Thirteen metric tons of bio-hazardous waste? How droll….

Posted on September 11, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“If the life of natural things, millions of years old, does not seem sacred to us, then what can be sacred?” — Edward Abbey

I’m sorry, but, the woman just looks too clueless for this to be a real picture…. not to mention the rather frozen look in the dino’s eyes… though it DOES look to be frozen in delight, at what appears to be LUNCH!…. But, as I said, even taking the perspective into account, if the dino were real, she wouldn’t have been able to avoid SMELLING him, or, more accurately, its breath, as the carrion- and fresh-carcase- eating predator it was…. Whew, can you imagine the pungent stink attached to a huge creature’s mouth like that? Awesomely toxic, I would imagine, not to mention the mere presence of Eau de corpse, an odor that would make it hard to miss, for any creature with a half-way efficient nose…..

Oh, and, by the way, the quote from Ed Abbey? Brilliant, and, in many ways, if it is the only thing you take away with you from today’s post, you will not have been wasting your time…. Just sayin’, y’know? ….

So, where was I, before my silly parenthetical mind hopped over a couple of dimensions, to take up a totally different subject, than that with which we began? Oh, hell, it doesn’t matter, anyway; this will get all twisted around if I try to justify any of it. That happens every time I forget….. with the new Tardis, I may never actually know, precisely, or, with any degree of confidence at all, just when I am…. Not where, when…. I could be writing this last week, or next week, or, in a previous life; I most likely, will, or did, or plan to, or well, you see the problem, right?…. Since the advent of the powers of a Time Lord. I’m having to learn a completely new and different way to both talk, and write, not to even mention think….

So, since it no longer matter at all where we started, I’ll just go on…..

“What’s the metric unit of pain? The Angstrom.” — Smart Bee

It took me about 10 seconds, but, once I got it, I just about FOMCL, because IWLSHICLCOMMO, y’know? Get it? Pain? Angst(rom)? (*** See below for acronym definitions…) Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Classic, and priceless, this almost killed me…. it’s just so ME!….. On this scale, I live at approximately 12 Å, ( “Å”, naturally, is the symbol for angstroms, an actual scientific scale, though normally applied to measure the brightness of light on the electromagnetic scale that describes the rainbow of colors that make up the light we see….), on a scale of 27 Å as maximum (think massive tooth impaction/infection, or, childbirth…. either wodl hit around 27 Å…), with daily forays into the twenties….

Probably, I’m running an average daily rate of about, oh, right now, factoring in the arthritis flare-up the last few days… about 18-20 Å….. As I type, that’s about where we are, which is just at the upper limit of what I can control, and still be able to type without whimpering piteously, as is the case when it goes past twenty….

All that said, people may wonder why I still have to write this blog every day, or, why I have to say so much, if it hurts so badly…. Well, that, to me, is simple…. and, can be expressed by three pieces of graphic art, that just happen to be in my archived files…. I suppose you could say that the following three entries comprise a statement of purpose that is as close as I’ll ever come to making up a mission, or vision statement….. with one caveat, which merely says this:

I’ve lived with, and played with, pain, all of my life one way or another; it is not something I will ever allow to completely dominate my decisions about how to live, or what I am capable of doing. Pain may be my enemy, but, it is an enemy whom I have long held at bay, consistently battling it to a draw, throughout all the years of my life; I don’t intend to allow that to change at this late date…. Giving in & letting it control my life is unacceptable….

Onward….

When I am unsure of how to proceed in any given situation, I imagine my father standing behind me, observing me. If I hesitate, he will whisper a number in my ear, from this list of Rules he taught me, that tells me how to approach whatever it is that confronts me….

A Warrior of Light never gives in, and never gives up…. to do so not only would destroy all honor, but would nullify all our previous efforts…. This last graphic, below, from Albert, gives you the last piece of me, that keeps me writing this blog, taking pot-shots at the BRC and the Asinnnies, the true perpetrators of evil, just so I don’t have to place myself in the latter group, thus ensuring I can look myself in the eye each morning in the mirror…..

*** Acronyms from above:

“almost

FOMCL = Fell out of my chair laughing….

because,

IWLSHICLCOMMO = I was laughing so hard I completely lost control of my medulla oblongata….”

So be it…..

gigoid has spoken.

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

From January 29, 2013, as the intro to the intro:

At the age I’ve reached, one of the best lessons I learned, long ago, is/was the value of routine. Developing a routine of efficient activities to organize the start of the day is one of the most important tools one can find and use in the work-a-day world. It allows one to get to work on time, with everything in hand that is necessary to the day, and with mind and body prepared for the tasks ahead, without undue stress or worry.

When this routine is disrupted, it can affect the tenor of the entire remainder of the day, like ripples in a pond spreading out from the point of impact, or a mathematical error in computing an orbit, an infinitesimal flaw that grows bigger with each new computation, at an alarming rate, faster with each passing nanosecond…..

I’m starting to believe that even Murphy is not immune to the power of schedules and routines. When I was younger, and still going to work daily, if I observed the details of my routine with enough concentrated attention, he seemed to stand back and not bother with me, waiting for other times to step in with his decidedly infantile sense of humor. If he was very, very clever, he sometimes could affect a small part of the routine, and cause a bit of uproar, but generally, I’d get so focused on carrying it out, he couldn’t get me to pay any attention to him, so, off he’d go, to find someone more vulnerable…..

All of which means that there is a hidden power, involved in the acting out of routine behaviors, carried out time after time until they are ingrained, a power of organization and will, that, somehow, is able to resist the oppositional power of chaos that Murphy so adeptly subjects us to whenever he can….

**Note from 2014: the above is here to supplement yesterday’s recounting of Murphy’s latest escapade here at gigoid’s house, at gigoid’s expense… Sorry, do I still sound pissed off? I guess I do…. Ah, well, I’ll get it out right now… & be done with it all….

When Murphy got me yesterday, and, to give him his due, he got me good, I had fallen into the mental trap, whose reasons for existing at all are connected to my own thought patterns, and the exercise of my will used to control those patterns, of taking the power of routine for granted; I placed too much credence on its ability to keep Murphy occupied elsewhere, if my own state of mind was not focused enough for it to work…. THIS is why I got caught yesterday with my pants not down, but, in danger of bursting into flame, so to speak, and to mix metaphors horrendously…. In short, I was a complacently oblivious Bozo, this time to my dismay, not my pride, or even bemused acceptance…

That said, since I now know how to avoid any repetition of such events, we can move on for the day, content this section served at least one or two socially acceptable purposes to good effect…. I’m going to continue my campaign to keep things lighter, and shorter, by going directly into an old school pearl, filled with good thought, advice on living, and general, all-around good stuff, as we call it here, when we can’t think of any good words, and the thesaurus is buried somewhere…. Enjoy!

“The test of all happiness is gratitude.” — G.K. Chesterton

“Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“Curiosity may have killed the cat, but where human beings are concerned, the only thing a healthy curiosity can kill is ignorance.” — Smart Bee

“You are not thinking. You are merely being logical.” — Neils Bohr to Albert Einstein, during a debate on Quantum Mechanics

“Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue i, Line 136

“No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.” — Taoist Proverb

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England, Ch.10

Wow. That’s it. Just…. wow. Now, THAT is a great pearl….. a group of some of the finest gems in our language, presented and arranged for your sublime delectation, in a wonderful display of serendipity, as Smart Bee just laid them out, one after another, in less than three minutes…. Bonus!

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I’m in a mood…. what kind of mood is, at this point, undetermined; being human, however, I’m sure I’m in one. The sign are all there, and clear…. This means, if I do as I intended, and try to write a fresh poem, it would probably reflect that mood…. Quite simply, at this juncture, I don’t trust my mood enough to allow that to happen; the results could conceivably cause me to cease writing altogether, and then where would my sanity be?

Nowhere, that’s where…. So, I’ll go for someone else’s work, and be done with it, knowing my mood will direct whatever choice I end up making…. I just hope it doesn’t explode, which has happened in the past, to our chagrin, not to mention surprised shock and awe…. Well, whatever it may end up as, try to enjoy it, okay? I DO generally go with classic, so, that may help…. We’ll see, I suppose…. Wish me luck…. Ah, thanks, that worked; here’s one of my favorite all time poems, by my all time favorite poetess, which will do just fine….

A bird came down the walk

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 ~~

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

I promised I’d keep from ranting so often, and have decided that graphic art, from other sources, may be at least part of a solution… Here is one attempt to see if it works….. On the UK Guardian web site, they have a link to a complete series of stories around the original leaks by Edward Snowden, re: the illegal spying by the NSA, that is STILL FUCKING HAPPENING. Oops, was that too loud? Sorry, it continues to annoy me, as you can see, just a LITTLE FUCKING BIT… Any who, on that page at the Guardian.com, are links to this artist’s take on the issues, using her/his comic persona, Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin, to do so…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. this is bloody brilliant….

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Well, all thing considered, that went well…. which it very possibly may not have done, given the usual state of affairs here in the morning…. Today the new Time Lord powers helped quite a bit, so, I guess I’m getting a little further along the learning curve on that…. It will do, since this one, even shortened as it may be, exceeds the average by a good portion…. Whatever, right? I’ll be going now…. See y’all tomorrow, most likely…. The odds on that are looking good….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

Okay, but, who takes the hindmost?….

Posted on September 10, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.” — Wilson Mizner

Since there can be no doubt as to exactly WHEN this was taken, (as long as we can trust digital appliances not to lie to us….) allow me to just say, it is one of mine, shot a few days ago, in a relatively futile attempt to get one good shot of the Super Moon,which took place at the date and time on the picture, as calculated by scientists at the Naval Observatory, & reported on Space.com. I intended to go out earlier, to find a spot to get a really good one, but, Murphy had other plans for my evening, as it turned out….

Approximately a half-hour before the moonrise was calculated to take place, I grabbed my phone, my stick, and the bagged garbage & recycling, to take it outside, downstairs, to the bins, which, I would then take out to the curb, for pick-up the next morning. Since I was still in quite a bit of pain, with some stiffness, too, it took me a few minutes, as I was moving, and, apparently, thinking slowly….

When done, I walked back up the stairs, with some difficulty, only to find the back door had blown itself shut in the breeze, while still locked…. Naturally, I didn’t have my keys on me, so, there I was, outside, no key, tired, in pain, and about two minutes away from A) biting myself, or, preferably, and, much more likely, the nearest human being I could find, and/or B) requiring the immediate use of articles only to be found indoors…. No, not what you’re thinking, but, well, ’nuff said… I had reasons to need to get in long before anyone would be able to bring m the means to do so….

Needless to say, I was NOT happy, first, with my bozoid failure to unlock the door, the first time I opened it that morning, as I almost ALWAYS do; nor was I happy with my bozoid failure to realize it would blow shut while outside, even though I am the one who opened the other door, the windows, & turned on the fan, so the very breeze that shut the door would be blowing, to cool off the house…. In short, my own bozoid nature gave Murphy the perfect opportunity to BURY ME in stress, in the course of a few short moments, a window of time into which I strode boldly, with full confidence that everything was fine…. the frame of mind that bloody Irish asshole LOOKS for…. I imagine he had a hard time containing his glee when he saw me go outside….

Since I had only moments to figure out how to get back inside, (remember, I had very GOOD reasons to HAVE to get in….), I tried to call one of the handymen my landlord employs, whereupon, of course, I found one out to dinner, and the other not answering… So, I made the only decision my executive nature was capable of under that sort of stress, proceeding to use my multi-purpose stick to break in the damn window on the back door, thus creating a HUGE FUCKING MESS inside my house, ten feet out into the middle of the kitchen floor, now COVERED with tiny pieces of breakaway glass, thus, necessitating a complete cleaning of the kitchen, and laundry room, which is where the back door is situated….

So, yesterday morning, (or, today, as I write this…. remember, I have a Tardis….), as well as overnight, I was completely unable to use about a quarter of my house, as it was covered in glass I had no way to pick up…. I have to wait until I can ask someone to come over, bring a real broom, (which has somehow disappeared….), and help me clean up, as doing it right is well beyond my current capabilities….

Now, is there anyone out there with any more questions about WHY I hate Murphy, even more so than your average Bozo? I am completely depressed now, because, in one swell foop, he has put me in a hole it will take days to climb out of…. the only thing that is currently serendipitous, as far as I can see, is the fortunate arrival in the bank of my monthly SS allotment. At least I’ll have enough to pay for repairing all the damages incurred in this episode, and, be able to obtain enough cannabinoids to knock down some of the severe pain that has been haunting me the last couple of weeks….

Plus, as you see, it provided enough material to complete another introductory section, with the ease of long habit in reporting the machinations of our planet’s least appreciated, most reviled icon, Jester to the Courts of Chaos, The Murphy, Most Puissant Asshole Supreme, He Who Has No Peer, Nor Ever Shall (because no other force of nature will have anyfuckingthing to do with him….)….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”
“But that trick NEVER works!”
“This time fer sure!”

— Rocky & Bullwinkle, playing verbal ping-pong, with Metaphoric Balls, using Euphemystic Brand paddles, Hand-Crafted with ONLY the finest of Time Tested Cliches….

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

“Aim at the sun, any you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself.” — Joel Hawes

“Beginnings are such delicate times.” — Princess Irulan, from Dune, by Frank Herbert

Of late, the posts here at ECR have been, shall we say, epic in proportion. I know I talk a lot; a certain percentage of responsibility for that can be laid at the feet of my writing style. Spare, it is not…. (Though that sentence isn’t bad, in that respect…. but, you’ll note this parenthetical comment has added approximately 15-20 extra words. See how that works?….) SIGH….

