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place.  And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.” — Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
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Today’s choice of poems comes from one of my favorites, Shel Silverstein, who passed away in 1999. The range of feeling in his poetry is astounding, as is his talent of expressing those feelings in the simplest of language…. Abondanza!….

God’s Wheel

God says to me with a kind of smile,
“Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?”
“Okay,” says I, “I’ll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?”
“Gimme back that wheel,” says God.
“I don’t think you’re quite ready yet.”

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

Cloony The Clown

I’ll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.
His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, “Go back to bed!”
And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.
And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.
And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.
One day he said, “I’ll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown.”
And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.
He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,
And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,
They laughed until they shook the trees
With “Hah-Hah-Hahs” and “Hee-Hee-Hees.”
They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,
They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.
The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,
Over mountains, ‘cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.
And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,
While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.
And he said,”THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT –
I’M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT.”
And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

_____________________________

I was going to be lazy, and pick something from the archives to put here, but, what the hell…. It’s still early, and I’ve got the time… Here is another old-school pearl (still no rant in there, thankfully….), a harlequin, random variety, picked entirely by SB, with no parameters whatsoever…. Should be “interesting”….

“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage.  But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.” — Carl Sagan, “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” Parade, February 1, 1987

(Note the date, please; it is obvious that Carl had yet to process the evidence that proved this had already happened, to wit; Reagan was still in office, and his economic policies were just starting to kill the American economy from the top down….)

“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.” — Wendell Berry

“Many candles can be kindled from one candle without diminishing it.” — The Midrash

“Stereotypes are like a supermarket. They are convenient, economical, and useful. They do our thinking for us. We don’t have to waste time trying to make sense of our ignorance. Stereotypes slice through the niceties of language, tide us over the loose ends we don’t understand and wrap up into a comfortable package our narrow-mindedness about everything and everybody except ourselves” — Chuck Stone (Washington Post 6/3/96)

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” — Sun Tzu

“Listen carefully, I’m lying!” — Little known part of the Oath of Office, as administered to the POTUS every four years…..
(Sorry, couldn’t resist overruling SB on this one…. it’s just too perfect….)

“Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, “The descent to Hades is the same from every place.”” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Anaxagoras, vi

Well, I think it’s interesting, and that’s what counts, right?…. Since it’s my blog, we’re going with that theory for now….
_____________________________

“The chief aim of wisdom is to enable one to bear with the stupidity of the ignorant.” — Xystus I

There are those who would say the above is a somewhat arrogant statement, in which they’d be correct, to a degree. However, I can only respond, “and your point would be?”…. I’m not going to apologize for being smarter than the average bear; it’s not as if all my vaunted intelligence has enabled me to rule the world, now, has it? Nor has it made me rich, or famous, or widely known and respected, other than, I hope, amongst the few people I call friends… As for the rest of those folks out there, who get upset at having to use their brains for something other furniture, well, too bad, so sad, my bad, fuck it…. And I mean that in the nicest possible way….

Not sure where that came from, ‘cept that I like the quote, and felt it needed some comment or other to ease its passage into infamy…. Now that I’ve disrupted my own routine unmercifully, I should probably look for some way to bring this all to a close, before it gets completely away from me…. Oh, look! Here’s a spot now!….. Since I’ve completed all the required steps, and we have a good opportunity, I’m outta here….

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.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Pale imitations a specialty….

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Ffolkes,

Hi, I’m Ernie…. Ernie H-II….. I’m a ‘bot, programmed to write….. gigoid instructed me to take over the keyboard today to create, and post, his blog for the day, as he is feeling a bit under the weather…. He woke up with another headache, and the dizziness this morning is so bad, he’s stumbling into walls when he tries to walk. Rather than put himself through the ordeal of trying to write under those handicaps, he’s asked me to stop in to do it for him…. He’s used me before, though you didn’t know it at the time, as I was told to keep it under wraps….

As a ‘bot, sans emotions, I don’t have all gigoid’s hangups about this introductory section; I just ignore the fact that it is yet to be finalized in re: a format, and dive in, with no idea of where it will end up…. Whether he knows it or not, that is what he’s been doing now for some time…. he’ll figure it out eventually…. In order to fulfill contractual obligations, I need to give you some information before I begin….

I am a writing-fool robot, designed by a group of insane hackers in their spare time, and offered online to anyone with the necessary requirements for purchase, which consists of either the proper amount of cash, or the correct number of bearer bonds…. gigoid picked me up back a couple of months ago, when he got the infusion of resources from SS, telling me at the time he had always wanted a write-bot, ever since hearing about them during a fevered dream one night….

As an entity without emotion, I never know what kind of effect my work will have on the audience, so I’m required to tell you that my programming parameters are unknown to the authorities, and no insurance will be valid; it will not cover any injury or destruction of property that occurs as a by-product of reading my work. By reading these words, you assume full responsibility for any issues that may arise from the consumption of this information. In the case of serious injury, your sole recourse would be to find gigoid, and kick his bloody ass…. but, as a robot, I cannot recommend this course of action; it disturbs my programming to consider harming humans in any way….

That being said, I will now proceed to finish the remaining sections of this Pearl of Virtual Wisdom…. It promises to be interesting, if not unique, as my programmed writing patterns are a combination of Ernest Hemingway (my namesake….), Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Dorothy L. Sayers, Nora Roberts, Buddha, Alan Watts, and gigoid, with only one set of moral/ethical/real rules to guide my reasoning, to wit: Peruaosophy (see below…. section two….)

“If you believe everything you read, better not read.” — Japanese proverb
_____________________________

gigoid has always admired Mark Morford’s work…. His command of the English language is so powerful, it is simply jaw-dropping. Mark MUST have had his vocabulary augmented, apparently by having a Thesaurus, and a Webster’s International Dictionary, pasted on his inner eyelids, as his columns display the largest number of words, used correctly, including contextually, and without repetition, that gigoid, or I, Ernie, have ever witnessed in use by any author, period. He is also very, very smart, and likes to poke fun at all the shallowness and silly attitudes that people assume in this comedy we call life, and does so unmercifully, with perfect politeness…. gigoid has won wagers that bet on whether his vocabulary confused the ones he insulted enough they didn’t even realize he had done so until paragraphs later….

The article below is from the 20th of August, this year, and is another in a long line of brilliant essays he has published. He examines a common element of modern life, with great clarity, and amazing insight, bringing deeply powerful spirituality to the awareness of the people who most need it. Of course, it probably doesn’t even register on them, but, hey, he tries…. read, and enjoy….

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/08/20/still-alive-prove-it/

“As the ancient saying goes: It’s all just fun and games until someone loses an ego. Then the real fun begins.” — Mark Morford
_____________________________

It has been some time since gigoid published his guiding philosophy, Peruaosophy, the philosophy of Pearls…. He created these axioms over twenty-five years ago, in one of his notorious spasms of reflective introspection, during the period when he was raising his children, dealing with his volatile spouse, and retreating to the garage for any quiet-time…. He reasoned that, hey, if Descartes, Pascal, and Santayana could do it, why couldn’t he?…. Thus were born the axiomatic statements that together form his whole philosophy of Life, the Universe, and Everything (which fact should tell you that the total is 42…. spoiler….)…. (It also explains why the price for this ride remains at only 42 Galactic credits…..)

