Tag Archives: overpopulation

That particular radiologist has a toggle switch…..

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Ffolkes,
Forget the rest…. blessed are the coffee drinkers, for they shall see the day clearly….. before they bite anybody. It’s always a bonus when you can start the day without biting anyone…. Then, of course, there are the days when I WANT to bite somebody, even after coffee. I guess, if I slowed down long enough to look at it, those would be the days when I end up ranting on something or other, to sublimate the urge to bite. But, I never slow down that much, so we’ll never know….

Not that it would make any difference in how this intro got done. I think I’ll just start using up my emergency stash of intro tricks; if nothing else, that will force me to replenish those supplies, which always puts me in a better mood. It must be the part when I stick it to Murphy, the best I can, in order to get them put away where he can’t find them…. Well, actually, it’s a matter of distracting him, and hiding them while he’s busy, thus, he never knows I have them at all. It could be called cheating, but when it comes to Murphy, all bets are off; plus, in my opinion there is no such thing as cheating, not with him. He has no compunctions against cheating on me, so why shouldn’t I return that favor?

So, I guess we’ll use an emergency opening today….. Hmm… let’s see, which one of these won’t leave a mess? Maybe this one…..

Morning, ffolkes! It’s gigoid the exuberant, coming to you from the wilds of Northern California, where the girls are pretty, and the boys are strange. We’ll be spinning a lot of great music for ya today, so settle back in those easy chairs, tighten up them earphones, and let’s spin some licorice pizza for breakfast….. Here’s a little number from Paul Revere and the Raiders, coming at ya from gigoid-land…..

What do you think? Will it float? Will it get me through to another day’s dive? Is there anyone out there? Hello!!!!!…. Hmm. This is worse than I thought…. Well, I guess I’ll just have to go on to the morning dive, and hope that someone shows up along the way….. As usual, this nonsense got me far enough along so that I can legally call it an introduction, so we’ll take it and run with it, at least as far as the corner store…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” — Vince Lombardi

I have spoken previously on this subject, of human will, and will no doubt do so again, as I believe it to be one of the key elements of finding the Truth in Life. It takes practice to be able to use it to full potential, practice that many people never take time for, to their regret. Without it, Life can be extremely difficult, as it will toss us about just like a small boat in a big storm at sea. But, when it is honed to a sharp edge, and tempered to a great strength, it can become one of our most powerful tools. It can help to bring peace and serenity into our lives, if used with intelligence, guided by strong ethical intent. I mention the latter because it is equally important to the proper use of the will; it is an unfortunate truth that the will can also be used to pursue results that are NOT beneficial for everyone, but only for the one who uses it without ethical direction, i.e. to benefit themselves, only.

“One sits down first, one thinks afterwards.” — Smart Bee

A long time ago, I found out something about society, and those who are ostensibly in charge of running it, that has had a distinct influence on my thinking. I discovered that what I heard in school, from books, did not match what I observed in society, and that the people who were in the positions of authority were, for the most part, not telling the whole truth, or, often, telling bare-faced lies. This had a profound effect on me, because I had always been inspired by the idea of a democracy, a system, and a place, where the people decided among themselves what was best for all; their collective will was to be carried out by the individuals elected to office…. At least, I’m pretty certain that is what our founding fathers envisioned when they cut loose from the monarchical rule of England….

Unfortunately, soon after beginning this experimental Utopia, the bankers started their campaign to pervert the system, buying control of key officials to make laws that favored them. At the same time, the preachers started their campaign to make sure the government was composed of men and/or women who were under their control, ethically and morally, using the time-honored tools of divine entitlement and guilt so that their interests could be monitored and controlled.

Today, well over 90% of all elected officials in this country are of one major religion, and the lobbyists who represent the money-lenders are more influential in making laws than the electorates who elect those officials. The campaigns to control the government have been quite effective, especially since nobody even notices most of the time, or says anything about it….

“To see the light at the end of the tunnel, you first have to be in a tunnel, then the correct tunnel and last, facing in the right direction…. What the heck are we doing in a tunnel anyway?” — Larry G. Smith

This is a pretty good description of modern society, I think. What the heck are we doing here, on the brink of extinction? The BRC, the 1%, whatever you choose to call them, have brought us to this dead-end tunnel, with no light at the end, because it is our own end we see. They, those in control, don’t choose to believe in the damage they have wrought to the environment, nor in the terminal nature of that damage, so, nothing is being done to counteract the suicidal policies our species continues to follow. And it’s all because of the people who have turned their will to the selfish pursuit of their own desires, with no thought to either the effect on others, or the potential danger of doing so. They don’t care, and the rest of us, because of our own lack of will, are going to pay the price right along with them, unless we wake up to the danger, now….

I could rant about this all day, and have seemingly done so in the past…. but, I’ve made my point for today, and rather than bore you to death with more logical, but time-consuming evidence or argument, I’ll leave it at that…. Well, almost….. We are all in danger of species extinction, this is a FACT, not a supposition. We have the means to save ourselves, IF we can find it within ourselves to rise up and throw out the people who are causing the problem. They are NOT going to stop themselves; if we want to live, we, the people, will have to MAKE them do it, or we will all die. It’s that simple, and that urgent…. If it doesn’t happen in this next decade, it will be far too late, because the ice is already melting, ffolkes, and it isn’t going to stop or slow down… It will only get faster with time….

gigoid has spoken…..

“If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.” — Ducharm’s Axiom
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Today’s haiku was prompted by the mild, yet, important rant in section one of today’s Pearl. I don’t have a poem ready to come out, again, so I’ll use an old one, and take the consequences, whatever they may be….. I guess I’m not a real poet, just a hobbyist…. Oh well, c’est la vie….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here:  http://www.napowrimo.net/    I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XVII

Time will tell the tale,
of Man’s fast rise, and long fall.
Soon, just memory.

A Seasonal Approach

Absolute stillness grips a frozen field,
anticipating dawn with such patient yield
morning burgeoning in dark winter’s hold
brings promise of tales yet to be told.

Lengthening days of pale sun unto night
slowly tell of time’s subversive flight
bringing such original songs of natural fire
with melodies complex in casual attire.

The months are certain they will always win
it is just the way it has always been.
None may argue, nor yet slow life down
Nor dim the eternal beauty of nature’s gown.

Winter evolves from fall into spring,
sending flocks and hearts ever awing.
Summer follows suit, t’other way ’round
Spring into fall, often without a sound.

Life is meant to be lived, beginning to end
choices abound, and change can be a friend.
Yielding with grace to reality’s compelling ploy
fills our plain existence with clean, honest joy.

~~ gigoid

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Time now for a return to the days of yore, or fore, whichever comes first in Smart Bee. Having ranted above, if only mildly, I shan’t attempt to keep your interest with yet another foray into critical essay. Besides, it’s time to lighten up a little, so let’s have some fun…. That will be my directing thought today, in picking out today’s old-school group of pearls for your perusal and delectation. I intend to have fun, and so must you…. You simply MUST, or I’ll die…. Well, no I won’t die, but, I’ll be disappointed, and who wants that? Not me….. Enjoy!….

Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Don’t worry about your heart. It will last you as long as you live.” — W. C. Fields

“Faith in immortality, like belief in Satan, leaves unanswered the ancient question: is God unable to prevent suffering and thus not omnipotent? or is he able but not willing to prevent it and thus not merciful? And is he just?” — Smart Bee

An it harm none,
Do what ye will.

— The basis of Wiccan philosophy

(1) You can’t win.
(2) You can’t break even.
(3) You can’t even quit the game.

— Ginsberg’s Theorem

Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg’s Theorem. To wit:

(1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
(2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
(3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.

— Freeman’s Commentary on Ginsberg’s theorem

“Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.” — J. R. R. Tolkien

“He was the nearest thing I’d seen to a human being without actually being one.” — Spike Milligan
(A number of recent Presidents come to mind….)

Hmm…. a very eclectic group; no so much funny ha-ha, as funny strange…. They all have something good to say, though, so, it’s kind of like oatmeal…. not always the most thrilling breakfast item to find on your table, but it sure makes ya feel better all day….
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I’m not sure what to think of this one; I’ll have to reserve judgment until I proof it….. I have to say, I think I do better when I’m not paying close attention, like today. My head doesn’t feel as coherent as most of this seems to be… As it is, I have to say, well done, young paduan…. Or, maybe just, not bad, bozo…. Either way, I’m outta here….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

We’ll have to spit-ball the hinges…..

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Ffolkes,
We’ve got Trouble, right here in River City, ffolkes….. Don’t worry, I won’t go all Robert Preston on you, and burst into song, or anything like that. I’m merely referring to the empty space here on the page, which, sadly, matches the empty space in my head, the space that SHOULD be composing an intro for today’s Pearl…. Extremely empty space, too…. So empty, I’m sitting here, writing about how empty it is, instead of looking around in the odd corners and niches in there, to find SOMETHING that would work to draw y’all in for the ride today…. but, I’m screwed, and the pooch knows it…. whatever that means….

Forgotten, old and grey, the ancient dogs march along the dusty street, searching for the possibility of food…. Scraggly weeds filled the cracks in the street; abandoned, stripped vehicles litter the sidewalks and alleys, many of them burned out, blackened and stark against the pale concrete of the buildings. Nothing moved, save the slowly searching pack of canines, not even rats, or any of the vermin usually seen in cities. No people walked the empty streets, and the silence bore down on everything in sight, oppressive, adding the weight of time to the heaviness of the air…..

No, I have no idea where that came from…. but it took up the space of a whole paragraph, so it stays…. I suppose apocalyptic scenes such as this one will become common in the future, if what I fear comes to pass….. When the Earth decides it has had enough of the depredations that mankind has perpetrated on this planet, our species will disappear, the same as the T-Rex, the dodo, and the auk, and Mother Nature will spend a few thousand years cleaning off the surface, which we scratched, dented, and broke apart so callously in our paroxysms of destruction, as we looked for sources of fuel for our machines…. and we won’t be missed at all…. Well, the dogs might miss us at first, but, they’ll get over it….

Okay, so now I have to balance the negativism with something lighter, so we don’t fall down into a pit of depression….. Hmm, I know….

“PUNK ROCK!!  DISCO DUCK!!  BIRTH CONTROL!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

There, that should balance things out…. Of course, Zippy has just mentioned three of the reasons that we will no longer be around…. Any species that comes up with Disco, AND Punk Rock, in the same century, deserves to become extinct, in my humble opinion…. But, then, I really, really HATE Disco…. and punks aren’t far behind in my estimation…. But, it did change the direction most satisfactorily, so, we’ll just sort of ignore the passions that may be present, and get on with the rest of today’s Pearl…. Which, I see, is coming right along, as we now have a sufficient number of paragraphs, and certainly a large enough quantity of BS, to qualify as an intro…. I’d better dive right away, before Murphy notices…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers gathered around to hear what had passed.  At this time, said Nasrudin, I only want to say that the King spoke to me. All the villagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The remaining villager asked, What did the King say to you? What he said — and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear — was ‘Get out of my way!’ The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.” — Smart Bee

When I first read this, a long, complex, and wonderful rant took form in my mind, on the subject of the gullibility of the public…. Unfortunately, somewhere in the process of getting this moved over and formatted, the rant broke apart, like smoke from a fire, dissipating into the ether without a sound, and leaving me sitting here, with a wonderful pearl, and nothing in my head to write about it…. “Well, shit,” he said, with feeling…..

Smart Bee, or Murphy, or Nasrudin, whichever is responsible for this, thinks they have me trapped, and are probably sitting there, maybe even together, laughing, and waiting for me to explode…. Hah! They’re destined to be disappointment, I’m afraid, because I’ll just switch gears, and make this an old-school pearl, using the anecdote on Nasrudin to point the way for the rest of the group…. So, here you go, a five-star pearl, the point of which is now moot….

“It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.” — Carlos Casteneda

“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” — Oscar Wilde

“A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.” — Nicolas Bolleau-Despreaux

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book ii, Chap. xxxvi, Of the most Excellent Men
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Wishes aren’t horses, and neither do I….. which, decoded, simply means I don’t have a new, fresh poem today. I did create a Haiku, which is below…. But, for today’s poem, another treat from the archives is called for, as I just can’t create a poem whenever I wish, much as I’d like to be able to do so…. Nevertheless, I AM making a new haiku each day, so that has to count for something, right?…. Any who….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here:  http://www.napowrimo.net/    I hope you enjoy them…..

 

Haiku XExplore reality,
my mama said with a smile;
it will teach you truth.

~~ gigoid ~~

Momentary Terror

Absently casual, memories pester endlessly
   leaving only bleeding remnants, amiable and loving.
Coming awake, I cry to still the pain, shamelessly.

Elsewhen, time gives surcease, if only to live,
   shoring broken pilings, worn and gray.
Passing on, I laugh at the pain, accept all it will give.

Time will build a shelter, warm and ever safe
   save for Fate’s busy hands.
Enduring, I follow the pain, knowing it will chafe.

Fixed against a darkened sky of starry black
   such beauty brings us to our knees.
Entranced, I welcome the pain, ’tis all I lack…..

~~ gigoid ~~

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“A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ah, yes, it does indeed….. This is the principle of human nature I exploit when I rant…. Well, I try, anyway…. It seems as if Ralph Waldo had the inclination to rant strike him on occasion, and, competent observer that he was, he examined how it made him feel, and act when he was in ranting mode. When in full flight, ranting makes one feel ten feet tall, able to leap arguments with a single quote, impervious to sarcasm or belittling remarks, and capable of chewing up the toughest pundit and spitting him out, before breakfast….. Whether or not one could actually do so doesn’t matter in the slightest, for it is what we THINK we can do that determines what we CAN do…. Like the dragons of Pern, who could lift any weight when flying, as long as they thought they could….