‘Tis a conundrum, for much of my sense of humor requires the long build-up to the punch line so easily displayed by using the more formal approach I’ve chosen; I guess I’ve always loved a long, involved story that ends with a pun, or something so unexpected, the usual reaction is multiplied by the surprise factor….. (Now that I’ve pointed it out, the convoluted grammatical structure of my style seems to be part of the issue; a sentence such as the one previous to this could have been written in half the words…. See? It’s almost as if I can’t help it; it’s a sickness, I guess… Verbalitis maximus, or some such Latin perversion….)

Once, on a bus trip in high school, one of the other students told a story to the entire bus… He took about 30 or more minutes to tell the entire story, giving background, and describing the characters, dragging it out with repetitive actions by the characters that lent themselves to long, drawn out dialogue, and slow speech…. At the end of the 30 minutes, when the story wound around toward a resolution, the question being asked by the protagonist, which is the quest in the story, to find out WHY this person did something, is about to be answered… The entire bus was hanging on this student’s every word; even the driver was engrossed. At the crucial point, the father asks his son, who is dying, the question, “WHY, my son? Why did you…..?” The dying young man, struggling to speak, chokes out, “Dad, I did it because….”

Then he died…. The student telling the story, at the word, “because”, dropped his head, shut his eyes, and fell over, as if dead….

For about15 seconds, there wasn’t a word, not a sound, as everyone on the bus sat in complete shock…. Then, the entire bus erupted, with shouts of anger, groans of dismay (the loudest and largest number of responses were the groans….), and some actual animated growls directed at him, right before half the objects on the bus started flying in his general direction, as each victim grabbed the first item at hand & let fly, intending serious harm….

I’ve never, in my entire life, seen a joke better told, unless by a pro, such as George Carlin, or Bob Newhart, who loved that sort of joke… nor have I ever seen such a loud, universal reaction to a pun, up to this day…. It was, quite simply, the best joke I’ve ever heard, even though it isn’t even a joke, except on the audience listening to it…. Nor, for that matter, is it a particularly GOOD joke; stupidly thick is the best one can say about all the parties in the story…. The value is in the telling, with it a critical factor to have the audience on the edge of their seats at the crucial point in the story….

Y’all are probably wondering where I’m going with this, since I’ve wandered so far afield in my mind…. Easy…. I’m giving y’all a break from the usual sober, involved, ranting that is generally my choice for this section…. I figured out, reading my blog isn’t easy…. it takes time, involves no little amount of cogitation, (a habit many Americans don’t possess), all of which probably asks more of the reader than I am entitled to ask in a blog…. Most blogs out there are much shorter, in terms of content, unless they post less often…. But, not ME, no sirree, Bob, I must write and post about 2000- 4000 words EVERY DAMN DAY….. I suppose I’ve come to realize it may be a bit much to ask of ffolkes, even those who enjoy my writing…

So, this little personal reminiscence is to let y’all know, I will be attempting, to some degree at least, to shorten the Pearls of Virtual Wisdom, to make them a little more palatable, and easy to swallow…. Perhaps, this will bring a bit more traffic to the site, because, even though I don’t write for the purpose of increasing my readership, as much as I do to stay sane, to try to hold off the mental calcification that may tend to settle in with us as we get older, decreasing our awareness, our cognitive abilities, and, ultimately, shortening our lives, by removing the pleasure of using our minds the way they were designed to be used…. which is hard, and often….

So, here is a single pearl, hopefully as cogent as I can make it, to seal the deal…. I can’t promise to succeed at this, but, I’ll promise to try, so, hopefully, you’ll see some less bulky Pearls, and a bit more dialogue in the comments, from increased traffic…. If nothing else, I’ll know I’ve lived up to the following aphorism, from one of history’s most prolific, and most accurately insightful moralists… Even if I don’t succeed, this tells me it’s the right thing to do….

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

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

Today I will, once more, assume the ethical stance, to include a poem of mine in this section; you already know why…. This way, nobody else can catch any of the grief or blame for any of today’s missive…. Which, in at least one respect, makes it safer for me, as well; no fear of litigation is necessary…. Here is one written this year, in February, that fits in perfectly with the discussion in section one…..

Blithely Untitled

A poem came to me today, willy, nilly,
along with a sharp blow to the head.
Since it left me feeling just a bit silly,
anything that rhymes should lessen the dread.

Manifesting destiny into a small, insidious group
we push on toward sanity, concentrating hard.
Full engaging moments spent navigating the loop
shall ever make a difference to victims found in the yard.

Still corpses of creatures, straight out of nightmare
fill up the corners of our tortured minds.
While ever saddened, the iconic male, most debonair,
gazes softly, ironically, at all the mutual interest he finds.

Moronic public statutes compel outbreaks of sanity,
responding to momentary impulses toward inducing peace.
Still, the motions get completed, in fertile stages of inanity
while the bulk of our inmates can find no surcease.

Reluctant motivation to continue is unbound,
striving to ascertain how far there yet remains to go.
No precognitive guesswork will make any less of a sound
to soften the final strains, or teach us to truly know.

~~ gigoid ~~

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

In order to assuage my own needs and desires, as well as to subdue, or at minimum, sublimate my urge to rant, today’s section three will assume its typical format, of an old-school pearl, but, with specific parameters, set to find ideas, quotes, and/or poems to show our disdain for the Asininnies, and our anger at the shadowy corporate slavers who have held society in thrall for our entire written history….

“Search men’s governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 38

“Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.” — Lucan

“It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away.” — Kenich Ohmae, The Borderless World

“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.” — Fran Lebowitz

(The above, on food, should be tattooed on the forehead of every one of the 455 men & women in Congress, the White House, and sitting on the SCOTUS; it’s something they tend to ignore, or forget, especially when forced to think about the ‘little people’….)

“People come o Washington believing it is the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that’s not connected to an engine.” — Richard Goodwin

“Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.” — Francis, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) — Maxims, Head

“And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.” — H.L. Mencken

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Well, there you go…. a reasonably fresh Pearl of Virtual Wisdom, (Required disclaimer: These are ‘virtual’ wisdom; any attempt to use them as real wisdom is the responsibility of the Gentle Reader; the author takes no part in that, for damn good reason….) with only the intro section written prior to this morning’s effort, and it needed to be edited, so, it’s all pretty up-to-date…. Not that freshness will make it taste better, but, hey, with Pearls, you never know…. time improves some of them, others are gems from the start, and, sadly, some cannot be saved by any power known to Mankind…. so be it. gigoid has spoken….

For today, it’s done, which will allow me to go on into the day with no lingering dross or drivel left in my head, just the way I like it…. I’ll need it today, as I go forth to contend with the bureaucratic forces of government…. with a buffering shield of drug-induced emotional space, in lieu of a force-field, (still can’t find one on the open market….), but, still, my hands and ears will require serious cleansing later on…. See ya tomorrow, ffolkes….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Paltry remnants of boldly patterned briefs….

Posted on September 8, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“I was not born for one corner. The whole world is my native land.”

~~ Seneca ~~

I obtained today’s picture on Space.com, from an article reporting the latest information regarding our universe, as compiled by astrophysicists working on mapping what we are able to see with the current technology, including the Hubble Deep Space telescope in orbit around the Earth. The red dot you see in the picture represents the Milky Way Galaxy, a part of a group of galaxies known as the Local Group, consisting of many thousands of CLUSTERS of galaxies, that are the closest to ours…. The rest of the picture is an artist’s view of how the rest of the universe is arranged, and each of the tiny little dots you see are galaxies, or galactic clusters, each one with millions of stars of their own….

Whew! Makes one get a feeling for the perspective of the BIG picture, and, the relative microscopic size of just our galaxy, in which our star, Sol, is but one of hundreds of millions of other stars, a great many larger, and brighter than our own…. We, as humans on the face of this planet, around that star, are, in comparison, many times smaller than viruses seem to be here on Earth… so small, we would rival molecules for tininess…. I mean, in relation to the whole universe, our mere existence, our oh-so-powerful civilization, and all its works, is but a nanosecond’s worth of a blink in history, and, just an insignificant afterthought to the apparently infinite nature of time, and space….

Kinda gets ya, right here, doesn’t it? I know it makes me get a grip, whenever I start to feel like I’m some sort of hot shit… I can only wish that more people, all of whom happen to….. wear blue suits, white shirts, red ties, a flag pin, spend too much time indoors, worry incessantly about their “image”, and make entirely too much money for doing not very much…. well, I wish they would have the same sort of reaction as I do, when confronted with such undeniable evidence of our insignificance in the Real World, and how “entitled” we should feel to call ourselves the “Lords of Creation”, when we are far less important in the scheme of things than we would like to be, and so far less than we THINK we are, it is silly to contemplate at all….

Maybe, just maybe, if they could cram their egos in a smaller container, and get rid of some of that smarmy sense of their own infallibility, they’d start to have a bit more care about how they act, and think…. Of course, history, even our very short one, has already given me ample evidence that no such thing will happen, nor will anyone to whom I refer ever respond to such information with anything other than instant, intractable denial…. Count on it….

Oops…. did it again, didn’t I? Turned a nice, simple picture, and a short lesson on astronomy, into a mini-rant, once again flipping the intro section ass over tea kettle, and causing the Gentle Reader to, no doubt, reach for the aspirin bottle…. Honest, when I started, I had no intention of firing off those shots; they just sort of went off on their own, before I even noticed what my fingers were doing…. That can happen this early in the morning, especially when it is the afternoon before….

If you caught that, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din…. Not really, but, you do have a sharp eye, and a ready mind, which is somewhat gratifying. It means that someone is reading who has been here before, and knows enough to keep their wits about them…. I would, however, appreciate it if you didn’t pull my covers, as it is one of my best new devices, a direct result of the Time Lord training I received when I got my Tardis, and, I still haven’t even finished opening the rest of the new stuff they sent…. So, just chuckle softly to yourself, and let us get on down the road to the next item, which could, conceivably change the course of that history we are so familiar with, into a new, and better time-line…. if we get lucky, I’d say….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“HEY! There IS something more important than money…..it’s called breathing.” — Smart Bee

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

I had some time on my hands, but, wasn’t feeling strong enough to kill it quickly well enough to go surf, so, I did my dance with Smart Bee, getting lucky enough to come up with the following seven-star pearl, which hands out some damn fine advice, as well as some solidly useful thoughts on how to live, so well, so powerfully free, even Death weeps when you are done with Life….

” … you see, God — whatever anyone chooses to call God — is one’s highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It’s a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.” — Kira Argounova

“All people smile in the same language.” — Smart Bee

“One who is to enjoy the purity of both body and mind walks the path to enlightenment, breaking the net of selfish, impure thoughts and evil desires. He who is calm in mind acquires peacefulness and thus is able to cultivate his mind day and night with more diligence.” — Buddha (B.C. 568-488)

“Life is best done awake.” — Smart Bee

“Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.” — Buddha

“Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.” — Robert Cody

“It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.” — Mark Twain

Though the concept it expresses is true as the day, I am compelled to comment after the last quote; can’t help myself sometimes…. Mark Twain, aka Sammie the C, definitely had a talent for the turn of a phrase, and, I’ve see him given credit for this one many times…. while every time, smiling and chuckling to myself, because I’ve also noted that this quote is a shameless paraphrasing of a quote by Plutarch…. and, Aristotle…. and, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, also had a word on this, that was very similar to the others…. but, then, Mark T was pretty shameless about all of his plagiarisms, usually recounting them in the preface, or in the introductions to his works….

Since all of them are men, it was probably Sappho, a woman poet, who pre-dated ALL of these men, who originally made the observation on the nature of honor, and humility…. That would be typical, and consistent with how men have treated women since the dawn of time…. even going so far, when making up the myths of creation so many of them seem to hold so dear, regarding that old saw about the Garden, and God, Adam, and, Eve, the poor fall guy, who had to take the rap, even though she was set up by God, and snitched out by Adam….

I find it telling, and typical, that the woman, representing ALL women, is made into the villain of the story, the one with the weak will, and the lack of honor…. when, to my way of thinking, (which I’ve thought since the age of four, after first hearing the story….) God was the one at fault, for setting up the system so both Eve, and Adam, had no other options, but to fail…. and, in the process, serving Eve up, as the one to bear the guilt of “original sin”…. Plus, you will note, please…. The very term, “original sin” is agreed to refer to taking a bite from the fruit of the tree of knowledge…. in other words, for thinking independently…. This is the concept, and the reality, religion tries to eliminate from the people who follow their line of reasoning…

And, that, too, is pretty telling, isn’t it? Things haven’t changed much since then, as far as I can see…. The churches don’t want us to think, so that the government can lie to us more easily, to convince us they are telling us the truth, when they actually are merely carrying on the traditions present in our culture from the inception of the whole idea of a supernatural power as being responsible for all that is real, a scam, to control the general public, with threats of hell, and promises of heaven, in the next life, if only they will submit to giving up their free will… Quite a bargain, you would think….. unless, of course, one actually knows how to think….

Just sayin’…..

gigoid has spoken…. so be it…..