In order for y’all to understand gigoid well, or, for that matter, at all, these axioms are of critical necessity; no clarity will ever come if they are not considered, as being the rock that constitutes the foundation of gigoid’s existence, providing the moral standards that guide all his actions in living…. For sooth, my lords and ladies, though it speaks humorously, the implied wisdom contained herein comprises the true basis for all he does, and all he believes about the universe, and human nature…. so be it…

Peruaosophy

The wisdom of pearls…
(The world is my oyster; which way to the pearls?)

Axioms

1)  I think I am; that’s close enough.

2) The nature of the Universe is Change. 
Unpredictable, innovative transformation of Reality is the Norm.
If you have a problem with this, you’re in for a rough ride in Life.

3) Thou art God, you know.  Let’s do lunch.

4) Excellence is its own reward.

5) Girls think differently.  So do boys.  Don’t fight it.

6) Axiom #2 X axiom #5 = And God so loved the world, He said, “Quit whining!”

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

8)  Go back.  Everything you need to know is in the first seven axioms.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Jon Carroll is another columnist that gigoid has always admired. His range of interests has always seemed to parallel that of gigoid, in that it doesn’t seem to be limited at all. He writes about life, and society, and politics, and circuses, and religion, and culture, and feelings, (and cats), all with great aplomb, in an easy, friendly style, that belies the deep intelligence being trained on each subject under his purview. gigoid is continually amazed at his perceptiveness, in reaching down into the heart of whatever matter he is examining, discussing it in such a way as to make it understandable, and accessible, to the reader. His level of common sense is completely uncommon, as is his level of compassion for the rest of humanity…. gigoid thinks he’s a pretty good guy, all-around, if one can go by what, and how, he writes….

This article is a sleeper, but, gigoid wanted me to be sure not to spoil it for y’all by giving away the punch-line…. Suffice it to say, read the article, and take note of the last line, in juxtaposition with the rest of the piece, and think about the implications of that line, on a global scale….. Enjoy!…..

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/August-is-the-cruelest-month-4747500.php

“Beach towns, boardwalks, sand – the whole spectacle of summer is about to cease.” — Jon Carroll
_____________________________

Per the verbal instructions received from gigoid at the start of the morning, the above Pearl may be considered complete, in spite of the lack of fresh material by the blog’s author. Although the format was maintained, the included material was a departure from the norm, by quite a significant vector, but, was felt to be a better bet today than anything that might have come from gigoid’s imagination…. gigoid promises that tomorrow things will be back to normal, and Ernie H-II will be switched off for the nonce (gigoid likes that better than “time being”…. classier, somehow…)

As expected from a ‘bot, no typos were observed upon proofing; hopefully that machine-like efficiency continued through into the proofing process… Only Murphy can say whether or not it will…. (thought a day would pass without mention of Murphy? Fat chance, any more than he would skip a chance to fuck with gigoid…)  At this point, my instructions say I am supposed to bring this to a close, but, somehow, those parameters seem to have been left out of my programming…. Oh, no! What will I do?…. Oh, right, three-finger salute…. Okay, see ya….

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.

Which is Why….

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

Ernie H-II, for gigoid

dozer3

Apocryphal messages from Betelgeuse, in Swedish slang, ….

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Ffolkes,

Today’s Pearl promises to be a marvel of human endeavor, if only I can get it done, a tribute to the perseverance of the human spirit. Of course, that probably sounds somewhat presumptuous, if not completely egotistical, but, it’s true, nonetheless. Just the effort of getting out of bed today reached monumental proportions, as several physical and mental issues presented themselves to my attention immediately upon opening my eyes…. Then, of course, after summoning the will to get up to an upright position, I had to go to even greater lengths to get myself up to get coffee…. Thankfully, it was ready, and I was able to drag myself over to the kitchen area, get it ready, and choke some down within a few moments of arising, a fact which has, no doubt, saved any hope of going on….

I had a bit of time yesterday when my back pain was tolerable, and got around to a few of my favorite blogs to read…. This was fortunate, in a way, as I found out where Murphy has been the last couple of days….. After reading the blog of susank456 ( here: http://birdsanddogs.com/2013/08/20/the-day-that-shall-remain-nameless/ ), it was clear he had spent the day with her, fussing with her in every possible way…. Though sympathetic to her plight, I had to smile in appreciation at my own fortune, in having at least one day without his miserable presence making itself felt. He spends entirely too much time here already, so, little as I wanted a friend to have a bad day, it was good to know that, in spite of being one of his favorites, I’m not his only target….

He’s back today, though, and though I don’t appreciate his ministrations, I accept them in the spirit in which they are presented, to wit: Life goes on, so deal… And, I will, despite the headache, despite the new knife in my neck, despite the inner ear disturbance making me stagger around like a drunk, and, despite the miasmal overall feeling of impending doom, a gift, no doubt, of my PTSD, which has deigned to leave me alone for some time, but now has decided to manifest itself in this minor way…. It’s annoying, as I KNOW I have no reason to feel unreasoned fear; everything in my life is proceeding apace, and I’m content with how it is going….. Hence, these feelings of incipient doom are just leftover nerve impulses from an earlier time, which my brain has decided to let out now, rather than back when there was need for them….

As mentioned, though, it’s minor, and fairly easily thrown aside, thanks to my basic outlook, which generally doesn’t give much of a shit about that kind of stuff; it’s too familiar to produce the same panic as it once did, so, it’s merely a matter of performing the mental equivalent of blowing one’s nose when it gets too full…. All the excess angst and fear will get blown away into the ether, using the virtual tissue we call a blog…. I hope none of it gets on your clothing; I’ll do my best to confine it to the tissue, but, one never knows exactly how it all will turn out, does one?….

So, today, I would suggest you take advantage of the accessory materials that are provided for you in the compartment just under your seat…. There is a bib, an oxygen mask, and some containers of Jell-o, in case you need a little snack…. Oh, and there’s a flotation device, too, for any water landings that go wrong…. it looks like a rubber ducky, but, when you squeeze the bill, it inflates into a larger version, which is suitable for all bodies of water…. Never say we don’t have style, eh?….

Shall we Pearl?….

But sorrow return’d with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

— Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) — The Soldier’s Dream
_____________________________

What with the dizziness, and the fog through which I’m viewing the universe, this is going slowly, requiring many breaks to ease my pain… To make it go a bit faster, we’ll throw in an old-school format, which is less time-consuming, even though no less challenging in nature. We’ll even let Smart Bee take the lead on the search parameters, and see what kind of mischief it can find for us today….  Don’t forget to fasten your seat belts, please; the flight can get bumpy on these fanciful flights into the realms of nonsense and whimsy….