“Whenever you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, however unpalatable, must be food.” — Smart Bee

Now, this is a truism; much as it seems like levity, it is quite serious, being a disguised version of a truth uttered by Sherlock Holmes, about Truth, to wit: “As I have previously stated, Watson, when one has eliminated the impossible, what remains, however unlikely, must be the truth.” (God, I hope I quoted it right… I’m lazy, and used the version in my head, rather than googling it to make sure…. but, I’m 100% positive that my paraphrase, if it be such, is completely accurate, in terms of meaning…..) Ranting is an area where this principle is key; it really doesn’t make sense to rant about something that isn’t true, unless the falsity is the actual subject of the rant…. as the following aphorism implies….

“It is a substantial advantage for any philosophy to be based on the truth.” — George Santayana

Of course, this doesn’t mean that being right will make reality conform to how we wish it to be. Much of the world, if not all, is controlled by a group of people who lie, constantly, without shame, completely indifferent to how it affects others, as long as their own needs are met first. But, they only do so because most of the public believes their lies, for the simple reason that it is too hard to believe otherwise. If they begin to see the truth of how they are controlled, they become frightened, often to the point of violence, because they don’t want to know the truth…. unless it comes from a suit on TV…..

“Given a sufficient number of people and an adequate amount of time, you can create insurmountable opposition to the most inconsequential idea.” — Devyver’s law

This is truth, too, sad as it may seem…. The general public will believe just about anything they are told, usually without any sort of critical thought applied to testing its veracity, if it is presented in a manner to which they are accustomed to being told what to do…. If the guy on the six o’clock news says it will rain money, most folks in this country would start looking for a barrel to catch it in, and wonder if it would rain in bills, or in coins… I kid you not…..

This may seem as if I have a poor opinion of the average intelligence of the average American, and in that estimation you would be absolutely correct…. I can say this with complete confidence, as it is a proven fact that the average American’s IQ is below the average for the human race at large….. fact, ffolkes, not supposition…. Of course, I could be lying, but, if so, you can just chalk it up to their bad influence…. If they can use untrue ‘facts’ to prove their assertions, I can, too….

Besides, I can show you almost 50 MILLION pieces of proof of my assertion, without having to look further than the Presidential election last year…. In that election, almost fifty million people voted for Mitt Romney, proof positive that they would believe ANYTHING…. How else could they decide to vote for a man who was PROVEN to have lied during the campaign (independent fact checking organizations showed that he lied just about 50% of the time, or, put more simply, every other time he spoke, he lied...), and indicated, on tape, his complete disdain for over half the people in the country?

It is such an incredibly huge number, it just isn’t possible to understand how gullible people can be, when one sees this statistic, (50 million votes for an asshole….). It is equally hard to believe that so many of our peers are this incredibly dumb, but, truth will out, as it always does….. It also speaks to the number of truly bigoted, racist people that are still in this country, hiding behind their cowardice, and their misguided, ignorant patriotism…. but, that’s a subject for another rant….. (All stupid people aren’t bigots and racists, but ALL bigots and racists are stupid people…..)

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” — Lazarus Long

You won’t get a better, more clear warning than that; on that note, I proclaim this rant, such as it was, to be complete…..
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All in all, not too bad…. No fresh poem yet, but a decent rant, and all the rest if fresh…. Now, let’s see if it hangs together well enough to publish…. Well, we have another vote for ‘all in all, not too bad’….. So, it’s good to go, and we’re gone….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

dozer3

27 Days will make a difference….

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Ffolkes,
Wonderful visions often invade my mind, seemingly from outer space, as I don’t usually feel they are coming from my own creative well. They probably are mine, but are just torturing me with their beauty, knowing I am incapable of writing them…. yet. Sometimes, I begin to think I’m getting somewhere with what I’m creating here, but, mostly, I just write, and take the consequences of what I’ve written, elegant or not.

I would like to think that my style and skills have improved over the last two years, but I’m afraid that the most progress has been shown in the area of how fast I type; I’m much faster, in at least one respect, if not all of those having to do with speed and accuracy…. Bound to happen given how much I write, so that isn’t unexpected….

Certainly, nothing about this intro section is improved by my superior skills in typing; it’s still a rambling, unpredictable mess of ideas and styles, sometimes fictional, then switching to reality mode, sometimes, like today, remaining in real time…. Whatever it is, it baffles me how I do it every day without shooting myself, for getting it done, most days, seems like an ordeal of major proportions, and leaves me bloody and bowed in defeat…. That’s how it feels, anyway…. Is it worth it? I guess it must be, because I keep doing it….  go figure….

Chatty….. there’s a word. It’s a word that I hope never to have applied to me, by anyone, especially myself; if I thought I was getting anywhere in the vicinity of ‘chatty’, I would immediately run in front of a bus to eliminate the possibility of it happening more than once.

Or, gossipy, there’s another one I will not engage in, not in my world…. I hate gossip, having lived in a small town for much of my youth; I got my fill of the musings of all the Mrs. Grundy’s in the world, who have nothing better to do in their lives but watch for other people to do something of which they disapprove, so they can spread their malicious rumors to all and sundry who will listen…..

So, if I ever start sounding like either one of the above, please, just shoot me, and be done with it, for I wouldn’t want to live like that, and that’s for sure and for certain. I’m not sure I want to live this way, either, having to come up with something new and exciting every morning to put into this section, to get ffolkes to read on….

Given my now essential, vital need to write, as much as I need to breathe, though, I’ll have to live with it, at least until I can figure out the proper template to use to fulfill my requirements for this part of the Pearl…. SIGH…. Just more proof, I suppose, that my bozoid tendencies are much more powerful than my desire for true excellence…. when the nose grows, you have to let it show….

On THAT singular note, I will now proceed to the rest of today’s nonsense, and hope that it goes more smoothly than this has done…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“He who conceals a useful truth is equally guilty with the propagator of an injurious falsehood.” — Augustine

If ever there was a perfect lead in to a rant about the Beloved Ruling Class, or our/their Corporate Masters, or about the Priestly Hierarchies, those fawning sycophants who support those two entities in their chicanery, well, I don’t know what it would be, if not this. It’s perfectly positioned to attack any, or all of these groups, all of whom make the described action, to wit: bare-faced lying, a habitual choice in their daily interactions with others. They do this with full knowledge of the harm they may cause, but are not concerned with that, other than as it pertains to the maintenance of their own image; they want us to see them as people who care about those over whom they hold sway. In short, they live a complete lie, they know it, and they like it….

Whether we speak of the political leaders of our nations, the corporate leaders of the banking crowd, or the Pope, Ayatollah, and other figures held as religious icons, they speak “with forked tongue”, in the vernacular of Tonto, our favorite TV Indian stereotype. Not only do they lie to the public almost every time the open their mouths, they know they are lying; with many of them, you can see it in their eyes, as they speak….