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

It is well known that I’m a wimp; since my PTSD reached a point where, mostly, it is under my control, the only real symptom I experience is that of bursting into tears at the slightest provocation…. Hallmark commercials, little kids hugging, or hugs of any kind, or any sort of emotionally touching issue will bring me to tears, without any say in whether or not I WISH to cry right then…. Whenever my old dog, Noah, comes to mind is one of those occasions, so I try to avoid stepping into such situations….

I had forgotten this poem, which, upon stumbling across it while looking for a specific piece of Pope’s Essay on Man, brought me instantly to the point of weeping…. and, has kept me weeping for this entire paragraph, in spite of not having anything wrong, with me, or with the universe at large…. SIGH…. I don’t mind being a romantic, but, sometimes, I wish I wasn’t such a wimp about it…. It IS a great poem, though, so, please, don’t mind all the salty water on the screen, (try not to weep yourself, at the last line, I DARE you!….) and, enjoy!….

Argus

When wise Ulysses, from his native coast
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss’d,
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,
To all his friends, and ev’n his Queen unknown,
Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrow’d his rev’rend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forc’d to ask his bread,
Scorn’d by those slaves his former bounty fed,
Forgot of all his own domestic crew,
The faithful Dog alone his rightful master knew!

Unfed, unhous’d, neglected, on the clay
Like an old servant now cashier’d, he lay;
Touch’d with resentment of ungrateful man,
And longing to behold his ancient lord again.
Him when he saw he rose, and crawl’d to meet,
(‘Twas all he could) and fawn’d and kiss’d his feet,
Seiz’d with dumb joy; then falling by his side,
Own’d his returning lord, look’d up, and died!

~~ Alexander Pope ~~

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I came across the following pearl, from 2011, not long after beginning to post on WordPress…. In those days, what you see below was an entire Pearl, but, today, with our new, improved format, it is an acceptable pearl for one section…. You should thank me for this…. it’s pretty funny, in spots, and, bonus, it ISN’T a rant….

😉

From 8/30/2011:

Ffolkes,

It may be harsh, but it must be said….Ben Franklin was a sanctimonious ass, and I mean that in its’ basest, most derogatory sense. Who else but an ass would say things like “Early to bed and early to rise, make a man, etc….” or “The early bird gets the worm”? As one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Bob Heinlein, said, approximately, “…. all the aphorism about the worm proves is that the worm should have stayed in bed.” And, early to bed, etc., is fine for those who fall asleep instantly, from having the benefit of no worldly problems, (or, like our friend Ben, no conscience…. Have you ever read about his love life?…. By what I could tell, from what I read, he was, quite simply, a lout, and a cur…. and, that’s being nice….); those who, once asleep, are able to remain asleep throughout the night, probably due to having no imagination, to speak of….

I’m 60 years old, and I can’t remember the last time I could count on falling asleep easily, without first consuming a significant amount of my adult beverage of choice, or, staying asleep for more than a couple of hours, before some one of several available physical prompts has me up and heading off to the bathroom, or just laying in bed, aching, wondering how long it will be until morning. As far as I’m concerned, Poor Richard can take his little Almanac, and his advice, and place them forcibly in one of his orifices, preferably, one where the sun don’t shine….. just as it is NOT shining, here in my little hole, at 0530, as I sit to compose this, having once more awakened at 0515 for no apparent reason.

Wise man, my dying ass…..

I dove for these Pearls yesterday as I was in the throes of extra-pyramidal side effects, due entirely to the asinine ordering requirements dictated by Kaiser Permanente for dealing with a controlled drug, an opiate. Thanks to those obscene regulations, I have spent much of the last three days with dyskinesia, malaise, and an intermittent, splitting headache, just for good measure.

In case you are not a former PT, dyskinesia is that condition of muscular and nervous agitation that makes one’s muscles twitch and dance, constantly, combined with a feeling of restless dread, and diffuse anxiety, that makes the nerves hum like a redneck with a kazoo. Add in the headache, (of the ilk that blurs the vision, causing strong men to whimper, piteously), and, well, you can imagine how difficult it is, to not only refrain from biting myself, but to refrain from biting anyone who crosses my path.

All this, of course, is then complicated by trying to deal with people who have become bureaucrats, who have no conception of anything outside their own little sphere of inattention, and whose sole purpose is to keep anything from getting done. It’s enough to give one visions of mayhem and violent death for all bureaucrats, preferably by my own hand.

(Note from 2014; This is still true for me…. Does anyone else get mental images of the Russian revolution, as a film noir battle scene, in full color, though, filmed in Red Square showing huge mobs of starving peasants with scythes, Molotov cocktails, and rocks, attacking Imperial police, or in front of one of the Russian Imperial palaces, lit up by flames, with aristocrats screaming, smoke everywhere, explosions…. all playing in your(my) head, whenever they use the word “bureaucrat”? Is it just me who visualizes themselves as if in that movie, with a machine gun, firing away at a huddling, terrified group of clerks at a local federal office, or do others NOT get this kind of response, just thinking about those stultified cretins? Just wondered….)

Sorry about the above rant……well, actually, I’m not. I could actually care less right now what anyone thinks, about anything. Nonetheless, I do think that the following Pearls will strike some good chords in many folks, and even more in those ffolkes who are familiar with this process, and how it provides some fine rules for life, or at least for looking at life in a different way. Regardless, they are what they are, and I hope you enjoy them…..much as I can hope anything at all……

“I sometimes think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a, star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face and a gray dawn breaking.

— John Masefield, Sea Fever, first stanza.

Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore to this Day. — Sanskrit proverb (I like this one a lot; it covers a lot of bases….)

“It’s not denial. I’m just very selective about what I accept as reality.” — Calvin (“Calvin and Hobbes”) (Calvin is actually a sociopathic idiot, but Hobbes, I firmly believe, will someday be considered one of the 20th and 21st centuries’ most cogent philosophers….)

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death….Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967), “Selected Papers”

“So live that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell.” — Smart Bee

Well, there you have it. That’s the best I can do, under the circumstances that currently prevail. My greatest desire just now is that tomorrow will be different, if only I can survive until then without committing any acts that would land me in jail. Wish me luck…..and, y’all take care out there……

Again from the future…. Not too bad, eh? It showed some promise, which I’ve since seen evolve into something I can be happy with…. I’m still around to create them, so, I guess that makes it all worthwhile…. For me, anyway, and, hopefully, for y’all, too….

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

It’s probably a good thing I got up late today; indeed, it’s just as well today’s Pearl was mostly done by last night, with only a poem to find today to finish up…. I say that because it’s true…. but, if I got into the reasons for it, it would be both TMI, and ill-conceived egotism, so, we’ll just leave it at that, and y’all can consider yourselves fortunate….

Besides, I’m done for the day now, so I can go on to my next task, to wit: surviving one day, until my portion of the dole, which I set aside for my golden years, arrives at my bank, from wherever our Beloved Ruling Class keeps the money they are “protecting” for us…. It’s also too late to start ranting, so, I’ll just say, “see y’all tomorrow, ffolkes”, & make my way to the door, with a big smile on my face…. Okay, so, it’s a grimace…. grimace fits better, anyway, right now….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Sans beau, there is no coup….

Posted on September 7, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“A bird can fly, but a fly can’t bird.” — Tao of Pooh.

It occurred to me, yesterday, as I sat in my chair, looking at this picture (which I’ll explain below, momentarily…), most people don’t really believe that horses, or other “lower” animals, feel the emotions with which we humans are so familiar, which cause us so much grief, due to the failure of most people to understand their place in our existence, other than as a stimulus to either act, or not act… In short, they don’t believe that animals are smart enough, or complex enough to feel love, or affection, or grief, or loyalty, or any of those higher emotions they prize, yet do not comprehend at all…. and, they couldn’t be more mistaken, at all….

Pictures such as this one are but a small, yet consistently convincing piece of the evidence available to the contrary of most people’s opinion of animals, evidence which inarguably proves, not only do animals experience emotions; moreover, they also think, with a variable degree of imagination, at a level consonant with the needs of the evolutionary niche they inhabit. They also, as we do, have feelings about those thoughts, and show those feelings just as we do, but, with way less less drama, and, no apparent need to be cruel….. Well, maybe a little, in cats, when they play with captured prey…. Mostly, though, animals express only harmonious emotions, in support of each other, and, even tolerance, for other species…. far more than we show them, or each other…

Additionally, by my assertion of their emotional and cognitive functionality, I am implying, no, claiming, they are only as smart as they need to be, without being so smart, it becomes a barrier to the actual development of their nature, to reach the potential that is there, and almost never reached in the members of our own species…. In other words, people are too damn smart for their own good; rather than being an aid to survival, and advancement as a species, their vaunted intelligence often gets in the way of their ultimate success in life, in ways the greatest majority of them do not even understand, and which, from what I observe, very likely will prove their undoing, thus, ultimately preventing them from accomplishing their most critical life task, to wit: survival of the species….

The picture of the affectionate Clydesdales is one of many I’ve saved, from the weekly feature at the London Daily Telegraph, which they call Animal Pictures of the Week; this particular photo was saved quite a while ago, long enough I don’t remember what week it was, but, it was earlier this year, for sure…. Any who, to finish my thought(s)… Most people think that humans are the apex of the evolutionary ladder, merely because we are self-aware, and have a sense of that self over time… but, this demonstrates that most people just don’t understand the full concept behind evolution…

Unlike how most people tend to view evolution, it isn’t a ladder, unless one thinks of each species having its own ladder, that each member must climb… If one MUST use the tired metaphor of a ladder, then, I assert each species has its own, and, no matter how high up our species has actually climbed our own ladder, it doesn’t mean we have climbed higher, than any other species on theirs….

In fact, when one considers how well other species have adapted to this planet, how effortlessly they hold their place in the WEB of life, it becomes clear those species….. dogs, cats, cattle, ants, cockroaches, (especially these amazing critters; after 50 million years of thriving, without having to mutate at all, or alter anything about their form or abilities, they should be considered the absolute Masters of survival as a species…. Yeah, I know, creepy little buggers, but, fast, fertile, and tough as hell….), spiders, insects, and birds and reptiles, all on their own branches of the web….. well, if one looks at the Big Picture, it is only honest to admit, all of them are, in truth, much more advanced, and more efficient at surviving, than is Homo Bozoidus, (a word I coined, to very accurately give a mental image of the real evolutionary status of humans, in relation to other forms of life on this planet, as well as, perhaps, explaining a part of why we fail, so well, and so often, at becoming ourselves….).

“Give them an opposable thumb, and they think they’re special.” — Smart Bee

You see, the structure of Life more accurately resembles Reality when described by envisioning, not a hierarchy of species, arranged in a pyramid, with humans at the apex, as many people choose to see it…. but, rather, as a complex, beautiful spider’s web, (with no gravity, meaning there is no up and down, no one higher, or lower…. we’re all just in our own space…. with the choice as to whether or not to stay connected to the rest of the web…), a web shaped the same as any web on Earth, but, rotated through three dimensions, to form a sphere as big as the Universe, with each species of life inhabiting its own particular branch or segment (their strand, if you will….) of that web.

Each species has the same task as all the rest, the same inherent purpose, which is create and add our own part of the whole, one that will help to make the entire web stronger, melding the beauty of their weaving with the overall pattern of the entire sphere of life, working in harmony with all the other web dwellers…. Our purpose can not logically be found to be a matter of wasting our time and effort in life, by trying to take over the center, or steal another’s strand, or to indiscriminately kill the other inhabitants, who are peacefully living alongside us, going about their business in harmony with each other…..

Now, I’m not a religious man, as you know; I do, however, realize, as any educated man, that religions, of all types, use at least a small part of the truth to augment, and help justify the more delusional aspects of their beliefs… Jesus Christ was, in the most basic sense, a compassionate and brilliant socialist reformer, who used the methods he did to try to get the most important messages of his understanding established as part of the culture of his time… and part of his message was indeed, a large piece of the truth…

The idea that we, and all other forms of life, are one, and can only be successful if we act in harmony with the forces of nature, was not new, but, after he was killed to shut him up, this one concept was one of the first ideas to be buried; it wasn’t convenient for the Catholic Church’s founder’s plan, so, as with much of what Jesus actually taught, the final version of his churches in no way resembles what he probably, logically said…

For our purpose, it is enough to know that the concept of living in harmony with the other creatures on the planet was an integral part of his teaching…. NOT the concept of being the superior, entitled master of all creatures, but, in the truest sense of the words, their cohort, their compadre, one who cherishes and husbands life, not one who uses and destroys it….

In today’s world, very, very few people actually LIVE according to the precepts of behavior and understanding that Jesus laid down for his disciples and adherents to follow; of those who are high in the hierarchy of priesthood on this planet, or ever have been, in my experience, it is rare to see one come close to living as Jesus instructed….. One exception to this experience was/is Martin Luther King, Jr….

All in all, I thought he was a pretty wise man, very much like the current Dalai Lama, (and, possibly, the new Pope; don’t really know enough about him, but, he seems sincere thus far, in his intent to live a Christian life…); Reverend King, Jr., though, seems to have a bit of Bible Belt Revival Rapture type of preaching as part of his persona, just for balance to his sobriety…. Any who, Martin Luther made a very cogent, deeply insightful statement that I’ve always liked, because it isn’t particularly locked into a purely Christian view of the universe, but, is pertinent to all of mankind’s diverse cultures… to wit:

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”” — Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a way, this is almost identical to a thought I’ve seen many times, uttered by the leader of a much different religion/philosophy than Christianity, to wit:

Since I have spoken so long on this subject in the introduction, I’ll try to count it as today’s rant, so I don’t go overboard, again… though, to be honest, I can see how I might already have done so…. I have been KNOWN to rant here in the intro before, but, not generally to the extent of today’s outburst, (which, I have to say, came to me pretty much out of nowhere, yesterday, when the picture of the horses flashed on my screen, as part of my ever-changing desktop background….). I will honestly give it the old college try, but, as you know, it’s hard for me to promise, or give any guarantees, because, I have trained myself, in the last three years, to NOT keep my self from speaking(writing) whatever comes into my head, even when I’m not pearling….