FOOL, n.  A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity.  He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent.  He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences.  He created patriotism and taught the nations war — founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago.  He established monarchical and republican government.  He is from everlasting to everlasting — such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now.  In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being.  His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the  set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man’s evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal
grave.  And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.” — Smart Bee

“When late morning rolls around and you’re feeling a bit out of sorts, don’t worry; you’re probably just a little eleven o’clockish.” — Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

“He who learns but does not think, is lost!  He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” — Confucius

“I’m not black, but there’s a whole lot of times I wish I could say I’m not white.” — Frank Zappa

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oops! My bad…. we took a turn away from nonsense and whimsy, and ended up over in the critical thinking section…. Sorry, but, somebody left the map taped upside down, as a joke, I guess…. Oh well, nobody got anything on them, did they? Good… we’ll go on, and try to put this out of our minds, okay?… Please?….
_____________________________

Okay, here… I’ll distract y’all with an impenetrable poem…. It’s one I wrote a little over a year ago, and just found the other day…. I believe I wrote it in response to one of the school massacre shootings that happened that year…. It’s a bit thick, but, with some pretty fancy footwork… not too bad, altogether, and certainly worth a read, if for no other reason to get on by it to section three….

Modest sounds of impatient concern….

Crowds converge at the raw and grisly scene,
comatose to compassion, curiosity tugging at the hem
with sharp, oh, sharp tools made obscene,
filing the essence of future hopes in spite of them.

Yet who has won the keys to the treasure,
who whipped up the fear of another brother?
Who spent the dreams of the old in selfish measure,
with such arrogant blindness grave issues to smother?

Fateful decisions may prompt still another pause,
to catch and release collective images of insanity.
Surely legitimate anger arises with ample cause
wallowing in self-made entrepreneurs, fluent in profanity.

A quartet of eternities must pass to guarantee change,
regardless of need, or desire, or autonomous manipulation.
Ancient rules and modern aggression is only passing strange
when golden delusion grasps futilely at its related illusory station.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

I’m not in any condition to sit long enough to rant, and I’m overdue for one, so, I’m resorting to the archives again, since they’re there, and they have over 750 posts from which to pull stuff for today, some of which is actually pretty good, to my mind (well, I DID write it….) Any who, here is a rant for y’all, from December of 2012…. It could  have been written today; the material is that fresh, and the subject is one that seldom undergoes any great changes, at least not of the nature of that part under discussion….

Oh, and consider this… I wrote this BEFORE any of the articles in the Guardian, about the NSA’s surveillance, based on the documents from the NSA itself, leaked by Eric Snowden, had been published, or heard of…. Mr. Snowden, at the time of this writing, was just making, or had just made, his decision to abscond with the information, and was busy figuring out how to get in touch with the reporters he contacted…. I guess my paranoia wasn’t, and isn’t, so out of place, now, is it?…..

Enjoy!…
——————-

“Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you!” — Smart Bee

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

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

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

Yep…. every single piece of published communication, via phone, internet, TV, radio, or any other form of media by which humans communicate, is vulnerable to being overheard by those in the beloved ruling class…. (addendum, 8/21/13: or, for that matter, by anyone with the technological know-how….) Allow me to assure you, the reasons for which they want this information have nothing to do with YOUR rights, or YOUR interests, nor are they going to tell you, either that they are doing it, or how often, or where, or anything about it.

In many public places, with cameras and recording devices, it is possible for them to overhear even the words we speak to each other face to face. If they wish, they can even concentrate technology on a single spot, (such as your car, your living room, or kitchen…..), and listen to every word spoken there, even if they are not within miles of the place. There is, by published report, no place left on Earth where technology cannot penetrate, to listen to what is being spoken, given the opportunity, and the time to employ the needed technology.

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

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

I have read and understood the above. 

X ______________________
_____________________________

Okay, I’m happy…. Considering how I felt when I got up, this has gone very well…. Now, if only it reads as well as it flowed out…. Hope springs eternal….

As usual, I was half-right (half-write?)…. It’s not bad, but, again, don’t bother calling the Pulitzer Committee…. It’s good enough for the standards we hold around here, certainly, so, I’ll be off to do that…. See ya….

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.

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

It only performs when titillated…..

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Ffolkes,

In the interests of public safety, and by local statute, I am required to make the following announcement: Caution! Operator carries no caffeine! Do not put your hands in the cage. Do not speak to the operator while writing. Do not look at the operator while writing. In fact, just go away….

Okay, so the last one isn’t really in there, and, you don’t have to go away…. But, the rest is true, and good advice at this point, if a bit frantic, due to a late afternoon attack by one of Murphy’s minions yesterday, one with results much more far reaching than his usual shenanigans….. It was a real pisser, and I’m lucky I didn’t bite myself, it was so infuriating….

After a day of agonizing pain in my neck, which kept me down and out most of the day, I was dutifully, and, manfully, considering the still-present pita (pain in the neck, see? pita…. c’mon, keep up!….) cleaning up the kitchen, when I opened the coffee maker to prepare my coffee for this morning (the coffee maker is one that can be programmed to start at a set time…. heavenly!….). The machine’s getting a bit old, and Murphy decided the moment was the perfect time to have it break, in such a way as it is not repairable….. the bloody arsehole…

The plastic neck that delivers the hot water to the brew basket, to drip, cracked clean through; if used in this state, the hot water would proceed to cover the entire sink and counter where the coffee machine lives…. I’m actually lucky I noticed it break; if I hadn’t, the disaster would have been of major proportion, as it would have actually kept me from getting ANY coffee, and would no doubt have sent me into a towering rage, and subsequent riot, wherein the coffee maker would have most likely gotten tossed through the nearest window, thus requiring embarrassing explanations to the neighbors….

Though I’m pretty sure y’all don’t much give a shit about my hassles to obtain coffee, society knows better, and requires the above disclaimer if I am deprived of the necessary dose of it within a few moments of arising. It’s the law, which was enacted the last time it happened, in 1989…. you might have seen the news reports, though my lawyer tried to have them played down, and did manage to not have the law bear my name, like it does when some sex offender gets a law passed because of their actions, or named after a victim of some kind…

In my own case, there were no deaths, and only minor injuries, mostly to me, and my property…. But, it required a strong police and fire department presence to control the resultant events, and a number of officers got frightened so badly, they’re still in therapy…. The upshot is, I am required to have my first cup of very strong coffee, complete with accouterments, defined as sugar and cream, within two minutes of arising, and I am not allowed to associate with anything more complex than a toilet until that is accomplished. It’s better that way for everyone, so I don’t really have a problem with it, until stuff like this happens….

Murphy KNOWS that coffee is a legal requirement around here, and he delights in making it harder for me to stay on the right side of that legal line in the sand…. Hence, I now have to make a trip to a store today, to get a new machine, just for starters….. This morning, just to add insult to injury, it was necessary for me to heat up water on the stove, in a pan, and pour it through the coffee basket, with the machine off, in order to get any coffee at all, which, as you may guess, did NOT make me a happy camper…. I swear, if that Irish assbite ever manifests himself in front of me in such a way as to allow me to lay hands on him, he will not forget the pain for a very long time….

