In politics, the cost of doing business is always integrity….

Posted on October 14, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

As I watch, entranced, the cranes dance…. formal, elegant, feathers spread to show off color, they dance around, spinning and cavorting with glee, mirroring each other with intense concentration and focus, in complex patterns of incredible beauty, never meeting eyes, yet completely in sync. No other creature is near, to witness their amazing dance of love, and lust for life, but for me…. To honor that life, to honor being allowed to witness such treasure, I concentrate on feeling every nuance of what I’m seeing, and experiencing, to save the beauty, if only in memory….

Okay, that’s enough of that…. Nice as it is, it doesn’t really suit my mood right now…. which is, sad to say, a bit rough and curmudgeonly…. It’s bound to happen when I awake at a few minutes before 3 AM, knowing I’m not going back to sleep…. So, here I am, at 3:13, dutifully pounding away at the keyboard, hoping to find it within me to write well enough to warrant being up now. Living with PTSD is so much fun….

I say “dutifully” because I can’t think of any other reason why I would put myself through this, other than my sense of duty; nothing else could convince me that it isn’t one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. I mean, how much inspiration am I going to find at this hour, I ask you? Not much, that’s for sure and for certain, unless by some outlandish chance, I turn a corner and find the corpse of Murphy lying on my floor…. that would be inspiring, fer shure, man….

Since it’s not likely I’ll be coming across any dead forces of nature anytime soon, I suppose I’ll need to turn my head toward something a bit more mundane, like a rant, or something…. I’m not sure at all how that is going over, though in the last week, my output has jumped again…. I’ve been ranting so hard, my daily word average has jumped up into the 2750/words/day range, which may, or may not, have something to do with the reduction in the number of readers again….

I try not to pay much attention to the stats, but, it’s frustrating to think that I’ve been putting out so much effort to tell people of the danger they are in from their Beloved Rulers, and nobody is seeing it…. Yesterday, only one person, as far as I can tell, came by, and this person is perhaps my most faithful reader, in terms of visiting daily; I love seeing his icon, but know I’m again preaching only to the choir…. I guess it’s frustrating because I feel as if I’ve been doing some of my best ranting….. logical, yet not stiflingly so, with some biting humor, and bitter indictments, with evidential supportive proof, of the outrageous BS perpetrated every day by those assholes who lie to us for their living…… Jefferson, and Mason, and Paine, all warned us about “professional politicians”, but did we listen? No, we didn’t….

I often wonder about the wives of the politicians we see on TV…. I mean, it’s no secret that most women are smarter than their husbands; that is a statistical FACT, established many years ago by repetitive, and conclusive evidence, provided by scientific research…. So, how does it make them feel, to be married to, and thus give the impression that they approve of, the world’s most obvious, and most accomplished liars…. How frustrated THEY must feel, to be connected to such men, men with no basic integrity…. Yet, to say so would be to admit they made a mistake, (to marry them….), and making that admission is one thing a fundamentalist, a preacher, a politician, or a politician’s wife will never do….

I see that I’ve again fallen into a mini-sized sort-of-a-rant in the intro, when I had promised myself I wouldn’t…. So much for plans at this hour of the day, eh? It’s still shy of 4 AM, and I’ve about finished an intro; what comes next will be up to chance as much as planning on my part, I think…. It’s just the way of things around here when I start doing this before my brain has really engaged completely….. Of course, that isn’t a guarantee of success, either, but, chances are better, anyway…. I am starting to get the feeling that, at this point, I’d better just say….

Shall we Pearl?

“All the magick of creation exists within a single, tiny seed.” — Magi

“The difference between tragedy and humor is whether it is happening to you.” — Smart Bee
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I just spent about 20 minutes online, looking for a news item about which to rant…. I found a couple that might do, but, it would have been a stretch to make them work, as it was a matter of beating on an equine in very poor health, to wit: the government shutdown. That subject is getting a bit shopworn, since the politicos themselves are now going out to the public and drumming up support for their own particular viewpoints, thereby tainting perfectly good public displays of public protest with their lies and silly attempts to court favor….

I saw where a couple of organizations got together in protest marches, and forced open one of the National Parks in Washington D.C., the WWII Memorial…. Then, at some point, they were joined by Ted Cruz, the young Republican hotshot, that party’s last best hope for relevance, who is a Senator from a western state or something, where the populace is severely confused by a Latino Republican, mostly voting for him out of surprise, or, of course, out of ignorance…. Sarah Palin, that paragon of fundamentalist ignorance, and one of the Tea Party’s darlings, (apparently because she isn’t afraid to be seen as “bat-shit-crazy” for the idiotic statements she makes, which are generally so ridiculous, even her own state ignores her….), also dropped by the protests to mouth some outlandish comments, per her usual public display of ignorance…..

Both pundits, usually seen as talking heads on TV, were pounding the pavement in person, taking photo ops and doling out their talking points heavily, even though they, and their cohorts, are the very people responsible for the mess we are seeing…. Ballsy, to say the least…. Their appearance at the protest tells me that most of the politicos are now in spin-mode, full-time, trying to find things to put before the public that will shore up the bad press they’re all getting right now….

In the process of doing so, they are completely ignoring the fact that they are NOT doing their jobs, and every day this shutdown continues will erode public sympathy even more… The part I like the most about all this is that it has become clear, even to those who don’t want to see it, that ALL OF THEM, Democrats, Republicans, and ALL of their supporters and co-conspirators, (lobbyists, bankers, corporate puppeteers, judges, police, military, religious leaders, all of them….) are guilty in this matter, and the trust they had is now less than it was…. thank goodness!….

But, none of what I saw in the news is worth a full-scale rant today, so, I’ll take the easy route, and go old-school…. Here is a pearl with some basic parameters, to find statements, or quotes, that will show the BRC and/or all their supporters in their true colors…..

“I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what entertainment is all about … Idiots, explosives and falling anvils.” — Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

“The writers who have nothing to say are the ones you can buy; the others have too high a price.” — Walter Lippmann, “Preface to Politics”

Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet — Act i, Sc. 2

“To see what is right and not to do it is cowardice.” — Cervantes

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Letter to Gay, Oct, 6, 1727

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

Quemadmoeum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est. – [A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killers hands.] — Lucius Annaeus Seneca “the younger” ca. 4 BC – 65 AD
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Often, such as today, poetry needs no adornment…..

Apologia

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will–Love that I love so well–
That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so–at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty,

Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
To where the steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God’s hair.

Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.

But surely it is something to have been
The best belovèd for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His purple wings flit once across thy smile.

Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed
On my boy’s heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!

~~ Oscar Wilde ~~

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“…the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.” — Aristotle, _Poetics_, 22, 1459a 5-7

Yet another piece of proof of the value, and validity, of these Pearls of Virtual Wisdom…. Here at ECR, we are well aware of the power of metaphor (May the Metaphorse be With You….), though I prefer to speak more plainly when targeting the talking heads, preachers, and myrmidons…. It’s easier, and causes fewer misunderstandings if I just call them spades, rather than trying to be cute, or erudite, by calling them by the name they choose to hide behind, i.e., spades….

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, “Huh? What the devil does THAT mean?”, but, really, you should know by now that if you don’t keep up, well, too bad, you’re on your own, because this train won’t stop to fix those kinds of disillusionments without falling completely off schedule, which eats into the profits…. Well, it would, if we made any profit from this…. Since we neither charge, nor collect, any kind of fees, it’s moot, anyway…. The point is, it’s all just a metaphor for life, which, if you stop to think about it, is pretty much what blogging is all about…. A large, amorphous metaphor for existence, spread willy-nilly across the far-flung reaches of the world wide net, providing not merely metaphor, but, also, some damn fine prose….

All of which tells you nothing important, or even compelling; it’s all just a lead in, anyway, to another old-school pearl, picked this time at random, with no parameters other than what seemed appropriate at the moment in time… This kind of pearl is probably my favorite kind to put together, and seems most often to produce the the finest, shiniest, metaphorical pearls of virtual wisdom….

I’m required by law to remind y’all at this point that these are pearls of “virtual wisdom”, and should not ever be used as if they are true wisdom…. If they are, we are not responsible for the ensuing consequences, up to and including the use of nuclear weaponry…. Enjoy!….

“Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?” — George Eliot

“An improper mind is a perpetual feast.” — Smart Bee

“Don’t look back — something might be gaining on you.” — Satchel Paige

“If your advance is going well, you’re walking into an ambush.” — Sun Tzu

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” — Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

“The one unforgivable sin, the offense against one’s own integrity, is to accept anything at all simply on authority.” — Maureen Johnson Long (Lazarus Long’s mother….)

“How to paint a perfect painting — make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally” — Robert M. Pirsig
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Well, ffolkes, there you have it; one more trip down the pike on gigoid’s dime. Such as it is….. Let’s see what happened here….. Considering the state of my mind at this point, I’m going to let this go without a struggle, or even a qualm…. Never did like giving up qualms, anyway…. Damn! It’s really early still… 6:01 AM and all done, except for posting… which I will proceed to do now…. See ya tomorrow….

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

A special sale on Dear John letters…..

Posted on October 13, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be celebrating my 63rd birthday….. Perhaps ‘celebrating’ is not the right word; let’s say I’ll acknowledge it, and let it go at that…. In truth, though, I’m not typical in how I look at birthdays; I actually enjoy aging, from an intellectual standpoint. However, I don’t feel old, at this moment, though, physically, I do feel my age frequently….. But, in my mind, I still feel as if I am 25 years old, and can still do anything at all with my body… which, back then, I did so, a lot. That’s why I’m so frail now, according to my doctor, but that’s neither here nor there… In most ways, I don’t feel as if death is near, even though I am aware of entering his neighborhood, so to speak….

I don’t believe that paragraph says what I am trying to say very well. That could be due to the hour of the day, or the insufficient number of ounces of coffee thus far consumed; most likely it’s my normal confusion expressing itself, in its own inimitable way. I suppose I’m trying to say that even though I’m getting older all the time, it only seems to affect my body, and not my mind…. For this I can only be grateful, as there are many, many things the mind can figure out how to do without having the full use of physical attributes. There is very little the body can do to make up for not having one’s mental faculties in full working order….. I mean, any complex math is out, if one has to count higher than 20, or so, and no way I’m trusting my body to write a Pearl…. It’s already hard enough to get them to work in tandem….

Okay, that’s silly, but, you get the drift, I hope…. I’m fresh out of cliches and aphorisms to get it said in any elegant way, so, what has transpired will have to do for the nonce. Since we are already at the cusp of giving up altogether (this is starting to look a bit like one that will go in the trash, and get started over…..), I’d best decide how much further I’ll go in trying to get to my point…. a point, I will add, that is now getting pretty foggy itself, and may have been lost completely by the time I get to the end of this paragraph…. It certainly has retreated well into the background, while I go through all these wordy contortions, trying to find my way back to my original thought….

I see that I’ve reached nearly enough material to call this an intro, even though nothing has been either introduced, or begun well, in any fashion. Maybe THIS is the mental deterioration people often speak of when talking about getting old; it certainly happens often enough to look that way. You COULD say this has been coming on for some time; if I go back over the Pearls from the recent past, I see that this section has undergone some rather odd changes over the course of this year….

I wander from subject to subject much more frequently, usually AWAY from any coherency…. I lose track of my thoughts, as I write them…. I cover that up by being silly, not even caring how it makes me look…. I tend to fall easily into ranting, though without providing as much factual evidence as opinion, which is fine, in and of itself, but, not a good policy over time…. people want proof. And, I’m easily distracted, as the ranting indicates…. Hmm….. all of these are symptomatic of age related issues, so, I guess this means what I’d hoped it didn’t….. Hell, I didn’t even go into how many trips to the bathroom I make, compared to my younger self….