Now, let’s see if I can come close to meeting my commitment, by heading out to dive for pearls of virtual wisdom, just as if I hadn’t spent the last hour and a half, yesterday, spewing out my usual dross about human nature, and its so obviously flawed beauty….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s — “Time Enough For Love”

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

I said I wouldn’t rant…. So, naturally, this article is the very first one I see when I go to read the news yesterday; my crap detectors went off with a vengeance, damn near drowning out the full orchestra currently streaming on the computer; good thing I was done with my coffee, or I’d have had it all over my keyboard…Sheesh…. I WILL TRY make this short, before hitting SB for a pearl of pearls to say what would otherwise be a rant, of major proportion… But, I’ll keep my word, and limit myself to a comment, or two, after the link, then go straight into Smart Bee for a five, or seven-star pearl to make my point(s)…. See, I can be good…. or, at least, live up to my claim of honesty….

http://blog.sfgate.com/bottomline/2014/09/05/the-fed-yes-income-inequality-is-as-bad-you-thought/?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech

What more proof could anyone possibly need? I rant, and rave, and provide evidence, or links to evidence, then, spend copious piles of time, trying to explain how it is being done, right in front of us, and still, not enough people even realize what is happening in the world, because they walk around with their noses, upon which their entire attention is attached like a leech, pointing down at the ground, or up in the air…. anywhere but straight ahead, where they would be forced to pay attention to how they are being screwed around, without any excuse to NOT acknowledge what IDIOTS they are, and always have been…. or, if not, they’re all giving a damn good impression….

Okay, that’s all from me… if I haven’t made it obvious by now, I’m not going to do so at this late date…. Here are the pearls I found, so, please, enjoy, and if you wish, pass the word; maybe it will spread just a little beyond this blog, and a few others I’ve seen…. We need to kick a righteous portion of Asininny Ass, and we need to do it soon…

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice
I think I must take up with avarice.

— Lord Byron (1788-1824) —

Don Juan, Canto i, Stanza 216

“Annoy a Republican: Remind them of the Reagan/Bush record.” — Smart Bee

“A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.” — Calvin

“Today the taxing power, rather than chattel slavery, is the instrument by which the parasitic element of the population subsists. And that element, which includes politicians, panics at the slightest reduction in the state’s power to plunder. Once you start liberating taxpayers, even a little tiny bit, nobody knows where it may end.” — Joseph Sobran

“America is a country that can choke on a gnat, or swallow tigers.” — Adlai E. Stevenson

“It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.” — George Bush, US President

“Every child born in America can hope to grow up to enjoy tax loopholes.” — Smart Bee

You may note that the pearls for this section were formatted to the center; this is because, they all are about Asininnies, of one type or another, so, no matter how I placed them in relation to each other, the character of their subject showed through, whereupon they refused to line up so they looked right, ignored instructions, kept up a huge uproar, talking all at once, because they wouldn’t wait for each other to speak; it was a mess, and the flow of ideas was stunted thereby…. After centering, making sense of what the Asininnies are, or what they say, or do, makes no more actual sense, but, it looks better, and the ideas aren’t slapping each other in the face, or rudely jostling for position….

SIGH…. That’s just like greedy, cruel, stupid people, such as those who end up as Asininnies, especially the rich ones, to make even this sort of process uncomfortable for everyone, because they think they’re better than everyone else…. And, if they weren’t assholes and jerks to begin with, the process of becoming an Asininny will always complete the process…. count on that…. I’ve begun to think USA now stands for United States of Asininity….

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

Today’s Pearl was, for the major part, completed yesterday; that may be why it ended up so damn long, as I had time to go back & add stuff as it occurred to me throughout the day… Since it did, though, you’ll need something nourishing to the brain to get through it all…. So, I went for a two-fer of most excellent poems, that are small, but, tasty, & high in protein content. If you know me at all, you’ll know who they’re from….. who else?….

A Wounded Deer—leaps highest—
I’ve heard the Hunter tell—
‘Tis but the Ecstasy of death—
And then the Brake is still!

The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “you’re hurt” exclaim!

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions, was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

I am unaware of what kind of pain Emily may have had, or how she came to write about the subject as often as she did. I CAN tell you this; she knows her pain, and, it isn’t just a cute little pain, that comes and goes; it’s a big nasty one, that comes to stay, for as long as it can get away with…. So, I appreciate her words on the subject, as they parallel my own experiences with it…. That, to me, always seems to make them more of a balm to my oft-tortured spirit…. Now, if I can manage to get rid of the self-inflicted sorts of pain, I’d be good to go….

😉

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

“Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth. When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.” — Tacitus

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Huge-Urban-Shield-law-enforcement-trade-show-5737076.php

In order to y’all a little compassion, I won’t start ranting on this…. Instead, I’ll let it speak for itself… I’ve put three excerpts from the article below…. The first is a statement of why the protesters present were concerned about the implications of the law and emergency crew ONLY trade show for the public. The second is a very telling comment from one of the attendees, a high ranking police official in SF….. The third, and most telling piece of evidence, is a piece of pertinent information, that, by it’s mere presence, puts the lie to the entire slew of justifications offered by the official rationale, given by the organizers of the show, which just HAPPENS to be the Sheriff’s Department of the county in which Oakland is situated….

Enough… the last line is the whole point…. and, guarantees that, whatever you hear, from the police, the government, or, the media itself, it’s not the truth…. The truth is, the police forces in this country, just like the government, is, and, has been for a long time, under the control and protection of the corporate interests who actually run the show in this planet, determining the laws written, the candidates elected, and the despots maintained, everywhere in the world….

The shadowy slave masters, from their hidden conclaves around the world, completely unknown to the general public, who control 98 to 99% of ALL the resources in the world, WANT the public to be afraid, and they WANT the police, and the armed forces, to be the ONLY ones with guns, or any means of using force to try to keep, or acquire, ANY rights they don’t want the populace to have…. Believe it, ffolkes, because the evidence is all around us, and, in this particular instance, right in our faces….

Again, note the last line, left in the article as an afterthought, yet, indicative of the opinion held by those in power, one all-too-true, that we, the people, are powerless to stop them, or to make them change anything from the way it has been for the last 5000 or more years….

Excerpted quotes:

“The history of the militarization of police is that it leads to oppression of poor and minority people, and that’s what we will see more of if this goes unchecked,” said Ali Issa of the War Resisters League. “Our message is, we don’t want Oakland to be a testing ground for war games.”

“Paul Miyamoto, assistant sheriff in San Francisco, said the chance to drill with hundreds of other agencies is invaluable, and far outweighs any concerns over militarization.”

“The $1 million cost of the four-day event is funded by the federal Department of Homeland Security.”

As to that last excerpt…… Oh, really?….. !!!!! I believe my point, and my assertions, about being lied to, have just been verified as truth…. I’d add Q.E.D., but, only a few ffolkes would get it…

Hmm… I suppose an “Oops” is in order now; above, I said I’d be compassionate, & not rant….. whereupon, I proceeded to throw that good intention clean out the window, hitting full-on ranting mode within a half-sentence of actually uttering those words…. All I can say is, this is one that really gets me, because of the deliberate nature of the choices made by the asininnies to whom I refer, in order to achieve their own selfish ends, at the expense of everyone else alive…. To me, that is sheer evil, plain and simple…. an idea hard to digest, I am sure…. It isn’t easy to acknowledge one’s own powerlessness in the face of such evil, and the hold it has on our culture, but, it is necessary to face our fears before we can conquer them…

To aid the process of absorption, here is the five-star pearl originally promised, with typically appropriate brackets by Smart Bee, that may, or may not, help the point come across more clearly…. but, it’ll definitely be more fun than ranting, which leaves me washed out and filthy, from the grimy, slimy, smarm-filled vileness of the subject matter, to wit, Asininnies…… I think I’ll go take a shower, & wash up…..

“An optimist — Someone who hasn’t been given all the facts yet.” — Smart Bee

“We expect them [Salvadoran officials] to work toward the elimination of human rights–the elimination of human rights in accordance with the pursuit of Justice.” — Vice President Dan Quayle, 2/3/89 — (reported in The Chicago Tribune, 2/4/89)

VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, ’cause if they couldn’t, they’d have to wake up to the fact that life’s one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot — and the only reason THEY can’t seem to keep up is they’re a bunch of misfits and losers.” — A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from “The Badger” comic

“It takes 17 muscles to smile, 43 muscles to frown and only 3 to raise your middle finger!!!” — Smart Bee

As for the last thought, it only seems right, to me…. One may perform the last, then, the first, and still not be as tired as if they hadn’t, and felt bad for missing their opportunity, thus stimulating the second exercise….. which probably explains where the phrase, “an exercise in futility”, originally came from, from a time when somebody was trying describe their experience attempting to cope with asininnies, and the like….

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

Well…. sorry ’bout that, ffolkes…. I seem to have lost all sense of proportion when it comes to my rants…. But, it’s all fresh stuff, and needed to come out, so it didn’t rot where it sat, there in my head…. To be truthful, if it does sit there too long, the resulting stench, and my reaction to that, can, in its own way, be mildly entertaining…. BUT…. and this is a big BUTT, the aftershocks from THAT have been known to cause side effects that, in the past, have contributed significantly to global warming, and, in extreme cases, has been known to put entire regional police forces on red alert status, just from the vibes….

Okay, sorry, had to indulge in some last-minute fantasy…. sure felt good, after all that ranting above…. Hopefully, by tomorrow, I’ll have re-learned a bit of restraint, and will manage to write fewer than 4000+ words…. I suppose we’ll have to see what happens, eh? For the nonce, (I LOVE that word, and phrase!….), I’ll take my leave, & head out into the day, to see what kind of damage I can cause out there to some unsuspecting bureaucrat’s day…. Ta then, ffolkes, I’ll see you mañana, if they don’t catch me before then….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Dorothy, this is DEFINITELY not Kansas!….

Posted on August 29, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed;

but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.”

~~ G. K. Chesterton ~~

— Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox —

It is said that one can find anything, anything at all in Portobello Road, and, if the hour or so I spent wandering there on my stay in London can be considered as typical, I’m inclined to believe it to be true. The photo above, which I took when I was there, shows just one small alleyway market, off the side of the road’s main thoroughfare which, though a street only 20 feet wide from curb to curb, was jammed with market stalls holding what appeared to be every variety of movable commerce known to Mankind…. There was, of course, a lot of modern crap, repeatedly, if not rudely offered by many vendors, but, there were also great deals on antiques, rare books, stamps, and thousands of, well, anything anyone wants….

Now, if you were to ask me why I picked this particular picture this morning, I doubt I could tell you, since I didn’t. Pick it this morning, that is…. I picked it out yesterday, as has been my wont of late…. Now, five minutes after cutting & pasting it in, I no longer remember, and will have even less clue tomorrow morning, when this is actually being written, using notes made by the Time Lord software, about what will, or even what is supposed to happen then…. which takes me even further from knowing anything about WHY this picture is so perfect… but, it is, so, I’m not going to worry about it, or we may never get out of the intro section…

Not that we ever had a real chance to do anything about that; since introducing the rather special and appealing side effects of using the powers of a Time Lord, a number of contradictory, yet, unfathomable patterns of the apparent rules by which the Universe operates have shown themselves to have been altered to a very small, but significant degree… This wouldn’t be any cause for alarm, if it weren’t this particular set of rules…. These are those rules that all of us depend on, like, the sky is blue, and one moment follows the next; you know, the basic structure of the Universe rules….

Anyway, they’ve been changed…. just a little, but, now we can no longer depend on this moment being anchored where it is in Time; it could break loose at any moment, and end up sending us a millennium into the past…. or, it could dump us three days into the future, with events already happening about which we have no clue, with no chance to ever find out what happened…. It could get a bit ugly, if the BRC happens to notice; it may take a while, as they are usually pretty well focused on their own bullshit, but, it’s bound to come to their attention, when nobody is paying any attention to them while watching the incredible light shows that always accompany such alterations to the fabric of space and time….

There…. I see it only took four paragraphs of almost pure blather to set the proper tone for today’s missive; this is good, as it’s relatively late, according to routine. Since it is, I won’t bother to drive all this home any deeper; we’ll just sort of fade out here, like with a good sound system that uses a good control system that can keep the tone pure as it fades from our perceptions, leaving us ready to absorb all the finer nuances of what may follow…. Nice, eh? Not bad for a low-tech solution to a high-tech issue, especially given the lack of advanced engineering or programming techniques available to us by law….

Shall we Pearl?

(I don’t usually use any pearls that may cause any friction, or feelings of divisiveness between the genders; it’s a fruitless and actually destructive pastime. But, this little gem from Balzac, though it sounds as if it would, is actually a very deep piece of insight into human nature, and into the proper and loving relationship between a husband and wife. In short, it’s deeper than it seems, and requires one to look beyond the surface words to the meaning beneath… which is always good exercise for the mind, anyway…. This COULD have been expressed MANY ways; I like this one, just because it’s got a tone of phlegmatism that appeals to me….)