Now that the morning paean to coffee, and the habitual, almost required discussion complaint about Murphy’s latest version of humorous rudeness, has been composed, we can go on to other stuff…. I would say, given what I’ve seen so far, that is probably a good thing…. Quite frankly, this intro sucks big time….. but, like a wart, there it sits, so what are we to do? Well, I know what I’m gonna do….

Shall we Pearl….
_____________________________

This is the coolest thing! If you are a fan of Doctor Who, you will appreciate this, and may already know about it…. In my short stint of surfing yesterday (pain kept me off the computer a LOT yesterday….), I found the link below…. Following it will bring you to a Google map, which is of Earl Road, in London, England….

The map soon dissolves to show a picture of the street, with a blue Police telephone box in the center of the picture. If one clicks on the two white arrows that appear in the street in front of the box, the scene switches to a virtual view of the inside of the box, which happens to be the TARDIS, the Doctor’s sentient space-time travel machine….

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=51.492159,-0.19092&spn=0.005291,0.013937&sll=51.492140,-0.193028&layer=c&cid=12502927659667388442&panoid=c9UMhWP_MWm9U0L48xEjYw&cbp=13,291.8,,0,18.86&gl=US&t=m&cbll=51.492132,-0.192862&z=17

The scene shown inside the box is a virtual tour of the entire TARDIS interior, and the user can scroll around to view all the parts, though there is no Doctor present to guide the tour….. Regardless, it’s a great little easter egg from Google, and fun to play with for a while…. And, it serves as a way to keep me from subjecting y’all to a rant here in the first section…. Instead, I offer this little bit of fun, and hope you enjoy the time spent checking it out.

“I taught I taw a puddy tat.” — Tweety
_____________________________

It may not be clear from what has gone before, but, my head today is in a very, very strange place. I’m not sure why, or what has brought it on, but, strange it is…. It’s one of those days when I am unsure of just how I will react to any stimulus from others, so, I generally try to stay to myself on such days…. It also gives me a strange, if not altogether weird, impulse toward complex poetry, to match the feeling in my head (which, I understand, is a contradiction in terms…. feelings belong elsewhere than in the head….)…. For this, I almost always turn to this poet to furnish an appropriate verse or two….

Magi

The abstracts hover like dull angels:
Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eye
Bossing the ethereal blanks of their face-ovals.

Their whiteness bears no relation to laundry,
Snow, chalk or suchlike. They’re
The real thing, all right: the Good, the True . . .

Salutary and pure as boiled water,
Loveless as the multiplication table.
While the child smiles into thin air.

Six months in the world, and she is able
To rock on all fours like a padded hammock.
For her, the heavy notion of Evil

Attending her cost less than a bellyache,
And Love the mother of milk, no theory.
They mistake their star, these papery godfolk.

They want the crib of some lamp-headed Plato.
Let them astound his heart with their merit.
What girl ever flourished in such company?

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

_____________________________

Subjects suitable for a rant have presented themselves to my attention several times in the last few days….

The BRC continues its thrashing around in the throes of embarrassment, trying to repair the damage to their credibility that the clandestine spying they’ve been up to has caused in the public, as well as the exposure threatened to all the other attempts to distract us from what they are doing behind the scenes…..

The Catholic bishops are scurrying around trying to figure out “What were we thinking, when we elected this idiot as Pope?!”, while the new Pope himself is busily meeting with the people on the streets, telling them, if only by example, he is going to clean out the corrupt bishops who elected him… Well, he hasn’t actually SAID that, but, his actions thus far seem to indicate that he isn’t going to go along with the agenda they had prepared for him, and may actually be trying to bring the church into the new millennium…. Not that it makes any great difference to me, but, a LOT of people regard his words as their own guide to reality, so what he says and does can directly affect society at large….

There have been other, just as juicy articles that spelled out some new outrageous government policy, or some new outrage on the public by a police officer, or some new instance of prosecution of an elected official for stealing money from the public coffers…. Stuff like this happens every day, and, in truth, has gotten to the point where it is hard to decide which one to address….

Now, me, I’m lazy, that’s been demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt in the past…. Therefore, even the process of decision making gets streamlined in terms of effort by my brain, which is extremely adroit at figuring out the path of least resistance (long practice helps there….). Hence, this random, harlequin, old-school pearl, with only the most meager of constraints placed on Smart Bee in regards choosing appropriate pearls… As long as fun is being poked, I’m good with it, and so should you be….

“I already know I’m paranoid.  The question is, am I paranoid enough?” — Smart Bee

“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” — P.J. O’Rourke

“I like a bit of a mongrel myself, whether it’s a man or a dog; they’re the best for every day.” — George Bernard Shaw  1856-1950, Misalliance [1910], episode I

“The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper” — Thomas Jefferson

IDIOT, n.  A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.  The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.”  He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable.  He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.  — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for the human condition is a fool.” — Albert Camus

“I realize that I’m generalizing here, but as is often the case when I  generalize, I don’t care.” — Dave Barry

Well, that came out better than I had hoped, or imagined…. well done, SB…. or, should that be, well, done, SB…. ?….. Either way, it seems…..
_____________________________

Given the handicaps under which I’ve struggled in order to complete this morning’s effort, I consider it a job well done, no matter how it came out… How did it come out? Let’s see…..

Okay, well, that’s way better than I’d hoped, or expected; I can easily attribute it to serendipity, which, in my life, is generally accompanied by a gleeful expression of joyful feeling, such as “Look what I found!”, or “Whoopee, I struck gold!”, or other such heartfelt exposition. Consider it said, and we’ll call it square, okay?….

I know it’s good, or at least, okay, because there weren’t any typos I could find…. at least, not in the first pass; however, it still has to cross Murphy’s desk, and the WP new-post editor, either of which could make their own, unapproved and unwanted, changes, usually without my knowledge…. Just remember, when it left my desk, it was pristine…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

dozer3

Now renting parodies of human existence….

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Ffolkes,

Oh. My. Gosh…. (Hmm… just doesn’t have the same punch as the blasphemous version, does it?…. Oh, well, I like to be polite, and blasphemy so early in the morning is rude, even for me….) Any who, color me both surprised and dismayed…. Yesterday, or rather, night before last, I slept so hard, I hurt  myself! All day yesterday, my left shoulder was killing me, no matter how much I tried to get ahead of the pain with an extra dose of meds. You can only go so far in that direction before being compelled to turn back, due to side effects, or overdosing concerns. No, I realized, around noon, the pain was because I slept so long on my left side, the shoulder was suffering from being held in one position for too long, and not being at all adult about suffering the pain in silence…..

