Tag Archives: overpopulation

Fatuous remarks can create structural instability….

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Ffolkes,

Dark days are coming, ffolkes, there’s no denying it. Hard as I tried to work WITH the humongous bureaucracy that constitutes my HMO, the intransigence so natural to such a beast has dictated, once again, that we must do battle…. This time, I may even need a lawyer to help me, to find and use the part of the law that will MAKE them pay attention to my humanity, instead of ignoring it in favor of their own corporate greed, and their own corporate cowardice…. But, it’s okay, cuz I’m ready to take them on this time…. This time we’re going down to the wire, where I will find a way to force them into compliance with what is best for ME, not for them…. If it kills me, well, then, so be it, I’ll be a martyr for the cause of freedom in our bodies, as opposed to having our medical needs abrogated and altered according to the whims of bureaucratic avarice, and corporate selfishness….

That all sounds pretty highfalutin’, doesn’t it? I thought so, mainly because that’s how I tried to write it…. Now that I see it on the screen, I see that it says a lot, with a lot of force, without really giving any clue as to what the hell I’m talking about…. and that’s okay, too. I’m not really going into it now, as it concerns matters best kept, to some degree, private… In addition, it’s not the right time, or place, for this rant; a better choice for that process is to wait until it is done, and I know the outcome of the battle, or at least the projected, most likely outcome…. At that point, I’ll have a better idea of exactly what to rant about, and for how long I should rant, given the level of built-up angst that is sure to accompany such an event…..

Suffice it to say, now, that this battle will be a major one, with consequences that are potentially far-reaching, that could conceivably have a ripple effect on other aspects of modern culture, and how healthcare organizations are allowed to operate…. I’m hoping, anyway…. If not, if I am crushed under the heel of the uncaring corporate machine, then nothing will change, and the HMO’s of our world will be able to continue to operate as they wish, without any consideration for anything other than their own profit line… Of course, that’s the way it is now, so, you might not notice any difference, except for the fact of my non-existence….

As is normal for me, I am, of course, blowing this up, somewhat out of proportion; it’s a natural tendency to do that when one is trying to pump up one’s own confidence, trying to build up the necessary courage to take on one of the behemoths of our society. I’ve been tilting at society’s windmills for a long time now, off and on ever since my college years, so I have at least a modicum of experience in these matters….. Corporations are not like other kinds of living creatures, even though the law gives them the same rights…. Actually, corporations have MORE rights than the average Joe, since THEY have been given the right to make a profit, which is NOT one of the rights of any other live, flesh and blood citizen….

In addition, it’s a hard thing to fight a corporation, because they’re so amorphous….. Their shape shifts each time one looks at them, to serve whatever purpose they currently pursue…. This makes them appear shapeless, always changing in aspect; the net result of this is, they don’t offer a lot of target area at which to aim and fire…. Also, since they are not really alive, killing, crushing, or otherwise destroying, or, simply excising one part of it barely draws its attention, as it has a million of those parts, easily sacrificed, that it can give up without suffering any real, lasting damage…. The trick is to get their hold on a certain law to loosen, so that society can wrest back some of the control that is seized by such entities when laws are written in their favor….

Ah well, I’m starting to rant, if I haven’t already done so, and I hadn’t intended to do that today…. I’ve got other stuff to rant about, and now I’ll have to review that, to see if it will hold to another day…. Damn! Sometimes, I wish I could learn to shut myself up…. but, that just causes other difficulties, when the angst and dross sits in my mind and festers…. NOBODY likes what happens then, so, I try to get this stuff out of my head, and on screen, as soon as I can…. For now, though, I think I’ll bring this once again meandering stroll through my early morning brain to a screeching halt, and call it an intro for today…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.” — Lin Yutang
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So, there I was, cruising through the news site I frequent most often, when I saw the first article listed below, regarding a new public surveillance center being constructed in Oakland…. Apparently, the police forces in that city, who have been losing the battle with criminals in that city for many years, due to the complete and utter ignorance of the leaders of the city, and, a factor completely unknown to the police, their own misplaced,  intransigent sense of entitlement, have decided they need to be able to spy on the public much more effectively….

They haven’t a clue as to how to deal with any of the issues that cause the level of discontent in the city, as they are clueless as to their own part in creating those issues, so they figure they’ll just tighten down the screws even tighter…. never realizing that their own actions are the biggest part of the problem….

(Gee, does that sound suspiciously like the foreign policy attitudes displayed by the US federal government?… Why, yes, yes it does…. Why is it so hard for these idiots to understand, when you treat others like dirt, they aren’t going to like you?…..)

So, anyway, the police asked for a center where they could coordinate all the technological data they have been collecting, from publicly placed cameras, license plate readers, gun-shot detectors, radio dispatch calls, car cameras, and whatever else they can figure out to beg, borrow, or steal from the NSA… Apparently, encouraged by the success of the NSA programs at invading the privacy of normal citizens, the embattled officers have asked the city supervisors permission to build this center, so they can increase their data intake, and collaborate to join forces with other police agencies around the bay area, as well as make best use of all the surveillance they are now allowed to use….

It is a chilling story, all in all, not only in its bare tale of truth, but because of the reactions by the city supervisors, who have completely ignored all the public outcry against the new center, completely removing its construction from the public venue, and accepting no public input as to whether it should or should not be instituted as policy for the future… They just DID it, with no public input at all…. THAT, to me, is the most frightening part, and one that should immediately provoke a number of lawsuits against the city, the police, and whomever else will take the suit for consideration…. In addition, if they won’t change anything, then start actions against the courts and legislature themselves…. But, that’s just me, and the way I would deal with such effrontery…. I’m not one to tolerate a fool for long….

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-moves-forward-with-surveillance-center-4995249.php

The revelations from Eric Snowden regarding the extent of the spying being done by the NSA are reaching well beyond our borders now…. A number of countries around the world have registered strong protests regarding the privacy invasions by our government, with a number of European countries demanding changes from President Obama in the wake of the news that they had been targets of the spying…. Australia, which has used the same data produced by our agency, and applied the spying techniques and data found by our agencies for their own clandestine spying, have so insulted their neighboring countries that one of them has severed all diplomatic relations with them, at least temporarily, in response to the reported breaches of privacy….

Below you’ll find a number of articles describing the extent of the hullabaloo around the world, which will give you an idea of how the rest of the world’s outrage matches our own here in ‘Amurrica’…..

http://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/nsa-australia-spying-on-indonesian-president/

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/19/world/asia/indonesia-australia-spy-row/index.html

No apologies, no tolerance, no way they’re going to change what they’re doing…. Sound like someone else? Someone, say, from THIS country?….

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/05/world/europe/germany-uk-spy-report/

Oops, caught again…. and still no apology, and no indication of any intent to either stop, or alter what they’re doing…

So, how do our police forces respond to all this talk of spying on the public, and to the huge public outcry AGAINST such spying? Well, apparently, they ask for more ways to invade our privacy….

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/S-F-police-seek-cameras-to-capture-whole-picture-4997404.php

Sick, just plain sick…. To protect their OWN asses, they are going to film ALL public interactions…. Can you say ‘paranoia’? Sure you can…

Oh, and what does our government DO with the data they get from their spying?  Here is an example…..

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/US-drone-kills-5-outside-of-Pakistan-tribal-region-4997699.php

It’s the day before the anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination…. do you know what YOUR government is up to?….
_____________________________

Mining old Pearls is bringing me in touch with a lot of my own old poetry…. Here is another of which I’m fairly proud….

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 mostly viewed 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 ~~

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I’ve done my ranting for the day, so now I get to let Smart Bee help me pick out a group of pearls, that will make a statement of some sort, in the old-school style we’ve all come to know and love…. I have a feeling I know what kind of statement it will make today…. but, I’ve been wrong before… in this century, too! Any who, let’s see what happens when I give SB the reins…..

“Annual drug deaths: tobacco: 395,000, alcohol: 125,000, ‘legal’ drugs: 38,000, illegal drug overdoses: 5,200, marijuana: 0.  Considering government subsidies of tobacco, just what is our government protecting us from in the drug war?” — William A. Turnbow

“Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy.” — William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

(The battle, begun long ago, goes on today, does it not?…..)

“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is:  what are we busy about?” — Henry David Thoreau

“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.” — Mark Twain

“Soap, Ballot, Jury & Cartridge.” — The Four Boxes of Freedom

“The higher we soar, the smaller we seem to those who cannot fly” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Let’s all face the facts. This world, in which many, if not most of us live, will never be a better place, until such time as it is occupied by a better class of tenants.” — Smart Bee

This last quote stimulated a thought, which I want to share…. I rant here, a lot, about politics, and religion, and how the people who engage in those particular pastimes are, essentially, sick puppies, and mostly just need to be put out of their misery, before they cause any further harm…. What occurred to me on reading the quote above is this: the real culprit responsible for our problems on this planet is not those who engage in those activities, precisely, though they are the outward manifestation of the problem…. The fatal characteristic that is guiding our downfall is a particular flaw in human nature, one that allows us to pursue those activities, but doesn’t give us, or make us use, the most important quality that makes them viable…

This flaw, which is a lack, (of restraint, a lack of ethics, or morals….) more than an actual flaw, is one that each of us, good and bad, possess, and display, at various times; I identify it as that part of us that can determine that we, as individuals, have the right to work our will on others, to seek and use power and resources to make other people follow what we wish to believe, to manipulate others so as to make what we want to happen the only outcome, to the exclusion of whatever others want, or need, or even think…. This power-hunger is all too prevalent in those who take up politics, as well as those who “are called by God” to enter the church (sorry, but being “called” by supernatural entities is deserving of medication and at best, compassion, not worship, or indulgence…) In the quote below, a wise man gives a short explanation of this flaw, and how it can affect all of us….

“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.” — Lazarus Long, aka Robert Heinlein

Until our species can manage to root out this particular part of our nature, or at minimum, achieve enough control of it so that those who display it cannot affect the rest of us, we, as a species, will never be able to really get any further down the evolutionary road, since the path we are currently following, thanks to this flaw in our nature, which allows the predators to prey on the the rest of us, will only lead us into extinction… and THAT will be sooner than most ffolkes, or folks, believe it will be….

“A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who had ever reached the Enlightenment ‘Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether various objects had Buddha-nature or not.  To such a question Tortue invariably sat silent.  The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, and a moonlit night.  One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and asked the same question.  In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex string which he proffered wordlessly to the monk.  At that moment, the monk was enlightened.