Some of them (perhaps even most….) are very good at concealing their cupidity from most people; it’s part of why they are successful. But, to anyone with even a hint of street smarts, or even moderate intelligence, and the patience to observe with impartiality, their lies are obvious…. Hell, it’s been said, with some reason, that you can tell a politician is lying, because his mouth is open….

“If I can’t misquote it, I don’t want it.” — Rush Limbaugh

This statement, whether he actually said it or not, explains quite accurately why he is so popular among the conservatives and ignorant fundamentalists in this country…. I would guesstimate the majority of elected officials in this country use this principle on a daily basis, as one of the standards by which they formulate their public policies, and one of their bywords when speaking in a public venue.

Nothing is accepted so readily by the uneducated listener as a quote, or a statistic, that sounds elegant, and real, and comforting, even though it is an absolute untruth, or a mistake, or even a misquotation…. None of that matters to those in power, because they know that their success hinges on their ability to lie successfully to the public….. It’s a time honored tradition in our government, one every politician knows in his bones…

“It’s not that simple, no matter how you wish it so.  You made public statements from a position of false authority;  now you’re having them shoved down your throat.  Welcome to netnews. — Smart Bee

The advent of the internet has made it possible to detail these lies as never before in history. As always, however, the information is only accessible if one reads, and is competent enough to be able to use the internet to its full capability for gathering data. So, the lies continue, though they are much more visible now than in previous periods of history. They will continue as long as people are too lazy, or too brainwashed to think for themselves, and to question what they hear from those who hold power over them.

I don’t think it is reasonable to ever expect those who are in power to stop what they are doing, do a complete reversal of attitude, and start using their positions to advocate for the people, instead of their corporate masters; it isn’t going to happen, as they LIKE being able to raid the public treasury at will. There is no benefit for them, in their eyes, for them to stop lying, so they won’t….

No, if we want things to change, it will have to begin in that part of society that does not answer to the moneychangers, or to the call of avarice, to wit: with you, and me…. Otherwise, we may as well just bend over, and kiss our asses goodbye, because ultimately, the way things are going, we are all headed down the universal toilet, where all of Mother Nature’s failed experiments get flushed…..

I can rant on this subject without limit, I think, as there is no lack of material to work with; the news is all over the net every day with more evidence of the lies the BRC wants us to believe. Hell, one can take almost any large newspaper, look on the front page, and find at least two examples of issues that arise out of corruption in government, or some environmental disaster that is a warning of our impending doom….

In any of these, you will find at least one government official making a statement that is just plain wrong, or false in some way, intended to spin the information to benefit the administration, or to denigrate it, depending on which side is speaking….  It’s a circus maximus, for sure, and provides us curmudgeons with all the rantable material we could wish for, gratis (well, for the price of a computer, and internet access, anyway….).

“God said it, I believe it and that’s all there is to it.” — Smart Bee

I had to put Smart Bee as the attribution here, probably because nobody in their right mind would ever claim credit for having said it…. But, as I, in my lifetime, have actually heard several people say this, (realio trulio, I swear…. three times I’ve heard it, in person, come out of a real live idiot’s mouth….), I can only credit it as being a common feeling among a certain percentage of people. Be that as it may, as long as there is ANYONE who thinks this way, we are all going to be held back from being all our species could be, as well as being in danger of facing extinction because of the intransigence of their ignorance…..

“Misanthropology: the study of why people are so stupid and why most of them should die, SOON!” — Smart Bee

I don’t know the exact figures, but I would say that at least 50% of all the elected officials in this country hold this attitude, if not as gospel or dogma for all issues, at least as true for most issues. Our government has been taken over, insidiously, over time, by religious fanatics, who are working frantically to cement their hold over everyone else by enacting their own morality as law…. As history has proven, time after time, legislating morality is ALWAYS doomed to failure, but, as this group believes implicitly in the rightness of their articles of faith, they will listen to no evidence to the contrary….

“Religion is the highest vanity.” — Friedrich Hebbel

Ah well, I guess all I can say at this point is I think we’re all going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, and I, for one, would just as soon not be involved in this particular picnic…. Nope, not me…. Sadly, there isn’t anywhere else to go, where I can get away from these fools, as they have infested almost every corner of this sad old globe, and are busy destroying the chances for any of us to survive their ignorance…. Unless I, and all those like me, change our nature, and become like the ones who are in power, willing to kill our brethren over these issues, there is little to be done, for they will never give up until they kill us all….

~~ gigoid has spoken….

“Buy a rifle, encrypt your data, and wait for the Revolution!” — .sig of Travis J.I. Corcoran (TJIC@icd.teradyne.com)

“Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.” — Slovenian Proverb
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Well, there is no poem ready for today, so once again, I’ll have to dive into the past…. This works out well for me, though, as I have one poem that may go well with the above rant…. I hope so, anyway….. As every day this month, this is for the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here:  http://www.napowrimo.net/ (I still don’t know if I’m doing this right, but, oh well….)

Geezer to Congress, with Love
Politicos don’t care much ’bout seniors and their ilk,
except for their money, I thinks;
Though they talk as if they’d cozen them in silk,
what they actually do, it stinks.
“The banks are failing, we can’t allow that!”,
steal from the aged, that’s their plan.
“Their life’s ending, that’s plainly where they’re at,”
lie shamelessly, because they can.Maybe just once, if we all act together,
it couldn’t miss.
Right on their shoes, no matter the weather,
take careful aim, and piss.

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid

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Having ranted today once, I’ll not subject y’all to another…. though there’s more in there to rant about, for sure…. I just don’t want to make y’all think I’m insensitive, or have become overly personal, or judgmental (read: boring….). So, we’ll fall back into default position, and put together a fresh pearl, with some kind of point, yet to be determined by my subconscious mind…. I just let that happen as it happens, as you know…. If you get the point today, be aware it’s worth extra points, and this one WILL be on the Quiz…..

we can never be born enough.
We are human beings;
for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,
the mystery of growing:
the mystery that happens only and whenever
we are faithful to ourselves.

— e.  e.  cummings.

“The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination — but the combination is locked up in the safe.” — Peter DeVries

“One day with life and heart is more than time enough to find a world.” — James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) — Columbus

I see my life go drifting like a river
From change to change; I have been many things –
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir tree on a hill,
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
A king sitting upon a chair of gold –
And all these things were wonderful and great;
But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.
Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
Lay hidden in that small slate-coloured thing!

— William Butler Yeats, “Fergus and the Druid”

” Never eat anything bigger than your head.” — Kliban’s First Law of Dining

“I may not understand what you say, but I’ll defend to your death my right to deny it.” — Albert Alligator, in Pogo, 26 September 1951

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” — Bhagavad-Gita (and Robert Oppenheimer)

Well, there you go…. If that isn’t obvious, I’m doing something wrong…. it’s not your fault, so don’t hurt your brain trying to figure it out. My insurance company refuses to cover self-inflicted mis-comprehension…. I do have some nice tea, though, if that will help…..
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Hmm…. I’m a bit suspicious. This went a little too smoothly for me to be comfortable…. Murphy has been known to do this right before I save my work, then gift me with a power surge that eliminates all three hours worth of typing…. Gotta get me an autosave function for this program, for sure…. Well, let’s see how it came out, and get on with it…..