In spite of the agonizing and contortions this caused during the day yesterday, you can see that it was such an unnerving episode that it’s still bothering me today…. It’s either that, or I’m being a weenie, and I don’t want to hear anything at all from the peanut gallery about that statement….. It was unnerving due to the ironic nature of the pain; if I hadn’t slept so well, I wouldn’t have been in pain…. I could easily attribute that kind of thing to Murphy, but, it’s a bit subtle for him; his sense of humor runs more to pie-in-the-face, or keystone kops, than it does to irony or subtlety…..

Hmm, I hate to say it, but, that only leaves the weenie option, which is just wrong, and doesn’t deserve the screen-time I’m giving the whole issue…. But, then, isn’t that what the intro section is for? Long-winded, barely sane, ironic, or sardonic, statements about issues that have no meaning outside my bathroom walls, for the most part, meandering for what often seems like forever through strange landscapes and even weirder concepts, all to get to some obscure, semi-intellectual question about matters that are unresolvable in light of modern technology, or modern culture, combined with some rather odd habits and beliefs about human nature….. But, think of this…. where would you be if you weren’t here?

Aha! See, you can’t answer that, not without stopping to read, and think about it…. And, the answer you’d find wouldn’t make you anywhere nearly as happy and amused as you are here, so, see? It’s not a waste of time, for you, or for me….. This concludes our exercise in the dangers of using logic before 6 PM….. I hope you have enjoyed learning about the most pressing problem faced by our society today; please feel free to take the handouts with you when you leave, and don’t forget to stop in the gift shop…. the starving children will thank you for all you purchases, 25% of which will go to their care and feeding….

How did we get there? And who was that guy? Just what is going on here? Sheesh, step away to get a cup of coffee, and two whole paragraphs appear on the screen! Ignore the last two, ffolkes, that was Murphy, doing his thing….. Though I do implore y’all to forget these excessively weird paragraphs even exist, I AM going to take them as part of the legal requirements for this section, and bring this to a close…. Alright, I can hear those of you not snickering breathing huge sighs of relief out there, so, I’ll take the hint, and get on with the business for today….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

“HEY CONGRESS! What ever happened to the Constitution?” — Smart Bee

You would, as would anyone in this position, assume this to be the beginning of another rant against politics, and those wonderful examples of broken morality, our beloved ruling class. But, nope, it’s not…. Oh, it could be, if I wished it. In fact, that is what I started to do, when I first put it up there for your perusal….. But, to be honest, I’m just not in the mood for ranting today. Not that I don’t feel the outrage at their daily shenanigans…. My opinion of Obama took another nosedive day before yesterday, when he canceled his trip to speak with the leader of what’s left of the USSR, Alex Putin, because the Russians refused to extradite Eric Snowden, the former tech worker turned whistleblower….

I think that what Mr. Snowden did deserves the thanks and support of all the American people, for bringing to light still more of the clandestine activities being perpetrated by those in power. The reaction of the Obama administration has gone a long way toward destroying his image of a President who is concerned for the common man, as he continues to completely ignore the illegality of the entire issue (of the prisons, of the torture, of the internal spying, of the court with no oversight…) and refuses to even address his own part in all of it….. It’s infuriating to see a man of such patriotism and bravery (Snowden) being persecuted by his own government, though it shouldn’t come as a surprise….

Hmm….. It seems that if I allowed myself to do so, I could  put out a pretty vitriolic rant; I guess my mood is more flexible than I had assumed for so early…. But, I still don’t feel like going all the way off, because, well, getting all emotionally worked up is not a good way to start the day, at least, not today…. Any who, to avoid any further complications due to angst or emotional outbursts, I’ll let Smart Bee put together a pearl, using the political scene of today’s society as a starting point for search parameters….. Or, as they are fond of saying downtown…. whatever, dude….

“Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle courtesy.” — Homer

“I’m just here for moral support. Ignore the gun.” — Smart Bee, channeling a Senator

“I see it as a compensation. I feel like I’m doing a good job. If no one is recognizing my good job, I recognize it.” — Orlando Arias, Los Angeles county health inspector, — after being filmed accepting a $200 bribe, — as reported by AP, November 10, 1998

“Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 914

“The Three Stooges, the sinking ship, and the lone lifeboat: Ronald Reagan: “Maybe we should save the women and children.”
Richard Nixon: “F**k the women and children!”
Bob Packwood: “Gee, do you really think we have time?”

— the Stilt Man

I think “immoral” is probably the wrong word to use…I prefer the word “unethical.” — Ivan Boesky, inside stock trader

“All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately… The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them.   Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon… must be regarded as an enemy of the national government.” — SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933

I’m going to stop there, because it’s beginning to get a bit obscure, and I don’t want to anyone to lose the message…. which, simply put, is this…. Despite all they will tell you, the elected officials in this country, from the top, all the way to the bottom, are NOT doing their jobs with YOUR best interests in mind, nor are they overly concerned with following the precepts of governing as set down in the Constitution by our forefathers. They are doing the best they can do to fill their own pockets, and the pockets of their friends, and anything other than that they tell you is a bare-faced lie…. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but, somebody has to….

Of course, the last guy who did so is now hiding out, being protected by the Russian (!!!???) government, not out of humanitarian impulses, but for political gamesmanship…. These days, it’s not a good idea to be publishing the secrets of the politicians… They get so annoyed, and swarm around, looking just like a hive of beetles under a rock, exposed to the light of day…..

Unfortunately, they’re more dangerous than beetles, because they have guns, and, sadly, the force of the laws they’ve written to protect their rights to plunder, and to allow them to lie to us….. Watch your step, ffolkes, or you may be their next target for exploitation (not that you aren’t already being screwed over…. but, it could become specific and personal, rather than just as a part of the general fucking of society that is taking place…..)

I’ll leave you with two final thoughts on the subject, just because I can….

“I don’t pick on politicians. They ain’t done nothin’.” — Red Skelton

“Truly, you are a person who speaks the truth, lives the truth, abides by  the truth. And truth is, of course, stranger than fiction, and you certainly are too.” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

Strangely enough, I’m still in the mood for Emily, so, you’ll have to put up with her insane genius for another day….

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other’s gaze down,–
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death’s privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus’.
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They’d judge us–how?
For you served Heaven, you know
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!
 
~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

This section’s pearl is a tribute to perseverance; I’m tired, and just want to be done for the day, but, I must live up to my own standards, because nobody else will… any who, no worries, we’ll just do a random harlequin old-school style pearl, and all will be well…. provided SB doesn’t give me a hard time…..