From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue.  Instead, he made string after string by Tortue’s method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, who passed it on to theirs.” — Smart Bee

Sadly, neither Tortue, nor his disciple, ever made a copy of the string, and no one now is alive who remembers what it looked like…. SIGH… If nothing else, it might have kept the predatory among us all so busy, (See, that part’s easy… we’d just tell them there was a treasure for them, if they could make the string correctly assume the shape of enlightenment….), they wouldn’t have time to fuck with anyone else….
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Well, that was certainly a Pearl, if the way I’m huffing and puffing, and trying to blow down walls is any indication… Of course, the wall is fine, but I’m definitely huffed and puffed out, so I’d best go see just what I’ve done here….. Have some toast and butter, and I’ll be right back….

Once again I’ve created something that is a little bigger than intended, and, in this case, almost up to snuff, conceptually….. It’s certainly fresh, and real, so, if nothing else, it’s probably healthy for you…. or for me, whichever comes first… Let me guess, ah, that would be……. me, of course…. but, I think, if you consume all of this one, it might just healthy for you, too…. Regardless, it’s done, so it’s good to go…. See ya tomorrow, ffolkes, if my luck holds….

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

dozer3

Soluble items should be sterilized first….

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Ffolkes,

I’m still in a bit of shock, but, it’s understandable…. It’s not every day the President Of The United States addresses one directly in an email…. Actually, logic, and my ever-alert crap detector, says that even if I DID receive an email that purported to have been written by the POTUS himself, with a real White House logo at the top of the page, addressing me by my first name and all,  the real odds are, it probably wasn’t him at all, but one of his staff flunkies, trying to convince me that he actually knows who I am, and gives the tiniest shit about what I might think…. Perhaps that’s why I’m a bit skeptical of the offer to join in on a conference phone call with the POTUS, because, hey, he REALLY WANTS TO KNOW what I think about stuff….

Yep, I got that email yesterday, directly from the White House, and signed (digitally, of course….) by Barack himself…. First, the damn thing addressed me by my first name, as if Barry actually was writing, had been introduced, and was granted the use of my given name, rather than treating me with the respect of using my surname…. Pretty insulting, if you stop to think about it, not to mention presumptuous….

They (or he, as they wanted me to believe….) wanted me to respond by clicking on a link that would include me in whatever propaganda event they have planned for whenever it was…..some kind of group hug over the phone or something…. Sure, I’m going to give them my name again…. they already inundate me with daily emails to try to get me to donate money (begging letters, I call them….), or to involve me in some propaganda spin, or to get me to call Congress (where one may talk to as many answering machines as one wishes….. I know, I’ve tried….)….

To be honest, I only let them continue because I believe in the old adage about knowing one’s enemies, and keeping them close, in order to know what they’re up to….. Originally, back in 2008, when I first emailed the White House, I did it because they advertised that they had set up the email to give them an idea of what the public wanted…. I found out quickly that all they really wanted was a way to gather emails from people who might be supporters, so they could ask them for money and time, to carry out their so-called “grass roots” efforts to “improve the lot of the middle class…..” Since I wrote them ONE TIME, FIVE YEARS AGO, I have been assaulted by ten different organizations who somehow got my name (I wonder where?….), all of whom want me to sign petitions, or start petitions, or join a cause, or mostly, just send some money for them to throw into their black hole….

Move On.org, Greenpeace, the White House, and a host of others now send me emails EVERY DAMN DAY, practically dunning me for contributions, letting me know that, if I don’t personally take the time to support them, the big bad Republicans, or the Tea Party, or some corporate raider, is going to once again make me and the whole rest of the country suffer, just because they are able to raise more money than we are….

Hell, even Al Franken, the former comedian who got himself elected as Senator in Minnesota, sends me begging letters every day, just because they got my email address from Move On (I think….)….. I just delete all of them without reading them all the way through, so I know at least what they’re moaning about now…. If I bothered to click on the “unsubscribe” link in the emails, well, that would just be one more piece of data for them to use, so they could mark me as a known enemy-type to them…. Better to just ignore and delete….

I really hadn’t meant to rant in the intro again, but, as I sat down to write today, it struck me how insulted I was by that email…. For them to think that A) they could manipulate me like that, B) they could get me to join in by making it a personal request by the POTUS, and C) to use my first name, as if I’m some sort of child, or servant…. Well, all three of them are erroneous assumptions, insulting in their familiarity, and in their assumption of my gullibility, as well as being downright asinine in their assumption of my technical ignorance….

In addition it is just plain stupid to think that I would actually believe for even ONE SECOND that the President of the United States would actually address a citizen in such a way, and actually care for even a moment what that citizen thinks…. As if that would alter their own agenda!…. What a crock of bullshit!…. I am tempted, a little, to send back a reply of some sort, just to see if they are paying attention at all to what they receive, other than as a means of mining addresses…. But, I know for a fact that they would just ignore it, as it doesn’t fit into any of the parameters they’ve set up to gather that data….

I guess I’ll just let this one go for the time being, and see if they try to follow up, as they’ve done before, with another invitation to join the call…. Sometimes, they’ll send two or three invitations like this, just to see if I’ll respond…. I don’t generally do anything but delete them, but, it might be time to see if I can trick THEM into some kind of dialogue, until I can pull them in far enough into my game, and deliver to them some of the same kind of CRAP they send me every day….. It’s worth a try, I think, and may keep me amused for a short while…. It also probably won’t affect these Pearls, as nothing else seems to keep me from getting them out, other than my own physical failings….

Shall we Pearl?…..

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

Hmm…. Tough choice, there, Zippy…. Having been there, done that, for both, we’ll go on to bigger things…..
_____________________________

I like to think I’ve got a handle on Life, but, as soon as I think that, Life snatches itself out of my grip, so my handle probably isn’t as secure as I’d like to think…. That’s okay, it’s always been a chancy world, with nothing ever guaranteed, but for change….. I like it that way, truth be told.

With that in mind, I’m going to gather together a group of pearls for this old-school version of a daily POVW, as they were created back when I sent them via email to about 200 otherwise bored state employees, who came to view them as their bright spot in the day, whether they opened them when they arrived, or saved them for a quiet moment, as some did….

Since this one was picked out without any particular parameters or paradigms to guide the choices, I can’t predict how it will turn out…. but, that’s Life, right?….

“Virtue consists in avoiding vice, and is the highest wisdom.” — Horace (B.C. 65-8)

“Ten thousand years – a single thought. A single thought – ten thousand years.” — Zen saying

“The first gift of maturity is the ability to look a child straight in the eye.” — John Francis Putnam (1964)

“A God alone can comprehend a God.” — Young

“I’d rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I haven’t.” — Lucille Ball

“Men often believe — or pretend — that the “Law” is something sacred, or at least a science — an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments.” — Lazarus Long

“Life is too short to be taken seriously.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Damn near perfect, I’d say….
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Today’s poem is one I’ve used before, though not for some time…. I use it, because I like it, and that’s all there is to it…. I hope you like it, too…..

Pu suan tzu

A fragment moon hangs from the bare tung tree
The water clock runs out, all is still
Who sees the dim figure come and go alone
Misty, indistinct, the shadow of a lone wild goose?

Startled, she gets up, looks back
With longing no one sees
And will not settle on any of the cold branches
Along the chill and lonely beach

~~ Su Tung-po ~~

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As I noted yesterday, the new WP function that refers us to older posts has been a real godsend for me…. Here is a wonderful little rant from early this year, that seems quite appropriate today…..

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

From the 2/26/13 POVW, “Don’t bust Your gaiters, boys, it’ll get bigger….”

“We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves cooperatively,sanely, scientifically, harmonically and in regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity around the earth…. We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.” — Buckminster Fuller

Bucky said this some time around 1968 or 69; Google would know exactly…. but I remember it well, as part of the argument that first convinced me of the imminence of the danger from overpopulation, pollution, climate change, and all of the other foolish, self-destructive behaviors in which our species has engaged for millennia. The cumulative effects of all of these issues is approaching a flash point, a point that, quite possibly, may already have been reached, and passed, without anyone noticing….

Perhaps the worst example of the entire problem is the movie “An Unpleasant Truth” with former VP Al Gore narrating a summary of these issues, with all the then-currently-available-evidence, all of which, taken together, was rather impressive, as well as fairly well unarguably accurate.  In other words, it told the exact truth, and clearly…. 

I call this the worst example because this perfectly told truth of the matter was ridiculed, reviled, and dismissed, by the governments, and the public, one by ignoring it, and the other by refusing to listen, reacting instead to an unfortunate delivery style. Yet, every word Al spoke in this movie is true, and is being proved today, with the already extreme climate changes we are witnessing on a world-wide scale….

“What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!” — Lazarus Long

But, the stupids keep on decrying any changes have happened, and blithely ignore the warmer, dryer winters, the cooler, wetter summers, the shrinking polar ice (at BOTH poles!…), the instability in the biosphere, the tons of carbon monoxide and particulates being added into the atmosphere every second, along with all of the other evidence that PROVES them wrong. It isn’t a matter of there not being any real evidence, it is a matter of the evidence being ignored, or challenged, that is proving to be the hardest obstacle to be overcome, if we are to survive beyond the next 100 years….

Yep, that’s MY estimate, based on all the different time-scale estimates I’ve read about, the evidence I’ve examined, and my take on how society is dealing with all of it…. I don’t see the changes needed happening, not yet, nor is there much indication that a way to stop the assholes in power from their insane intransigence, or their selfish hoarding of resources for their private use, is even close to being discovered, or implemented.

The atmosphere is almost full, and the balance of the gases and elements that make up the air we breathe is, WITHOUT FAIL, going to begin to change, eventually changing into air that will not support our life form, meaning, we won’t be able to breathe it; we will suffocate…. This process, well understood by science, has already begun, and will happen faster with each passing day, once it reaches a certain critical point…. That point, if not already reached, is not far off….

“Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” — Lazarus Long

Now, I know there is some small hope, and that everyone who reads this will give me positive reasons for that hope…. and I agree with all of them. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want my children, or their children, to have to face the same issues in order to save themselves. I’d much rather just shoot the motherfuckers who are causing all of it right now, and be done with it….

Sadly, that won’t work, (they’ve already proven that, by using that method over the last three or four millennia…), so we’ll have to figure out something else to do…. I am not enough of a genius to be able to figure out exactly what that might be, though I have some ideas that would help, I’m sure…. But, I’m not in a position now to have those ideas instituted, so they are moot, unless I somehow find myself in such a position….