I’m old, and there’s no way around it, so I may as well just go with the flow…. If that flow means verbal diarrhea for up to six complete paragraphs, such as this morning, well, then, I’ll just let it take me away, just as if I were pleased about it all…. I wonder, though, is it going with the flow, or getting flushed? I think…. that I don’t want to think about that one any further…. Instead, I’ll just say this…. Yeah, I’m old, but, so fucking what? I’m tough, too, and stubborn, and full of curmudgeonly passion…. and I’ve still got a lot to say about the people in this world who have it in for everyone else…. So, take it, or leave it, but, that’s the way it is….

Shall we Pearl?….

“I used to wonder about the meaning of life. But I looked it up in the dictionary under L and there it was, the meaning of life. It was less than I expected.” — Dogbert
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Yesterday, I thought my rant was pretty accurate, showing how the BRC, the priestly hierarchies, and all those who manipulate others solely for their own benefit have worked together over centuries to enslave mankind…. I’m not going to claim any conspiracy to do so, even though the act itself, of controlling others, is evidence enough of intent to conspire; the system that exists today in the world has evolved rather than been constructed… Those who have the urge to power have always pursued it, and the rest of us have always suffered for it….

Now, we’ve come to a point in our history where each act of this nature assumes greater importance in the overall scheme of things; the more the shadowy masters of society work to keep their acts secret, the harder people try to uncover them…. and, since the ones who have all the power aren’t technicians, they have to depend on some of the unwashed masses to perform certain tasks…. As they suspected, that was a risk, which has led to the recent revelations in the news about how much our governments spy on us, and not unsurprisingly to some of us, showing how much of what the government does is NOT being honest.

Below I’ve put another link to an article, which, to me, is very good in its intent and delivery, but doesn’t go far enough in its implied criticism…. Eric Snowden, the NSA tech who blew the whistle on the NSA, makes one statement, (included just after the link below…), that outlines very well what I think; it’s a good summary statement of what our POTUS has done during his reign of office….. Not that this POTUS is any worse than any of the Shrubs, or for that matter, any of them…. But, he IS the one who got himself elected mainly by stating he would make changes long overdue…. As far as I can see, NONE of those necessary changes have occurred, at least, not so far….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Snowden-mass-surveillance-making-us-less-safe-4890413.php

“Snowden said the U.S. government was “unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they’ll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth.” ”

This is truth, ffolkes….. The Obama administration, according to the article I put here yesterday, has instituted more prosecutions of security leaks against writers, news organizations, and anyone who showed how deeply the spying has been thrust into our lives, than ANY previous administration, which is having a very serious effect on how willing reporters are to exposing those leaks, or to even use them for material…. This is their policy, in spite of the fact that what they are doing is ILLEGAL, even according to the asinine Patriot Act that is at the root of the problem…. This administration has exceeded the limits of that Act ever since it was signed, deliberately; they don’t even bother to conceal it, as the proof has already been published, with documented emails and policy statements that make it clear they KNEW they were exceeding their authority….

“To disarm the people – that was the best and most effective way to enslave them ….” — George Mason ( Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia, 1776, — which became the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights ) — 3 Elliot, Debate at 380.

George is right in this, but he forgot another method for disarming the people, one that is just as effective in controlling the populace…., the one that is currently being used…. The people’s only and best weapon against depredations by the government is not guns, though they are useful, and essential in any free society… But, guns are only useful for enforcing one’s beliefs. Knowledge, and information about what is being done, is actually the most powerful weapon we have, as well as the most powerful tool the BRC has to keep us under their control… If we don’t KNOW what they’re doing, we can’t stop it. If we don’t KNOW they are fucking us over, we can’t stop them….

In this modern world, aptly called the Age of Information, correct data, or more accurately, the truth, is the most powerful weapon at anyone’s disposal… If the government continues to operate in the way they are now, then we won’t even KNOW that they’ve done something to us, until it’s all done… Our only real protection is the freedom of the press, and of speech, and the freedom to act to find redress for acts of infamy against us…. Those acts are now being perpetrated mostly by our own leaders, and if we don’t have the guts to stop them, well, then they are going to keep on controlling us all right into our graves….

I know this rant sounds a bit disorganized; I did that deliberately, because it is another form of get-back at the BRC…. If they’re going to take the time to look at what I write, to keep track of yet another dissatisfied citizen, who could conceivably cause them problems, should any significant number of people ever start listening to my ideas, well, then, I’m going to make it as long and complex as I can, just to thumb my nose at them…. They’ll have to dig through all this to get at whatever they see as the nuggets of seditious material, so I like to dress it up pretty for them…. and, bury it deep, so they have to sweat a bit to dig it out…

“What you see but can’t see over is as good as infinite.” — Thomas Carlyle

I’m going to end this here, not because I’ve run out of anger, or of material, but because I’m over-amped, and it’s too early for this kind of emotional storm…. It’s getting hard to NOT become angry at what I see in the news each day; though I am not a spring chicken, and don’t expect everything to go my way in the world, it would be nice to be able to count on something, or someone, in the real world to be truthful, or honest, or at least, not completely DIS-honest…. But, I guess that’s expecting a lot of human nature, given its track record….. There isn’t a lot of historical evidence of that kind of behavior, especially at the higher levels of government, or the higher levels of the priesthood….

Stay alert, ffolkes…. As axiom #7 says…. “Do your Duty. Respect Life. Honor the Truth. Share your Love.”,….. and watch your data…. Enough!….

“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.” — H. L. Mencken

“If you’re facing the richest and most disgusting conspiracy in history, you have to do more than stick up two fingers and say “peace”.” — Ben Elton, Stark
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Given the subject matter in today’s rant, I was going to put in another of my poems, with a clear message to the PTB… But, in looking for it, I came across this one, and it feels like a better one for today… With poetry, I tend to go with feelings more consistently than I do with reason, so….

Honorable Request

Days, filled to a brim with fluff and time, pass
dimly into memory, bit by combative bit,
ever mournful, yet loud with life and sass,
only in dream do we meet, and dance, and flit.

Souls, spinning ’round in gleeful wonder, comply
as they must, never given a reason,
somberly proper, yet limber and quite spry,
dancing on to greet each bright new season.

Storms, angered by apathetic care, rage
proceeding into ministerial glare, unknown,
clothed in colors, purified solely with sage,
past an infinite future, already flown.

Life, plumbed to its depths and secrets, keeps
flowing with currents, strong and fairly found,
love stands, asking release, as it slowly weeps,
seeking refuge unasked, to stay honor bound.

~~ gigoid ~~

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Having dutifully, and necessarily, given in to the urge to rant, BEFORE I read the day’s headlines, I am now fully authorized to move on to a more light-hearted duty, to find the perfect string of pearls to make a necklace of virtual wisdom, one that shines with enough beauty to illuminate, and inspire… Or, if nothing else, give us a bit of a chuckle…. The Irish are fond of of saying, “A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”….

“Any mental functions attempted in this area must be re- evaluated during a subsequent period. It has been discovered that standard logic works sideways in this area due to the influence of the occupant.” — Smart Bee

“That which leads us to the performance of duty by offering pleasure as its reward, is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue.” — Cicero (B.C. 106-43)

“It [the Bible] is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) — Letters from the Earth (1905-1909)

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom — and of whom only — it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

If that’s an honor surely ’tis a greater
To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
Behold in me a man of mark and note
Whom no elector e’er denied a vote! —
An undiscredited, unhooted gent
Who might, for all we know, be President
By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer —
I’m passing with a wide and open ear!
Jonathan Fomry

— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“The purpose and function of government is not to preside over change but to prevent change. By political methods when unavoidable, by violence when convenient.” — Edward Abbey

“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

“People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.” — Oscar Wilde

“Giving power and money to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” — P.J. O’Rourke, former Gulf War correspondent, — summing up what he learned — during two years of research on how our government functions

Well, rather than going for humor, it seems as if Smart Bee was paying attention earlier, and decided to collect a group of pearls that are obviously related to the rant above, if only in the indictment, by several of history’s more rational minds, of both the BRC, and the unholy perpetrators of any of the major religions…. I don’t know about y’all, but, I like it, so, it stays….
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Someday, I suppose, I’ll figure this out, and just sit down each day to write, knowing in advance how it will go; today, however, has been typical for me, in that I’ve no clue as to how it got done, really…. but, there it is, so I’d best go proof it, so as not to embarrass myself any further than is absolutely necessary….

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you… This isn’t bad. It isn’t necessarily brilliant, but, it will do until brilliant comes along, for me anyway…. This means that once again, I’m done, and I didn’t even know it… See ya, got stuff to pack for the trip…. 🙂

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

Lost on a red brick road, searching in vain for Oz….

Posted on October 11, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Seven days to go until my last indulgence for the year is to begin…. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but, Patricia and I will be taking another cruise a week or so from now… (nine days, technically, but, we don’t count today, and we don’t count the day we board…. only the days between us and the event count…. That way, we are allowed to get enthusiastic when it gets below double figures, and that comes sooner using this method… It’s all in the wrist, see, and how you look at it…. really….) It’s a seven day cruise, out of SF, to Ensenada, Mexico, and back, with stops in Santa Barbara, Long Beach/L.A., and San Diego. before getting to Ensenada.

Any who, I can hardly wait, especially since it is looking more and more likely that I won’t be able to afford another one for a long time, because the stupid assholes in Congress are willing to completely trash the economy for the next 10 years or so in order to keep from showing any sort of willingness to compromise, or show any sort of minimal intelligence.

According to the most trustworthy financial experts, the actions of these fools are sure to push the economy to the brink of another massive recession, exactly as they did back in the Reagan era, and as will continue to happen as long as Reaganomics, or any other form of Republican conservatism, is given ANY CREDENCE AT ALL….

The fiscal policies that conservatives believe in are much of a type with their religious views, i.e. delusional at the very base of it. Just like there is no Caucasian senior citizen with a big white beard, sitting up in the sky, making judgments about our morality, there is no fiscal magic bullet, and it is delusional to think that taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich is going to make it all better for the middle class….

It doesn’t make any sense, arithmetically, mathematically, financially, morally, or by any other set of standards you wish to apply. No matter what anyone tells you, or how nice a suit they’re wearing, if they tell you that you can trust them about this sort of elitist bullshit, well, ffolkes, you’ll get exactly what you deserve…

I’m not sure how I fell into a rant, when I started out telling y’all about my upcoming trip…. but, I guess all of this has been in the forefront of my mind for some days, and I’m getting pretty upset about these gobshites…. I’ll rant about this below, anyway, as I’ve got some great stuff already picked out to direct the discussion… In fact, today’s piece may just combine my usual two targets into one rant, if I can work it….

But, it won’t happen if I write it all in the intro, so, since I’ve already rambled through about five or so paragraphs, without ever touching very strongly on any of what I wish to say, I’m sure the authorities won’t object if we just get on with it for the day, and leave the intro in the very common piss-poor state it’s in…. And, if nothing else, I got a full cup of coffee into me, which is a good sign, and bodes well for my typing speed for the rest of the day….

Shall we Pearl?…..

Mourn not the dead…
But rather mourn the apathetic throng —
The cowed and meek
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong,
And dare not speak.

— Ralph Chaplin (1887-1961)
_____________________________

“Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, that whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle’s pathetic belief (or any one else’s pathetic belief) in ‘the wise few.’– — G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

This statement is an excellent overview of the Christian elitist philosophy that has, patently, and demonstrably, been the primary cause behind almost all the major problems now afflicting the human race, as we struggle against our own nature to keep from committing species suicide…. It shows quite clearly the attitude that is the key factor in how most Christians view the world at at large, which is to say, as their own property, as Lords of Creation…. It also shows the attitude of entitlement, so unjustly claimed, that almost every Christian feels, surrounded as they are by the blanket of invulnerable certitude….

“Self-righteousness is a leading cause of blindness.” — Smart Bee

Even the most intransigent Christian will usually admit the correctness of this…. until it is applied to them. They don’t see their own beliefs as being self-righteous…. Wait, no that is wrong…. they DO see themselves as self-righteous, but, they believe that, because they are convinced they are right, they have a perfect right to be that way…. It’s slightly different, and much more dangerous for society, in that respect, for it gives them, in their own minds, carte blanche to decide what is right for everyone else, too….