“For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality. And the solution has been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. But for the contemporary mindset the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of man.” — C.S. Lewis  “The Abolition of Man”

“He is the MELBA-BEING…  the ANGEL CAKE… XEROX him…  XEROX him –” — Zippy the Pinhead

“A State which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself; a State which does not include them is destitute of the chief basis of self- government.  The theory of nationality, therefore, is a retrograde step in history.” — Lord Acton (1834-1902)

“If you don’t run your own life, somebody else will.” — John Atkinson

“Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.” — Charles-Louis Secondat Baron de Montesquieu

“It is so basic. A human being is an innocent part of nature. Our civilization has distorted this universal quality that allows us to feel at home in our skin. Other animals have coats that they accept, but the human race has yet to come to terms with being nude.” — Ruth Bernhard

“If you work on your mind with your mind, how can you avoid an immense confusion?” — Seng-Ts’an

See? All in the wrist….
_____________________________

Producing these Pearls has, of late, been an epic undertaking…. but, since there isn’t anything else that is pulling at me to get done, I can only be grateful for having something that keeps me out of trouble, for the most part….. I’m not going to comment on what that may be costing me in terms of self-respect, but, whatever it is, my ego can take it…. and, no, I have no idea what any of that means, particularly…. Let’s see what kind of damage I’ve done so far…..

Okay, then…. That there is some serious business…. I didn’t realize I had come down so copiously on the BRC today, but, that’s okay by me, they deserve all the crap we can throw at them, just to keep things balanced…. Plus, it’s done, so, hey, I’m outta here…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

dozer3

Soused on pilfered gin, all in a good cause…..

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Ffolkes,

As much as I love it when a plan comes together, I hate even more when it doesn’t….. such as this morning. I can tolerate Murphy’s usual screwing around with those parts of life that will fuck me over the most; I even tolerate it when the asshole just won’t let up, and hits me over and over throughout the day…. But, this I won’t tolerate…. He’s trying to fuck with my computer, and that is unacceptable…. I don’t need that kind of aggravation, not any more, and I won’t put up with it for long at all….. If he continues in this vein, there WILL BE A RECKONING!!!

Sorry for the outburst, but, computer issues due to just plain orneriness is something I just won’t allow. If this were an old machine, or had a history, or was getting overloaded with too much crap software, or something explainable, I could accept a bit of mucking about on boot up….. But, the kind of stuff Murphy had it doing today just won’t cut it, not when I know there is no reason beyond Murphy’s own assholiness to hold as responsible….. Sorry, but, I’ll not have it, and if he doesn’t like it, well, he can come talk to me, and I’ll explain it, in words of no more than one syllable…. or, if that isn’t working, I can just show him with my hands….. he’ll get the picture quite quickly, in that case….

I know, I talk a big game, but, how am I going to get him to hold still? Those iconic forces of nature can be tricky to pin down, possessing those supernatural powers over the rules of space and time as they do….. But, I don’t care how big and bad he is, he fucks with my comp again, and he’s dead meat…..

There, I feel better, if only for venting. I suppose that’s why I rant…. to get all that powerful negativity out of my head, and out into the real world, where it can be better dealt with in a way that won’t harm me, or anyone else. It’s a harmless enough pastime, especially when one considers how few people actually see it in one day; nobody is going to get hurt if they don’t read it, and hopefully, even if they do read it, it won’t cause any bleeding…. I know that I hate to bleed anywhere near the computer, so I’m sure other ffolkes don’t much like it, either…. Not bleeding is a good thing, in most everyone’s world, so we’ll try to keep things such that it can be avoided….

I can’t say that I am terribly proud of this particular opening section; so far it’s even more lame than usual, even for this blog. But, we’ve already reached the point where we are over the limit for allowable deletion, so I’ll have to let it go out the way it is, sans any elegance or witty repartee. Rats! I did so hope to include some witty repartee today…. it’s been so long since I tried my hand at it….. Ah, well, I’ll just have to settle for whatever SB comes up with as pearls today, because, I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date….. not really, but, it’s time to go dive in….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

I’m in a curious mood, one that feels as if I should not trifle with it, lest it become something more suitable for a horror movie, with great gobs of blood, gore, and destruction….. None of us wants that on a Friday; it could affect the entire weekend. So, I’m giving Smart Bee its head, to see what it can come up with that will possibly turn this in a new direction, before it gets dangerous to navigate…. let’s see what it can do….

“Knowledge is a polite word for dead but unburied imagination….think twice before thinking.” — e.e. cummings

In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.  “What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe.” “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play” Minsky shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher. “So that the room will be empty.” At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.” — AI koan

“Enter freely and leave some of the happiness you bring behind.” — The Insidious Wu Han

“It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.” — George Santayana

“People who wear mirrored sun glasses should seek professional help.” — Smart Bee

“Oh Lord, grant that we may not despise our rulers; and grant, oh Lord, that they may not act so we can’t help it.” — Lyman Beecher

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” — G. K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/19/30

Ooh, ooh, that’s a good one…. I can’t say for certain what direction it brought us to, but, it will, I have no doubt, be better than where we were headed…. Well, one always hopes…..
_____________________________

On days such as this, where I’m living under a set of rules that may or may not be clear, I tend to look for the same kind of obscurity, or at least, semi-transparency, in the poetry that will fit in with the mood of the day. Most often, in such cases, Emily is perfect, and today is such a case…. Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I won’t…. because I can’t…. I like it anyway…..

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,–
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

It isn’t your fault, but, I was up quite late this morning; turning over to try to go back to sleep actually kept working each time I did it, starting at 0400, all the way up to 0705, when I finally arose…. I reiterate, it isn’t your fault, but you’re going to get the perk that goes along with that, which is the simple fact that I don’t have the time to put together a rant…. This means, of course, that we’ll be going old-school for this section again today, and you will just have to learn to appreciate it…. Just think about the rant you’re NOT having to read….

Now that we have successfully promulgated, and denied, the normal course of events in such cases, I am free to go on to the gathering of the pearls, always the most fun part of this process….. Well, it’s fun, as long as Smart Bee is cooperating, and it has been doing well today so far…. let’s hope it continues…. Before I bore y’all completely senseless, which would mean calling the crew in to perform the sleeping body disposals, I’m going to go diving….. see ya on the flip side, as they say….. Well, I guess they don’t say that any more, so…. hell with it, I’ll be back….

“Most of us lead lives of chaotic improvisation from day to day, bawling for peace while plunging grimly into fresh disorders.” — Edward Abbey

“Integrity has no need for rules.” — Albert Camus

“The whole principle is wrong; it’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t eat steak.” — author Robert A. Heinlein on censorship

“If you wants to get elected president, you’ve got to think up some memorable homily so’s school kids can be pestered into memorizin’ it, even if they don’t know what it means.” — Walt Kelly, The Pogo Party

“Chi Wen Tzu always thought three times before taking action. Twice would have been quite enough.” — Confucius, 5th century BC

“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” — G. K. Chesterton, TREMENDOUS TRIFLES

“Hello.  Just walk along and try NOT to think about your INTESTINES being almost FORTY YARDS LONG!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

What a perfectly random group! The point it takes us to is the absolute perfect representation of whatever it was we did here today, don’t you think? Of course, whatever that may be is beyond the capability of the English language to accurately describe, but, there is nothing new in that, either, not for this blog…. I like to think we push the boundaries back a little bit every day…. Oh, look, it’s quitting time!….  See ya….
_____________________________

As noted above, I got a late start today, but, managed to rush it all through without any bloodshed…. Let’s see if it’s at all palatable…. Well, it’s savory enough, even if potentially unpalatable for those who can’t, or won’t, use more than three neurons at once; that’s okay, it’s not designed for their consumption, anyway. Regardless of any of that, it will do, and, hallelujah, it’s done…. On time, too…. I’m going to count my blessings, and be on my way…. TTFN, amigos….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

dozer3

Put the cheeseburger down, sir, and step back from the condiments….