Hope is, therefore, just about ALL I have left….
_____________________________

I must be restless again…. I booked another cruise yesterday, just a short 4 day affair to Ensenada and back, out of L.A., and now am trying desperately to find stuff to distract me from getting all worked up about it, packing two weeks early, and generally driving Pat crazy with my enthusiasm to get out of Dodge…. Now, I’m trying to post this before actually getting it done…. Settle down, there, big fella, there’s still a good 13 days before you get to go, so, you’d best get a grip…. Let’s see how today’s Pearl came out, shall we?….

Not too bad, considering…. It’s good enough to let if fly without any more help, or editing that I can see… I guess that means I have to go now….. Ta then, until 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

dozer3

Bettie Paige merchandise is on aisle three…..

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Ffolkes,

Serendipity is characterized by its unpredictability; it wouldn’t be what it is if we knew when it was going to manifest in our lives. This may be why it is always such a rush, such a joyous feeling when it drops a gift from the universe in our path. This joy makes it particularly hard to accept that even in such cases as we have serendipitous occurrences happening in our lives, we still need to keep  sharp eye out for Mr. Murphy and his myrmidons of chaos, just in case he wants to stick his filthy hands into our business, which, you may rest assured, he does….

I have an opportunity, if I can take it, to go to my home town to visit with several of my classmates, one in particular who will be there on visit from Arizona/Alaska, the places she splits the year between, sensibly avoiding the Alaska winter, and the Arizona summer. Since the recent passing of our mutual friend, Carole, of whom I speak every day in the closing, I’ve felt the urge to go down to the town where we grew up, to visit her grave, and see my other friends still living in the area…. Now, name withheld for privacy, another of our classmates, is going there for a few days this week to do the same, so I’m trying to figure out how I can get there to join in….

Murphy’s presence is noted because, within an hour of receiving the email informing me of all this, I began coming down with a cold, of the kind that kicks your ass right into bed ( possibly, that’s just MY reaction, due to my age…. but, let’s not go there, ‘kay?….)…. The cough I had thought was smoke-quitting related was joined by  increased fluid in the head, headache, the general malaise that goes with a cold, and, the kicker, sneezing and watery eyes. I’ve started downing freshly chopped garlic, every four hours, and am living, essentially, on Nyquil and Dayquil clones, in order to keep from just sinking into the morass of illness that threatens to consume me in these cases….

This is going to make it hard to get to the place where we grew up, as it’s about 250 miles south of here…. No matter how I go, there are disadvantages involved that will make it hard for me, in my condition, with the pain, and the cold symptoms, to get there, by any method I choose…. I can ride the bus… It’s fairly inexpensive, and pretty quick, considering, but, uncomfortable as hell for all of the five to six hours it would take… I hesitate to ride the train, for a lot of reasons, one of which being I’m still pretty pissed at them over my trip to Oregon earlier this year. Planes are too expensive to get there, as it is a small place, with no big airports within a hundred miles; the small planes that go there are a lot more money than the regular routes charge.

That leaves renting a car for about four days, then driving down there, being active, then driving back, all without enough time to recover from the exertions I’ll be making, which are far and beyond what is normal for me…. I’m pretty drastically out of shape, physically, and being tired just kicks my butt these days…. If I don’t rest, it can take me several days to get over it when I’m done; I did practically NOTHING for two weeks after getting back from Europe, and this latest cruise, only a seven day affair, was enough, apparently, to lower my resistance to the cold virus….. Bummer, dude….

Ah well, such is life….. At least I’ve got something to think about other than my usual fare…. I don’t know yet how it will play out, but, now that I’ve got my secondary computer, the one I use when on the road, it shouldn’t affect these Pearls, unless I so choose…. I’m sure that my Gentle Readers will appreciate that, though that is probably wishful thinking… I’m not at all sure that I have more than about eight or ten regular readers anymore, if the statistics on my blog are any indication….

I never have known exactly how many readers out of the email group actually reads them, as very few ever send back a comment, so that’s no big; it’s been the same for ten years or more…. But, according to the number of likes, and visits to the site that register in the stats, not very many ffolkes have been stopping by…. which, by the way, is still confusing, as my number of followers continues to grow steadily…. Go figure….

Okay, I think I’ve mined this particular cave for all the ore it contains, so, we can get on with the real business of pearling that we’re here for….. I’ll figure out whether I’m going or not later…. For now, it’s time for a dive, before it’s too late…..

Shall we Pearl?….. Let’s start with a two-fer…..

“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be  well-mannered.” — Francois Marie Voltaire
_____________________________

It may be a bit smug on my part, but, ever since the revelations about the spying being done by the US government hit the news, I’ve felt a sense of justification, a result of having all of my suspicions verified by unshakable proof, furnished by the very hands that committed the crimes…. In other words, and, of course, metaphorically speaking, they found fingerprints, and there is no longer any doubt that the lies that are being told have been put to the test, and failed. It’s a fact, and it cannot be denied, ffolkes… the government is lying to us, regularly, and frequently. If you have any further questions, see the news of the day….

In fact, let me assist you…. Here are three articles from yesterday’s news, all from SFGATE…. I am using them because they show up BOTH the culprits in this whole mess, to wit: the BRC themselves, who create the lies for their own purposes, and the news and print media which, albeit unwittingly and unwillingly, nevertheless aid the pundits in spreading their lies to the greatest number of people. I won’t even bother to go through at this point to delineate each and every little untruth, partial truth, made-up crap, or altered data that is used to convey the lie to the public; by now, most of y’all should be able to figure those out for yourselves…. I have excerpted one comment, by Eric Snowden, which sums up perfectly my own feelings on this subject; that summation is in bold italic font, to separate it from the rest of the excerpt….

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/White-House-lawmakers-no-clemency-for-Snowden-4952388.php

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Feinstein-disputes-Snowden-s-claim-for-clemency-4952073.php

“Federal prosecutors have charged Snowden with theft and with two violations of the Espionage Act of 1917. But Snowden, who has taken refuge in Russia, has denied any treasonous intent, saying he disclosed secrets to the news media, not to hostile foreign powers, and did so to push for reform. “Instead of causing damage, the usefulness of the new public knowledge for society is now clear because reforms to politics, supervision and laws are being suggested,” he wrote in Der Spiegel. “Citizens have to fight against the suppression of information about affairs of essential importance for the public. Those who speak the truth are not committing a crime.” ”

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Snowden-seeks-the-world-s-help-against-US-charges-4946049.php

It is a sad day for me, and for this country, when one of its citizens, in the pursuit of freedom guaranteed to him by the Constitution, commits an act of pure patriotism, tells the truth, for the good of everyone, yet, in order to even stay alive, much less free, he must run to another country to hide, and make an appeal to the rest of the world for protection. I do not blame him for doing so; the first articles above make it abundantly clear exactly WHY he has to do it this way; if he didn’t, we would never have known all this…..

If he had attempted to go through “channels” to report any of this, he would have disappeared from view, forever, along with all of his information, and we might never have known exactly what our own leaders were doing to us… Count on that, ffolkes, no matter how many times they would deny it…. With an attitude like the one displayed, no other outcome would have been possible… Remember, no matter how many times it is repeated, a lie does NOT become the truth…

The two most powerful figures in Congress, and the President, along with all their police myrmidons and agents, are dead-set against ANY leniency in this, a sure sign to me that they KNOW they are in the wrong. Strong denial is ALWAYS the first reaction by a politician when accused of wrongdoing, and they will deny, deny, deny, even up to, and past, the point of having the proof shoved in their face, to keep from ever having to admit their own immorality, or that they MIGHT have made a mistake… No, that possibility cannot be allowed in their narrow world-view; they are well aware that if one lie is exposed, it will lead to the exposure of more lies, and they don’t want to let the public have any clue as to how many different ways they are screwing them….

Part of the irony in all of this is that many of these pundits and politicians often BELIEVE their own BS; they really do believe they know best what the public should know, or have, or be allowed to do…. They often, always erroneously, but sincerely, believe they are the best judges of what people should have the rights to do, believing they are making decisions for them “for their own good”….. which, as you, and just about any person with an IQ over 75 knows, is a complete crock of shit…. And not just ANY shit…. sticky, smelly, unhealthy shit at that…. What else could it be, coming from the very source of our worst qualities as human beings….. ambition, pride, and egotistic avarice for power?….

Ah me, it’s all so discouraging most of the time…. I’m a smart guy, and I can see all the shit that is going on right in front of me… Unfortunately, I’m also smart enough to understand human nature, to at least some degree, and realize that it isn’t going to change, not overnight, and, perhaps not at all…. If we, in the expression of our nature, don’t make SOME kind of changes, in how we treat the planet, and each other, well, the consequences won’t be pleasant for anyone, and that is just about as discretely understated as I can make it in English…

More simply, we’re on our way to a living hell, ffolkes, if we don’t change the way the world is going today…. It is a foregone conclusion that if we keep on the way we are, things WON’T change, not for the better; at best they’ll stay the same for a while, but, entropy guarantees that, unmodified, reality will start to fall apart, and will continue until chaos is achieved….. That is the nature of the Universe, and there is not anything in our power, or our imagination, that can change that simple fact…. Me, I’m going to do what I can, when I can, to point out what I see, and what I think may be happening, and hope that somebody in a position to actually do something will take note, and perhaps, begin the process that will save our sorry asses….

I doubt that is very likely, though, so I may as well go have a beer…. Make that an Irish Coffee, please, it’s a bit early for beer….

“And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good,
Need we ask anyone to tell  us these things?”

— R. Pirsig
_____________________________

In keeping with today’s ranting theme, but, with a bit of contrasting humor to mitigate the sobriety, here is a poem I’ve used before, by one of the twentieth century’s finest poets…..

À Bas Ben Adhem

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

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

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

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

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

~~ Ogden Nash ~~

_____________________________

It’s been a tough morning, as evidenced quite strongly by the complete overpowering dizziness that just stormed through my brain; what a rush! I’m not sure if it is fatigue from denying the cold’s effects, or just my currently strange body chemistry affecting the state of my mind, going through, as it is, the transition from long-term nicotine addiction to a (reportedly….) more healthy life without nicotine…. I’d forgotten that the almost 47 years I abused myself with those fags would demand a heavy price tag to get shut of; goes to show we are ALL adept at NOT looking at things we don’t want to see….

But, now I get to relax, and find some lustrous pearls to fill out this last section appropriately, and that is always a pleasure…. Let’s see what Smart Bee has for us this morning, shall we?….. If I am compelled to comment, those will be in parentheses, just so’s you know….

” Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.” — H. L. Mencken

(Ouch! Boy, I’m feelin’ that one!….)