“He who enters his wife’s dressing room is a philosopher or a fool.” — Balzac

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

The lateness of our start today has resulted in some good luck for y’all…. I don’t have the time, or the inclination to rant; I’d have to go find something to rant about, and while that wouldn’t necessarily be difficult of time-consuming, the ranting itself could easily get out of hand, time-wise…. So, I’ll be nice, and just create a nice random, old-school pearl for this section today, and worry about ranting later….

Have fun, & I hope y’all appreciate this; it’s more difficult than you may realize to hold in what I customarily spit out each morning, and there could conceivably be a price to pay out in the real world, as whatever angst I’ve built up since last letting it out builds up…. If it gets too hard to hold in, it could come out on some unsuspecting bureaucrat, or even a police myrmidon, and that can conceivably be either a good thing, or a bad one, depending on which end of the rant one ends up on…..

Ah well, that’s the chances we all take in life; there’s no way to think of EVERYTHING, and sometimes, Reality is just on its own, y’know? Like today…..

“Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man’s task.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxvii

“At birth we woke to dream in this world between.” — Kan’ami Kiyotsugu

“It is a fundamental law of nature that nothing ever quite works out.” — Murphy’s Seventh Law

Government Intelligence – Another OXYMORON! — Smart Bee

“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1972)

“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.” — Oscar Wilde

“At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my
ignorance upon the shore.” — Kahlil Gibran

What an excellent pearl! It showed itself quickly, and managed to take a good poke at government, religion, and human nature, and hand out some good advice for living seemingly, all without breaking a sweat…. Nice!

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

I’m in the mood for a bit of classical poetry today…. Enjoy! In fact, let’s make it a two-fer…. Have a care, ffolkes, these are small, but, they’re filling….

A Coat

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

_________________________________

A Crazed Girl

THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved, hungry sea.’

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

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

This is another of those rare Pearls, which created itself by merely popping up on screen, one after another, in a row…. How can I say no to such persistence and dedication? I can’t…..

“Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love for power.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967)

“All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard; jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side; his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), As You Like It — Act ii, Sc. 7

“I call that a scumhead.” — James Joyce — Finnegans Wake

“The palpable obscure.” — John Milton (1608-1674) — Paradise Lost, Book ii, Line 406

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.” — Erma Bombeck

“Asked from what country he came, he replied, “I am a citizen of the world.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Diogenes, vi

“I’m in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS.” — Zippy the Pinhead

I’ve said many times previously that Shakespeare was overrated, and isn’t one of my favorite playwrights, even though I fully admit he is possibly, overall, the best that ever performed that particular act of literary expression. I just don’t like a lot of it; to my mind, and ear, much of it simply sucks, big time…. That said, he wrote so damn much, some of it just had to be fucking brilliant…. The above quote, known by heart to a large portion of mankind for over 400 years, falls directly into that category, effortlessly. Possibly the greatest soliloquy of all time, it shines with a luster that outshines virtually all other of mankind’s works, to give us the truth about ourselves…..

Maybe that’s why I write so much…. I’m hoping to hit on, and create, at least ONE piece that shines like this, if not quite a match for its degree of brightness…. SIGH…. Well, I guess I’ll just keep trying; I have a ways to go to be that good…. And, in the process, I’ll try to remember this…. which was the last one that popped up; the one after this was so bad, I knew it was done….

“The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.” — Eugene Delacroix

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

Not bad; I’ve shaved over 40 minutes off the hour I got up late… I’ll take it, and y’all, I think, are fortunate that I am. This one is a good pearl, and not nearly as long as they have been for the last few weeks… I suppose even my fertile brain has to take a creative break now and again…. Enjoy it while it lasts, though; nothing I do or see these days is liable to shut me up for long…. Just sayin’….. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, and remember, in spite of how it may seem at times, I love you all…. I can’t claim I like it, but, there it is, so, I deal…. you’ll deal, too, I’m sure….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Sober reflection is due, to underscore the value of former mushrooms….

Posted on August 28, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“So live that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell.” — Smart Bee

Is that not the very face of utter devotion? Is he not completely focused on the next words coming from the person at whom he is gazing with such adoration, and hopeful expectation? This is, to me, the very best way to teach children about the joy and power of love, and the duty that comes with it, duty owed to the one who loves with such loyalty and steadfast purpose. Very few humans, in my experience, ever reach the same level of absolute trust and/or sheer devotion, motivated only by a heart innocent of deceit, or deliberate cruelty… I find most humans can rationalize almost any sort of ethical or moral failure, many do so without any sort of guilt or remorse…. But, not a dog, or any other so-called “lower” creatures in the entire animal kingdom….

Oh sure, there are some who are dangerous, or even, seemingly, harshly violent toward other creatures; but, none of them ever kills for pleasure, none of them ever make a habit of fouling their own nest, and none of them ever CHOOSE to be deliberately immoral. When they do act in a way that seems connected to a dark purpose, it is a learned behavior, and not natural to their innate nature; in fact, when they do act out of character with their inner spirits, most animals tend to display all the signs of illness, or even insanity. It is as if acting against their nature is instinctively proscribed for them…. It makes one wonder about which of the animals is really at the top of the chain of life…. Well, I wonder, anyway….

I’m not sure why I got so far into that, especially this early; I love animals, though, and regard them as better company, most of the time, than almost any human, but, that doesn’t explain how, or why, such an emotionally-charged, yet completely off-the-wall, less-than-earth-shattering subject escaped out of wherever it’s been hiding in my head, & found its way out onto the screen…. Apparently, that face, that wonderful, loving face, got to me, before I was prepared for it, with some thoughts I’d already washed clean of any sappy romanticism…. I suppose it’s just one of those things we closet romantics have to expect now and again, when we let our guard down, or temporarily put aside our training in curmudgeonry….

“But” he whined, ” now what?” After that start, ffolkes, your guess is probably as good as mine, and I have no clue…. I’ll have to put a team on that, & have them get back to me on a rush basis, okay? Let me just text over to my admin, so he can do that….. Shouldn’t take long, so, relax, grab a beer, or whatever is there, and hang for a few…. we’ll be right back with something new to ~~drag~~ ~~lure~~, um, bring, that’s it,to bring you back to your seats, and back into the grip of our will…. Bwwaaahaahahaha!….

Okay, I’m out of jail now; it only cost me about $5000 in bail, part of which I’ll get back when I show up for the hearing…. That’ll be after the lawyers take their insane percentage for whatever they do…. I once got one of their bills, in which I was charged one quarter hour of the hourly rate, which was, as it turns out, $250.00; the charge, then, for a quarter of that hour’s assigned value, was $62.50, for the difficult, complex, incredibly complicated procedure, known as, and listed as, “opening a new file”…..

Really; that’s exactly what it said….. I asked the lawyer if that meant that they charged me more than $50, for calling their secretary, having them walk to the cabinet to obtain a fresh manila folder, then making a label for it with my name on it? Or, I continued, was there something I’m missing here about how complex it is to open a file?…. I was really kind of hurt when he didn’t smile, or answer the question….

But, then, I’ve found that MOST lawyers I’ve met, at least the ones without scruples, don’t have one… a sense of humor, that is… Me, I’m a Bozo, and I don’t have any choice in the matter….funny crap follows me around….

In fact, I see some now…. let’s go see if we can make it blow water out its nose, okay?

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Hello seeker! Now don’t feel alone here in the New Age, because there’s a seeker born every minute.” — The Firesign Theater

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

Yesterday I walked…. a lot more than is usual for me of late, though not enough to put me down…. In fact, my recent forays seem to have had a beneficial effect on my stamina, as I slept, and now feel pretty okay…. not bad for this time of day, when massive quantities of magic cream find its way onto my body, to help the morning background of pain from hips and shoulders…. the back waits until they’re done, so that helps some, but, this writing helps as much, to distract me from the worst of it….

I am, though, a bit tired still, so, here is a discussion from a long time ago, on this blog, anyway, back in the early days, before Pearls assumed their current manifestation…. The angst was there, but, it looked different….

From 12/17/2011:

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” — James Madison

“A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.” — Thomas Jefferson

The Homeland Security Act, passed shortly after the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, is, to my way of thinking, the first time in our history that the American people have voluntarily allowed abridgments to our personal liberties to be enacted. The way I see it, quote #1, by James Madison, called that one perfectly. Our beloved ruling class, having decided we have “too many rights” (a direct quote from the junior Shrub, btw) in the Bill of Rights, carefully orchestrated events to provoke an attack on our home shores, knowing they could then fool the public into accepting their abridgments on our freedoms. And, to proceed to Mr. Jefferson’s comment, WE LET THEM DO IT! Anyone who rose up to speak against this vile, manipulative legislation was immediately shouted down as being unpatriotic.

For most of my life, I have avoided guns. Being a fairly smart guy, I noticed at a young age that most of the folks who get shot were carrying guns; it makes sense to me to reduce the chances of becoming a target in this most simple way, i.e., never carrying this kind of weapon (though it would be a very big mistake to assume that I carry NO weapons; in fact I carry four at all times, all of different kinds, none of which are guns). However, since the PTB (powers that be) have begun to try to take away my rights, I figure I’d better grab myself a bunch more firepower, before I no longer am allowed to do so.

If worse comes to worst, I WILL fight, if they come for any more of my rights. I will not let the blood and sacrifice of my countrymen and forefathers, and my own father, for that matter, be in vain. I’m about done with putting up with these kinds of issues, and am drawing near the point of acting on my feelings. In one sense, I hope they stop and reconsider trying to further reduce our liberties, because if they don’t, I’m going to REALLY get mad, and they will find themselves with a whole new issue to deal with……I’m a Scorpio, a triple Scorpio, for that matter; I was born under the sign of the God of War. You do NOT want to make me into an enemy…..

The vultures are circling…they have the faces of presidential candidates and carry bowling balls in their buttered claws….

Note from 2014: Apparently, even back then, I was a trifle upset with the Beloved Ruling Class; these days, the same issues arise on an almost daily basis, as the second incarnation of the Homeland Insecurity Act was signed on New Year’s Eve in 2011, by our “transparent” president, who apparently didn’t want any crap from the public or the media about doing so….

Why else do it while the entire country is out drinking away the feelings of fear whipped up by the fanning of the public’s rage over the terrorist acts of that infamous day?….Which, in truth, was an act which entirely ignores our response to that terrorist act, wherein we have killed, many times more than 10 times the number of Americans who died that day, in revenge upon people who had no part in it…. In truth, our country’s response strongly resembled an enraged bull in a china shop, without the dignity of having a valid reason to be there….

I’m done now…. Obviously, this is a mini-rant, which I’ve turned into a full out, extra long rant on numerous occasions…. So, I’ll give y’all a break this time…. Next time we are supposed to go vote, you can return the favor, and don’t…. It only encourages the assholes when we do…..

“We need a president who’s fluent in at least one language.” — Buck Henry, comedian, 1992

“The bad thing about experience is that it teaches you the stuff you don’t want to know.” — Smart Bee

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

Today, only one poem will do to follow that section, and it’s one of mine, from a couple years back…. It speaks directly to the relevant issues discussed above…. Enjoy!….

Geezer to Congress, with Love

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

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

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

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid ~~

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

The following pearl, made up of randomly chosen pearls, is, sort of, unique….. Now, you may wonder how the hell something can be “sort of” unique… according to the definition of the word, things either are unique, or they are not unique, period. But, then Daniel Webster had never heard of the concept of diving for pearls of virtual wisdom, or for that matter, even cared…. which goes a long way toward explaining why he might not be the best one to make any final decisions about “connotations”, as his entire persona was hardwired to focus on the “denotation” of words….

Also, in this case, it has no real bearing one way or another, because it’s just a trick, to get you to forget about anything that has gone before….. just in case you might be thinking about a civil suit for damages…. Of course, now I’ve descended into plain silliness, and am once again wasting time and words galore in the pursuit of nonsense…. S’okay, I’m used to it, and, by now, y’all should be as well…. Regardless, we were talking about this pearl…. All of the quotes you see, all nine of them, were spit out by Smart Bee in the order you see, one right after another…..

I’ve witnessed the million monkeys, ffolkes….. they have produced the works of Shakespeare, in its entirety, right here on this blog….. The odds of what you see approach the same level as the odds of the Earth falling out of its orbit in the next five minutes…. they are astronomically small…. That said, I’m going to let them speak for themselves, especially since I know the perfect pearl awaits you at the end, in the final entry, to make it all clear….. Enjoy!…. It isn’t often you’ll see a nine-star pearl, especially one that essentially was gifted to us by the Universe…..

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you- Nobody- Too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise-you know!
How dreary-to be- Somebody!
How public-like a Frog-
To tell one’s name-the livelong June-
To an admiring Bog!

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

“Adversity makes a man wise, not rich.” — Romanian proverb

“I don’t think math is a science. I think it’s a religion.” — Calvin

“Be on your guard against a silent dog and still water.” — Latin proverb

“Almost all reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.” — Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946)

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” — Albert Einstein

“A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.” — Eric Hoffer

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

~~ Alexander Pope ~~
(1688-1744)
— Essay on Man, Epistle i, Line 289 —

“MERYL STREEP is my obstetrician!” — Zippy the Pinhead

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

Well, that was something…. I’ll try hard to figure out what, but, later; for now, it will do….. Since that is the case, I really have no excuse to hang around any longer, so, I’ll submit to the demands of reality, this time, and be on my way into the day…. Should be a good one, I think, it it doesn’t get too hot…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

Illuminating me softly with his bhang….