Well, not too bad, all in all, and well worth a yippee for being done…. It may not win any Pulitzers, but who cares? Social Security would just take the prize money out of my benefit checks, probably forever…. can’t have that; I worked too hard to get them awarded, broken as I am, so it’s just as well….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

dozer3

Finer memories are unavailable at this price…..

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Ffolkes,
Balderdash…. folderol….. bamboozle…. cantankerous….. flibbertigibbet…. They just don’t make words the way they used to…. nor does society offer the same opportunities to put them to use, sad to say….. But, this isn’t why I’ve called you all together here today…. Yes, losing parts of our past heritage is a serious drag, and something society needs to address in the long run, and in fact, there are now bills before the New Congress to that effect…..

This is not, however, the most dangerous change to have taken place in our culture, not when there are still increasing numbers of unemployed, homeless, lawyers being spotted on our streets, in our parks, and in all our public haunts….. Ever since the revolution, when we killed all the bankers,  politicians, and priests, who had been oppressing and terrorizing society for thousands of years, all those law school students were thrown out of college, and have never adjusted to the loss of their future….

The poor pathetic creatures, bereft of any hope of becoming the rich, privileged jackasses they wanted to be, by entering politics, or landing a cushy position on what used to be Wall Street, now known as the Day Care District, wander the streets of our major cities, looking dazed and confused…. Most of them refused the reconditioning offered after the new order was established, still angry at losing all they had studied for, so they are having trouble finding jobs or any stable existence for themselves, as society marches past them into the glorious future we can now expect to see, now that those who were killing us all have been dealt with appropriately….. I always enjoyed the spectacle of those heads on spikes, arranged in straight lines down Broadway in New York…. They were a stirring sight, for certain, especially when they left them with their cigars in their mouths….

On that somewhat disturbing image, we’ll leave this morning’s wish-fulfillment fantasy to its own devices for now, and hope that someday, it will be useful as the start of a real article for some new online magazine, filled with revolutionary zeal, and the promise of a real future for mankind…. And, now, I am off the soap box for the time being…. Hmm, now what?

I’m once more at a loss as to what direction to take, so, I’ll go right to default mode, and call this an intro…. Hey, it has at least four paragraphs, and none of them are what I’d call incendiary, or particularly compelling, even if a bit radical in tone. Around here, that is more than enough, so we’re going with it, because it’s my blog, and I can do what I want…. Nyah, nyah, nyah…. (Even resorting to childish taunts….) Since I can’t think of anything else that would possibly help this to recover, we’ll just dive right in, and see what we can see….

Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Yes, this is an age of moral crisis.  Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame.It is your moral code that’s through, this time.  Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course.  And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality — you who have never known any — but to discover it.” — John Galt

Well, if ever I’ve seen a better segue into a discussion of the primary problem facing society in the modern world, I not only wouldn’t have known it, I wouldn’t have admitted it, because this is as good as it gets, in that respect. The character who said it, John Galt, is, in the novel by Ayn Rand, a social philosopher, critical of the society in which he lives, which the author blames on socialist idealism. I found the book, Atlas Shrugged, in which Galt plays a part, to be a tour de force of delusional thinking, an entire series of novels, all of which promote the author’s own brand of conservatism, and, to my mind, idiocy.

In order to write these novels, the author had to make certain assumptions, about socialism, about human nature, and about society, and, though the character of Galt SOUNDS as if there is some wisdom in what is said, such as in the above statements, it is based on an erroneous assumption, which, naturally, makes all subsequent conclusions suspect. The assumption made is that socialism will always lead to the society as described in the books, and that assumption is one that isn’t necessarily supported by any real evidence, in the real world….

All of which makes me smile, as what is said above, in the quote by Galt, is pretty much absolutely true of today’s society, which is in imminent danger of self-destruction due to the lack of any morality among the Beloved Ruling Class, and the 1%, who are the real culprits, fully responsible for the state of our culture…. Galt, and Rand, merely make the wrong system their villain when they target socialism. Parasitic conservatism is the real culprit in today’s world, for which there is ample evidence. Hell, our culture, the way it exists today, is perfectly suited to such parasitism as practiced by those elite groups, as the greater percentage of mankind buys into just about anything they are told, as long as they hear it on TV from a guy in a suit….

“Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant or an enemy, must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves.” — Aesop (620-560  B.C.)

Considering how long ago Aesop said this, one would think that most of humanity would have learned this lesson. One only need look around today’s news headlines to see just how little this piece of advice has been heeded by the general run of mankind. The politicians and bankers are running amok, struggling and fighting amongst themselves for the best seats at the table of public feasting, studiously ignoring the futile noises from the people from whom they are stealing, as they are busy bickering with their neighbor over each new privilege….. SIGH…..

I’m not sure where I’m going with this anymore…. I wanted to strike out against those assholes in power, who don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, but, they’re too amorphous, hidden within the myriad of folds in the costumes they hide in, that make them look just like everyone else…. It’s really too bad that one cannot see into a person’s heart visually; it would save us all a lot of trouble if we knew from the start that these assholes were lying to us…. Ah well, since I never underestimate the power of human stupidity, I have to figure people would find some way to pull the wool over their own eyes, and fall for the same old shit, anyway…. It almost makes me glad I’m old, and won’t have to put up with it all much longer…..

“And then, last but the reverse of least, there plunged in all the people who think they can solve a problem they cannot understand by abolishing everything that has contributed to it. We all know these people. If a barber has cut his customer’s throat because the girl has changed her partner for a dance or donkey-ride on Hampstead Heath, there are always people to protest against the mere institutions that led up to it. This would not have happened if barbers were abolished, or if cutlery were abolished, or if the objection felt by girls to imperfectly grown beards were abolished, or if the girls were abolished, or if heaths and open spaces were abolished, or if dancing were abolished, or if donkeys were abolished. But donkeys, I fear, will never be abolished.” — G. K. Chesterton, The Flying Inn
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National Poetry Month Icon Pic    One of my favorite WordPress sites for poetry of a unique nature is 1XPad, or OneTimePad, written by Doug, located here:  http://1xpad.com/  . He challenged me to join the National Poetry Month Challenge, at this site:  http://www.napowrimo.net/   By registering at the site, each blogger commits to publishing a poem every day in April; people from all the participating sites will see it, and join in the community discussion…. It sounded like a good challenge, one that might help me get a bit more disciplined about my poetry; the process by which it leaks out of my head could use an upgrade, metaphorically speaking…. So, tomorrow, this section of the Daily Pearl of Virtual Wisdom will contain a new poem, by me, for as long as I can come up with something I’m not ashamed to post…. We’ll see how it goes….