“The reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed…  Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition know no bounds; the land is fertile and rich, the inhabitants simple, forbearing and submissive.  The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for these people, treating them (and I speak from first-hand experience, having been there from the outset) not as brute animals – indeed, I would to God they had done and had shown them the consideration they afford their animals – so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road.  They have had as little concern for their souls as for their bodies, all the millions that perished having gone to their deaths with no knowledge of God and without the benefit of the Sacraments.  One fact in all this is widely known and beyond dispute, for even the tyrannical murderers themselves acknowledge the truth of it:  the indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm whatever; on the contrary, they believed them to have descended from the heavens, at least until they or their fellow citizens had tasted, at the hands of these oppressors, a diet of robbery, murder, violence, and all other manner of trials and tribulations.” — Bartolome de Las Casas, — A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, 1542

(This could easily be the beginning of another rant, against those I believe to be equally complicit with politicians in the rape and pillaging that occurs in society on a daily basis, but, I’ll leave it as just a pearl, and just note this…. It seems, by looking at the date this was written, that the churches and dogmatists have been known as criminals and rogues for a very long time…. By my count, it was around 485 years ago this first appeared…. I haven’t seen a lot of improvement over that period…. have you? Oh, they have better press agents now, and slightly different techniques of modus operandi, but the basic rapaciousness, and misguided sense of entitlement remains in full force, without any doubt…. Now, though, it seems that children are in the worst danger from the clergy, as they have been their primary target of exploitation in the last century….)

“If the lawmakers make a compromise, the place where it will be felt the most is the taxpayer’s pocket.” — Deadlock’s Law

“A politician,… one that would circumvent God.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet — Act v, Sc. 1

(Even Will got it right occasionally; I’ve just never been able to figure out if it was because he wrote SO DAMN MUCH STUFF that sometimes, chance worked in his favor, and he hit something on the head, or if he just stole it from Francis Bacon…. or, just as likely, one of his cronies at the pub next door to the Globe…. )

“Freedom begins between the ears.” — Edward Abbey

(It’s really too bad that this means that most of today’s citizens have way too much space between their ears for freedom to keep from leaking out….)

“We must never permit the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is man’s sympathy with all creatures  that first makes him truly a man.” — Albert Schweitzer

“In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don’t wobble.” — Yun-Men

I love when serendipity is everywhere!…. Two perfect pearls to close with, and the whole thing comes together, mismatches and all…. I hope you enjoyed this little meander through my head as much as I did, but, I doubt that’s possible…. S’okay, it doesn’t make me anything, other than done…..
_____________________________

Given all that has gone before in this Pearl, it’s probably just as well it IS done…. Let me see how it stands up to scrutiny, even from such an indulgent judge….. Well, that’s certainly a Pearl. Not only that, but, from all appearances, it doesn’t wobble. I’m going to count my blessings, and steal off into the day…. 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

dozer3

Puzzled by such antics, the puppet smiled….

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Ffolkes,

“Free enterprise ended in the United States a good many years ago. Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and drive out the small entrepreneur. In their conglomerate forms, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the legitimacy of the state.” — Gore Vidal

From what we are told by modern pundits and talking heads, terrible things will happen, unless we surround ourselves in the impenetrable armor of patriotic fervor, and dutifully give up the basic human rights our founding fathers secured for us, after expending great amounts of blood, sweat, and tears…. These seemingly concerned political professionals have taken the opportunity, handed to them by the events of 9/11/01, to fan the unreasonable, and, I might add, inappropriate fears of the common man, by reinforcing the ignorance they possess, about the perpetrators, about other cultures, and about their own needs, validating and strengthening their fears, even though those fears have no basis in reality….

“A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man.  In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.” — H.L. Mencken

Hmm… I see that I’ve begun my rant for the day, right here in Section 1, Paragraph 1 of today’s Pearl…. For some unknown reason, I jumped right on that particular bandwagon straight out of the gate, with a good strong opening, I might add…. I believe the above statements to be a true assessment of today’s world, and of the BRC’s part in creating the atmosphere of mistrust and hatred between cultures that we see in our society. It doesn’t serve their political interests to have a population that is open-minded, or trusting of others, or that is able to appreciate the diversity now being celebrated in most parts of the world.

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

The leaders of this country prefer a populace that is ignorant of the truth, angry, afraid, and full of hatred. Such people are easily manipulated into believing whatever is told to them, as they are pre-disposed to believe the worst of others, since that is how they view themselves…. A person who is accustomed to cheating, or lying, or otherwise acting immorally to achieve their own ends is not capable of imagining that others are not the same way, so they will cheat and lie from the beginning of any interaction, assuming that everyone does it…. It’s a vicious cycle, one to which an ignorant and untrained mind can easily fall prey; once caught in its grip, its victims find it very difficult to change, as it resists all attempts to educate, or to illuminate, often refusing discussion altogether….

“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” — Thomas Jefferson

Sadly, there are a great many people in this country who fall for this kind of crap, and never even KNOW that they are being manipulated…. They just cruise blithely along down the river of Time, allowing themselves to be herded wherever is convenient for the BRC, blundering into unseen obstacles, or hanging on to false assumptions, spending the greater portion of their lives wondering where it all went wrong…. These folks watch Fox News, listen to Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh, or Ann Coulter,  and others of their ilk, shout their hatred and lies at the top of their lungs; they smile vacuously, and  nod their heads wisely, just as if they had a single thought in their excuse for a mind, not a vast, empty plain full of lies and misconceptions…

PATRIOTISM, n.  Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel.  With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

Okay, I guess I can stop now…. I could, too, if I wished…. Y’all know pretty well by now how I feel about politicians, and preachers of all religions, and police, and lawyers, and judges, and anyone else who participates in the world-wide oppression of the 98%, or 99%, or whatever you wish to call those who allow their slavery to continue…. It’s a sad situation, one that has been in place for most of our history; it is only in modern times, however, that this structure has shown itself to be counter-productive in a species-survival sense.

“History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions.” — Ted Koppel

The harsh controls over everyone else that are maintained by the shadowy masters of society are not going to be given up lightly, or at all, without some serious changes in the nature of the other people in the world….. The ruling elite have been holding the reins of this cart for a long time, and aren’t willing to give them up without a struggle, a struggle they have been prepared to win for many thousands of years…. They even practice the necessary violence with constant wars and police actions, all of which indicate their willingness to use violence as a means of behavioral control over others…. The rest of us are NOT as practiced in its use, and we are not going to be able to wrest control from them without it…. Patently, they aren’t about to just hand it over, are they? No, they’re not likely to do that….

So, what’s the answer? Hell, if I knew that, I’d already be the leader of the revolution…. I have an answer, but, most ffolkes don’t want violence as part of their lives, if they can help it, so they aren’t going to accept my answer, as mine involves using violence as needed to eradicate the problem…. Since the Beloved Ruling Class is willing to use it, so am I, but, not everyone is so inclined…. Y’know what, though? They’re on their own, as I’m not going to just lie down and die, just because I’m afraid of the big, bad terrorists…. Mainly, that’s because I’m NOT afraid of them, or of the big, bad assholes who run my own country right now…. If nothing else, I will maintain my own little space of freedom, and hope for the best…. My hopes are not particularly high, but, they do exist….

Okay, I’m done now…. Fuck the assholes in Washington, on both sides of the political aisle in Congress, and every other niche where they’ve insinuated themselves in government…. I’ll take some more shots later, or tomorrow…. for now, I wanna go find some pearls to throw at them….

Shall we Pearl?….

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,
and the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all.
Go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall.

— Jefferson Airplane
_____________________________

It just may possibly be too early for this, but, I give up…. Not just giving up, but, way up…. so far up, I’m not even going to explain…. Instead, here is a pearl of unknown format, with unknown parameters, and unknown qualities…. the best kind, from where I’m standing…. or, sitting, or hovering, whatever it is I’m doing right now…. I DO so hope you enjoy it….

“There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.” — Lou Reed, Magic and Loss
(R.I.P. Lou….)

“…I probably shouldn’t point at the word ‘reptiles’ when I say ‘businessmen.'” — Rajeev Pandey

“Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere.  Climb the mountain just a little to test it’s a mountain.  From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.” — Bene Gesserit proverb

“To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.” — Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” — W. Edwards Deming

“Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.” — Aldous Huxley

“In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.” — Bertrand Russell
_____________________________

“All these poems where it is merely the Poem that is in question – a whole poetry with no other substance than itself! What would we say of a prayer whose object was religion?” — E.M. Cioran

Again, I’ll be using one of my own poems, to ensure I’m the only one named, in the likely event of prosecution by local authorities….

I know I’m in the now, if only…..

Oh, there it is again, fiddle faddle;
  Begone, I said, vamoose, skedaddle!
It looked at me as if I were insane:
  Scoffed, it did, filled me with pain.

Where does it come from?
Where does it live?
I’d stick out my thumb,
if I had more to give.

If only, should, would, could it be?
  It went away again, this time free.
It will be back again, this I know;
  or I’m wrong, and it won’t show.

Who cares?
Who hears?
Such goings on wobble the sphere,
I wish it wouldn’t do that here.

I’ve been wrong before…..

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

I will not rant, I will not rant, no matter how strong the desire, or the provocation…. I’ll sublimate, sublimate, sublimate…. with another old-school style pearl, just as if I really knew what the hell I was doing here…..

“Please return the newspapers so others can enjoy the violence as much as you did.” — Sign in Providence sub shop

“Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.” — Euripides

“Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Discourses, Chap. xvii

And taste
The melancholy joy of evils past:
For he who much has suffer’d, much will know.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book xv, Line 434

“The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.” — Joseph Heller, Catch22

I really do love it when a plan comes together…. This is a PERFECT five-star pearl, old-school variety….. I hope you enjoyed reading, and cogitating on it as much as I did while putting it together…. Ta ta, then….
_____________________________

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” — Rafael Sabatini

This first line from “The Scarlet Pimpernel” is, perhaps, my favorite line in literature, because it is both what I try to be, and what I try to emulate in my writing…. at least, that’s what I keep telling myself…. Having done my duty as a grammarian, to the best of my meager ability, I pronounce this Pearl to be finished, and no longer subject to the Miranda Act…. 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

dozer3

A special sale on Dear John letters…..

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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
_____________________________

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
_____________________________

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 ~~

_____________________________

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….
_____________________________

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

dozer3

We’ll titrate the phone books, THEN we’ll marinate….

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Ffolkes,

I should, perhaps, know better than to begin while still free of coffee…. Aha, I know…. I’ll go peruse the headlines, to see what I can find to rant about today…. Be back when I’m lucid….