Posted on August 17, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“Ask of friends only what is honorable.”

~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~~

(106-43 B.C.)

I’d never do that….. in fact, I’m going to apply this sentiment to myself. The routine I have established over time to produce this blog on a daily basis is completely in the toilet today; it’s already after 6 AM, two full hours after I usually begin the process. Yesterday, being moving day for Pat, exhausted me, though I personally didn’t do much; that sort of activity is always a bit stressful, even when there are no hard feelings involved….. It is still a big change, as I’m now living alone again…. No worries, I enjoy my own company….

Since the internet was in Pat’s name, I am having to wait about five days to get internet service back online, waiting for one of the multinational mega corps to hook me up with a phone & portal…. I think I went with the Death star logo folks…. Regardless, I’m offline for a week, and will have to adjourn to a Wifi spot somewhere later on to post….. SIGH…. The things I do for my art….

I overslept two hours, and still feel as if I should be abed…. it hurts everywhere…. In fact, I’m going to finish this Pearl, to the point I can go to post it somewhere, then lay down for a while again…. You’ll never know it, all you’ll see is a very late posting from me for today, and possibly for the next few days…. I don’t know yet how hard it will be to get to a spot where I can log on to WordPress, so, that remains to be seen…. For now, I’ll close this intro section, which, strangely enough, is the closest thing to a REAL introduction I’ve had come through here in some time…. Oh, look out, we’re diving now….

Shall we Pearl….

“Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man,–yesterday in embryo, to-morrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hair’s-breadth of time assigned to thee live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 48

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You’re going to get archived material today, ffolkes, that’s all there is to it…. I hurt, I’m tired, and I wanna go to bed, so, old stuff it is…. Here is an unusual piece, for me…. I don’t usually write reviews, or essays on fictional characters, but, for an old closet romantic such as myself, this was irresistible…..

From 4/5/2012:

Visions of Truth and Beauty; The Tragedy of Severus Snape

The character of Severus Snape is, as revealed in the seven novels that comprise the epic creation by J. K. Rowlings, (which I choose to entitle Harry Potter, and The Chronicles of The Infinite Magic of Love, hopefully with her approval and blessing), in my somewhat less than humble opinion, destined to become, if not synonymous, at least analogous, with that of Cryano de Bergerac, John Smith the Puritan, or the man from Tale of Two Cities, whose name escapes me (suffering functional disparity as I am from early onset Alzheimer’s and the subsequent prophylactic application of sour mash bourbon), who said, “It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known”. Sounds a little sappy for gigoid, doesn’t it? Well, you know what? I am completely and utterly serious…..

As I do not know Ms. Rowling, other than through her writing, and her pubic persona, which is carefully controlled, relatively speaking, I cannot say if it was her intent to create a character of such power that he would be forever enshrined amid the most famous of the heroic willing victims of tragedy in literary history. It is moot, anyway, because she has….

Here is a man who spent his entire life enduring unrequited love, love that, in his mind, could have been his, had he chosen differently. Yet, knowing that he could never have his deepest desire without destroying that which he loved, he still acted with honor to do all he could to keep the object of his obsession safe, to honor her and the love he felt, even after her death, and in defiance of the threat of his own. He braved the wrath of the most terrifying of villains for almost 20 years, betraying that master of evil at every turn, to do what he could only hold as his Duty; he did this, knowing full well that in the end, he would have to kill the only man in the world who trusted him, and that he would die because of it. And, he knew as well, that his sacrifice would never be known to anyone but the son of the man he most envied in life, the son that might have been his…..

I’ve read a lot of what may be termed as classical literature, and in all that I’ve read, I have never found a character who fit the mold of the tragic hero any better, or more deserved the title of nobility it implies. Though flawed and miserable, Snape makes the hard choices, correctly, at the most critical junctures of his life, all for love of his Lily. As Dumbledore exclaims when he sees the Patronus that Snape produces, a doe, identical to that of Lily, the only other human being he has ever loved, “Lily! After all this time?” Snape merely replies, “Always….” Now, that is a hero, flawed and unlikeable as he is….. a hero that will go down in history, along with many of the characters from this series of books that will one day certainly be called “classics”……

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As is patently obvious, all of the material for today’s Pearl came from April of 2012; apparently, it was a good month for Pearls…. Here is one of the poetry sections, which is a bit different…. Any comments, or answers to the age-old question posed in the entry are welcome, even in today’s modern world….

From 4/6/2012:

Limericks are art forms complex,
Their topics run chiefly to sex.
They usually have virgins,
And masculine urgin’s,
And other erotic effects.

~~ Anonymous ~~

Haiku are always
calmly directing our eyes
pointing to the way.

~~ gigoid ~~

So, it occurred to me, after writing the above haiku, to ask myself, “Self, which came first, the limerick or the haiku?” At first, I thought I was just being silly. Then I realized I really wanted to know. So, here is the deal….. I would like anyone who has any idea on this to please respond, either by commenting, or by posting a reply; if I follow your blog, I’ll be notified of either method of response, and be able to reply. No prizes will be awarded, though I will mention your name, and your answer to this time-honored query. (Well, it’s been honored for the two or three minutes since I asked it, and by the time you answer, it will be more so….) So, join in the fun, and the challenge, and send me a response today! You won’t regret it, much…..

The Quitter

It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don’t be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit, it’s so easy to quit:
It’s the keeping-your-chin-up that’s hard.
It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten–and die;
It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight–
Why, that’s the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each grueling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try–it’s dead easy to die,
It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.

~~ Robert W. Service ~~

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This section is one of the many done this week ahead of time, to account for not having internet service at home for the week…. It’s a good one, from the time before Pearls of Virtual Wisdom had assumed the format we know and love today…. When first posted, this was one of five sections in each day’s Pearl…. See how lucky you are now? Only three to cope with these days…..

From 4/3/2012:

“A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.” — Matz’s Maxim

Upon reflection, although this is a fine pearl, I’m not going to discuss it now. I’m already tired of thinking, so here is my conclusion on this: he’s got a good point. Now, let’s start this section over…..

“A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires sooner or later always leads to bitter disappointment.” — Albert Einstein

Now, there’s a pearl! Albert Einstein is generally regarded as one of mankind’s most brilliant members, but most people do not have the capability to see how or why this is so, other than knowing that he was responsible for E = MC²; it is only by extension he is blamed for the atomic bomb. But if one takes the time to look past this bit of common knowledge, to look at his statements of philosophy, and life in general, of which there are a great many recorded, it becomes clear at once…. the key to his genius lay in the simplicity of his thought processes.

Albert looked at the world, and the universe at large, through eyes that refused to look away from the simple elegance of the underlying nature of reality…. Instead, he focused on the small, basic thoughts, ideas, or physical properties that best described what is real and true. He also did not add superfluous judgments, or unseen factors to what he perceived, but, rather, again, focusing on that part of the concept that is important, not those parts that are extraneous to its purpose, and our understanding. He thus was able to see further into the nature of reality than is common to the rest of us, who are prone to complicate our perceptions with our prejudices, and/or misconceptions.

The quote above is a perfect example of this quality; it looks directly at human nature, showing us how our own attitudes and desires can, potentially, be the cause of our own difficulties in life, thus giving us the opportunity to turn our efforts in a direction that will ultimately be more beneficial. The statement clearly lays the responsibility for the tenor of our lives right in our own laps, where it belongs, but does so without condemnation or insult, merely dispassionate truth. Albert was truly one of humanity’s greatest treasures, and his words will, hopefully, continue to help guide people through life far into to the future…. provided there is one….. but that’s a different subject altogether…..

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” — Albert Schweitzer

(I know, I know….. not the same Albert. But, it was deliberate, and I’m just doing what Murphy wants….. As is sometimes common, as soon as I finished the above section, the absolute perfect ending pearl popped up, demanding to be included. I think Herr Schweitzer was thinking of Herr Einstein when he related this thought, anyway….. I know for sure that Albert Einstein was a happy guy; I have pictorial proof, which I have shared below…..so there…..)

Note from the future:

To drive home the point being made in the last bit, I will also report that one of my favorite lines from Albert, again proving his sense of humor, goes something like this…. “After imagining, refining, and proving the Theory of Relativity, which describes a large part of how the entire Universe works, wearing fuzzy slippers with plaid pajamas is easy….” I can’t vouch for the authenticity, but, I swear I read it somewhere, and he really did say it…. You may not believe it, but, I actually have visual proof of it; he said it during an interview in the early 1950’s, for a newspaper back East, which took this picture that day….

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Routine, or no routine, it’s done…. In record time, too; it only took forty-three minutes to do the intro, and fill in two sections. Not too shabby for a Pearl without routine…. Now comes the hard part…. I must wend my way out into the Big Blue Room, taking my computer with me, to go post this somewhere…. Fortunately for me, those sort of establishments have just what I need to assist me in getting it done….. more caffeine and sugar!…. My Doc won’t like it, but, hey, we all do what we gotta do, right? Right…. See ya tomorrow, ffolkes, if things go according to plan….. If Murphy doesn’t hear about it, we could get lucky….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

In my left ear, sir….

Posted on August 15, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Pearls should…

Long, deep thoughts always

bring truth to the eyes of man,

and light into dark.

~~ gigoid ~~

Today’s Pearl will be, to some extent, similar to the above picture, in that, the participants of the activity recorded are having as much, or more, fun, than those who are observing and recording…. Now, it’s true, such a statement only takes into account such factors as how much fun it is to watch others work, how much the elephant enjoys being sprayed, but, has no clue as to whether or not the guy washing the beast is gay, straight, or in-between… Of course, the latter has nothing at all to do with anything, but, it was shocking enough to get your attention, wasn’t it?….

Just a little trick to open up…. sort of like the old pull a coin from the ear trick, but, with letters…. None of what is included in the above paragraph had any particular meaning, or significance; it was all a set-up for the punch line…. I also know that it is currently considered a faux pas to use gays, lesbians, or other alternative choice adherents as the butt, or even the subject, of any sort of joke…. I guess they’re too sensitive? I don’t know, and don;t care; it’s a fucking joke, ffolkes, so get over it…. Nobody here is laughing at gays; I laugh at those who are afraid of them, or hate them, as I know, for a FACT, it is usually because of their own fear of feeling attracted to the same sex that prompts them to be cruel or stupid.

I didn’t mean, actually, to get into anything so controversial right off; in fact, I was trying to figure out how to tell y’all I was just going to re-blog an older post…. then, I sort of fell into this discussion, whereupon I decided I was up, so I may as well Pearl…. So be it….

I don’t know where this will end up; I do know we won’t be targeting any hapless LGBT enthusiasts in any of our rants, as I figure they don’t need any help from me…. The last twenty or thirty years of constant societal interaction has brought the issues to a head, and, in the process, has made veteran activists out of many people who otherwise would never have even thought about it…. There is still a long way to go, as there are a LOT of ignorant people out there, none of whom care to admit their ignorance, or try to learn anything new, but, the tide has turned in society, and the forces of ignorance are currently in full retreat from their position of intransigence regarding sexuality…

This isn’t saying I won’t support them, I’m just not devoting this entire Pearl to their issues…. In fact, I haven’t a clue as to what issues we may touch upon, but, it’s not going to be that one…. unless, of course, some headline jumps up, grabs me by the eyes, and says, “here, look at THIS!”…. It’s been known to happen…. I think I’m beginning to unravel here….

It’s probably best if I stop here, and get on with the rest of today’s effort…. I’m getting further and further away from any sort of coherency in this section; we’d be better off to get on to the next….. This means, naturally, since we are so firmly entrenched in this, we’ll need to apply another emergency exit strategy, in order to return to any semblance of dignified competence…. Not that such is anything like normal around here, but, we do try to maintain a certain level of protocol and tradition, even if it constantly blows up in our faces….. Who knew Murphy was allergic to protocol?….. Not me….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Belief gets in the way of learning.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

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After reading the following diatribe-style pearl, it is clear that two pearls are necessary to start it off with the correct frame of mind…. anything less would be hazardous to your mental health….

“Perhaps I know why it is man alone who laughs: He alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Kids, don’t gross me off.. “Adventures with MENTAL HYGIENE” can be carried too FAR!” — Zippy the Pinhead

When I first began today, I had intended to re-blog an older post, and still may use something from the archives….. for now though, I’ve collected another set of links to articles that continue to explore the problems we have in society that are leading us to our extinction, more rapidly than we are willing to admit…. there are only three articles, but, the two issues covered are, perhaps, two of the more serious issues we face, to wit: climate change, and the effects of racism on modern society (that racism, as I see it, is the primary contributing factor behind the militarization of the police forces in this country, as well as around the world….)

If you don’t think I’m being accurate, or that the police forces around America aren’t becoming militarized, allow me to provide you with some Art that clearly indicates what I mean…. The picture you see (which has been used in a number of sites and reports…. I believe it’s an Associated Press picture….) shows the county police in Ferguson, Missouri, during one of the community protests over the shooting of an unarmed civilian…. This, ffolkes, is how the modern police force is views the public they allegedly serve…… as their enemy….. After looking at the picture, read the two articles, which, of course, are from a European news outlet…. our own news companies won’t talk very much about the issue…. Oh, they’re reporting on it, but, they don’t even MENTION any of the military style equipment or tactics, except in passing….