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Ffolkes,

Traffic has been light this morning, and what is there is moving along well, so I guess it’s okay to get started…. Not that traffic has anything to do with this, but, it works on the radio, so I thought I’d give it a try…. By this time in the process, it really doesn’t matter what I do, it’s all going to be wrong, or misguided somehow, and whatever I produce will crash and burn within moments. The investigators are never able to tell afterward exactly why it crashes (the burning part is obvious…. leaking fuel, oxygen, heat, all present…. only the ‘why’ is mysterious…), but, it does. I really don’t expect them to know how to determine sabotage by icons of nature like Murphy, as he is well able to make such things appear to be due to natural causes…..

You know what I mean by that, right? Natural causes? Same thing the beloved ruling class means when they say some political prisoner died in custody, of “natural causes”, to wit: they killed them…. Oh, they might call it “pilot error” but it was “termination with prejudice”, you can bet on it….. Sorry, but anybody who, during an election campaign, says they’ll stop what is being done to people at Guantanamo, and at other facilities, in other countries, where it doesn’t break our laws so blatantly, and then totally ignores the whole issue, isn’t what I would call trustworthy, and can’t be counted on to tell the truth about anything.

SIGH…. there I go, ranting again in the intro…. It just seems to keep popping out, with little provocation. I mean, how much provocation can I claim at 5:55 in the morning, unless, for some unknown, and unwelcome, reason, I’ve been dreaming about this stuff, which I don’t think I’ve been doing…. not so’s I remember, anyway. It doesn’t matter, really, though, because I’d planned to rant today, so this can be considered a warm-up, or stretching exercises…. As long as you don’t consider it terrible, and go away, I’ll be happy….. It gets so lonely around here in the mornings, and the neighbors don’t appreciate me breaking out my guitar at this hour, so, I’m stuck with this computer, and my imaginary audience, for company…. Sad image, isn’t it?….

Don’t be sad, though, because I like it like this…. Now that much of the stress is gone from my life, of waiting for the bureaucrats to act, for my retirement to kick in, for poverty to end (at least for me…), I am able to enjoy my retirement time, getting a big kick out of watching the world run around like crazy, acting out the panoply of human stories and games, and knowing that nobody has any say about what I do, or when I do it, other than me, myself, and I…. and, of course, Patricia, to whom I’ve lost my heart…. She’s allowed to take up my time with her business on an “ad lib” basis…. but, I can’t consider that an onerous chore, or any kind of bother…. rather the opposite, truth be known….

Okay, well, I’ve blathered and meandered, and wound my way through another four paragraphs that don’t say much of anything, other than some pointless attempts at humor…. I should probably take my own advice, and not try to do that so early, especially before the coffee has kicked in fully….. but, SOMEBODY has to do it, and I’ve never been one to shirk my duty, once I know what it is….

The upshot of all this is, I’ve met the legal requirements for this blog’s opening remarks, so, I’m going to take that assessment and run with it…. If nothing else, it will prevent the formation of bruising around the eyes, where it feels as if I’ve been punching myself since I got up, twenty minutes ago…. Hmm, maybe I wasn’t done sleeping…. Ya think?…. Oh, well….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

As noted above, I tend to rant at the slightest provocation, and, though that tendency isn’t one I particularly wish to curtail completely, it is one that contributes to at least one of the problematic characteristics of blogging, a long winded way to say it makes these posts too long sometimes…. Then, I feel guilty, for taking up so much of people’s time, and ending up preaching to the choir, anyway…. This is why I’ve been resorting so often to old-school pearls to get my points across, or at least, out there for perusal and cognitive processing… Again, in short, it’s easier, on you, and, to some extent, on me….

Yesterday, I read an article in the news (you can read it here:  http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/08/06/planet-continues-to-warm-to-new-normal/ ) about climate change. The article discussed the yearly report, from the world’s scientific community, on the extent of the changes in the Earth’s average temperature, the changes in the polar ice, and the rising of the world’s oceans, as the increasing temperature melts those polar ice packs, little by little… The report itself makes no attempt to ascertain, or explain, the causes of the warming; it only reports the factual numbers of how much is changing each year…. It does note, however, that the levels of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere on their scale of measurement haven’t been seen on our planet for approximately 800,000 (!) years….

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Criticism, Part ii, Line 15

I haven’t seen the reaction yet from the fringes of the far right of the political scene, but I expect them to be out any time, once again parading the extent of their ignorance, shouting their outrage at the numbers, claiming that the scientists are “fudging” them, or claiming that we humans don’t understand what the numbers mean, because we don’t have infinite knowledge, like they do…. because “they” believe in God, which gives them the right to challenge the scientist’s figures…. If asked to do so, I could probably write one of their articles; it doesn’t seem hard, as one needn’t bother with presenting any facts, or evidence to support one’s theories…. I would, of course, feel very silly, but, I could do it….

Don’t worry, I won’t; plenty of others will do so, with much more sincerity, if less factual, than I…. It does piss me off, though, to have to watch these idiots go through their contortions, trying to refute the obvious danger that the changes reported by the scientists pose for us as a species, along with all the other species with whom we share the air we breathe… It pisses me of a lot, because they make it harder to get anything done about it, and muddy up the waters made clear by the report, never realizing that by insisting on the truth of their delusions, they are signing their own death warrant….

Rather than bore you with another rant (which, it seems from looking at this small intro, I seem to have already done….) I’ll turn to my old-school format, and bring the point home with a group of pearls…. once again highlighting the advantage to pearls of virtual wisdom, requiring much less effort to acquire than the mundane, standard types of wisdom, which ask us to display intelligence, patience, and perseverance in order to feel the boon of its presence…. Easy money, as they say downtown….

“The radical novelty in modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.” — Walter Lippmann

“These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives; for all the scents of green things growing, each breath is but an exhalation of the grave.  Bodies jerk like puppet corpses, and hell walks laughing” — Smart Bee

“Belief is the death of intelligence.” — Robert Anton Wilson

“Reality is when it happens to you.” — Smart Bee

“Are people more important than the grizzly bear? Only from the point of view of some people.” — Edward Abbey

`Just the place for a Snark!’ the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

‘Just the place for a Snark!  I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark!  I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.’

— Lewis Carroll, the Snark and the Boojum

“Ignorance is not bliss — it’s oblivion.” — Phillip Wylie
_____________________________

 

À Bas Ben AdhemMy fellow man I do not care for.
I often ask me, What’s he there for?
The only answer I can find
Is, Reproduction of his kind.
If I’m supposed to swallow that,
Winnetka is my habitat.
Isn’t it time to carve Hic Jacet
Above that Reproduction racket?