Lucid I may be, but, bursting with energy, I’m not, sad to say…. It’s funny, actually; as soon as I started gulping down my coffee, I started yawning, my eyes began to droop, and I started feeling as if going back to bed is the right thing to do (it’s still only 5:15 AM, so it’s not as if it’s too late…). Or, maybe, a bit of a lie-down on the couch would do the trick… We’ll try that first, before I make a complete fool of myself here… Shoot, too late for that, huh?… Oh well….

Laying down wasn’t the answer, either, it seems….. I’m here, though, and I’ve had coffee, so I may as well get started….. Let’s try this…..

Spinning darkly, madly through wild spaces, shouting defiance, the weight of Ramistolia, the Axe of Invincibility, heavy at my belt,  I begin to curse, slowly, with great passion, at the strange methods used by wizards to move people to where they need to be.  I think then of home, and Mira, my wife….. Sleeping now, I hoped, dreaming her gentle dreams of love and beauty, about to awaken…. Flushed in the pale light of dawn, her long tresses tumbled, she will arise, moving slowly to the bath as her handmaiden throws a robe over her milky white shoulders. She’ll think of me then, and smile, not knowing that I had already left her, to meet the destiny set out for me……  IF I managed to survive Alizander’s terrifying mode of transport….

Well, that’s enough of that… it’s okay, but not the best I’ve ever come up with…. I haven’t actually done one of those in a while, which is odd, because I always enjoy it, even though I never do finish any of them. I keep telling myself that one of these days, I’ll sit down, and outline a story to go along with one of them, but, so far, I’ve not done so…. Obviously, it’s not as important to me as I had imagined it to be, which is fine…. I’m actually pretty content with life just now, and it’s hard to get worked up over much of anything….

My contentment may be a contributing factor in the difficulties I’m encountering in this process…. For ranting, it is necessary to feel at least a bit of discontent down in the deeper parts of the psyche, and, right now, mine is pretty happy, for the most part…. Oh, like everyone, I have my moments of angst and bitterness, but, mostly, of late, I can avoid them, or pass them off without any fuss, or lasting effects…. After a lifetime of passionate involvement, and volatile relations with women (I always did find passion to be irresistible…), I am quite content to live more peaceably….

Now, if only the pundits and talking heads would just go crawl back under the rocks from whence they came, all would be well in my world…. But, no, they have to go through all the asinine contortions they can, while continuing to act out their insane personal agendas, taking society down with them, on their completely unnecessary trip to Hell…. The idiot assholes, or asshole idiots, take your pick, on both sides of the political fence, are still exhibiting massive amounts of blind stupidity, and have yet to give any indication they are getting any smarter with time…. Personally, I’m kind of happy with parts of the shutdown, as it does mean they aren’t up to much of anything at all in government, which HAS to be good for all of us….

There, that’s my rant for the day, such as it is…. and now that this intro section has climbed up to a new plateau of chaotic oddity, I guess I should get on with whatever I plan for the rest of it…. Such is life before the rest of the worlds returns from the ‘little death’, into which we slip each night, searching for Endymion…. If you like, you can choose your own metaphor for that, but, I’ll stick with that one, because, hey, it’s done, right?….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Ignorance of one’s misfortunes is clear gain.” — Euripides
_____________________________

Bloggers, it seems to me, are a group of people who should have a good grasp of the importance of freedom of speech in a democratic society. Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, all of whom were part of the founding process of this nation, and our particular brand of democracy, wrote many letters, essays, and comments on the subject, as it is considered to be one of the most important keys to the survival of a democracy, in the face of the attempts made daily by corporations, priests, aristocrats, and all the other immoral, unethical pirates, who live to control others, and who continuously strive to maintain, and increase, their ability to manipulate and control society for their own benefit.

“We can’t allow the people to interfere with the smooth flow of democracy.” — Kitchener city council member

This might seem like a funny statement, until you realize that he wasn’t being facetious, , or even ignorant; rather, he was clearly and honestly (a mistake I’m sure, and the reason his name is now forgotten….) expressing the prevalent attitude among virtually all of the elected officials in this country. Thomas Jefferson particularly warned us, on a number of occasions, to be watchful for attempts by corporations to manipulate the law, as did others of the founding fathers….

Unfortunately, we didn’t listen to them well enough, and along about the middle of the nineteenth century, the corporations found, and used, the most corrupt federal judge they could bribe, influencing him to establish legal justification, and pass judgments on certain laws, creating legal precedents that would forever put the government under their power and control…. If you think that is a bit simplistic a view, or that it is essentially wrong somehow, please, please, show me your evidence…. As proof of my assertion, just consider the modern legal definition of “corporate personhood”, to get a clue as to what I’m talking about…..

“When I want to buy up any politicians I always find the anti-monopolists the most purchasable. They don’t come so high.” — William H. Vanderbilt (1821-1885)

Now, we see the net result of those manipulations, as our country is being held hostage to those politicians who are most heavily influenced by corporate philosophy, and corporate money…. In addition, this administration, which was elected partly due to their promise of transparency and accountability in government, has proven once again that we have fallen prey to some very persuasive liars, as the following link to an article will demonstrate…. Please read this article, which ran a few days ago on SFGATE…. The implications herein are terrifyingly real, and support what I’ve been saying all along, that even though Obama is very good at distraction, always telling the public what they want to hear, his actual agenda is not as transparent, or as beneficial to the public as he has claimed…. Read it, please, then I’ll continue….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Report-Obama-brings-chilling-effect-on-journalism-4884506.php

Pretty scary stuff, isn’t it? I don’t like to gloat, but, I DID warn y’all, back in 2009, when Obama was first sworn in, that what you were seeing in him was NOT what you were actually getting…. That became clear when one of his first acts when he got into office was to renew the provisions of the Patriot Act (which could more accurately be called the Paranoid Act….), first pushed on the American people in the wake of 9/11/01, an event completely blown out of proportion by the then extant President Shrub, and his band of good ol’ boy cronies (I won’t bother to mention the timing of the attacks, which were conveniently distracting to the public, drawing their attention from the other news of the day…. which included the possible investigation, by the US Department of Justice, into the 2004 elections, to seek further evidence of illegal voting and election tactics by the Republican Party ….).

Obama’s first significant act as President, then, was to reinforce the LACK of transparency fostered by the Shrub’s administrations, and to further limit the power of the US Bill of Rights to protect our citizens from their own government…..

“I want the ability to monitor high-tech communications among far-flung terrorists. I want to be able to have our people learn their plans before they strike.  That’s the key.” — US President Bill Clinton, radio address, Saturday, May 20, 1995

Oops! What’s this? Yet more indication of how long this charade has been going on? Yep, you got it, ffolkes….. In fact, without trying terribly hard, I could go back over the past 75 years of American political history, and show exactly how much the rights of the American people have been eroded, and how many lies have been told in the process of that erosion…. It’s isn’t hard, because I only use the public newspapers and TV news for my evidence, which anyone may access….

Believe me, it’s a lot of lies, and they continue right up to today….. It amazes me, sometimes, to see just how easy it is to get the public to fall in line…. All one has to do is make people afraid, and they will accept whatever loss of freedom is asked of them, in order to save themselves from thinking, or from admitting their history of being duped….

“What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we wouldn’t have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try anyway, George.” — D.J. on KSFO/KYA

Normally, and, of late, mostly, I pick on the Republican Party, due in part to their lack of finesse in lying, and due to their more open disregard for the people…. But, the Democrats are no better, ffolkes… They have merely learned how to lie more smoothly, telling people what they wish to hear, and making them believe that they are working for the people’s benefit….

Frankly, and simply put, they’re not interested in any of that sort of thing…. They have merely discovered an old method, of giving something desired, something of small and insignificant meaning, very publicly, to the people, with great fanfare, while, with the other hand, they are clandestinely searching our emails, and profiling our citizens in search of the mulligan, terrorists….

Yes, I said mulligan…. the threat of terrorist activity is very small, as they are very few, and not well funded, generally…. Any who are so funded, you may be sure, are well controlled by those who are in true power, for they control the flow of money, and the availability of weaponry, both of which are needed to foment rebellion. They know this, and since they, quite simply control all the money, they control the terrorists…. No, the terrorists are what they show you in one hand, while the true actions of significance are happening behind closed doors, and in shadowy corners where no one looks….

“… But when he [the people’s champion] has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.), “The Republic”

I guess I’ve ranted enough for one day…. I’ll leave you with this…. The US government has been controlled by corporate interests (i.e., money) for a very long time…. The quote below gives us a clue as to how long it has gone on, though it started long before 1950…. By that time, though, the corporations were in control enough so that, even though there was no military need, or justifiable rationalization, to drop the atomic bomb, the government was persuaded to do so…. It’s a pretty clear picture, when one sees that the highest ranked military leaders saw no need for it, but, the politicos, and their corporate masters, just HAD to see what their new toy would do….

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.  …The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening.  My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.  I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.  We were the first to have this weapon in our possession, and the first to use it. There is a practical certainty that potential enemies will have it in the future and that atomic bombs will sometime be used against us.” — Admiral William D. Leahy, — Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, I Was There, 1950

Stay alert ffolkes, this old ball of mud doesn’t have a lot of turns left where we’ll be joining in the song of life…. These idiots, who operate their lives on a basis of complete self-indulgence, and blind belief in their own invincibility, are getting closer and closer to the time when the physical laws of nature will take over, and complete the job of suicide of the species that they have begun…. We can’t keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, whether it’s monoxide, dioxide, or any other oxide, and expect nothing to happen…. Our lungs don’t use that stuff, and it will eventually kill us…. So, stay alert, and maybe we’ll get a chance to turn things around…. Here’s hoping….

“It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.” — Voltaire
_____________________________

I have the feeling that any responsibility or today’s effort shouldn’t be shared, lest whatever happens affect the reputation of whomever I chose to display here in the poetry section…. So, you’ll have to settle for one of mine, as the new one is still cooking…. I hope you enjoy it….

After the odyssey….

Portraits of iconic symbols, crashing, singing, forgotten;
evolving into mature innovation, as yet pale, and rotten.
Still water justly breeds, impenetrable primal verses resound;
unholy moments tarry, emotion swirls in passion unbound

Spiritual ovulation precedes each pregnant pause;
gravid, time moves on, following destiny’s cause.
Cast adrift on waves of confusion, to a final, damp landing;
salvation beckons sweetly, fed well on understanding.