These yahoos are in a small town in central Missouri, but, by their dress and equipment, you would think they were about to be attacked by armed Jihadi forces in another country…. And, let me ask you this….. are these guys going to carry around all those neat battle toys, and not want to USE them? Just a thought, as it seems to me, they would WANT to see what all their new stuff can do…. I mean, just LOOK at all that weaponry, the armored assault vehicle, the radar or sonic weaponry, the battle helmets, armored vests, automatic rifles, sharpshooters…. it’s a regular assault force there….

Also, just what IS that thing on top of the battle truck? I believe it is a targeting device for some sort of automatic weaponry, or possibly for rockets?…. I’m not currently up-to-date on weapons tech; I just know it doesn’t make a lot of sense to see ANY of these articles of war deployed against our own citizenry…. You think? Okay, read the articles, then tell me if you disagree with any of this….

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/obama-ferguson-police-excessive-force-michael-brown

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/14/ferguson-cops-military-weapons-michael-brown-shooting-protests

“…witnessed teargas being shot directly at a camera crew with al-Jazeera America. Photographs later showed police officers dismantling al-Jazaeera’s broadcasting equipment after the crew fled. ”

Now, of course, we see why the American news reporters are reluctant to write about what the police are doing…. The people who would report on them are being targeted; in the article you will see where the county police arrested two reporters in a fast food restaurant, then released them only because the chief of police intervened…. Do you think maybe the reporters are getting a bit leery of making the police the subject of their writing? I certainly do; they’re human, and aren’t going to put themselves at risk if they can avoid it….

Next comes something about the issue of climate change, from one of my favorite columnists, who always has an even-handed, insightful approach to such issues…. I’m giving up now, as the picture above tends to send my outrage through the roof…. After that, if I start in on this issue, I’ll overload, and possibly end up in bed again from exhaustion…. Not going there, believe me…. Instead, after you enjoy Mr. Carroll’s words, I’ll put together an old-school pearl, to try to soothe my fevered brow….

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/Tons-of-methane-tons-of-garbage-What-fun-5684628.php

Okay, lets see if I can work off some of this angst with some pearls that shoot in the direction of the Asininnies….

“Teach a parrot the terms “supply and demand” and you’ve got an economist.” — Thomas Carlyle

“We haven’t the time to take our time.” — Eugene Ionesco

“The difference between a lawyer and a rooster, is that the rooster gets up in the morning and clucks defiance.” — Smart Bee

“A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.” — Robert Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“A very ancient and fish-like smell.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), The Tempest — Act ii, Sc. 2

“When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school…” — Paul Simon

(Okay, so, it makes more sense when the next line is included….)

“It’s a wonder I can think at all….” – Paul Simon

Well…. It seems that seven stars don’t quite cut it…. we’ll need to expand to nine…. hold on, we’ll find two more, & be done with it…..

“The award for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to “expand oyster and clam research,” a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan…..
DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature’s oysters?
DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter is that female oysters through their living habits cast out large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large amounts of fertilization…
HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many teenagers who read The Congressional Record.”

— Smart Bee

“There is no freedom without the power to defend it.”– Smart Bee

Close enough…..

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First posted on 10/24/2012:

“What do you want me to do? Say it again in worse English?” — Robert Frost, when asked about the meaning of one of his poems.

A Late Walk

When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

~~ Robert Frost ~~

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Rather than try any more to do what I cannot do, I’m going to the archives, for a piece I wrote a couple of years ago that seems to fit in with my mood today, if not my subject matter under discussion…. I guess, all in all, this one’s got a bit of a lot of things in it…. Enjoy, please….

From 10/27/2012:

“I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word I am saying.” — Oscar Wilde

AOL!….. LOL…. “AOL!” is hacker slang for “me, too!”, patterned after the typical AOL user’s response to a witty statement in a chat room…. in this case, I can honestly say that Oscar and I have this in common, especially the part about not understanding a word I’m saying….. I would say that puts me in some pretty good company, what?….

“The trouble with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often comes first and then the lesson.” — Smart Bee

Oscar once made a statement that ran parallel to this one, as well. It is a hard lesson for all of us to learn, but, it is one of those common pieces of natural law that affect all of us at one time or another in our lives. Life, like the physical universe, just doesn’t care whether or not we are ready for an experience, it just happens. It is our own reaction to that which determines whether or not we are able to cope with the experience, and learn from it, or whether it buries us…. an all-too-common fate. It’s a tough room, as the comedian said….

“If you’re smoking after sex then you’re going *WAY* too fast!” — Smart Bee

This is not a perfect segue into the next item for discussion, since I’m a) not sure what that was, and b) this wasn’t it, but it does exemplify what I like to call the “silly factor”, an offshoot effect of the natural bozoid tendencies that all of us humans possess as members of this silly species…. Murphy’s Law is merely an observation, but is one that could only be made by our species (even though I’ve noted that other species, that associate with us, can sometimes be pulled into Murphy’s influence, to do his bidding, and occasionally, to act as co-victims….), because he takes full advantage of our tendencies toward bozoid behavior, to set traps for us; traps that cannot, and never do, fail to catch us unawares.

“I sometimes think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Even if one considers that God did not exceed his capabilities when making Man, he certainly made a rush job of it, and left certain design characteristics out of the final production, facets that would have gone a long way toward making this world a lot more pleasant a place than it has turned out to be, with Man in his current foolish state. Ah well, it just goes to show that one shouldn’t depend on a notion like creationism to provide us with excuses for our behavior….. accepting that kind of indulgences, or even assuming it, has obviously led us to the state of affairs we now face in the world, as the great majority of people continue to behave just as if they had the right to use the universe as they choose, rather than as they should do as moral creatures….

“Instead of being born again, why not just grow up?” — Smart Bee

That about says it all, don’t you think? Mankind would be far better off if we all decided to act as grown-ups, rather than clinging to the ages-old fantasies that have put us in this position. Only a child acts without regard to consequences; our species has been refusing to grow beyond that avaricious stage for millennia now, and the world is showing the deleterious effects of that sense of entitlement. We cannot continue to treat this planet as our toy, to be used and discarded like it was some piece of manufactured plastic, or we will most certainly suffer the very real consequences of that foolish attitude.

“Morals today are corrupted by our worship of riches.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

In spite of all the massive quantities of evidence that it is harmful, we continue to pump millions of tons of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere every minute of every day…. the effect of that on the balanced ecology of the planet is reaching a critical flash point, and may already be at a point from which there is no turning back…. This is FACT, not supposition….. but, the world carries on, certain that we may depend on the same old idea, that we are invulnerable, and not subject to the laws of nature…. a sincerely stupid idea at best…. It is almost enough to make one want to tear hair out and start shooting…. but, unfortunately, there isn’t enough ammunition to shoot all the folks who need to be shot, and it’s probably too late now, anyway….. Besides, who wants to be the one who has to decide who to shoot first? (I do! I do!…. which just proves that we humans can’t handle that sort of godly decisiveness….)

“All the secrets we may be able to keep from any and every god and human being do not in the least absolve us from the obligation to refrain from whatever actions are greedy, unjust, sensual, or otherwise immoderate.” — Cicero, On Duties

It’s really too bad that this idea never caught on…. oh, many folks learned to use it, to lie to the rest of us, but, in reality, nobody ever really does this, they just say they do….. It kind of makes one wonder whether we deserve to keep living, doesn’t it? Well, it makes ME wonder…. with not a little bit of sadness, for our species holds such promise…. a promise we have never learned to keep….

“It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man’s deeper nature is soon found out.” — Oscar Wilde

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Well, ffolkes, it’s done; I wasn’t completely sure I would be able to get it to this point when I started, and, half-way through, I almost gave up again…. I think we can mark this one down under the “Serendipity” category tab, as I don’t know how to explain it any other way…. I’m only guessing here, but, I think proofing would be superfluous at this point, so, off we go to post…. See y’all tomorrow, given half a chance….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

Soliciting salsa for the homeless….

Posted on August 12, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“An Irishman is not drunk

as long as he can hang onto a single blade of grass

and not fall off the face of the earth.”

~~ Irish “wisdom” ~~

One might think I’d lost my mind, if there were not already ample proof of that having happened more than a decade in the past…. Yes, I know the quote is Irish wisdom (such as it is… it’s honest, anyway, right?….), and the statue is a figure study of Robert “Robbie” Burns, a Scot, and damn proud of it…. as the tartan scarf and tam o’shanter demonstrate so clearly. (I wonder, though…. I didn’t check to see if the plaid is the correct one for the Clan Burns, or if it is a statement of some kind, that only another Scotsman would comprehend…. Ah well, one of life’s little mysteries, I suppose….)

Arguably, such an obvious juxtaposition might be considered an error, or the result of ignorance…. Nope, not in this case…. it’s just my little poke at the concept of nationalism, one of the nastiest mental diseases suffered by mankind…. In today’s world, in fact, the disease is threatening, again, to set England and Scotland at odds, with an election coming up soon where the Scots will vote on whether to remain part of Britain’s commonwealth, or go independent, as Northern Ireland did from the rest of the island….

It’s all a social/political/nationalistic mess, complicated by thousands of years of antagonism, periodic outbreaks of violence, and the insistence on maintaining a divisiveness, emphasizing all their cultural differences, rather than seeking to build a community united with a common purpose, comprised of the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, all of whom claim their own little corners of the British Isles….

If countries who basically speak the same language, and have shared cultural characteristics for thousands of years cannot learn to live together peacefully, what chance do those which don’t speak similarly have? Very little, I should think, and made even more doubtful when one considers how the average human being is getting dumber over time….

That little fact is not very well known, but, is none the less true for it…. It is a mathematical certainty, demonstrable by equations which show the process in humans, describing how, every year, with every new birth to one of the BILLIONS of souls crowding this planet, humans are becoming less intelligent, on average…. It is a function of the extremely high number of people, and the effect that has on the average…. I won’t trouble you with the figures now, but, trust me, they exist, and are incontrovertible…

That is part of the problem…. Nationalism is what could be called an “attractive nuisance” (well, I consider it that, even if our BRC doesn’t….) for people…. Throughout history, people have fallen for the foolish lies told by politicians, who have an agenda that doesn’t jibe too closely with what most people want, but know how to make their lies attractive to the ignorant, by playing into their fears, and manipulating their emotions…. with the end result you have large groups of brainwashed people who will fanatically throw themselves into battle to “protect” their lifestyle, without ever really understanding why they would do so….

Ah well…. I see I’ve stumbled again, and began ranting in the intro…. probably a result of being up late, and still a bit groggy…. I’ll quit now, and let this argument pass into history, as one more incidence of the secret to life getting passed over, and tossed away before anyone in the human race even knew they were holding it in their hands….. SIGH…. I love my country, but I sure hate the people who have usurped the control of it, giving it over to the assholes who live only to take advantage of other people, or those who are ignorant enough to be easily controlled by corporate interests… which, these days, is almost anyone with a degree in law, or law enforcement, which is actually what most of the ignorant are attracted to as their vocation….

There I go again, starting up another rant, right in the middle of trying to end one…. Sheesh!…. Oh well, we’re going to have to resort to some pretty drastic measures here, and now, anyway, just to get us out of this intro, where we seem to have become stuck, just as if someone had duct-taped us into our seats…. Hell, maybe they did, when I wasn’t looking…. Oh well, let’s just do this….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Many things do not happen as they ought. Most things do not happen at all. It is for the conscientious historian to correct these defects.” — Herodotus

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

Since I have already used up my stored-up angst with the rant above, this article no longer seems so important to note…. When I read it, I saw a couple of statements that could have begun the process of creating some outrage in me, but, now, they’re just part of what is obviously a set piece, designed to fill space with information that only serves to obscure the actual issue, which is that ALL of them are lying, and spying, and cheating on their oaths of office… Feinstein, Obama, the CIA, the Supreme’s, Congress, damn near every one of them, save a couple individuals, they are all more concerned with maintaining their own status quo than with anything the public might need, or want.

This faux fight, described here as a bipartisan issue, at the core, is actually all a distraction from what they don’t want the public to realize, which is NOTHING has stopped, NOTHING has changed; the spying that WAS happening is still happening; the torture is a piece of that whole arena of paranoid overcompensation that so delights our leaders, as it provides a constant source of spin for them.

They can talk, and talk, and talk about how they’ll reform the NSA, and shut down Guantanamo Bay, and get us out of all of our illegal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever else we are currently dropping bombs… Oh, yeah, Iran, or wherever those ISIS rebels are chasing the Kurds, who we were chasing a few years ago…. Now, of course, since we’re not, but, some of our enemies are, we will be sending them weapons, so they can fight back…. Of course, Putin’s Russian government, with their own set of corrupt, self-serving Asininnies, but with a Russian accent, will be arming the ISIS group, so it will all balance out, right? Sure….

Does any of this make any sense to you? It sure doesn’t make any to me, and I’m pretty smart… Read the article, then go wash up, ffolkes, & we’ll talk shortly about the second headline for today…. Believe me, you will WANT to wash up after wading through so much BS….