“God said it, I believe it, and that’s the end of it…..” is a popular catch-phrase in their clique, as it both states their main philosophy, and at the same time, indicates their complete and utter refusal to consider any other ideas…. (Thereby protecting them from ever having to think for themselves, and, more importantly, from having to even think at all….Just nod your head, praise Jesus, and live forever, no matter what you’ve done here on Earth….)

Then we come to their perverted view of “equality”…. I’m sorry, ffolkes, but the old saw about “everyone is equal” or even, “everyone is created equal” is just so much bullshit, and anyone with even half a brain can see it isn’t true…. People are not equal…. they may have equal rights….. to life, to love and to any other part of life that they can, and are willing to defend…. But, in the real world, the one we’ve all agreed to call Reality, nobody is equal, my friends….

If you believe they are, well, I’d be happy to demonstrate several ways in which you are not superior, or, if you prefer, how you are worse at some things than others, and how, most certainly, you are not equal, to someone, or anyone else…. People DON’T have equal abilities…. some are faster, some are smarter, (…. Gee, I wonder who that might be?…. 🙂 ), some are better cooks, some dance better…. it all depends on a lot of factors, none of which support the idea that everyone starts out the same, or ends up the same….

But, these misguided fools would have us believe that everyone “is equal in God’s eyes”…. a statement that their every act denies…. If they truly believed that, then how do they account for all their missionaries? What kind of attitude is it presenting when you are going out to force religious beliefs on whomever there is in the world who has different ideas, especially in “backward” countries, defined as people who have never been exposed to their particular form of insanity in the past? If they really believed in equality, they would acknowledge the possibility of truths other than their own, and that other people don’t require their condescension to live honorably….

Now, in modern times, we come to the Tea Party, an entity which, to me, is the most terrifyingly ignorant, and most dangerous, form of human political interaction to come out of the last 60 years. It represents, in part, the culmination of that much time of people trying, time after time, to prove that Reagan was right…. This, in spite of the incredible amount of evidence that all of his policies not only did not, and do not, work, but, in reality, will actively cause more problems than they will ever solve, conclusions drawn directly from the Reality of the last 40 years, watching the economy repeatedly go down the tubes from having adopted his ideas for a time….

These people, and I use the term loosely, with their white Christian sense of entitlement, and delusional belief in their own rightness, are still trying to force the same old crap down everyone’s throat, and are willing to tell any number of lies, of all varieties, and on any subject, in order to accomplish the purported purpose… Witness, if you will, the sheer effrontery of the following statements by the people responsible for the government shutdown…. I tried to count the number of sheer fabrications I read, but, I couldn’t count that high…. Also, please note the dismissive tone in most of the quotes, as if any argument that might be presented is unworthy of consideration, looking as they are from the lofty heights of their asinine certitude….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Most-outrageous-quotes-on-the-debt-ceiling-71829/photo-5302328.php

It seems to me that, in spite of the American public’s downright STUPID trust of those who have not earned it, the greater number of people who see stuff such as these egregious confabulations ought to be able to at least SEE what I’m talking about, and begin to question why there are so many inconsistencies and “inaccuracies” in the statements made by their heroes….

Instead, the average Joe in this country, who has a severe dislike for using the empty space between his ears for anything other than a place to wear a gimme cap, preferably with a John Deere logo, will buy every word they hear, and nod their pointy little heads in agreement, even though they have no real idea of what is true, and what is not…

This government shutdown, and the ensuing economic problems that it will create for society, is the direct result of a small number of assholes who found a loophole in the law that would allow them to hold the entire country hostage to their demands, all of which are completely in direct opposite contrast to what society itself wants, or believes…. Every poll made since the start of the shutdown has clearly shown that the majority of this country does NOT agree with what these assholes are doing… a LARGE majority, at that….

But, since they are fully assured of their own invincibility, and protected by their misplaced sense of entitlement, they don’t care, (not that they ever did, it just seemed appropriate to point it out now….), and they stubbornly refuse to consider any compromise…. even though it is becoming increasingly clear they are signaling the end of the Republican Party as a political force in this nation…..

This subject is one I could rant about for days, and, in truth, already have done so…. So, I’m going to cut this short here, and merely restate my position…. The Christian churches, who have saddled Western society with the burdens of their delusions for over 2000 years, along with the political conservatives over whom they have control, in the halls of government, have taken the rest of this nation hostage, and are sending us all into financial ruin, just so they can try to “prove a point”…..

The saddest part is, the point they are trying to prove is one that the nation at large has already rejected, in favor of moving on into the future, and is no longer willing to endure… They may have accomplished the purpose they wanted, though that is not any clearer than any of their arguments, but, in doing so, have alienated so many people, they have effectively ensured their own demise as a political party of any influence….

“I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.” — Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

Substitute “politicians and preachers” for “cartoon characters”, and I’m right there with Jack…. Come to think of it, there aren’t a lot of visible differences I can see in the two groups, which just goes to show you, you never know where serendipity will turn up….
_____________________________

I’m not sure why, but this just seemed like the right poem to go along with today’s subject matter…. Besides, I like it…..

Sonnet To Liberty

NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,–
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea,–
And give my rage a brother—-! Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved–and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

~~ Oscar Wilde ~~

_____________________________

I had originally intended for this section to contain another rant, on an important matter, but, I’m tired of ranting for the time being…. Since I’m in charge, nominally, I’ve made an executive decision to go old-school, just as if it were something new and different…. Not only are we retreating to our default position, we’re going there without parameters, random, harlequin style…. Is that anything like Gang Nam style?…. No? Okay, good….

“It matters not what you are thought to be, but what you are.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 785

“One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“The universe is as it is because if it were any different, we wouldn’t be here to observe it.” — Stephen Hawking

“If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.” — Eugene V Debs (1855-1926), American socialist

“I came up with a new Politically Correct term…. Religiously Impaired…. Unfortunately, I don’t know if it applies to atheists or fundamentalists.” — Smart Bee

“Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.” — Martin Fraquhar Tupper

One might consider the last quote as the perfect closing statement for such a pearl….. But, that would be like taking my own advice, or something, so we’ll go with the classic format, and add in the seventh star…. which is pretty perfect, itself, IMHO….

ZEUS, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
_____________________________

Some days, I’m more equal than others…. If you know what that means, well, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din…. No, actually, I do know what it means, and in this particular case, it’s a good thing I do…. Let’s see how this came out today…..

Hmm… this one is a bit hard to call…. It SEEMS okay, and it’s got a lot of good stuff in there; I just don’t know if it is coherent enough to make its points… Oh, well, I’ll never know if I don’t post it, so…. Of course, even if I do post it, I still may never know, but, I’ve learned to live with not knowing a lot of stuff I’d like to have on tap…. Bang the drum, slowly, my friends, and let the sunset fill your souls…. until the next sunrise…. 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

Look! It’s a black-frocked bible-thumper, moulting in the road!….

Posted on October 7, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

A touch of research will, I hope, lead me to a greater understanding of what it is I am doing here today, or, for that matter, any day….. (Have you noticed the dots? Apparently, the number of them says something about where my head is headed, so to speak…. I just noticed…. That says something, too, I suppose, about my head….) Where did I…?…. Ah, okay… So, it turns out that much, or, even most, of what I do here is under the aegis of Clio. I wasn’t sure which of the nine muses was my own, so I went to look them up, and she is the one who seems to be most closely allied to what I usually end up writing….

She is the muse of History, as opposed to those of Epic Poetry, Love Poetry, Song or Elegiac Poetry, Tragedy (though we do get rather sad at times…. Sometimes, what I write could be construed as such, I suppose…. Or, I reckon the fact that I write at all could be mis-construed as such….), Hymns (none of that here, thank you…), Dance, Astronomy, (Urania, to whom I occasionally appeal), and, my favorite, even though I can’t always find her, Thalia, the muse of Comedy….

None of this can, or should, be considered as essential material; it’s just what occurred to me as I sat down to write today…. In truth, it’s put me rather behind schedule, as I’ve spent a good three-quarters of an hour researching and reading about the muses, when I could have been writing… Oh well, considering what usually falls out of my head when I write first thing, without some kind of mental warm-up, this is probably a good thing, and may even show a positive effect on the Pearl as a whole. It certainly can’t hurt, can it?….

Like all would-be perfectionists, I’m my own harshest critic, inside my head, where nobody can hear me yelling at myself (detracts from the image, don’t y’know, of a calm, composed personality, in harmony with all he sees…. Yep, that’s me alright….. on alternate universe days…. ). Nonetheless for all that, I’m thinking that doing research first thing is a better way to give myself a bit of a warm-up, before jumping right onto the keyboard to start emptying out the detritus laying around my mind after the night’s storms…. If nothing else, it can give me something distracting from my usual train of thought, which, of late, has been hijacked regularly into ranting about the idiots in Washington, before I’m even fully awake….

That, in and of itself, is probably a good thing; my sticks aren’t quite as sharply pointed when I start writing at the same time as I’m consuming my initial hits of coffee. There’s more chance of the target’s survival in that case, which allows me to take more shots at them later….. more fun for me, and better behavioral modification for them, hopefully….. And, if not, well, we can always just shoot them… Oh, wait, that’s THEIR solution to issues, not mine… sorry, forgot…. got confused as to which side of the issue I was on….

Oh, look! Isn’t that an intro? Why, yes, yes, I believe it is…. If not, it’s at least long enough for one, and silly enough for three of them, considering how many different subjects we wandered through before getting here…. I’m astonished that none of it got on our clothing; that particular group of subjects can get splashy, and will leave stains, if not treated instantly. If it ever does, there are soapy wipes in the hidden compartment in the arm of your seat…. Just push the big red button on the window, and the arm of your seat will….

WAIT! DON’T DO THAT! That’s the wrong button; if you push that, the pilot will immediately throw us into a spin, heading for the nearest landing point; THAT button is the cabin-fire button…. I meant to say, pull the little purple and pink ring on the OTHER arm of your seat, to find the arm that goes up, to reveal the soapy wipes…. Whew! Sorry, almost screwed the pooch big time…. Fortunately for all of us, this is all fictional, and no real danger was ever present…. No, really, none….

Shall we Pearl?….

“If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?” — Croll’s Query
_____________________________

“I love the Constitution and government of this land, but I hate the damned rascals that administer the government.” — Brigham Young

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017456.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/020014.php

To this pair of articles, which provide incontrovertible proof of the ignorance rampant among the Republican members of the House of Representatives, (as of some years ago, admittedly, but, pal Joey is still in the House….), I will also add the link below, which, unlike the first two, was ripped from the CURRENT crop of articles online about the government shutdown we are witnessing, courtesy of assholes who think they’re better than everyone else…. This one is about the ostensible leader of those idiots, who also, unfortunately, also happens to be the Speaker of the House, a very dangerous position in which to see a man with no morality, other than his own, and no brain cells that continue to work in tandem with any others that may remain, in the empty shell of his mind….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Boehner-to-Obama-No-debt-hike-without-concessions-4873299.php

“Some Republicans, such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa, dismiss the warnings about a government default as an exaggeration, suggesting U.S. credit won’t collapse and calling the talk “a lot of false demagoguery.” (Of course, the “talk” to which he refers is the straightforward message on the most likely effects of the shutdown that was given by none other than the head of the Department of the Treasury, whom we MIGHT want to consider as a more competent judge of such matters as a lawyer from Iowa (I say lawyer, because, odds are, he is one…. if he’s not, well, no comment, as whatever he is, he ISN’T a financial expert….)

Asked how the standoff might end, Boehner said Sunday on ABC that he was uncertain: “If I knew, I’d tell you.””

“Privately, administration officials say they don’t think Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell want a default as they realize it will be far worse than a shutdown, but the two don’t know how to avoid it or when to try.”