Dreams directly fall, in night’s grey bower, unbidden;
lingering flavors in simple taste, lovingly, cleverly hidden.
Childish laughter sounds, joyful, bright, and clear;
no need ever to hide, no more monsters to fear.

Temper most foul arrives under unregistered mail;
forgotten taunts live on, lashed by an ancient flail.
Plain dealing delivers such lasting specks of honest hate;
savage in retrospect, never hasty, always running late.

Forever, cries an ambient lover of the pending night;
his pale, weak issue forms its own failing light.
Still, fortune favors such as those who apprehend;
Sweet love of Gaia, let it never end.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

I’ve ranted sufficiently for one day, so I won’t bother you with yet another…. As is our wont, we’ll go default, meaning old-school style…. It may be default, but, it’s MY default, so deal….  😆

“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.” — Emily Dickinson

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.” — Stephen Hawking

“In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears.  Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.” — Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-78)

“Time carves all. Let yourself be carved to attain your true nature.” — Master Po

“A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.” — Ramsey Clark

“I think the dragon’s asleep.” — Famous Last Words

A word is dead
When it is said
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
— Emily Dickinson

In the words of the Colonel, “I love it when a plan comes together….” Nothing like a balanced pearl of virtual wisdom to start, or end, your day….
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I have a feeling that this one is better than it seems from over here…. let’s take a closer look….. I might be right about that. Since, however, I’m not the best judge of my own work, I’ll just do as I always do, which is to post it, and damn the consequences…. 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

dozer3

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

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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)
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“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”
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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

dozer3

Post-adenoidal adolescent fantasies for sale or trade….

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Ffolkes,

I like to think that I’m a tolerant man in many ways, though there are a number of human behaviors that test that tolerance on a regular basis. Take, for example, being lied to…. When someone lies to me, my first reaction is akin to emotional pain, a sense of betrayal that hits me in my most vulnerable area, my sense of trust. Like everyone else, I’ve been lied to in my life; I’ve been fairly lucky in some respects with that, but, the very nature of trust is such that one cannot stop trusting, just because that trust is betrayed…. The result is wariness, and a lessening of the impulse to trust on faith….

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

Epictetus seems to have covered all the bases with this statement, showing perfectly the choices we must make in order to trust, once we’ve had a taste of lies…. which, if my case is any indication, started at about the age of 3 or 4 years, when I first had occasion to deal with the world at large, outside family. I can’t recall if I was exposed to any significant lying before that; I must have been, for siblings are competitive, if nothing else, and will not always tell the truth when confronted with their misbehaviors….Those occasions were overseen by parents, and resolved according to their parameters, giving us the lesson of truth amongst ourselves…. But, out in the real world, even at that tender age, I learned very quickly that not everyone had my dad’s commitment to honesty….

I remember going to church one Sunday, and listening to the preacher’s sermon about something or other, and even though I was only about 5, I remember thinking to myself, “That CAN’T be true!”, when he made some statement or another about God, or the Devil, or some such fantasy…. I guess my “crap detector” was on full that day, because I distinctly remember the feeling of confusion, and even youthful anger, at some adult NOT telling the truth, while pretending they were…. It seemed obvious to me that the preacher didn’t totally believe all he was relating, and I thought it wrong to be telling people to believe stuff that he didn’t believe himself….

But, hey, that’s just me, and we all know how far off the beaten track I’ve wandered in my life…. Maybe learning the world is full of lies at age 5 is unusual, but, to my mind, I’m a lucky man, to have, first, been raised by a man, and woman, who believed in the power of honor, and honesty, and taught those qualities to me, and my sibs (though, to be candid, I’m not sure how well a couple of them took it; they always skated the edge on that….   😉  If any of them read this, they will know of whom I speak….), and second, to have, as a result, a sure-fire standard against which to measure the truthfulness of others, thereby protecting me from the worst effects of lies, and the pain of being lied to by those who would take advantage of my trust…..

SIGH…. I did it again, didn’t I? I jumped right into a rant, barely pausing long enough to suck down some coffee before sounding off…. I keep forgetting this is the intro section, and that the ranting should come later, when I’m more lucid, and not so emotionally charged as when I first get up. Of course, ranting this way DOES put a lot of words on the screen, which gets me through the introductory section in a hurry, but, I’m not sure what it is doing to the flow of it all…. Maybe one of y’all could let me know how it seems?…. I’d appreciate some feedback on that…. or not…. Whatever is clever, ffolkes…

I suppose, though, this means that I have no further excuses for not getting started on today’s outburst, which you can see, has already burst out…. Shall we Pearl?….

“If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.” — W.L. Bateman

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

Sorry, both seemed appropriate, and I waffled on making a decision, so, rather than spend too much time over it, you get both…. consider it a bonus…..  😀
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In the past few days, I’ve put out a lot of words, ranting and railing against those fools in Washington, who are making such a display of idiocy that one can barely rationalize spending money to go to the circus, when the same show plays for free on all the network channels every day…. It’s kind of fun, actually, and easy, too, as those asinine fools just keep saying and doing the most outrageously stupid stuff, it’s like shooting ducks in a pond to find rantable material….

Apparently, as the above intro section indicates, I’m on full out rant mode these days, finding it very easy to take my shots at the public figures who so deserve all I can throw at them…. However, I’m going to be a nice guy today, and forgo another rant in this section, thereby relieving you of the need to gird your grid for another one. Instead, I’m going to refer you to another fine article penned by one of my favorite columnists, Mark Morford, who writes for the SF Chronicle website, SFGATE, as well as in the paper itself; he’s published a couple of books, and has put up a couple of websites that display his interests, which are, to be sure, esoteric, and a bit kinky, like his writing…

This article is one of the best I’ve ever seen, from him, or from anyone else…. and, if you know how much I read, you’ll know that is saying a LOT…. I mean it, though, because this one is special…. In it, you will find the Secret of Life…. Oh, I know, you’ve heard that claim before, and it never turns out to be quite what you expected, or hoped for…. This, however, is the real deal…. The article speaks about, and clearly states, a principle of living that anyone can adopt, and by doing so, can achieve the serenity and inner peace that are so deservedly touted by the sages of the ages…. S’truth, for sure, ffolkes… Read it, and you’ll see what I’m talking about…. I won’t prejudice your minds any further, or try to convince you, but, it’s all true, so, READ IT….

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/10/08/how-to-get-lucky/

See? What did I tell you?….
_____________________________

I’m feeling more than a little lazy today, so lazy I don’t even want to spend the energy to Google… which means we’ll be going with one of my own poems today…. I can feel a new one percolating; it’s been simmering now for several days, but, apparently, isn’t ready to come out to play yet… This one, though not the most elegant of my work, is one of my true favorites, just because it’s so real, and so true…. I hope you enjoy it….

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;
Ah got 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 saw 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 ~~

_____________________________

Since I’m the one who put it here, I suppose this was in the back of my mind when I wrote today’s introduction, about lies… This article, to which I’ve supplied the link below, discusses the shutdown of a secure email client by the NSA, in response to their persecution. The article is a very complete, and erudite, examination of a complex issue the government is doing their best to cover up, or at least keep from the public awareness as much as possible.

The information contained herein is completely scary, in its implications of just how far the spying on the public has become a part of the governments usual order of business…. It is also frightening in that it shows clearly the extent to which the BRC will go to protect its soft underbelly of clandestine operations, none of which we are supposed to see, or hear of…

The extent to which the government is pursuing the whistle blowers who are revealing their hidden agendas, and the campaign against both the people who are supporting and aiding those whistle blowers, and against the public, who wants to know about all this, has reached what I consider to be not just immoral, but illegal, and ultimately, treasonous behavior against the citizens of this country….

The US government, by all that is implied in this article, has declared war on the unwashed masses of the American public sector, using the same techniques of spying and clandestine operations that are being perpetrated in wartime, against our country’s sworn enemies. The quest for complete access to the communications of terrorists has led the agencies involved to treat their own people as the enemy, and gather all the information possible to monitor the public’s private communications, ostensibly to catch terrorists, but, in reality, to look for reasons to prosecute, and persecute, normal, honest citizens, who just “happen” to disagree with that government, and have the temerity to say so in public…

I could go on for days on this, as there are now far too many examples of their chicanery for them to hide; many of those acts are detailed herein…. What disturbs me more than most of it is the way the government is using the Patriot Act to ignore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in their blundering about in search of the bad guys, which, of course, only they can see, and which, according to them, only they can find, and only if they are allowed do whatever they want….

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-lavabit-edward-snowden-email-service-melted-down.html

Pretty scary stuff, eh? Did you know that the government not only has access to your private email, but can, if they so desire, prosecute you for what you write in it, all without ever letting anyone else know about it? Yep…. It hasn’t quite come to it yet, but, if they ever get their greedy, grasping hands on Ed Snowden, you will see just how little they care about what the public thinks, as they will use all the power of the law at their disposal to bury him, and, if possible, will never even tell the public they’ve done so… If the CIA, or the NSA, or any other of our acronymical clandestine agencies, should ever find him, they will spirit him away from the public eye, and he will never be seen again…. Mark my words, this is not a guess, ffolkes, this is what they’ll do, if they can….

“The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood: the person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that person’s liberty. Are you free?” — Andrew Ford

Eric Snowden is free, for the moment…. how long he stays free is up to us, I think….

The government, which is essentially under the control of corporate masters whose names you’ll never know, are getting bolder all the time in their continuing efforts to reduce the number and extent of our basic rights; we already have lost at least half of the Bill of Rights, and they’re working on eliminating the rest as fast as can be…. The whole time, they smile, and smile, and tell us they’re doing it all for our benefit…. What a load of crap!….

In the intro section, I mentioned my “crap detector”, which all humans have installed; many just never learn to use it, or are too lazy to listen to it. Mine tells me that we are being lied to more each day, as more of what is being done under cover is brought to light; it also tells me to be careful, because, if they can, these assholes are going to kill themselves with their deliberate ignorance, and their delusional belief that they are immune to the laws of nature. Not only are they doing so, but, they’re trying to drag the rest of us down into oblivion with them…

I, for one, don’t plan on making it easy for them….. To round this off, here is a five star pearl to drive these points home…. or, at least, toss them up into the face of the nearest NSA analyst…. bless their little black hearts….