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Feinstein-winning-fight-with-CIA-Obama-over-5679304.php?cmpid=hp-hc-nationworld

Next we have an article about the woman who was videotaped while being beaten by a California Highway Patrol officer, on the side of the road, the tape being shot by a passing motorist on their cell phone…. It was a pretty brutal video; this officer really went off on this poor woman, who was, at the time of the attack, homeless, and in the throes of a psychotic episode, brought on by the stress of living on the streets…. The officer, of course, is being protected by the Blue Wall of police solidarity…. It’s a sad situation, one that is, unfortunately, all to representative of the current state of affairs between the police and the public, both here, and around the world….

Again, I won’t rant, but, I do need to say this…. All of this stuff we see every day in the news is symptomatic, of a culture that is dying…. Just about any competent historian can tell you how many of the controversial or shocking things we see each day are merely indications of the stress that daily life puts on each and every one of society’s members, and can be shown to have a direct correlation, and similarity to, historical events that preceded the fall of more than just one civilization…. The signs we see now are indicative of a culture that no longer looks to the future, but is desperately trying to maintain the status quo…. Sorry, but, LIFE, and the UNIVERSE, don’t operate like that, so, we can either change, or die….

Maybe I’m wrong, but, since my track record on such predictions is pretty good, I’d say we, as a species, are in big trouble, ffolkes, and our day of reckoning with Mother Nature is not far away…. Go ahead, read the article, clean up again, (for you WILL feel a bit soiled afterward….), and then come back, for an old-school pearl designed to make us all feel better, by reaching out for some radical silly…. I don’t know about y’all, but, after all such discussions, I always feel better for allowing myself to engage in a bit of silly….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/APNewsBreak-LA-woman-punched-by-patrolman-speaks-5680552.php

“When attempting to predict and forecast macro-economic moves of economic legislation by a politician, never be misled by what he says; instead — watch what he does.” — Smart Bee

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” — Thomas Jefferson

“History doesn’t repeat itself — historians merely repeat each other.” — First Rule of History

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” — Francis Bacon

“A lot of people voting for Pat Buchanan say they are doing so to send a message. Apparently that message is, Hey, look at me, I’m an idiot.” — Dennis Miller

“[History] hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.” — Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) — Historie of the World, Preface

“Don’t look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you.” — Smart Bee

Hmm…. well, it looks as if, somehow, I confused Smart Bee, because there is more sardonic in there than there is silly…. But, they all seem to fit, sort of, with the theme, so, we’ll let it fly, and get on with the rest of today’s effort, which, thus far, has been going just about as slowly as I can make it go….. SIGH…. This is only to be expected, as I am up late, in pain, and have yet to hear from Murphy…. which means he has something really special planned for me today….

Oh, joy…..

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

Sorry if I seem to go here a lot, but, I need some Emily D…..

Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain,–
More fair, because impossible
That any gain.

The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little,–
And that’s the skies!

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

That doesn’t seem to be enough; we’ll have another, if you please…..

______________________

Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With “This was last her fingers did,”
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then ‘t was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,–
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

Ahhh…. that’s better…..

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

As I noted somewhere above, I’m a bit late today, so this last section with be put together as fast as I can do it; this may lead to an unforeseen result, so, be warned…. This pearl may be like no other…. It is essentially parameter-free, as well as, most likely, judgment impaired…. Oh, well, at least I’m not getting paid for any of this….

“I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.” — Seneca (8 BC) — On a Happy Life, 2, (L’Estrange’s Abstract, Chap, i.)

“Old men are dangerous; it does not matter to them what is going to happen to the world.” — George Bernard Shaw

“There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.” — Alexander Pope

“I like people better than principles, and I like people with no principles better than anything else in the world.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“No matter how hard you throw a dead fish in the water, it still won’t swim.” — Smart Bee

“Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 274

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

I gotta say, that went well….

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

I have done all the damage I can do for now, to this, and to myself…. Don’t make me come out there and do it to you!….. Actually, there’s little danger of that, now, isn’t there? It sounds cool, though, and does have the bonus effect of really throwing a wrench into everyone’s sense of reality…. I’m only glad to be of help….. On that nearly psychotic note, I’m outta here until tomorrow, ffolkes…. See ya…..

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

Stealing a reflective moment….

Posted on August 11, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.”

~~ Plutarch ~~

Life of Caesar

Given the degree of dignity so obvious in the above photo, I think a group of fellows such as he would be a fine bunch with whom to consort, as stated in the quote…. with which I have to agree completely….. In fact, I would choose almost any animal at all, other than Man, to be my constant companion and friend, and feel the same way as Plutarch…. To me, the face in the picture (found in another Daily Telegraph photo feature on animals; attribution is in the corner) is one of great spirit, showing in the eyes the depth of intelligence, humor, compassion, and dignity….

Some might say that is anthropomorphizing, and to that I would say, so what? It doesn’t make it any less true… Besides, if a gorilla doesn’t have those characteristics, and we are evolved from them, how can we expect to have them, eh?…. As Mama Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”, and, as far as I can see by the visual evidence, mankind shows a lot more stupidity than any of the gorillas I’ve observed…. by a LOT…..

At this moment in time, even though in the midst of what could be an excellent discussion, I have to interrupt to issue some necessary information about today’s effort…. Yesterday, as Murphy’s gift, he gave me an episode of arthritic hip and back pain that pretty much curtailed the major portion of my semi-annual visit with my grandson; I had to give up walking around with my son and his four-year old, as I just couldn’t keep up, and the pain became debilitating…. I ended up sitting and watching for a bit, but, only managed a couple of pix, and a few seconds of video, then Murphy handed me the second part of the gift, a dead camera battery….

So, this morning, though I have pix, I also have more pain, plus, the bonus round, a toothache, as one of my teeth scheduled for extraction next week decided it didn’t wish to wait, and is demanding to come out very soon, or it will, no doubt, make my life a living hell for a while…. I do wish I knew why this part of my life is turning into a pitched battle with my own body….

Perhaps it’s all payback for how hard I pushed it for so many years…. I have to admit, I did work it hard there, from the time I was 12, until my early forties, what with baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, Judo, Karate, Kung Fu, golf, biking, hiking, and all the other physical stuff I used to do…. and, I still miss being able to do all of it (except maybe the golf…. fun, but it will drive you absolutely nuts, trying to get it right….)

Ah well, I’m getting into TMI, so, let is suffice to say that, I hurt again today, and will be shortcutting here in the Pearl wherever I can, to save time…. I’m also up late, almost an hour later than usual, so, there is that, as well…. So, be prepared for some cheating, ffolkes, which will begin right here, with an abrupt exit from this intro….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” — Albert Einstein

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

So, for section one, I am putting below three headlines from yesterday’s news…. All four speak about separate incidents of police misbehavior, which, unfortunately, though it sounds innocuous (‘misbehavior’, indeed….), when police act out, people tend to die…. Yet, for some reason, no court ever seems to find them guilty of any crime, and, in fact, many never even get charged, as they are usually cleared of any wrongdoing by internal investigations, or one by the local “lawyers” who work hand in hand with them…. a fact of corruption, almost incestuous in its nature, as the cops, and the investigating offices of district attorneys, are almost siblings, in the relationship they share in ‘fighting crime’….

But, even the media ignores that little oddity…. I’m putting these here because, since I won’t have time to rant about it, at least I can have you read the articles, and get angry right along with me, thus providing your own private little rant, in the privacy of your own head…. Here, read these, weep a little, then enjoy the pearls which I’ll throw together to drive the points home…. See y’all in section two….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/NAACP-Feds-should-investigate-black-teen-s-death-5679684.php#photo-6707581

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Jury-to-decide-if-Huntington-Beach-police-wrongly-5675811.php

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Group-protests-at-Wal-Mart-where-man-fatally-shot-5679694.php

“The first rule of gun fighting is — bring a gun.” — Smart Bee

(But, the law says the police are the only ones who are supposed to use guns…. or, it will, as soon as they finish their war on the Second Amendment…. Think about that one, ffolkes…. Are the people you read about above the ones you want to have as the ONLY armed people around? I certainly don’t think I want to be in a place where I am not allowed to have my own defense against THEM, as I don’t see many of them who are worthy of that kind of trust….)

(Okay, I’ll just let the pearls talk now… If I keep commenting, it will turn into a real rant, and take too much time…so, I’ll quit now…. It just irks me SO MUCH…..)

“The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.” — Eugene V. Debs, US labor leader.

(Note: Debs received one million votes in 1920 as candidate for US President, while serving a 10-year jail sentence for having said in June 1918: “Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder…the master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.”)

“The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” — George Bernard Shaw

“Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend’s forehead.” — Chinese Proverb

“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.” — Smart Bee

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

~~ Dylan Thomas ~~

“Was There A Time”

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

As noted, I don’t have time to search out a poem, so, one of mine will have to do…. I’ll try to make it one we haven’t seen in a while…. Okay, so, here we have one I haven’t used since I wrote it, in December of 2012…. which speaks to what I spoke about in the intro, to wit: my old friends, Jim, and Jack…. or, as they are known to those closest to them, James and John…. I’m reproducing it in the original format used to post it….

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” — Robert Frost

Placidly falling in amber waves: old friends

Whiskey, oh, whiskey, I’d forgotten thy balm,
thy loving spread of lassitude, and nature’s own calm.
Misery and pain flee in squalid disorganization,
leaving mirth, happily embraced, in just consolation.

James, old friend, thou has not abandoned me at all,
steadfast and loyal, ever ready to answer my softest call.
Ephemeral illusions of normality come at your instigation
blessed moments of peaceful joy, sans vilification.

Gasps of coherence pound at the door to conscious thought,
muffled explosive memories of battles already fought.
Malleable as the changeable airs of time and circumstance
plaintive calls to reason stand not a single, honest chance.

Sober again, reality’s cold reign brings a new day
ringing in old changes in a new-fashioned way.
To know true freedom’s release from our everyday pain
Is worth a bit of headache, even in the cold, pouring rain.

~~ gigoid, two sheets to the wind, and back ~~

“You will find poetry nowhere, unless you bring some with you.” — Joseph Joubert

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

I promised you I wouldn’t rant today, but, I didn’t promise not to include any rants…. Here is a religirant from a couple of years back, that still hits the nail on the head…..

From 5/18/2012:

“God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.” — Billy Graham

First, let me apologize…. I hadn’t meant to go into a rant this morning, especially about religion; sitting down is as difficult as standing up or walking, so the time it takes to express the outrage necessary to produce a rant is more than I wanted to take. But then this popped up in front of me….

After I had picked myself up from the floor and recovered my breath, I still could barely stop chuckling and giggling long enough to use the mouse to cut and paste it to this page. Now I find myself almost speechless at the sheer arrogance, the complete lack of respect shown for humanity at large by this astounding statement.

In one short phrase, this deeply disturbed man has attempted to manipulate his listeners into a complete subjugation of their will, and in doing so, implies that they are not only unworthy in a moral sense, but are not smart enough to be allowed to think for themselves. I’m surprised he didn’t ask for money in the same sentence…. You can bet he did so before he got to the end of the speech….

I remember seeing Billy Graham when I was quite young, speaking on TV to a football stadium full of enthusiastically cheering, excited, identical clones in white cotton dresses, with skirts below the knees, and blue suits, with white shirts, no vests, and thin ties. Even at the tender age of 11 or so when I saw it, my first impression of him was of a used-car salesman, with a smarmy-looking smile at inappropriate moments, and a smooth, fawning manner of speaking that ranged from sly confidences to outraged proclamations of evil and sin, in very obviously scripted stages.

The words and phrases he used, straight out of the King James Bible, mostly, seemed to promote love and tolerance, but the underlying message was one of elitism and divisiveness, as indicated by the insistence that only those who accepted JC according to their rules would be allowed into heaven…. The rest of us would be doomed, consigned to everlasting hell for having the audacity to think differently…. It was pretty over-the-top, as far as I was concerned, though entertaining in a circus sort of way….

It is now 50 years since I saw that particular revival meeting, and Mr. Graham has continued to spew his particular brand of ignorance for that entire time. He is indeed one of the men of whom St. Francis of Assisi warned us to beware, a man of one book. And the above statement, to me, is proof of just how little he thinks of the general run of human beings. His basic message is, “You are a miserable sinner, and have no right to exist, other than at the mercy of God. You are not smart enough to keep from sinning on your own, so just shut up and listen, and do what you are told….”

It is certainly proof, I guess, that the world takes all kinds, for there are millions of folks out there who regard what Billy Graham says as just as much gospel as what is in the Bible…. but then in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose…. Me, I’d rather listen to a ball game…..

Note from 2014:

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” — H.L. Mencken

Aha! Well…. that explains that….

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

Well, I did it…. I’ve put together a Pearl, under trying circumstances, in jig time (whatever THAT means….)…. Rather than push my luck, I’m going to go post this now, and be done with it for the day…. Hell, since I’m going to be taking a LOT of extra drugs, maybe later I’ll go surfing for a little while, when I get to a point where I can think past the haze of pain…. I hope so… it would be nice to be able to see another web site than just my own, and the news…. Any who, I’ll see y’all tomorrow, ffolkes; this pain has to ease off a bit some time…..

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

gigoid

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

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Murphy’s Law

Thirteen metric tons of bio-hazardous waste? How droll….

Okay, but, who takes the hindmost?….

Paltry remnants of boldly patterned briefs….

Sans beau, there is no coup….

Dorothy, this is DEFINITELY not Kansas!….

Sober reflection is due, to underscore the value of former mushrooms….

Illuminating me softly with his bhang….

In my left ear, sir….

Soliciting salsa for the homeless….

Stealing a reflective moment….

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