Clearly, the only issues at play here are a selfish, false sense of entitlement, and ruthless paranoia…. but, then, I’m a former psychiatric technician, and I tend to see how behaviors fit into patterns common to certain psychiatric disorders, of which paranoia, and delusional thinking are two primary examples. The behaviors currently being displayed on the national stage for all of us to witness is appalling to me, so much so, I’m going to abandon this mild rant here, in favor of going to an old-school indictment of these idiots….

So, here is what Smart Bee, under the influence of my parameters for today, has to say about what is going on in the political scene, here in America, today, October 7, 2013….

“You are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are.” — Smart Bee

“Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.” — Rene Descartes

“Vote for ME — I’m well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is too awful.” — Kurt Vonnegut’s TimeQuake

“Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.” — Alphonse de Lamartine

“I have been Foolish and Deluded, and I am a Bear of No Brain at All.” — Pooh

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.” — Thomas Alva Edison
_____________________________

Today’s choice of poems was, I like to think, destined. I like to think that because I’m a romantic at heart, and an optimist by choice; even if it isn’t true, it’s nice to think so…. I just thought about Oscar, and what he might have had to say in today’s world… So, with a bit of help from Google, and Poemhunter.com, I offer this sublime piece of social commentary from a master of words….

The Doer Of Good

It was night-time and He was alone.

And He saw afar-off the walls of a round city and went towards the
city.

And when He came near He heard within the city the tread of the
feet of joy, and the laughter of the mouth of gladness and the loud
noise of many lutes. And He knocked at the gate and certain of the
gate-keepers opened to Him.

And He beheld a house that was of marble and had fair pillars of
marble before it. The pillars were hung with garlands, and within
and without there were torches of cedar. And He entered the house.

And when He had passed through the hall of chalcedony and the hall
of jasper, and reached the long hall of feasting, He saw lying on a
couch of sea-purple one whose hair was crowned with red roses and
whose lips were red with wine.

And He went behind him and touched him on the shoulder and said to
him, ‘Why do you live like this?’

And the young man turned round and recognised Him, and made answer
and said, ‘But I was a leper once, and you healed me. How else
should I live?’

And He passed out of the house and went again into the street.

And after a little while He saw one whose face and raiment were
painted and whose feet were shod with pearls. And behind her came,
slowly as a hunter, a young man who wore a cloak of two colours.
Now the face of the woman was as the fair face of an idol, and the
eyes of the young man were bright with lust.

And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the young man and
said to him, ‘Why do you look at this woman and in such wise?’

And the young man turned round and recognised Him and said, ‘But I
was blind once, and you gave me sight. At what else should I
look?’

And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment of the woman and
said to her, ‘Is there no other way in which to walk save the way
of sin?’

And the woman turned round and recognised Him, and laughed and
said, ‘But you forgave me my sins, and the way is a pleasant way.’

And He passed out of the city.

And when He had passed out of the city He saw seated by the
roadside a young man who was weeping.

And He went towards him and touched the long locks of his hair and
said to him, ‘Why are you weeping?’

And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer,
‘But I was dead once, and you raised me from the dead. What else
should I do but weep?’

~~ Oscar Wilde ~~

_____________________________

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and ‘consciousness’ cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and ‘will’ cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and ‘doing’ cannot be the result of things which ‘happen.'” — Gurdjieff

This is just SO true! It has particular relevance for me when looking at this budget mess, as the whole situation is another example of how our culture just toddles along with no intelligent direction, no “conscious will” that takes us toward a defined goal…. Instead, the whole issue demonstrates how things just “happen”, not as the result of what anyone “does” but merely because of what is allowed to happen, due to the intransigence and selfishness of the people involved….

It is also typical of Gurdjieff, in that it’s stated in such a thick, unwieldy fashion that most people won’t take the time to fight their way through to the complete idea it expresses…. and, it’s an important idea, even if it DOES make your head hurt to think about it at all… It does mine, and I try to practice the advice given me by Lou, from http://talesfromthelou.wordpress.com/, blogger extraordinaire, when he reminded me how the Red Queen, or maybe it was the King, in “Through The Looking Glass” would think of at least six impossible ideas “before breakfast”, just for the fun of it….

I DO try to keep up, you see, no matter how fast, or how far a thought will take me…. The above idea, from Gurdy, is a good one on which to practice, as it lends itself well to internalization…. Sadly, my impression of humanity at large is that such internalizing, and an attitude toward thinking in such ways, is pretty uncommon amongst the general populace…. I’d wager serious gelt that if you showed this quote to 20 random people, on-the-street, average folks, no more than two of them would make a concerted effort to read the entire quote, much less try to decipher its meaning….. The other eighteen would give up at various points, depending on their own particular reading acuity, and make a joke, or, an excuse, like something in their eye, or in some way, try to distract you from questioning them about it.

SIGH…. Such is life, though, and crying and whining about it doesn’t help…. All I can do is try to stay amused by what happens around me…. Amused is better than abused, and it’s a whole lot better than going through life with blinders on, never using the mind we are given for anything other than sitting on, or finding your way home when drunk…. sort of a biological Garmin, y’know? I prefer to use mine for all I can figure out to do with it, and rejoice at every new, and strange, idea that comes my way…. So, here are some of today’s thoughts, that caught my eye as being erudite, or poignant, or deep, or some other characteristic that strikes my fancy…. Enjoy!….

“Cynicism is safe, optimism takes real intelligence.” –Smart Bee

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.” — H. L. Mencken

“Know, first, who you are; then adorn yourself accordingly.” — Epictetus

“Desire is both a very good servant and a very bad master.” — JoAnn Schwartz (1953 – )

“Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experience.” — George Santayana

“God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man.” — Nanrei Kobori, — late Abbot of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, Kyoto, Japan

“I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.” — Jules Renard
_____________________________

I’m more than just a little afraid to go back over this one; as I created it, I felt a stirring in the Metaphorse that disturbs my sense of balance, and fear that I may have inadvertently caused some real damage to some part of the space-time continuum… The danger here is that, often, when one goes to look for any such damage, it hides, or slips away, and just gets worse, thanks to mein Herr Heisenberg’s little observation as to the reality of reality…. If I look at it, it changes, and becomes something else, and there is no damn way around it…. Oh well, it’s got to be done, so, we’ll just have to take our chances, as we do each day…

Well, it looks as if the space-time continuum will survive another day, so, I’d best be on my way before anyone catches me…. See ya tomorrow, with a bit of luck….

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

Patiently waiting for the flood waters to subside….

Posted on October 6, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

It’s an odd feeling, for me, to wish NOT to write…. I am facing the screen today, not with the usual trepidation, but, with actual revulsion. I’m apparently just not in the mood to vent, or to rant, or even to go pearling…. all of it seems counter-productive in my current state of mind. Even though I’m up at the usual hour (0500), I’m not filled with my usual desire to dump the core, where my angst resides…. Instead, my mind is turning to methods whereby I can skip the whole deal, and get on with the day, whatever it may bring….

Rather than worry about it overmuch, I’m going to re-post a Pearl from the archives…. This one is appropriate, though I’ve no clue as to its content; I do know it was first posted on April Fool’s Day of this year, so, it should have something worth our time to go back over; All Fool’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year, so I’m sure I put stuff worth reading in whatever I wrote…. If not, well, April Fool!!!!….
_____________________________

4/1/13
Ffolkes,

As he stepped aboard the waiting train, he turned to look back at her, a small, forlorn figure standing in shadows near the exit turnstile. As he turned, she saw him, and raised a hand, as if to wave, but paused, locking eyes with his across the platform. The hiss of the train’s escaping steam mingled with the hum of the crowds boarding, but all faded into the background, unheard, as the two lovers gazed, with searing pain, into each other’s eyes, hers now flowing with shining tears. She again raised her hand, waving once before quickly turning, and rushing away, losing herself in the crowd. With heavy heart, he turned, walked past the conductor, and moved toward his seat, leaving the past behind…..

Now that my own tears are flowing, let’s leave the star-crossed lovers to their fates, and get on with the day’s work, such as it is….. It may be a bit more work than I usually have to do, as I’m supposed to come up with a poem for the April National Poetry Month Writing Challenge, in which I’ve agreed to participate…. I just spent a few minutes, trying to begin a verse, and experienced about that many minutes of sheer terror and exasperation, as I was able to come up with only two lines before the well went dry…. two….. not a grand start, to be sure. I may just have to resort to a haiku for my first effort; I know I can come up with one of those, as I’m pretty confident of my skill with them…. justified or not.

But, that’s for later…. right now, I still need to come up with a bit more of an intro, and I’ve written myself into a nasty little corner here, with no apparent way out….. I might have had a chance, had I gone one more paragraph into the opening story line, but, I didn’t, so here I am once again, stuck for anything intelligent to write…. I don’t know how I do it, but, maybe I could find some fool who would believe me when I tell them I know what I’m doing, and get them to pay me for this…. That will probably happen just about the time the pigs are ready to fly…..

Oh, look! There’s one taking off now! Gosh, it looks so brave, outlined against the morning sky, tiny wings beating to beat the band, weaving back and forth across the brightening sky like a drunken loon…. SIGH…. Such beauty is uncommon, and a joy to behold…. If you can buy into that statement, I have a deal in a bridge you might be interested in…. It’s a good deal, and a great source of income, once the toll booths are put in. I’ll need cash only, though, no checks, and all deals are final….

Now that we’ve entered into the spirit of the day, I think it’s best if I try to steal silently away, into the dark morning light, and get on with today’s dive…. I have a feeling that if I don’t do that now, this entire operation is going to go down in flames, which always annoys the insurance dudes…. I’ll avoid that whole issue, and get on with it, forthwith…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Today’s Pearl is going to resemble the coat of many colors that gave Joseph so much trouble back in Biblical days (I think it was Joseph…. oh well, doesn’t matter, y’all know the story anyway…..)…. It’s just got too much randomness to ever achieve any real coherence, so I’m not even going to try to explain it all…. Below you will find a very rare old-school pearl, a group of seven quotes, freshly chosen for their very randomness, in relation to each other…. As is sometimes the case, the point that emerged is one that defies normal expression, and is actually so intimate, it can only be experienced on a personal level; sharing it would be unwise, if not dangerous to both parties…. So, just enjoy them for what they may bring you, and go on with a bemused smile, and my good wishes….. not that they will help, but, I try…..

“It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

“We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes — we have no wish to find them alike.” — Pascal

“Silence can be the biggest lie of all. We have a responsibility to speak up; and whenever the occasion calls for it, we have a responsibility to raise bloody hell.” — Herbert Block

“Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d’etre oblige de’en pleurer.
(I make myself laugh at everything, in case I should have to weep.)” — Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais (1732-1799)

“An assertion produces a stronger effect than an argument, at least among the majority of mankind. That is why public speakers seek to hammer home their party’s arguments with assertions.” — F. Nietzsche, _Human, All to Human_

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“.. Should I get locked in the PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE today — or have a VASECTOMY??” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, there you go…. I don’t think I can make that any more obscure than it is, so we’ll go on to further adventures in literary suicide…..
__________________________________

Rhyming is better than lying….

It’s all too, too much, he cried
I can take no more!
It’s all crazy, my brain is fried,
battered, bloody, and sore.

Talking heads shout out hatred and fear
jam for my morning toast.
Pointing fingers far, middle, and near
enemies everywhere, almost.

Women, gays, and seniors fall prey,
easy targets, slow and weak.
Convenient fools, wanting only to play,
used, and abused, even as we speak.

It enough to drive me floridly insane,
or want to buy a gun.
I may end up in jail, or in massive pain,
but, oh, it would be fun….

~~ gigoid ~~

April Fool! This, such as it is, is the first poem of the month for me, and the first entry in the National Poetry Writing Challenge for April….. It’s not my best effort ever, but, it’s okay, and it’s almost a rant, in its own little way…. I’ll do better as the month goes on, I promise…. Hell, I’m betting tomorrow’s effort will be better…. Just for the hell of it, here is a haiku, too….