In the meantime, here is one of my older poems, from September of 2012….. it seems apropos, somehow…..

For The Blind Poet, Embraced

I sit to open a vein, exposed in public places,
happy to be written, judging by the faces.
None can see the price so willingly paid,
at the feet of imagination is that cost weighed.

Still shadows of reality shine quite as well
to hide all the bleeding as if under a spell,
while visions and fantasies vie for attention,
hoping to win once-hoped-for final mention.

Technology may or may not rue its day
never knowing or caring its part to play.
All the precious moments of inspiration
Fall ever short of our own imagination.


~~ gigoid


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Okay, so, I’m lazy, so sue me…. I was cruising through some old school Pearls, and came across three that demanded to be included in today’s post…. Alright, so it was merely a request…. but, it was made in a firm tone of voice, so I’m going with demanded…. Any who, it turned out to be a bit long  but each one is fully appropriate, and all are quick and easy reads, as each one was intended as an early morning motivator for people at work… These are from sometime in 2006…..

Year end sale…

Ffolkes,
When I started out this morning’s offering, I had intended to remain seriously random. But it seems the sub-conscious me is always there, scheming and plotting. Since most of the plots seem to bear more of a resemblance to scams than schemes, I was lulled into a sense of complacency. Hence the following offering. Again I ask you, which of these is not like the others? Which of these things just isn’t the same? Which of these things is not like the others? Come on and play our game! (To be sung to the tune of….)

COMMAND:  A suggestion made to a computer.

Did you hear they removed the word gullible from the dictionary?

This Job Is A Test, It Is Only A Test. Had it been an actual job, you would have received significant compensation, some words of thanks and some form of recognition such as raises, promotions, and bonuses for a job well done. Yes, This has been a Test!

Perhaps we invented God to take the burden of self-judgment from us.

And if we did, how’s that workin’ for ya?….

Feel free to reply; via email, via snail mail, via phone, or just in the relative privacy of your own mind…and of course, y’all take care out there….

Out of the East…

Ffolkes,
“Interesting” is only the beginning. As humans, we tend to get bored when not stimulated by a challenge of some sort. If the world does not provide one, we are perfectly okay with making it up. Something about the perversity of human nature, I suppose, though it seems a bit dramatic to me. Ah well, ours is not to reason why, etc., except it is, or should be, do and die, not do or die.  Cuz that’s what is at the end of the road for all of us.  Kinda puts us on the same playing field, eh? Here…. I’m feeling less than Occidental this morning……

“Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.” — J. C. Watts

Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better
Some other time it will all work out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better
And it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
 You have the answer;
You know who you are and what you want.
There is no need to turn outside
For better seeing.
Rather abide at the center of your being
For the more you leave it
The less you learn.
Search your own heart and see
 the way to do is to be.
— Lao Tzu

Y’all take care out there…..

Just plain brutal….

Ffolkes,
Monday’s can be that way, even the best of them. I’m not certain, at least in my own case, just where the motivation to get up & get moving is coming from.  Routine is powerful enough to take us in to work, but what then? Coffee only goes so far, then something stronger must come into play, or the week just goes all to >@#%! (Supply your own curses)  It can be difficult to find a substitute; drugs are illegal, and so is theft. So what do we do? We rely on luck!…..

“Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don’t stand a chance against it.” — Joan Vinge

Life is short. Get it right.

Those who can, do. Those who can’t, write.
Those who can’t write go to the State Department (of Mental Health).

That’s the ticket….motivation means caring…..Recently on the radio, Hoyt touted a book, and challenged the listeners to send in our own version of what it was about, to wit: describe your life in six words. I liked mine…

“Looked for love, found it everywhere”……

Six on the button, eh?

Y’all take care out there…..
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Today is my daughter’s birthday; since she is now a grown woman, I’ll forgo mentioning the number, and just wish the best day possible, as it is always one of MY two best days of the year (I have a son, also…..). I enjoy being able to remind myself throughout the day that I am blessed with a wonderful, beautiful daughter….. Happy Birthday, Kelly!

There, housekeeping done, and Pearl constructed…. let’s see how it reads….. Go ahead and let the Pulitzer Committee they won’t need to meet again today…. Actually, it’s not too bad, considering the state of my mind….. Tomorrow is Monday; I’ve a lot to do before traveling tomorrow night, and much of my available RAM is being used up in calculations in re: the trip.

Oops…. I’m starting to use computer metaphors now; I’d best bring this to a rapid close, lest we reach critical mass…. See ya…..   Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

The stupidity factor was obviously miscalculated….

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Ffolkes,
For most of my life, my favorite activity, above all things, has been to watch people, and try to understand them. I’ve never really known why it pleases me so to just sit, watching people walk by, pondering the ins and outs of the lives and motivations of the people I see pass before me, but, I know that I can no more stop wondering than I could stop thinking, or breathing…. It’s just too fascinating a pastime to resist, for me….

Though I am well experienced at that pastime, I can’t say that I have reached any particularly earth-shattering conclusions about human nature, though I think I’ve seen enough to not be too shocked by anything it can show me in that arena….. I learned long ago never to underestimate the power of human stupidity….

I also learned to never undervalue the potential for human courage, and to appreciate that piece of human nature, I don’t know it’s name, that makes a human rush into a fire to save a child, or step in front of a bullet to save a comrade, or to stand up for the weak against the wicked and evil. even though it may cost their very life….

That part of all of us, that is brought out in such situations in reality, is worth looking for, and encouraging to manifest in other parts of life, for it is a very powerful and inventive quality, of intuitive right action, based on a morality that is unspoken, but no less immediate, and no less compelling, for all that….

There are times when I make myself laugh….. and this is one of them. The above paragraphs, while all true as the day, are about as pompous as I can get, don’t you think? Oh, it’s interesting enough, I suppose, and all correctly punctuated (if one doesn’t count the three dot journalism habit I’ve developed over the years since Herb Caen made it his iconic style), but it’s just too high-falutin’ to be real….

Nobody talks like that, do they? Nope, unless, of course, they are asking ME to explain some sort of astronomy question, which can get me going, and can easily, by its nature, fall into that sort of pattern…. No, it’s written in what I like to call my Imperial style of writing, which, while true in the realest sense, can drive folks away quickly with its arrogant tone, and pedantic presentation…..  Nobody likes someone who talks like a prig, basically…..

To get back to the subject at hand, though, I’ll mention that watching people continues to be my favorite thing to do to pass the time…. When I was about 14 or so, I remember saving up my money for a couple months, to take to the County Fair, to spend on the carnival.    On the day my family went, I’d rush to the midway, play my games, ride some rides, try to win some prizes, and blow my saved up cash in about two hours of fun. 

I never minded it going so fast, because I would then go out to the main plaza, near the entrance, and watch the crowds, for hours on end, an endlessly fascinating parade of families, young couples, old retired folks, kids, the whole panorama of human culture, all right there, passing before my eyes…..