“Our contemporary Tories (sub: politicians, or talking heads… gigoid…) prefer the term “ordered liberty” to “freedom”. The word “freedom” scares them; it has too much of a paleolithic ring to it.” — Edward Abbey

“Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated” — George Bernard Shaw

“Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s house is in flames.” — Horace

“A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.” — Howard Scott, Economist

“But it’s a sad reminder when your organ grinder has to come to you for the rent, and all you’ve got to give him is the use of your sideshow tent.” — Mark Knopfler
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Well, here we have another rambling, loosely coherent entry into the archives of nearly wasted words that makes up the Pearls of Virtual Wisdom library… let’s see how it came out, from an objective standpoint, should one be available….

I have to admit, I never seem to run out of stuff to say, do I? Oh well, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone (who doesn’t deserve it…), and as long as I stick to the truth of any matter I discuss, I’ll keep on saying it, because I can, and because I think it needs to be said…. Y’all will just have to take your chances along with the rest of us as to how that goes over…. Whatever that end result may be, or may not be, this one is done, and for that, we can all be thankful, yes?…. 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

dozer3

Cross pollination of adverbs remains publicly undervalued….

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Ffolkes,

I won’t rant, I won’t rant, I won’t rant….. I find myself in need of some restraint, in order to keep from subjecting both of my readers (  😆  ) to a full-out, angry, vituperative tirade against the complete idiots currently inhabiting the Congressional buildings in Washington D.C…. Fortunately, for me, and for y’all, I’ve found a perfect quote to begin such a missive, so we’ll wait until section one, or three, to jump into the rant I know is there, anxiously waiting it’s chance to strike out at what may be the most widespread act of treason in our nation’s history….

Until I can begin, though, let’s talk about something else….. How ’bout the weather? No, no, that will merely get me started on global warming, an eminently rantable concept, given the state of the atmosphere, and the intransigent unwillingness of most everyone to PULL THEIR HEAD OUT OF THEIR ASSES….. Gee, I must be just a tad upset about that one; better not go there….

Hmm…. how about gun control? Well, there WAS a recent mass shooting…. Of course, this one was perpetrated by an obvious nut case, who, in spite of a long period of providing authorities with clues and hints of his inner conflict, managed to stockpile a shit-load of guns and ammo, then was adept enough to get around all the security measures at a major armed services facility to start shooting at his imaginary enemies, using real people as stand-ins for his hallucinations…..

I can see the events of 9/11 made a huge impression on the security at armed services facilities, didn’t it? It obviously caused them to review and tighten up their security measures…. NOT!….. I suppose they figured they were safe, because nobody would EVER think of shooting at a bunch of people making weapons for the war-making machine….. Nah, I think we’ll pass on this one, too…. there’s too much implied insanity, on both sides of the issue, to get into this one right now…

Well, let’s see, what else is going on in the world that we could talk about, without getting into how screwed up the world has become, one way or another…. It’s getting to be a hard task these days, to find ONE area of our lives that hasn’t been screwed over one way or another by what our beloved ruling class has been up to….. It seems like every time I turn around, some dipshit politico is bringing up some new asinine idea, or some old asinine idea, that serves to cause divisions between people, and create more problems than are ever solved…. They can’t seem to keep their greedy little hands out of everyone else’s business, whatever it may be, and their insane twisting of reality to suit their own purposes is getting really old….

It does make it relatively easy to come up with something to rant about, that much is certain; but, that isn’t necessarily to be considered a boon, is it? The more there is to rant about, the more screwed up things are…. It would be nice to get up one day to find the news empty of ANY new idiocy from those who seem unable to keep from screwing others, but, since I don’t believe I have EVER seen a day like that, I’m not particularly hopeful of that one ever coming true….

Oddly enough, I did manage to meander around sufficiently to reach legal intro level, which, after all, was the intent…. Does that mean we’ve succeeded today? No, I’m afraid not… but, it does mean we can go on to something a bit more compelling, and, theoretically, more interesting….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“On SECOND thought, maybe I’ll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS PHILBIN..  It’s GREAT to be ALIVE!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

‘Tis written: ‘In the beginning was the word.’
Already I stick, and who shall help afford?
The ‘word’ at such high rate I may not tender;
The passage I must elsewhere render,
If rightly by the Spirit I am taught,
‘Tis written: ‘In the beginning was the Thought.’

By the first line a moment tarry,
Let not thine eager pen itself o’er-hurry!
Does ‘thought’ work all and fashion outright?
It should stand: ‘In the beginning was the Might.’
Yet even as my pen the sentence traces,
A warning hint the half-writ word effaces.

The Spirit helps me – from all doubting freed,
Thus write I: ‘In the beginning was the Deed.’

— Dr. Faustus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Faust”

I made a statement above, using a very significant word of accusation, that I should explain, and I will…. but, first, consider Dr. Faustus’ words a moment….. The last line is the key, in my mind, the basic truth that the poetic train of thought leads us to, after a very pleasant rational exercise, couched in very elegant verse. But, the power of what is implied is what concerns me today…..

“In the beginning was the Deed.”….. A group of politicians who, by grace of some election chicanery, such as  manipulation of election districts, voting regulation changes to block certain voters, massive infusion of money into spreading lies to ignorant voters, and any other underhanded method they could legally or marginally-legally get away with, were able to elect a slight majority of Tea Party supported Republicans to a number of House seats, during the last national elections in 2012….

This group is characterized by certain common traits, such as disbelief in global warming, deliberate opposition to birth control fueled by disbelief in world overpopulation, along with a mistrust of  science in general, faith-based beliefs regarding gays, women, people of color, immigration, or anyone not a white Christian male, and most critically, a stubborn belief that they have the right to force their own out-dated beliefs on a society in which they are no longer a majority.

Since I must find a word to indicate the group when I am talking about them, a word that describes the group of them specifically, it’s hard not to just use the word, “assholes”, because that is exactly how they act most of the time…. However, today, I’d like to use the word that I believe is indicated in this situation, given their actions of the last few weeks regarding the budget, and Obamacare, and in truth, any reforms that would be of benefit to anyone other than, as mentioned, white Christian males…. Oh, yes, remember to add this word to the other descriptive adjectives I used, to wit: “millionaires”… because ALL of them are…. which just makes them that much further removed from, and out of touch with, the reality that most Americans live in…..

The new word I’ll use today to describe this group of Congressional Tea Party supported Republicans is, simply, traitors…. Yep, traitors, because that is exactly what they are….. These people, because of their sense of entitlement, completely unearned or deserved, and their deliberate isolation from reality, has led them to believe that they have the right to force their beliefs on the rest of this country, IN SPITE of their complete knowledge of the simple FACT that the majority of Americans do not believe the same way as they do anymore, and never will again…. They don’t CARE that others may suffer, or that they are completely out of touch with what is going on in the actual mainstream of society; they believe they ARE the mainstream, and by god, that’s the way it should be, to them…

But, they’ve lost touch with the real world, because the great mass of Americans no longer believe what they believe, and outside this country, there are not many at all who would agree at all with their position…. Most of what they purport to believe is just old news to much of the rest of the world, and makes them look all that much less sane, to hold on to what is so obviously not true in the face of so much evidence to the contrary….. If it wasn’t so dangerous, it would be rather pathetically sad…. But, it IS dangerous, to the rest of us, because, unfortunately, a lot of them are still in positions where they can cause damage beyond their actual influence… such as now, with this whole budget crisis idiocy….

“I wish Conservatives would be less liberal with their whining.” — Smart Bee

It sure would be nicer for the rest of us if they were, wouldn’t it? I get so tired of hearing stuff from these idiots, but, for that I blame the media, who are just as stupid in the way they pick and choose what to write about…. All the worst stuff, the least important, but most easily sold, is what ends up in the light, while all the stuff that NEEDS to be illuminated is passed over, or ignored, or made to be less important than it is…. Ah me, let’s not go too far into that subject, we’re still ranting against the traitorous congressional assholes….

They are traitors because they defaulted on their oaths of office, an oath which enjoins them, in intent, if not actual word, to uphold the law, and TO SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE…. They have failed miserably in that respect, and there is NO ONE who can tell me that they haven’t…. None of these assholes even considered that what they are doing will harm more people than it could possibly help…. If they did, they didn’t care, and did it anyway, out of their sense of entitlement, which just makes it more traitorous, and well as more immoral and more unethical (both are correct…. these people have none of EITHER one….).

“The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect is already in the cause.” — Henri Louis Bergson (1859-1941)

Knowing this only makes it hurt worse, for me, because it means that nobody in history has ever been able to cast off the shackles that the BRC and the shadowy masters of society have managed to place upon all of us….. They’ve had their way in the world for thousands of years, and the flaws in their control over the mass of humanity are few, not anywhere nearly large enough, or well-known enough, to cause the rest of humanity to protest, and throw them out…. Believe me, there is nothing the master class doesn’t know about how to control people in masses; just look at what they’ve accomplished in this country, in only two hundred years …..

“America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don’t misuse a household pet.” — Dick Gregory, The Shadow that Scares Me, 1968

I’ve wandered around enough for one morning, and haven’t really taken more than a few shots at my intended targets…. But, they will manage to make themselves look foolish enough in the coming days, as this whole idiotic scenario plays itself out, so, I think I can let it go now, and not feel the worse for it…. I feel a bit better, having vented at least some of what built up over the last few days of watching it all unfold; it can be hard on us curmudgeons, having to hold stuff in like that…. Oh well, such is life…. thanks for listening….

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.

— John Dryden (1631-1700) — All for Love, Prologue
_____________________________

Ranting often leave me somewhat down, so, to bring myself up a bit, I’m going to use one of my own poems, one that, oddly enough, rings with some rather positive notes….

Tuesday’s Child, from an Oblique Angle
When I really stop to think, it isn’t too much to expect
a warm bed, a bite of food, a loving smile to reflect.
We all need such comfort and supportive attention,
so basic to our soul, there is no real need to mention.Life often offers opportunities disguised very well,
illusions are rampant, what’s real can be hard to tell.
To honor old ties may seem like the only thing one can do,
but evidence is real, despite one’s wish it were untrue.

Those who love us truly, without thought of any gain,
hate for us to experience life’s portions of pain.
They also know we each must follow our own chosen way,
for the lessons we learn, we all have our own price to pay.

Still, wishing and hoping can’t do any true harm
and wishing good things to friends feels welcome, and warm.
The pageant of society will pass on to the next day
what new sights and sounds it brings me, thankfully, I can’t say.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

I’ve ranted, twice, technically, if you count the intro, which COULD be considered a rant, as it’s long, makes little sense, and insults politicians at strategic moments…. So, any who, y’all can’t make me do it again, not legally, and not in reality, because I just won’t do it, so there…. I will, however, construct an old-school pearl, which, once again, you cannot prevent or delay…. Well, not without explosives… It’ll be okay, though, I’ll instruct SB to be really nice to everybody, and throw in some kind of incentive…. maybe, if we’re lucky, we won’t have to use the fire hoses….