To write a poem,
hard as it seems to be, is
not impossible.

~~ gigoid ~~

__________________________________

I have a bunch of stuff to do today in the Big Blue Room, to finish preparations for my trip tonight to Oregon. So, I’m cheating again, and putting in here an old pearl, from the archives…. I can’t say exactly when this first appeared, as I don’t organize them well enough to do so, but, hey, it really doesn’t matter at all…… From the vantage point of the future, I see that Smart Bee was particularly helpful this day….. Enjoy!….
—————————————————

A few random thoughts on the meaning of insanity, and by implication, sanity…….all came from one dive. Pearl after pearl on the same subject kept presenting itself for my perusal, so after a few, I just gave up & collected them. So here they are, all with a bit to say about those among us who perceive reality from a whole different place than you or me….. (My comments are in parentheses, like this one…. )

‘What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.’ — Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), Reminiscences

If sanity were dollars I’d be bankrupt. — Smart Bee

“I come from a long line of Southern psychotics and an environment where madness is currency and conversation is blood sport.” — Elizabeth Ashley

According to figures from the Justice Department, the average rapist serves only 5.2 years on jail, and the average murderer serves only 8.6 years. By contrast, the average time served for possession of LSD is 10.1 years, and many Americans are serving mandatory minimum sentences of 20 to 25 years for possession or sale of marijuana. — Smart Bee

(Insanity comes in many guises…… your choice as to which is real, and which is delusion….)

Avoid reality at all costs! — Smart Bee

And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T’ enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin’d with th’ accents that are ours?

— Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) — Musophilus, Stanza 163

(Psychosis is rooted in fear, and fear assumes many masks…..)

I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.

— Thomas Moore (1779-1852) — Oft in the Stilly Night

(An accurate description of the onset of depression…..)

“Why ask me? I’m just visiting reality.” — Smart Bee

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program…..
__________________________________

April Fool! None of the above exists, and we are all an illusion, alleged in our own minds….. Thank goodness! This day, being one of my favorite days of the year, due to its strong connection to the concept of nonsense and bozoid tendencies, is also a new beginning….

Today the future of this blog begins anew, as I will now be writing each day’s post from a different location, beginning tomorrow morning, with a Pearl that will be created on a moving train, as I speed through the Northwest toward Oregon… I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation…. Until then….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..
_____________________________

You have now been returned to real time…. The current date is 10/6/13, the time is approximately 0610, PDT. There will be no further messages today from this quarter…. Thank you for your patience, and your custom…. See you tomorrow….. well, that’s the plan, anyway….

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

Intent is seven thirteenths of the law….

Posted on October 5, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Unbeknownst to the remainder of the world, I struggle, here in the dark of the morning, waging war with the always-present, never-sleeping, force of evil, that the world calls Bob, or sometimes, Steve-a-rino….. No matter what name we use, by any other token, they are very, very bad evils, whether in their initial, merely bloody, sharp-sword incarnation, or if they’ve gone into complete chainsaw mode. Either way, somebody is in for a world of hurt….

“What the hell is he babbling about now?”, is probably the foremost question in your mind(s) right now…. (I know, assuming that more than one mind currently reading this is being, perhaps, too hopeful…. My readership has taken a severe dip lately….)…. I’m babbling because, hey, it’s what I’m best at, and nothing else seemed as if it was going to get me down the road toward a real Pearl, so, I just went with it…. It’s not as if y’all had gotten accustomed to a more elegant format around here, now, is it? No, we’ve been stuck in bourgeois mode for quite some time now, with no real change of venue in sight…

Not that there’s anything wrong with being bourgeois; it’s only when we start trying to break into proletariat mode that the trouble begins, as it always does in such cases….. The human animal, though it always seems to fall into some form of hierarchical society, seems to function most efficiently when categories such as bourgeois, proletarian, or any others based on financial worth, are NOT used to determine one’s relative place in society…. The only truly honorable form would be a society where one’s social standing was based solely on how much one gave back to that society…. This, however, is mere speculation, since no human society has ever been structured in such a manner that it could be considered as “honorable”…..

Society has always been structured to favor those with the most resources under their control, which is why we are seeing the issues we now have to deal with, as the effects of entropy over time wear away at the foundations upon which it is built. Money is an artificial concept, not really a part of reality, other than as we humans perceive it to be, and therefore, only has the importance that we place on it. Making it the primary social factor that determines how high up in society one rises in the estimation of peers is destined to become a problem, as human nature tends not to share very well…. in short, people get greedy, and hoard all the resources (money) to themselves, ensuring their own place, and keeping others in a place lesser than their own….

Politicians, bless their black, lying, little hearts, would have us believe we live in a classless society, that everyone is equal, and has equal rights…. Well, ffolkes, guess what?…. That’s just another of their ubiquitous lies, and society isn’t like that at all…. At every level, built in prejudices and misconceptions, guided and kept true by unseen, but iron-clad cliches, color people’s viewpoint with the brush of discrimination, based on how much money a person makes, or what color their skin may be, or where they were born, or whether or not they stand up to pee…

There are a myriad of ways people use to decide that other people aren’t as good as they are, all of which are lies; all of those thousands of prejudices are taught by, enforced by, and continuously enabled by the BRC, our Beloved Ruling Class, who believes their place at the top of society is inherently theirs. Given this long-held delusion, and the fact that it has held sway over the rest of society for over ten thousand years, it seems clear they have no intention of ever relinquishing that place to anyone else….

Oops, it happened again, didn’t it? I fell right into another opening rant, never realizing what I was up to until I was a thousand words down the pike… I guess it’s okay; I don’t see any casualties, other than my own readership’s numbers, so, apparently nobody was standing close enough to get hit by the flying shrapnel….. The fact that there ARE no casualties is not necessarily a good thing, you know….. a couple of bodies would at least indicate that there is SOMEONE reading this stuff, but, I guess my ego doesn’t really need THAT kind of proof…. It’s all a wash anyhow, as I ran out of lime and sulfuric acid, and I’d have a hard time disposing of the corpses… so, it’s just as well….

On that note, I think I’d best get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like a dot; by thought I encompass the Universe.” — Pascal, Pensees, n. 265

“To sit silently, and look wise, is not to be compared to drinking sake and making a riotous shouting.” — Ono No Tabitu
_____________________________

Fortunately for y’all, I’m tired today, and not really feeling up to a full-fledged rant, intro-section notwithstanding…. This is good news for you, and for me, as it means I can let SB do all the hard work…. Here is a relatively straightforward pearl, with a few pointed sticks jabbed toward the eyes of our Beloved Ruling Class, and society at large…

“Ahhhh, it’s amazing what a cheat can do!!” — Smart Bee

“A mind not to be changed by place or time, the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” — John Milton

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” — G. K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/19/24

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.– Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

“There is no more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.” — William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

“Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that’s too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.” — Julian Barnes

“Mr. Coolidge is the best Democrat we ever had in the White House. He didn’t do nothin’, but that’s what we wanted done.” — Will Rogers
_____________________________

No introduction needed, nor any comments…. just enjoy!….

A Song About Myself

I.
There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at’s back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the north,
To the north,
And follow’d his nose
To the north.

II.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry-
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm-
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one’s nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one’s nose
To the north!

III.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good-
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller’s thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little baby’s
Little fingers-
O he made
‘Twas his trade
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle-
A kettle
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle!

IV.
There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red,
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder’d,
He wonder’d,
He stood in his
Shoes and he wonder’d.

~~ John Keats ~~

_____________________________

We’re going old-school again for this section, and you can thank me later…. Right now, I’m trying hard to get this done in what may be a new record time…. we’ll see if SB will cooperate long enough to do that….

“Weird enough for all practical purposes.” — Smart Bee, while accepting the award for Strangest Blog O’The Week….

“There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that is behooves all of us not to talk about the rest of us.” — Robert Louis Stevenson, “Good and Bad”

“If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.” — Terence (185-159 BC) — Act i, Sc. 2, 96, (176.)

“I feed my pig apples by holding him in my arms and letting him eat the apples right off the tree. Some people say that takes too much time, but time don’t mean nothing to a pig.” — Grandpa Jones

“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 person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.” — Nikos Kazantzakis

Not bad, all in all, even though it didn’t break through any time barriers…. But, it needs just the right finishing touch to be perfect, for which, less than that, never accept will we, as Yoda would say…. sort of…. If nothing else, this gives me the opportunity to throw in a bit of interactive fun, for at least one of my regular readers (hell, I wouldn’t mind if BOTH of them tried it out…. 🙂 )….

I’ll put three aphorisms below, one of which is the perfect ending quote for this pearl… You get to pick, and whichever one you like, well, you just put it right in the comments, and I’ll look at it…. That’s all… I’ll look at it…. No prize (I’ve already spent too much this year on traveling, & have to start watching my expenditures….), no contest, just interactive fun…

Okay, okay, wait, don’t go away!!…. I’ll think of a prize…. First, somebody will have to make a comment, though, because there is little point in my going to the trouble of figuring out a reward, if nobody is going to even participate… If, however, I do get responses to this minor little manipulation (shhh!…), I WILL award a prize, of some sort…. and, since I’m not a politician, by either intent, or accident, you can trust me to tell you the truth… Sure you can, it’s easy…. If you can buy what the average politico is promising y’all, you can trust me not to lie about this…. Besides, there’s no profit in it for me to not tell the truth, so, it also appeals to my self-interest to come up with something worthwhile… so, I will… Now, look at these, and make a choice as to which one fits in the best with the rest….. if any….

“Shave daily with Occam’s razor.” — Smart Bee

“It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.” — Oscar Wilde

“By letting go, it all gets done.” — Tao Te Ching
_____________________________

Having begun the day with an absolutely appropriate word, “unbeknownst”, I feel fortunate, indeed, to have survived thus far, with still enough moxie to complete what has turned out to be somewhat of an epic; for a (technically) rant-less wonder, it’s fairly involved. I’m again a trifle hesitant to proof it, lest it surprise me even more, but, typos make me crazy, so….

Well, that’s a relief! I’m not certain just how it got here, but, it definitely arrived intact; if that isn’t obscure enough for you, well, sorry, I’ll try to do better tomorrow…. In any case, this is, quite obviously, finished, and, possibly, overdone, again…. Since I have no illusions at all that what I’ve just said will cause confusion in at least one person, my duty is complete, and I’m outta here….

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

Once limited to peripheral accusations of pyloric incompatibility….

Posted on October 4, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I AM one of the most stubborn people alive, it seems… Hmmm…. I had thought to write that line differently, using the words “must be” where now stands “AM”, in shouting mode, but, once written, it became clear that there was no doubt at all connected to the idea, so, I went with the more positively certain incarnation…. Come to think of it, though, if I am flexible enough to accept the change in words, then I’m not as stubborn about change as I had surmised, so, the entire exercise devolves into sheer obsolescence, as its internal logic falls apart…… So much for THAT beginning…

All that remains is the original concept, that I am, or must be, pretty damn stubborn, to continue writing this amount of material each day, when there is so little response to what is written…. For over 2000 words a day, I pour my soul into this blog, usually taking a few leisurely shots at national politics, or one or more of the churches that abound in our society, all for the purpose of getting my head emptied of the stuff that might sit in there and rot, causing more trouble than it’s worth, for me, and for others who may come in contact with me, thereby suffering the consequences of being the only one there when my angst blows…. It’s not a pretty sight….

Of course, I could stop watching the news altogether…. I did that for a while, but found that it creeps in around the edges, and forces itself into one’s sphere of attention, like it or not….. Plus, as an inveterate, addictive reader, I tend to inhale newspapers whenever I see one, no matter how old; I’ll read just about anything with words on it, including, in a pinch, cereal boxes (Some of them have some way cool stuff on the back for kids, so they’re fun!….Nutritional information is more interesting than it seems at first glance, too….). It’s hard to completely keep free of all the news in this society, as it tends to push into our awareness regardless of how much we try to avoid it….