Now, I’m old, and watching people continues to be my favorite way to pass time, when there is nothing else to do to occupy the mind. The human parade is always changing, never the same, and provides an endless supply of food for thought, humor for the soul, and unlimited entertainment, watching how people interact, and live…. As Spock would obviously say, “Fascinating.”……

Since I’m old, I now have a few perks in life, one of which is what I like to call give-a-shititis, the most common attitude among those of us retirees who think…. We are at a point in life where it can no longer threaten us to behave in certain ways, and it’s difficult to make us do what we don’t wish to do…. What are they going to do to us? Make us old? Give us pain? Restrict our movement? Been there, done that….. For many of us, this means that all the things we’ve always been too polite to say, can now be said with relative impunity, as folks give us a bit of leeway in that respect. Besides, I call it what I do because it is what we DON’T do anymore, and that is give a shit what others think about what we say…..

This, as you might imagine, allows us to say stuff that we formerly would have kept to ourselves, and not care about whether or not that person wants to hear it…. It is a heady experience for a lot of oldsters, and can become habitual…. I don’t agree with those who say that is an occupational hazard that cannot be avoided; one’s demeanor toward others is always a matter of choice, regardless of age, and there is no excuse for being rude without cause; sadly, many older folks don’t get that.

They become grumps, quite simply, and find fault with everything around them, making life difficult for everyone with whom they come in contact…. I don’t ever want to be that kind of old person; I imagine one could end up pretty alone with that kind of attitude…. and I have no intention of being alone forever…. it’s lonely!….

So, I’ll work on my attitude, which isn’t too hard for me, because my own habit of watching others has given me a great love and respect for people, and I try to treat others as I’d want to be treated (the Golden Rule ALWAYS works well…. there is a reason it is a classic idea….). It works for me, as it would work for anyone who makes Love a greater force in their lives than Fear…. Fear is humanity’s greatest enemy, the one that steals our intelligence, our courage, and often, our life, when we let it control our thoughts and actions.

Hmm… I just noticed that I’ve been ranting, or at least, pontificating, for some time now, and we’re still only in the intro section…. Sorry ’bout that, I DO tend to get carried away sometimes, don’t I? Just can’t seem to shut up sometimes…. Oh well, c’est la vie, I suppose, and fairly common for this blog. I’m going to do what I usually do in these cases, and ignore the whole thing….

We’ll just leave things where they are, mid-flight, so to speak, and go on to the remaining portion of the program…. It won’t take TOO long, as I have a task to meet today in the BBR (the Big Blue Room, you know, the room on the other side of the doors of the place where your computer lives….)…. I have to visit my grandson, and spend money….   😆

So, to move things along toward completion of today’s task list, we’ll go on….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.)” — Mark Twain

This has a familiar ring to it, which isn’t surprising, as I’ve used it a number of times in previous Pearls…. It is a good springboard for discussion about society, and human interaction, and quite frankly, would have been a good place to start today’s first pearl….

Unfortunately, during my last break from the chair, I went to take a shower, in preparation for visiting with Zackary, my grandson, slipped on the wet tub, managing to keep from falling by a quick movement and grab at the sink, but, by doing so, gave my back a nasty twist, which is now causing a flood of spasms, massive increasing stiffness, and, a five-step increase in my old friend, Pain…. So…. This paragraph may seem smooth and readable; that comes with a cost, of having to stop to move around, or lie down, every few minutes…. which makes it hard to maintain any continuity of thought, or speech, as manifested by this missive….

This is a pisser, to be honest…. I was supposed to go visit with my grandson today, and now won’t be able to go, as I just can’t face an hour or two on my feet in the park, trying to keep up with a two year old and his father…. It’s one of my high points in life, as I don’t get to see Zack, my grandson, but for a few times a year, and I hate to miss this opportunity…. But, I couldn’t be as involved as I’d like, and I’d just as soon not have any of his memories of me be of an old, frail man who can’t play with him very much, and grunts a lot moving around…. Karma can be a real Bitch sometimes, you know?….

Any who, I don’t want to get into all that today, it’s too depressing, and the pain is enough to deal with…. but, I can’t think very well right now, so I’m going to have to cheat again, and use some of my previous work to fill in…. At least there’s plenty to choose from…. I’ll be right back with a pearl, a blast from the soi-distant past…..

“He who flees will fight again.” — Tertullian (160-240 AD) — De Fuga in Persecutione, c. 10

Okay, I found a perfect pearl, from Halloween of 2012… and it is actually covers the same subject as the one I began today, with the Mark Twain quote, or, sort of… so, since this is already turning into an epic Pearl, for one so broken up by my painful approach to the writing…. enjoy, it’s not bad….

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

And here, poor fool, with all my lore
I stand no wiser than before.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

“This instant is thine; the next is in the womb of futurity, and thou knowest not what it may bring forth; maturity of the unborn is in the keeping of the Law. Each future state is that thou has created in the present.” — Akhenaton? (c. B.C. 1375)

“The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.” — Joan Borysenko

Living life well is a subjective goal, and, as such, whether or not it we are successful in reaching the goal is purely a subjective judgment. This kind of judgment requires introspection, which makes it somewhat of a conundrum for many people, as their skills at that particular activity are severely limited from disuse. Very few people today spend much time in self-examination, from what I can see. If they did, they sure wouldn’t act the way they do, or dress the way they are, or carry on such a foolish, self-destructive course of living….

“The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. . . No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity.” — Charles Mackay

Introspection, however, requires both honesty and ruthlessness, in being able to recognize those things within us that are not of value, and to remove them from our persona. As such, it is what most folks would term as “hard” or “difficult”, and they will avoid it at all cost, laziness being a rather common human trait. It is much simpler, and easier, to just take what all the powers that be, (otherwise known as either the beloved ruling class, or those most heinous of criminal manipulators, preachers/priests), are selling as moral standards, and use them, regardless of whether or not they are truly moral or not…. and I assure you, mostly, they are not….

“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

I often feel like Goethe, in what he stated above, as I believe myself to be one of the few who actually do use introspection on a regular basis. I believe this because, if other folks were using this process, the world would look a lot different. Women would feel safe walking the streets; old folks would feel cared for; gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals would not suffer discrimination for their orientation; racism would be dead, and religion would join mythology as a piece of mankind’s past, rather than its current status as our jailer/executioner…..

“Being good at being stupid doesn’t count.” — Smart Bee

All of these societal problems (bigotry, racism, discrimination, slavery, entitlement, misogyny, etc. )arise from the attitude of elitism held by those individuals among us who never look within, to see just how ugly their inner selves have become, from using the sick, twisted elitism as preached by the modern religious and political leaders.

We, as a species, cannot afford to listen any more to the Judeo-Christian (note: add Talmudic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, etc…. gigoid, 3/24/13) ethic as propounded by the beloved ruling class; this kind of entitlement and aggrandizement has led us to the very brink of extinction, as we continue to treat the planet as our toy, instead of as our home.