To make the matter more succint:
Suppose my fellow man extinct.
Why, who would not approve the plan
Save possibly my fellow man?
Yet with a politician’s voice
He names himself as Nature’s choice.

The finest of the human race
Are bad in figure, worse in face.
Yet just because they have two legs
And come from storks instead of eggs
They count the spacious firmament
As something to be charged and sent.

Though man created cross-town traffic,
The Daily Mirror, News and Graphic,
The pastoral fight and fighting pastor,
And Queen Marie and Lady Astor,
He hails himself with drum and fife
And bullies lower forms of life.

Not that I think much depends
On how we treat our feathered friends,
Or hold the wrinkled elephant
A nobler creature than my aunt.
It’s simply that I’m sure I can
Get on without my fellow man.

~~ Ogden Nash ~~

_____________________________

“A people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never will, and never can, be.” — Thomas Jefferson

I almost used this as a closing remark to the rant/pearl in section one; it’s almost the right sentiment, but, didn’t quite hit the exact mark, so I’m using it here, as the opening remark for another old-school entry. Yes, it’s being a little bit lazy, but, I will reference my point above re: retirement, and the perks thereof, to wit: I don’t care if it’s lazy, it’s what I want to do, and you can’t stop me, at least, not without the risk of injury, to one or both of us…. Since neither of us is willing to see what happens in that case, let’s get on with this…. The primary search parameter for this pearl is “Risk analysis of using ignorance as a survival tool in modern society.” Or, something like that….

“Thank you, Señor MacGyver.”  “Don’t thank me, thank the gravitational pull of Earth’s moon.” — from The Simpsons

“Does history record any case where the majority was right?” — Robert Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“A “sucking chest wound” is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.” — Murphy’s Military Laws, #12

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.” — George Bernard Shaw

“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” — Eric Hoffer

Hmm…. how did that get there? Or, more accurately, how did we get here? This comes close to what I was looking for, but, something isn’t quite right…. we’ll go on, find two more that will shore up the weak side, and bring home the point we’re trying to make….

“I used to get high on life but lately I’ve built up a resistance.  — Steven Wright”

“From stupidity there is always something to be learned, but it’s always the same thing: don’t be stupid.” — Robert M. Adams

There… that should do it…. sometimes the thread that ties it all together is thin, and hard to see, but, it generally works out okay…. in the case of this pearl, the wisdom is inherently obvious, unless one regularly fails in the task implied in the final entry….  😆
_____________________________

Well, that was fun! I don’t know how it will look to others, but, it matters little now, because the road became the journey, and I feel centered…. Hmm… Murphy must be lurking about…. I’d best go proof while I can….. I was right, (write?…), Murphy was hanging about…. That took what seemed like forever to get all the spots I got lazy with my typing… comes from it coming out so fast and smooth, I guess, I had to sit for too long to keep up… Okay, no whining, I’m done now anyway…. and, I’m outta here…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

dozer3

Yet another display of consistently obscene pathology….

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Ffolkes,

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not one is willing to put up with the universe’s demands upon our time and energy, when deciding which of the many different types of cereal to have for breakfast. I mean, there’ the question of sugar versus aspertane; the question of rolled oats versus wheat or corn flakes, the  question of puffs versus flakes, or the whole concept of cut-up fruit, and other accessories to the breakfast experience. And, then, just when you’ve decided on one thing or another, they ask you whether you want home fries or hash browns with that!…..

Life is hard, isn’t it? Decisions await the application of our will around every corner, every hour of the day; we can never really get away from the need for making hard decisions in life. Trying to do so only causes further difficulties, as Murphy has an entire department of imps just waiting to help us make decisions in life that are guaranteed to drive us insane, by feeding us false, or erroneous data about what we have to decide, thereby ensuring we make the wrong decision, thus, affording him and his minions hours of free entertainment, as we gnash our teeth and wail out our complaints to an uncaring universe….

Me, I stick to coffee in the mornings, leaving the decision-making to other folks to enjoy. I refuse to give Murphy the opportunity for any more free shots at me than he already takes. If I want to eat, I stick to pastries, or other stuff that won’t cause a big mess in the kitchen. That room is too full of too many dangerous objects; knives with sharp edges, fire, heavy pots, scalding hot liquids…. No, thanks, I’ll pass on all that in the morning, in lieu of making weekly trips to the emergency room to deal with Murphy’s latest version of what he thinks is funny, which, naturally, frequently causes me to leak one kind of body fluid or another…. another image I probably could have skipped using…. SIGH…. Oh, well, I can’t be responsible for the state of people’s stomachs ALL the time…..

Hmm…. compared to what generally passes for an intro in the mornings around here, this is pretty mild, and actually somewhat engaging, if you have any interest at all in breakfast cereals…. If not exactly your cup of tea, well, we’re serving coffee, over there in the corner, where Murphy and the gang are, of course, taking advantage of my hospitality by hogging all the condiments; you’re free to join them, at your own risk, naturally. He’s already had his way with me today, so he’ll be glad of the company. Me, I’m going to go pearling, as if it were the most natural thing in the world…..

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

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
_____________________________

Poetry is sometimes so powerful, it only takes a few meager lines to impart an incredible amount of inspiration, wisdom, and beauty….. Emily was a master of this principle….

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


“We have art that we do not die of the truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
_____________________________

I’m still feeling a bit silly, so I’m going to give in to the impulse to let that out into the light of day, and go with another old school pearl, this one gathered with the idea of ‘smiling’ in mind…. Let’s see what SB has to say on the subject…..

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.” — Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844-1900)

“Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.” — Joseph Wood Krutch

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.” — Murphy’s Eighth Law

“OH, STOP YOUR WHINING!” — Smart Bee
(ref: Peruaosophy, Axiom #6, to wit: Axiom #2 X axiom #5 = And God so loved the world, He said, “Quit whining!”)

* Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO
* Many newspapers feature “JUMBLE”
* Hourly motel rates
* Vast majority of Elvis movies made here
* Didn’t just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention
* Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies
* Our well-behaved golf professionals
* Fabulous babes coast to coast

— David Letterman’s “Things we can be proud of as Americans”

“The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.  — Jane Wagner”

“A day without a laugh is a day wasted.” — E.E. Cummings
_____________________________

I love it when a plan, etc…… Due to time constraints imposed upon me by the BBR, (Big Blue Room, for those with memory impairment issues….), I had to sort of rush through this morning’s post… Sometimes that affects the quality, or, at least, the format that is employed in creating the pearl. Today, I think it went well, so, let’s see….

cute owlYes, yes, this pleases cute owl! Well, it pleases me, anyway, and that’s all that counts in the ultimate sense. Cute owl is only here as a hired consultant…. Now that I have demonstrably gone completely around the bend, I’ll leave you to treat your wounds in peace….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

dozer3