It helped that for a long time, I had no television; not being current in the events of TV-world has been quite lovely, to be sure. I never did care much for most of it anyway, and find that I don’t miss it much. Now that I do live with one again, I find myself still preferring to read, or jump on the computer to fill my need for words to eat; my brain consumes a massive number of them on a daily basis, so I need a rather large supply, in ALL sizes and shapes, to keep up with my appetite for them. A book each day has been my goal since I was about 10 years old, a goal I’ve managed to achieve, and more….

I read as much as my physical condition allows me to do, which is not as much as I would like…. I tend to prefer to sit while reading, and that particular activity has a limit to it these days, due to the insidious advent of pain, that builds up if I sit still too long, or stand too long, or walk too long, or do ANYTHING for too long… “too long” being a very short period, unfortunately…. But, I find I can go from one position to another, from sitting, to standing, to sitting, to lying down, in rotation, for much of the day, if I’m careful, and never become too painful. It makes it a bit choppy when trying to write, but, for reading, a good place marker keeps me from wasting a lot of time when I change position or activity….

I suppose one of these days, I’ll have to break down and buy a smart phone, or a Kindle, or other tablet computer, so I can do all my reading on that, wherever I am, standing, sitting, or in between….. I’ve been waiting for the technology to become cheaper, as it does over time after new items come out; the prices now for smart phones and tablets is becoming reasonable…. They still are overcharging for access, but, that, too, will go down in time, as the competition in the market increases….. Soon, we’ll all have our Google glass computers, built right into our VR glasses frames, with complete audiovisual connection to the entire world network, probably with voice-activation and virtual monitors on any handy surface….

Oh well, all that will come soon enough… In the meantime, I’ll continue to read using all the different methods I’ve accustomed myself to using, and be content with that…. And, I’ll continue to write my 2000+ words every morning, to get the crap out of my head, and onto the Net…. where, hopefully, some of it may stimulate some cogitation amongst the other denizens… I can hope, can’t I?….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
_____________________________

“Learning to look in the mirror without judging too harshly, letting the voice of society cut us without judging too lightly, letting the voice of imagination blind us, but, rather, seeing ourselves with truth and compassion, aware of who we are, where we need to get better, where we need to forgive, is the goal of a healthy life.” — Callan Williams

Oh, how sweet! A beautiful sentiment, worthy of any true knight in shining armor…. Y’know what, though?…. Fuck that…. bugger them all, and let them figure out their own shit…. Sorry, my curmudgeon woke up…. and, though I usually agree with Mssr. Williams’ ideas, I’m sorry, but this sounds really, really new-age bullshitty….. In all honesty, if I heard someone say this to me, live and in person, I believe I would probably puke on their shoes….. What a bunch of Pollyanna crap! It reminds me of the current school of philosophy that tends to look at all students as poor, or victims, and attempts to build up what they believe to be the problem, i.e., self-esteem among the students, when all that is really needed is some damn honesty among the faculty….

Our culture is not only being held hostage by one party in one house of Congress, but by one attitude that tends to become overused, i.e. compassionate uplifting of the poor and ignorant, regardless of how they feel about it…. It’s the Mother Teresa syndrome, where the only way for the person to feel good about themselves, and to feel like they are “better”, they must be offering help and sustenance to someone poorer, and less able to fend for themselves…. never stopping to figure out the simple fact that viewing the world in this way is what keeps it that way….

It is their own insistence on helping those in poverty that creates the condition in the first place…. the proper solution is to change society so there are jobs and resources for these folks to help themselves, not to give them what we feel they need…. But, too often, ignorance walks hand in hand with compassion, because the compassionate tend to allow feelings to dictate their actions, rather than reason. Feelings are important, and need to be considered before acting, but, the actions should never be based simply on what is felt, or it will never achieve the necessary relation to reality to reach the necessary goal…. which is self-reliance, not universal empathy. Empathy is a useful tool, but, not the only tool we possess, to be relied upon exclusively….

“The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.” — Lazarus Long, aka Robert A. Heinlein
_____________________________

I’ve never been completely sure exactly why I like the poems of Emily Dickinson so much, but, then, I’m not one to question my own taste. Whatever the exact reason may be, you’ve got to appreciate the absolute genius of her use of metaphor, so patently obscure, it is beautiful, if only for its ethereal sense of unreality….

The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go –
The Crocus – til she rises
The Vassal of the snow –
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practice bore
Till bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.

Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted from the Sea –
Pinions – the Seraph’s wagon
Pedestrian once – as we –

Night is the morning’s Canvas
Larceny – legacy –
Death, but our rapt attention
To Immortality.

My figures fail to tell me
How far the Village lies –
Whose peasants are the Angels –
Whose Cantons dot the skies –
My Classics veil their faces –
My faith that Dark adores –
Which from its solemn abbeys
Such resurrection pours.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

I realize the rant today left a bit to be desired…. I just didn’t have the proper amount of anger and outrage collected to fuel it to the point of explosiveness I enjoy so much…. But, then, it’s hard to work up a lot of hard feelings over the improper use of empathy….. Hey, it got me through one section of today’s effort, so, it will have to do… They can’t all be brilliant, can they?….. Having thus forced down my portion of crow, we’ll get on down the line with an old-school pearl, my favorite excuse for actual work…. Here is a randomly chosen pearl, on a subject which is not yet clear…. Smart Bee will know what I’m looking for, to save this Pearl from obscurity, and the shame of irrelevance….

“How it is that our memory is able to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?” — Duc de La Rochefoucauld

“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

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

“Never argue with a Scorpio–even if you win, you lose” — Smart Bee

“It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England. 156

“The only game that can’t be rigged is peekaboo.” — Cruickshank’s Law #4

“I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope they do get ’em lowered down enough so people can afford to pay ’em.” — Will Rogers

You know, I think this is the first time ever that SB has done this to me…. Taken together these seven pearls, each of which is relatively okay as a stand-alone thought, form a picture of an idea so outrageous, so amorphous, so irrelevant, it boggles the mind…. “What idea is that?”, you may well ask…. and that’s the problem…. I have no frigging idea where this went, or what it means…

The only part that makes any sense to me at this point is the one in the middle, because, hey, I’m a Scorpio… I guess that’s the ultimate point SB is making… If it doesn’t work for us Scorpio ffolkes, we just change the rules by which the game is being played…. It should be noted that this is far more effective when we don’t let the other players know we’ve done so… So, the rule for reading this pearl becomes, cast your mind free, and don’t expect to find a point…. It’s just a hedonist pearl, all feel-good, and no thorns…., other than those we poke ourselves with….
_____________________________

I am hesitant to even proof this one; it has a perilous feel to it…. Oh well, no whining aloud allowed…. Well, better than I’d hoped for; that’s something, I guess….. I don’t think Papa Hemingway has anything to worry about in terms of this ever being compared to anything of his, but, just in case, I’ll go ahead and post it anyway…. Sometimes, ya just gotta settle for what is, and not worry about what might have been…. 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

All the artichokes were bronzed in individual sterile containers….

Posted on September 23, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

‘Tis a sad and fearful thing, when I see nothing more than a vast plain of blankness upon first gazing into my mind in the morning….. Since it matches the blankness on the screen at which I’m gazing, it doesn’t bode well for the day’s Pearl when I do….. But, being the tough son of a bitch I am, I persevere, blindly blundering ahead, pushing aside the fear and loathing that accompanies such inauspicious beginnings, to make yet another attempt at breaking through the boundaries of reality, into the ethereal realms of reason, and hopefully, enlightenment…. or, at minimum, illumination…. Hell, I’ll settle for getting my eyes all the way open….

Or, we can just have some oatmeal, and get on with it…. That sounds a lot more attractive than the first paragraph, especially since we can add brown sugar and milk to the oatmeal to sweeten it…. The only thing I can add to the first paragraph would be hope, which is in short supply these days in this reality….. Of course, the oatmeal doesn’t get the Pearl done, but it increases the chances of it reaching at least a modicum of coherence, whereas, given the parameters implied in the first few lines, we couldn’t hold out much hope for that to happen….. If you manage to decipher all of that, well, I think you’ll see what I mean…

I admit it, I’m lost already…. Three short paragraphs in, and I’m toast…. I’m seriously considering reprinting an old Pearl, from a couple of years ago, just so I can be done with this, but, that would be cowardly, a quality I refuse to countenance in myself. I’ll end up going old school, if I’m smart… but, knowing myself as I do, I also could conceivably fall into another rant, since the BRC and the Priestly Hierarchies continue their policy of taking advantage of everyone else’s good nature, and have no intention of stopping. I can’t help it, they just do this stuff right out there in public, so what is a curmudgeon to do, but point at it, and laugh, as long and hard as I can?….

The laughter, it helps, though it really isn’t funny, is it? But concentrating on the futility and hopelessness won’t make anyone feel any better, either, and I DO try to keep from bumming people out deliberately…. It isn’t my fault the world’s news is what it is; I just look at it, and write about what I see, which, for the most part, astounds me on a regular basis… How else to describe my reaction to the depths of ignorance, and height of arrogance & entitlement that I observe in so many of the world’s so-called leaders? Astonishment is the only possible adjective to give the strength of my outrage at their sheer avarice, and their shameless absence of virtue….

There, I’ve ranted…. short, and not too detailed, but, I think it works…. And, I did remember to include the religious hierarchies today, which, for the last few days, I’ve neglected to do…. The churches and their delusional leaders are the most important of the supporters of the BRC, for they too know all the tricks of mind-control of the unwary, having practiced those techniques for many thousands of years now, to manipulate and control the masses of the faithful, who are the source of their great wealth, as well as their labor pool.

In these modern times, I’m sure the churches are ever so thankful for the newest way to tap the masses for their spare change, to wit: crowd-funding…. It fits right in with car washes and bake sales, as a way to get the ignorant to give away their spare money, to causes they believe will be fruitful in some way, but, actually will end up the same place as their tithes, and their taxes, and most of the rest of what they earn…. in the pockets of politicians and priests, as payment from their corporate masters for their continued support of the thievery happening at every level of society, except the top…..

If you think of the idea of trickle-down economics, but reverse it, you’ll get the picture of how our society ACTUALLY works, in a financial sense…. Everything trickles up, ffolkes…. just follow the money, and you’ll be…. well, perhaps not surprised, but, at the least, chagrined, to find where ALL of it ends up…. But, hey, who am I but one of the schmucks who lets them get away with it?….. I suppose it’s probably a good thing I’ve never owned a gun…. I’d be awfully tempted to use it…..

My dad taught me about guns…. He considered it as his duty to teach us (his children…) how to use them correctly and safely, and how to respect them for the tool they are (One part of which taught us that’s ALL they are, too, by the way…. just a tool, a big hammer; one that throws a lot of nails a long way, quickly…. but, still, just a hammer….). If I owned one, or more of them, however, I would most likely feel duty bound to use them for personal purposes, which, while I would see any such actions as being beneficial to society, those same actions might be viewed differently by that society itself, especially given the control over the news media that the BRC has…. Plus, I can count, and there are more of them with guns than there is/are(?) of me; strategic planning would seem to dictate a different approach, as that one is pretty much doomed to failure in the long run…. I just don’t have, and can’t get, as many bullets as they already have….

S’okay, I don’t mind…. guns have never been my preferred weapon of choice, anyway…. What I have between my ears is a much more versatile tool, and much more powerful in the long run… After all, I have based my life, in many ways, upon the following aphorism, which, if you examine it closely, and think on it a while, will show you who, and what I am… or, at least, who I try to be…. Of course, there IS no try, is there… Do or do not…. I do, mostly….

“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you the Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.” — Gordon R. Dickson, The Tactics of Mistake
_____________________________

Well, I ranted in the intro again, so, we’ll go old-school here, to bring a wee bit of balance to things…. Hope springs eternal, it seems…. Any who, I’m not going to set any parameters, but, it seems of late Smart Bee has had its own agenda in that respect, anyway, so, we’ll just see what comes up, and where it goes…. Enjoy!