“The promotion of “self-esteem” in our schools has been so successful that people feel free to spout off about all sorts of things — and see no reason why their opinions should not be taken as seriously as the views of people who actually know what they are talking about.” — Thomas Sowell

“Now, that the sovereign power and deity, whatsoever it is, should have regard of mankind, is a toy and vanity worthy to be laughed at.” — Pliny The Elder

“Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you (religionists) whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon by your own bluster.” — Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), “An agnostic’s Apology”, — Fortnightly Review, 1876

“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.” — Lao Tzu

IMMORTALITY, n.
A toy which people cry for,
And on their knees apply for,
Dispute, contend and lie for,
And if allowed
Would be right proud
Eternally to die for.
G.J.
— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“BEWARE!  People acting under the influence of human nature.” — Smart Bee

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
_____________________________

I love being able to end a piece with the same author, and work, as I started with; even if this turns out to be a pile of crap, it still makes the grade for being artistically balanced, if not intellectually so…. Let’s see what happened here…..

Whew! Longer, and tougher than I’d thought…. Not too bad, though, all in all, and certainly good enough for this venue…. Hell, a little bit of fluff, wax, and polish, I could probably post the rant in section one on another site, as an essay on current events, but, I’m lazy, and by the time I work up the wherewithal, energy-wise, to do that, it won’t be so current anymore…. C’est la vie! At least this one’s done, and I can go give my back, my fingers, and your credibility, a well-earned rest….. 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

dozer3

Surveys are calling for juicier burgers….

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Ffolkes,

It’s entirely possible that I’m drying up….. I’ve written so much in the last two years, it’s all starting to sound the same; if there is one thing I refuse to consider, it is repeating my self to no purpose. I’ve repeated myself here, of course, many times, as I have continued my campaign to show as many ffolkes as I can just how badly they are being disrespected by the BRC, the PH’s, their CM’s, and the blind, vicious masses of myrmidons who loyally, if immorally, support them all, hoping beyond hope enough people would hear the truths I’m shouting out, and begin to work toward stopping them from killing us all….

In that campaign, and to pursue the stated end,I HAVE repeated my assertions, any number of times, which is why I think I may not have much left. It all is beginning to seem futile, at the least, and completely pointless, at the worst; I cannot see much evidence that all I’ve been saying is getting us very far toward salvation as a society. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not a complete idiot (presumably); I don’t believe that I am the world’s savior, or that I have the only message worth hearing, and I certainly don’t claim to be the world’s most compelling writer, even if I do use a lot of big words…. 7 billion people who have NOT ever read what I write can’t be ALL wrong, can they?….

No, I can’t claim to be the most important, or the best, or even the most committed writer of what could be called “calls to action” (though, perhaps, the most prolific in word-count); a lot of people, who are (maybe) better writers, and who certainly have more readers, also write about this stuff, every day, in a lot of news outlets. There are organizations with web sites who have been formed solely for the purpose of counting all the lies that politicians tell us (fact checkers, they call themselves….), checking the claims made in their speeches against reality, to ascertain the level of truth being told….. At last check, the claims I’ve made, about ALL of them, that they are ALL lying, have been proven, beyond a doubt, to be absolutely correct…..

However, truthful as I may be, I’m getting a bit tired of continually promoting a message that, even though annoyingly and humiliatingly true, as well as bitterly ugly, does not seem to outrage others as much as it does me…. I don’t understand how the press can constantly print the crap they do, allowing the lies that are put out to be distributed beyond all hope of counteraction…. It is as if the entire society has accepted the lies as their only truth; even the media will breathlessly repeat anything said by a major politician, without ever checking the statements for truth, in full awareness that what they are repeating may not be the truth…. They know what they’re doing, but, because it makes a profit, or in some other way meets their need for expediency, they refuse to stop reporting what they KNOW, or, at least, suspect, to be false….

Actually, I don’t know if profit is the ONLY motive of those who report the news…. I do know it is the sole motive of those who own and control the media; their primary concern has always been one of control of information, not the undisciplined spread of it. But, it really doesn’t matter what their motive may be, as the end result is the same; a society controlled by shadowy masters who have no compunction about lying, cheating, or stealing their way into power, then using that power to consolidate their positions, making it damn near impossible to either remove them…. most of the time, they don’t allow the media, or anyone, to even identify them….

Those who have the real power in this world tend to stick to the shadows and back alleys, (which, oddly enough, look strangely like penthouses and country mansions….), never showing their faces to a public that would revolt and tear them limb from limb, had they any clue as to their real part in how reality is ordered….. They don’t like to be photographed, and they never walk in public venues without security at close hand, to protect them from the “mean streets”, filled with the mostly ignorant inhabitants, of the world they have created to suit themselves.

I would imagine that even the most powerful politicians in the world haven’t a clue that they are really puppets, controlled by people who will never give up their clandestine power. If the world’s political leaders were ever made aware of the degree to which they are no more than marionettes for their invisible masters, just like the unwashed masses they lord it over, it could conceivably cause problems for those who have the real power, which they aren’t going to allow…. The real rulers of this planet have had many thousands of years of practice at directing human culture into the channels they desire, wherein the great mass of humanity believes their leaders are good people, trying to make their lives better, when in reality, we are all headed straight to a Dante-esque version of Hell, of our own making….

On that positive note, I think I should go on to the rest of today’s outburst, before I rant myself into a coma…. As pleasant as that prospect may sound to some, I’ll pass, thank you….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Sex! Lies! Drugs! Money! Power! Corruption! Man, I love Congress!” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

I’ve waited a long time, and spent a lot of time very diligently searching the Net for an article such as this one…. It is a very even-handed, and more importantly, realistic take on all the stuff that the politicians use to whip the public into a frenzy of fear, whenever there is a new mass shooting, or another terrorist attack somewhere. Such reports of terrorist activity doesn’t even have to be happening here, in this country, for some of the media pundits and politicians to use it as a method of creating panic and outrage in the public arena.

The author acknowledges a little known, and certainly under-appreciated fact, which can be stated thus: when the number of shootings are actually COUNTED, there are actually no more of them happening now than at any other time since statistics on the matter have been collected. In fact, several earlier periods of our history, especially in the last century, experienced significantly more terrorist bombings, and more mass shootings, than have occurred in the first 13 years of this century. These are numerical FACTS, ffolkes, not speculation, or guesses…. The pundits WANT the people in fear, so they promote that agenda, with no shame at all…

Because the political pundits would rather keep the public in a state of suppressed panic than tell them the truth, they flood the media with emotional diatribes against unseen, sometimes even non-existent dangers, in order to manipulate the great unwashed masses into accepting new limits on their freedom, in the form of “temporary” laws they tell us are only there to protect us, but, in reality, will be used to spy on their own people, operate clandestine prisons and courts with no oversight, and arrest even law-abiding citizens who fit their profiles of a possible terrorist….

Did you know that the right to publicly assemble to address the government with grievances has been done away with?…. Yep, look it up, ffolkes, the Patriot Act makes it a crime to gather a certain number of people without a permit…. which they are NOT giving out…. They — “They” being police authorities and/or military troops, or even agents of government bureaus, such as Homeland Security, the FBI, or the NSA, or ‘special agents’ of some other acronym we haven’t even been made aware of, acting blindly, but with full cooperation and agreement, under the orders of politicians — they no longer need to give it out, anyway, as it is now legal for them to arrest anyone at such an event, under suspicion of terrorist actions, and they don’t have to explain it to ANYONE!…. Truth, y’all…. Capisce?

Read the article ffolkes, it’s an eye-opener, and gives a good take on a subject most are afraid to even discuss….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Terror-mass-shootings-don-t-mean-more-danger-4852423.php

“Although a wise man might urge that one should suffer fools gladly, this should not be construed as license for any fool to demand that one do so.” — Frederic William Kantor
_____________________________

Today’s Pearl has, so far, come from within the confines of my own mind, such as it is, and, as far as it goes, so, for the poetry selection, we’ll go with one of mine, as well, to maintain balance, and to ensure that no one else can be blamed for any of what has transpired here today….

Unheralded Sagacity…

To many, who will not see beyond their nose
the world becomes a dangerous place,
a bullet in every gun, a thorn with every rose,
no magic comes to save us, reality leaves no trace.

Minds closed, wrapped tight in manufactured fears,
men become clay, easily molded into complacent form.
No chains needed, held in thrall for years,
lies become gospel, when dishonesty is the norm.

Shed the chains you wear in durance, in kind;
Oh, ye of little faith, and much doubt
Strength is found in an unfettered mind,
Cry “freedom” with a great shout.

No help from any gods can hinder so much
as our own lack of confidence;
finding the light within, knowing it as such
confirms us, becoming consequence.

Illumination…..

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Thus far today, I’ve ranted, twice, if one cares to be technical, and used one of my own poems as ballast; that order of events dictates that this section will be an old-school pearl, and who am I to fuck with tradition, eh?….. I have no idea what direction it will take, but, I’m hoping for a good grouping, to finish off what feels like a good effort…. Let’s see what we can persuade Smart Bee to let loose….

— Bother! said Pooh, as the Borg assimilated him.

“There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it.  And a person’s taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience? In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine-tenths of all moralists and speculative writers.” — John Stuart Mill, _On Liberty_, Chapter IV

“A time to mourn, and a time to dance.” — Ecclesiastes 3:4

“Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically–for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist–but then what isn’t?” — Quentin Crisp, 1984

“I’m going to live forever, or die trying!” — Spider Robinson

“All generalizations are dangerous, perhaps even this one. There are exceptions to the rule, but this does not appear to be one of them.” — Smart Bee

— You may be redneck… If the Borg refuse to assimilate you.

Okay, well, hmm….. I am speechless…. moreover, I’m in awe, of SB’s sheer genius at what Dorothy L. Sayers called piffle, what the world-at-large calls insane nonsense, and what I call damn fine irony…. I hope you enjoy this one…. I did…..
_____________________________

“Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes! Yes! Now, THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!!! Of course, once I read it through from start to finish, it could fall apart, but, for now, it feels like a good one…. Let’s go see….

For once, I was right, even though I’m a man, and I’m standing in a forest, by myself, talking…. I have it on good authority that in such cases, I am always wrong… Nonetheless, this is a good one, and I’m not going to listen to anything to the contrary… Well, wrong, I’ll listen, but, I won’t agree…. Not only that, but, it’s done! So, 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

dozer3