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.” — George Bernard Shaw

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,–
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies:
They fall successive, and successive rise.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Iliad of Homer, Book vi, Line 181

“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.” — Eugene O’Neill

“Under the most carefully controlled conditions of temperature, density, and pressure, the organism will do what it damn well pleases.” — Harward’s Law

“There are no winners in life; only survivors.” — Smart Bee

“I wish they would only take me as I am.” — Vincent Van Gogh

“Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other.” — Baha’u’llah

Onward, as they say in the movies; fear not, mes amis, all will be well…. I just took my medications…
_____________________________

In the interests of not letting anyone else take the blame for any of what has occurred here today, I will use one of my own poems, one which clearly states who and what I am…. well, sort of clearly….

Ah Ain’t Sho, but Mebbe So….

Fried eggs got nuthin’ on me
Ah’m not even sure of mah name,
or how Ah come to be;
no idea from where Ah came.

Ah does like a mystery tho’,
puzzlin’ things out so’s Ah knows,
good from bad fo sho,
Ah sho don’t want no rock pillows.

If’n Ah cain’t figure out what’s best,
Ah just falls back on mah Daddy’s words,
seems he knowed just whut’d stand the test,
‘n how to gentle the scaredest birds.

‘Course, he’d lived a good long time,
‘n had lots of stuff go on by;
Went to a war, n’ lost a piece or two,
never once used it fer an alibi.

He tol’ me once Ah’d best learn to learn,
school’s only cool if ya ain’t already a fool.
Yer own good measure you can earn,
by startin’ yer learnin’ with the Golden Rule.

Always seemed to me as Ah growed up,
he mostly only spoke if it wuz true,
‘n by doin’ that clued me to what’s up,
kept me from stuff that’d a made me blue.

Without ever sayin’ the word itself,
Ah learned ’bout honor, ‘n helpin’ others
not some fake stuff from some shelf,
but, knowin’ whut’s right, ‘n that we’re all brothers.

Ah’ve been around long enough now, Ah think
to get around the block at least two times.
I s’pose long as my head don’t shrink
Ah’ll keep on doin’ right, ‘n makin’ these rhymes…..

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

See, now we’re in the third section, and I get to do whatever I want; it’s in my contract….. So, since I don’t feel like ranting any more today, or maybe ever, I’m going back to the same old taxi stand where I leave from when I’m in a hurry, in a figurative sense…. Who knows what will come out of this one? I certainly don’t….

“Here pigs will fly, lightning will strike twice, hell will freeze over, and eventually, things will get really interesting…” — Smart Bee

“The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self- sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.” — John Foster Dulles

“If a rock falls on your head it does positive harm, but shame, disgrace, reproaches, and insults are damaging only in so far as you’re conscious of them.” — Erasmus

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” — Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) — Churchill’s Commentary on Man

“Is consciousness just a special form of hallucination?” — Frank Herbert

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), As You Like It — Act v, Sc. 1

I don’t often use Willy’s stuff, but, he was so prolific a writer, even HE got some of it right….. 🙂 I didn’t know where it would go, but, it sure ended up there, didn’t it? I like it, so, I guess that makes me stranger than even usual…. Oh, well….
_____________________________

Yes, and no, I suppose, is the best response I can come up with, at least until I can go over this with a clear head…. and that could take days. I guess I’ll have to do that now, instead….

I reiterate, I have no idea how that happened, officer…. I’ll be going now, to look for my peace of mind, which I somehow dropped somewhere…. I’ll find it around here somewhere, I know it…..

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

Baldly factual assertions, drying in the wind….

Posted on September 22, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Yesterday’s outburst, one would think, would have been enough to soothe the urge to rant that comes over me at the reading of these reports on the idiocy prevalent among the elected glitterati in this country. The amount of sheer stupidity, of outright deliberate denial of facts in favor of paranoid delusions, the display of asininity and selfish, avaricious cupidity that has been reported in the news, JUST in the House of Representatives over the last two weeks, is enough to weigh upon anyone with a brain, much less a sensitive, patriotic minded fool such as myself. It is seriously painful to observe the degree of idiocy the Retardican Party has tapped into of late, while trying to justify their racism and bigotry, which they typically try to disguise as concern over what should be non-issues….

Obviously, as indicated by the tone and content of the first paragraph, all of that rant didn’t get put down on screen yesterday, and it continues to burn a hole in the bag I’m holding it in, demanding to be put out into the light of day, where it can scream epithets and derogatory statements about relatives at the idiots who keep assaulting all of us with their intransigent asininity.

I mean, are these fools living in a different world than the rest of us? Can they not see the same evidence that the rest of us see? Can they continue to deny reality in the face of all the opposition that has been generated against them by just about every other demographic category in existence? I often wonder how many of these seemingly obvious questions, so obvious they are really rhetorical in nature, can be answered with a yes, when describing the current crop of Tea Party-supported fools in the Retardican Party…. you know, the idiots causing all the trouble in society right now, with their blind, fascistic insistence on opposing any and all reforms proposed by a black man, whose very existence as POTUS is a fact they are unable to accept….

I ask you this…. How long is the rest of this country, consisting of people like me, who believe in the true American Dream, a group that includes more than merely the White, Christian sub-group as its proponents, a Dream which acknowledges the diversity that actually exists in Reality, of Whites, Blacks, Browns, Greens, Purples, Rainbows, Latinos, Asians, LGBT’s, women, and everyone else the Tea Party would like to believe isn’t entitled to participate in their delusion…. How long are we going to allow these ASSHOLES to continue to try to force their vision on everyone else?

These people, as policy, lie, and cheat, and will resort to almost any act, no matter how egregiously immoral, to keep things as they want them to be, where their desires and entitlements are the only ones allowed. This has been proven by historical fact, and continues now, as they keep attempting to legislate morality, change congressional voting districts to favor themselves, and generally do anything they can to keep the rest of the people in this country from achieving any real societal diversity….

Hmm… I seem to have let this get away from me again, but, it just pisses me off so much when I look at the news each day, and see another example of how the ignorance and bigotry of the right-wing Retardicans is being shoved into the face of American politics, with the concomitant splatters of shit flying everywhere…. Their intransigent stupidity, and arrogance, is getting very old to me, and, I’m sure, to a lot of other people, and I wish to hell they’d just crawl back in their holes, and leave everyone else alone…. Not to mention shutting the hell UP!….

But, they won’t, so we will have to continue to put up with their noise, and the sheer lies and nonsense they throw out on a regular basis, to confuse and distract, if nothing else….. Me, I’m about ready to DO something about it, but, it will have to wait until I finish this Pearl, which, by the looks of it, may not ever get started, if I can’t shut myself up…. Okay, if I can’t stop at the end of this paragraph, I’ll institute emergency procedure #5…. I hope I don’t have to, though…. #5 is a messy one….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“If an ass goes traveling he will not come home a horse.” — Thomas Fuller

(The more I let this little statement echo around in my head, the more angles, depths, and meanings float up, into my awareness…. To keep from adding undue length where it is least needed, I will just say this… I wish the BRC wouldn’t spend as much time trying to convince the public that this statement is false, as they currently do. Since the statement is demonstrably and unarguably true, in so many ways, that could be construed as an impossible task… unless, of course, you help them by believing it…..)
_____________________________

Having begun my rant in the intro, I don’t think it would go over well to continue it here…. So, we’ll go old school, which, as you know, is my default position in these instances….. I’m uncertain still if that meets with the approval of my readership, but, hey, I’ve been operating in the dark here for a long time, in that respect, so, it’s nothing new, and nothing to get huffed about…. As long as I can continue to pretend to some sort of relevance, and keep y’all unaware of how little I really know, well, I’ll be doing as well as the average politician, right? Right…. Let’s see what SB has for us today…..

“The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.” — Oscar Wilde
(Ouch! Now, THAT’S sarcasm!…. At which, of course, Oscar was the master….) (You don’t think he’s…. wait!?…. He’s not talking about ME, is he?…. Nah!…. No way!….)

“I’m continually AMAZED at th’breathtaking effects of WIND EROSION!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. “God wishes,” said Calvin, “that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.” ” — Eric Hoffer

“The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure.” — Socrates

“Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.” — H.L. Mencken

“Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” — Buffalo Springfield

“If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re missing the joke.” — Smart Bee, with gigoid’s complete agreement….

When this pearl was about halfway done, I had no idea where it was headed, and still don’t know exactly how it got to where it ended up… but, then, I don’t know a lot of stuff about reality, so, we’ll just go on, as we were, no doubt, meant to do anyway…. I don’t encourage the belief that fate is unavoidable, but, when it happens, it’s best not to fight it too hard… One must learn how to “go with the flow”, as it were, or severe mental injuries may occur, even in the best of families….
_____________________________

Today’s poem chose itself…. I went searching, on the internet, for an appropriate poem for today, but, couldn’t seem to settle on anything I read, from a number of poets I visited…. until this one. It reached out, grabbed me, and said, essentially, “Use me, again….” I should have known it would know it has been here before…. so, here ’tis again….

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

~~ Dylan Thomas ~~

_____________________________

Today’s your lucky day…. Nothing in the news this morning has prompted an upsurge of angst or outrage to parallel the rant in the intro section… which means we get to go back to old-school. I know, the law doesn’t say we HAVE to go there, but, around here, it’s what we do…. So, deal…. and, preferably, enjoy! 😆

“He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.” — Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.” — Mark Twain

“The beauty of a pun is in the “Oy!” of the beholder.” — Smart Bee
“Puns can groan on you” — Yep, where else? Smart Bee
(A true two-fer, that counts as one pearl….)

“Each time Time torments me, I tell myself that one of us must back down, that it is impossible for this cruel confrontation to go on indefinitely.” — E.M. Cioran

Before enlightenment, one carries water and chops wood.
After enlightenment, one carries water and chops wood.

— Zen Proverb

Ooh, ooh, Teacher! Can I answer?…. See, it shoulda used the Buddha quote, then it would all be clearer…. Teacher: “Y, know, you may be right…. but, that would be unethical, now, wouldn’t it? Resorting to Buddha, when Zippy will do?…” Sorry, Teacher…. I’ll pick two more, to fix it….

An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that over Bohr’s desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, “Surely you don’t believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist–” Bohr chuckled. “I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not.” — found in Smart Bee, without attribution

“For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will be the greatest enemy.” — Bhagavad Gita (c. B.C. 400)
_____________________________

Please save the above drivel for future reference!

At this point, there is little point in not admitting defeat, and slinking away with head bowed in shame…. or, at the very least, embarrassment for having allowed this to occur, without giving ffolkes the proper warnings…. Let’s see if it has any redeeming qualities..

I’m pretty certain none of the above is toxic, so, we’re going to let it fly, solo…. One can’t always be two places at once, can one?….. Whatever that may mean, and it may or may not mean anything, we are still outta here…. 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

Since when do laxatives count?….

Posted on September 18, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

At this point in the proceedings, it may be noted that I have heretofore previously stated my lack of appreciation for the aging process, at least as it applies to my own case. Most of the time, I feel inside like I’m still 25, and I can do anything I wish to do, from a physical standpoint. Of course, I’m not 25 anymore, and wishing it so won’t do, so, I just piss and moan about it, and I feel better….. Well, not really…. but, it sounds like fun. No, mostly I complain here, in writing, and dump it all on the blogosphere, where I’m sure people turn their heads away in embarrassment for me, and try not to snicker….

I don’t much care if they do, as long as the end result has me in less pain…. Take today, for instance… I wake up, and come out to my coffee machine, which has graciously gone off at the correct time, and provided me with coffee upon my arising. I pour and fix the first cup, and try to sit down to enjoy it…. whereupon my lower back explodes in pain, letting me know that it intends to make my day a living hell, if I let it….

I have no intention of doing so, however, but, it won’t be pretty, as, I can tell from the way the pain began, this episode is going to do its best to put me in bed for the day…. I hate when this happens, as it makes the production of this Pearl a struggle to complete…. Hurts some, too….

Given that information, I think I’d best cut today’s intro section short, and get right into the main events of the day, while I can…. Watch your step, as the drop-off may be quite steep…. I’m going to apply the take-off acceleration now, so, please, be careful, or at least hang on to your cabin-mates, and keep your safety lines untangled….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Everything that goes up must come down. But there comes a time when not everything that’s down can come up.” — George Burns (1896-1996)
_____________________________

Yesterday, a new reader was gracious enough to leave a nice comment, and to offer a couple of articles for my perusal, as possible subjects for a future rant…. Both articles are definitely rant-worthy material, so, I’ll oblige his suggestion by starting here….

I talk a lot about the BRC, (Beloved Ruling Class….), and the thievery they commit daily against the public, but, I don’t always provide a lot of examples, preferring to allow ffolkes, and/or folks, to seek out their own evidence…. This is because there is just so damn much of it, and it is so easy to find, I find it a better way to drive the point home, for people will believe it more when they come across the proof themselves, rather than having me provide it for them…. That way I can’t be accused of making it up, or coloring it…..

This article, supplied to me by a reader, is a perfect example of what I’ve often said about the news, to wit: it’s chock full of evidence of the chicanery and nonsense being perpetrated by our beloved rulers, and I don’t even need to point it out, for it’s right there for all to see…. Please, take a moment to read this one, about the governor of Louisiana, that fine old den of corruption in the southern US…. Try not to let the lack of hard evidence presented by the author to support the assertions made influence you, at this point…. just accept it as true for the sake of the argument they make, and worry about the actual paper proofs later…. It’s all there, believe me….

http://grist.org/news/bobby-jindal-to-axe-officials-who-took-on-big-oil/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&sub_email=dlw38%40sbcglobal.net

What is amazing to me in this article is the sheer effrontery shown by Governor Jindal…. He has no compunctions whatsoever in showing his corruption for all to see, blithely firing people who are trying to make his special interest supporters toe the legal line for their actions, and, in the process, help the people of his state. No, he just ignores any and all cries of outrage, and continues to stuff his pockets with the money they’ve poured into his campaign coffers, while the people of the state, and the state’s environment, is shredded by the corporate assholes who caused the entire problem….

This article shows exactly how far the issue of corruption has progressed in society, as the leaders we have elected are no longer bothering to cover up most of their machinations, but are showing their colors bright and clear in the public eye, deliberately firing people who might have made a difference, with no thought or regard for what his own constituency may want. His loyalty is all with the companies who have raped and pillaged the coastal marshes in their search for sources of oil, because they are the ones who are paying him, and the people can just go to hell, as far as he is concerned….

But, as I have pointed out previously, the people of Louisiana have only been given exactly what they deserve, for they are the ones who believed his lies during the election process, and elected him to office, knowing full well he was going to screw them over…. I sometimes wonder how these people manage to dress themselves, or feed themselves without help…. I am not particularly surprised by the situation there, though it saddens me to see it. Those marshes and coastal waterways are an important ecological formation, with a lot of animal life that depends on it to live, and I hate to see that get screwed up….

The other article sent by my friend Dave is one that, though also not particularly surprising, is even more disturbing, as it shows just how pervasive is the extent of corruption in government…. Canada has the reputation of having one of the most responsive governments in the world, one that seems, for the most part, to care about the people for whom it is working, and tries mostly to do things in a way that promotes societal well-being…. That is their reputation, anyway, even if not fully deserved….

It seems, however, that the madness that infects all the other states in the world seems to have found a place to germinate in the Canadian bureaucracy as well, causing its members to begin to follow the path to madness all the others have been flying down for many years….. This article describes a new policy being promulgated among the Canadian bureaucracies that will easily qualify them to join the ranks of those governments that have given up hiding their paranoia, and are busily pursuing insanity as a way of life….

Scientists, whether employed by universities, or private industry, or the government, are notoriously touchy about being told what to publish; this is an issue that is well-established in history, with the outcome always coming down on the side of the scientists…. In other words, history has shown us, many times, that it is counter-productive for society to muzzle researchers, for they always find a way to get the knowledge out, and all attempts at squashing it are a waste of time…. They keep trying, but, they don’t seem to learn from the past, a sure way to find oneself extinct, as Reality has a way of enforcing its will that is quite unstoppable by any human intervention…..

But, stupidity will have its way, so, they keep trying…. Read the article ffolkes, and realize just how far the world has gone toward piling itself against the wall of reality….. I mean, really….. snowflakes? They’re afraid of snowflakes?…. No, they’re afraid of knowledge, and it makes the BRC nervous to think about the public having all the facts…. Hence, their commitment to blocking the spread of knowledge at every turn, and trying to confuse and distract the public from seeing what they are up to behind the scenes…..

http://grist.org/climate-energy/canada-bans-researchers-from-discussing-snowflakes-findings-scientists-protest/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&sub_email=dlw38sbcglobal.net

The proof is there, ffolkes, for anyone to find…. The supposed leaders of our society, at all levels, are corrupt, not to mention clinically insane. They lie to the public in order to get elected, then continue to lie, cheat, and steal for as long as they are allowed to do so. They reward their constituents with more lies, and now have the nerve to show their true allegiance right out in public, as soon as they are sworn into their offices, laughing in the face of the public….

Isn’t it about time we all looked at our own complicity in this situation? How long are the people of this country going to allow their public officials to act, not only in ways that don’t benefit the public, but in ways that are actually dangerous to them? How long will the public ignore the unprincipled acts of liars and cheats, whom they have chosen to be their leadership? I’m afraid the answer is all too obvious, to anyone who is able to see, and think about what there is to see…. My own answer to those questions is, too long….. I haven’t seen any indication, in history, or in the present case, that would show that the public was able to throw off the yoke of the unseen masters of society, those super-rich, selfish assholes who determine just how events will transpire….

There is no point in history where mankind has been free of the influence and control of those in society who control all the resources. None…. If anyone can look back, and point out to me any time when that isn’t true, please, do so, and I will discuss the ramifications of that with great pleasure…. But, I’m a fair student of history, and I don’t find any place in all that time where our species has been free of the control of these silent rulers…. nor do I think we’ll ever be able to do so, not until a much greater percentage of the public is allowed to see the evidence of their handiwork, and realize just how badly, and how long, they have screwed the rest of us….

But, hey, it DOES give me something to rant about, whenever a new piece of evidence is allowed to be published…. Even if the stuff that we see isn’t any real threat to them, it’s encouraging to see that there is SOME degree of resistance to them, even if it is doomed to failure in the long run…. The people who run the world, for real, have had a long time to practice staying out of the public eye, and running things from the shadows….. and they’re very good at it, so, don’t expect any large revelations, or any huge lights being thrown on the shadowy limits of their existence…. They won’t allow anything that has any real chance of doing them harm to occur, you can be sure of that…..

Including shutting up people like me, should they ever feel the tiniest bit threatened by my words, or my attempts to make known just how deeply their control extends into our lives….. If I was doing them any real harm, you can bet they would have shut me down by now, so, it’s clear that, for now at least, I’m just another voice, shouting in the wilderness, without any real hope of harming them, or even giving them a moments discomfort….. But, I’ll keep trying, because, hey, that’s who I am….

gigoid has spoken…. so be it….

“A form of open-mindedness is the pathway to wisdom. Close your mind and you open the way for ignorance to flourish, but you will never even know it.” — Smart Bee

Whoops…. Sorry, thought I was done. But, then, this pearl dropped into my lap, and it just MADE me add it in here, to make the point, finally, and completely…. The following paragraph is unattributed in Smart Bee, my quote database, so I don’t know who said it first… Nor, I think, do I WANT to know, for they are evil, evil, I say…. This is a perfect statement of the attitude of almost every human being alive today, at least, every one of them who is involved in the governing of countries….. Read it, think about it…. this is EXACTLY the way they view the world, and it is sick, sick, sick, ffolkes…. no other word fits so well…..

“It is not possible to find morality in struggles for power. Your enemies view you as you do them and likely regard themselves as virtuous in their attempts at mayhem upon you. In struggles for power, your judgments should be based entirely on self-interest and finding as direct and economical a route to your goal as possible. If that route is bloody and barbaric, so much the worse for those who oppose you.” — Smart Bee, channeling a politician, or other card-carrying member of the BRC….
_____________________________

On a day like today, I am compelled to use only my own material, making it legal for me to call this Pearl “fresh”….. Hence, the following poem, which is the one that most closely fits with the above rant…. Enjoy!…..

Intelligent Crimes

The value of wit is often said to cause harm,
for those who think, such is its greatest charm.
The new and the bold cannot be fulfilled
if innovation and change is left unwilled.

Society behaves at its base as a mob
conformity and submission its primary job.
Any sign of rebellion against the mob’s rule
is met with resentment, naming such rebel the fool.

Intellect and talent are looked at askance,
expressing artistry stands nary a chance.
To stand out from the rest of mankind
is fraught with danger, for body and mind.

Often I stand to watch in solemn dismay
as beauty and joy are left by the way,
ignored and reviled by the unwashed masses
who prefer darkness, and acting like asses.

With shouts of derision the normals make known
their fear of intelligence, greater than their own.
They hope to stop all semblance of progress;
for thoughts and ideas, they couldn’t care less.

The world struggles on in spite of all opposition,
managing to maintain its advanced position.
Pulling the foolish along in spite of reluctance,
helping each to learn the survival dance.

Hard though it may be to keep up with the future
genius manages its plans to develop and nurture.
In the final analysis, those who live by reason
enjoy life the most, season to season.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Oh boy! I’ve ranted, and rhymed, so now I get to go old-school, and nobody can say anything!…. Well, not legally, anyway…. I don’t think anyone will mind, actually, as it MUST be time for a bit of humor after all the seriousness above…. I know I could use a good belly laugh, or even a few mild chuckles…. Let’s see what Smart Bee can find today….

“…Or, I may not feel that my belief-system needs to be self-consistent in a post-Goedelian epoch.” — Dan’l Danehy-Oakes

“We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” — Will Rogers

“You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he _must_ do.” — Ursula K. LeGuin, _A Wizard of Earthsea_

“Everyone, I think, remembers Voltaire’s famous line about freedom of speech. The version of it that you are familiar with is actually based on a faulty translation. What Voltaire actually said was this: “I do not agree with what you say, sir, though I will defend to the death your right to say it. But for now … shut up!” — Steve Allen

“The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…. This and no other is the root from which tyranny springs.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.), “The Republic”
(Oops, how did that get in here?…. Oh well, it’s too pretty to throw away…. Just consider it as a late addition to the rant in section one….)

“The reality you have dialed is not in service. Please check the value of pi or consult your local deity.” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

I’m not sure how I did that…. The last couple of hours is all a blur, miserable moments of grinding pain in my hips and back, interspersed with furious typing spells, and cursing at Smart Bee in as many languages as I can remember…. It’s done, though, and I’m definitely not doing it over….. Let’s see if I can sit long enough to read it all; it grew to a point where it’s a bit intimidating…..

Well, it’s long, but, it’s not the worst I’ve ever done, for sure…. Plus, as I said, it’s done…. I’ll take it, and not count the change…. See ya, I’m gonna go take a pill, and, hopefully, crash without burning for a while…

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

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: Oscar Wilde

In politics, the cost of doing business is always integrity….

A special sale on Dear John letters…..

Lost on a red brick road, searching in vain for Oz….

Look! It’s a black-frocked bible-thumper, moulting in the road!….

Patiently waiting for the flood waters to subside….

Intent is seven thirteenths of the law….

Once limited to peripheral accusations of pyloric incompatibility….

All the artichokes were bronzed in individual sterile containers….

Baldly factual assertions, drying in the wind….

Since when do laxatives count?….

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