We cannot keep pouring millions of tons of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere and expect nothing to happen, because what WILL happen is already happening…. our weather is changing, and not in a good way…. the planet is warming up, and when it is warm enough, the ice at the poles will melt, and everything on Earth will feel the effects….

“The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people: I was saved, they were damned … Our hymns were loaded with arrogance–self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come judgment day.” — Robert A. Heinlein

As Akhenaton pointed out over 3000 years ago, what we do in the present will determine how the future will be. What our species is doing now will guarantee that most of us won’t be around to see what happens in that future, because we will be dead within a hundred years, or less, if things don’t begin to change TODAY…. Since it is unlikely that will happen, well, we may as well take the advice given to many school children in the 50’s, in learning to deal with an atomic blast…. to wit: bend over and kiss your ass goodbye….  I hate to be so cynical, but, introspection requires honesty, so….

“You were s’posed to laugh!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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It’s probably a bit egocentric, but, hey, it is MY blog, right?…. Here is a poem I wrote last August, once again on the subject so close to my mind today…. my old friend and constant companion…. Pain….

Denial of Comfort

Baleful chairs become the enemy, heralded in red
seemingly welcome softness beckons with a smile,
waiting, content with slaughter, they are finally led
screaming in agony, deluged in venom all the while.

Desperate distraction becomes such a friendless fire
for all the patterns of autumn’s pale dismay,
leaving sincerely latent trails in spirals of twisted wire,
while memory insists, again, upon failure, palpably evil, and fey.

Fat, jaded tears would have fallen in good time,
if only the suitable suitor had scaled the garden’s wall.
Credence for discounted prices luckily in their prime
bring only fascinated eyes into such a hallowed hall.

Searching for answers is ever a clever portrayal
with studious accouterments to fulfill each common rule.
Arguably patient pictures of science and honest betrayal
shall evermore languish, in light of passion so elegantly cruel.

~~ gigoid

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Okay, so you already know I’m cheating today…. therefore, another pearl from the past isn’t going to fool anybody, unless I try to pass it off as fresh, and I refuse to go there…. Hence, here is another pearl, which may give any newbies more information than they need…. it might scare them off. But, I’m nothing, if not honest…. so, I give you this again too-long, but, too bad, so sad piece from November of 2012….

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

:GIGO: /gi:’goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out’ — usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program didn’t “do the right thing” when given imperfect input or otherwise mistreated in some way.  Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data.  2. `Garbage In, Gospel Out’: this more recent expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have to put excessive trust in `computerized’ data. — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

Many years ago, I adopted the user name gigoid, taking it from the above definition, and adding an “id” for, of course, identification purposes; with that suffix, I am assured of human status, i.e. hominid, humanoid, etc.  I chose this acronym because it is the perfect reminder of the basic integrity that is built into all computers, i.e., they can only do what we tell them to do, and cannot lie. Thus, if our results are wrong, the error lies in our input, not in the computer; this automatically cuts in half the number of places to look for the problem.

I like to think that my awareness of this principle characteristic is what has allowed me to use computers without suffering many of the common difficulties such as crashes, freezes, and blue screens of death. Only once have I ever encountered one of those on my own computer, and that was the result of a virus my defenses missed… my fault, of course, I hadn’t updated soon enough…

Oh, I’ve encountered that famous blue screen before, when I worked as a computer tech back in the late 90’s, setting up LAN’s and office systems for H&R Block…. a significant percentage of machines were dead soon after coming out of the factory box. But, on my own computers, I am very careful never to break any of the basic rules that govern those kinds of mishaps…. and I owe it all to a wise choice of user name…. Well, it’s fun to think about it that way anyway….

So, who is gigoid? Well, if you’ve hung about this blog site for long, I’ve certainly given y’all enough of my inner workings to look at, in my rants, and in my old school pearls, as well as in my poetry, which is quite revealing, to me….. but, then, if it wasn’t, I most likely couldn’t write it….

Any who, to give the short answer to that question, I’ll post below some pearls that give insight into what I believe to be true, and how I try to live…. Like any weak human, I don’t always succeed at being as moral or ethical as I can be, but, I do try, and I do feel pangs of regret when I don’t, so cut me some slack, eh? Just kidding…. What I am is all what I am, though I’m not Popeye…. and these pearls are what I see in the mirror…..

“They are able because they think they are able.” — Virgil

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.  We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.  We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Aristotle

“An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.” — E. P. Whipple

It is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs. — Smart Bee

Computers can never replace human stupidity. — Smart Bee

“Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.


But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please — this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!


So learn to say No – and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.) “

— Lazarus Long, from Time Enough for Love, by Robert Heinlein

“Do I look like someone who cares about what God thinks?” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, that’s enough about me…. Hope this helps clear up any confusion, and if not, well, hey, life goes on…. all we can do is all we can do, and no more….
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I’ve tried to read this over, proofing-wise, and can only say, well, I’ve done all I can do…. I think it’s close to what it should be, and, if you will remember axiom #1 of Peruaosophy, you’ll realize that’s enough for me…. (For the uninitiated, Peruaosophy is the Philosophy of Pearls, as created by gigoid (yep, that’s me….) in 1986…. #1 says, to wit: “I think I am…. that’s close enough.” ) I’ve relied heavily on my past work today, but, given my justification, feel no remorse whatsoever… and neither should you….  😆      Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

Hollandaise is a sauce, not a country….

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Ffolkes,
Today’s watchword will be ‘sanity’, a word whose meaning is somewhat flexible around these parts…… It HAS to be, because my own level of that particular quality of mind is extremely variable, and depends on a number of factors, none of which are completely under my control. In fact, I long ago gave up hope of maintaining any real control over it, as my efforts, though competent enough, were not enough, by a long shot, to stem the tide of my insanity, which is incredibly powerful, if I do say so myself….

I picked this word, with such deep connection to my life, because I’m starting into a period of life when maintaining my hold on reality needs to remain strong. A lot of stuff is finally beginning to happen for  me in the Big Blue Room, from which I’ve been hiding, so to speak, while waiting for these events to arrive,transpire, and become part of current reality. All that long-winded rationalization is here to say, I won’t have as much time to write in the coming days, and the structure and content of these Pearls is liable to change once again….

I began this blog in August of 2010, or thereabouts, on another site, SFGATE, the SF Chronicle website. In 2011, I signed up on WordPress; subsequently, for a while, the amount of content grew dramatically, as I had a lot of time to fill up in the early days of my retirement (poverty didn’t catch up to me until 1/1/11, when my retirement came into effect, and my full pay income went down to the near starvation level at which it has hovered for the past two plus years…). I filled that time, after my mom left from visiting in early 2011, by writing, and the Pearls grew to comprise five sections, two or three of which were early rant-like diatribes…. It was a lot of stuff pouring out of my head….

In early 2012, the stuff leaking out trickled down to a lesser amount, though still pretty prolific…. At that time, I cut the number of sections in each Pearl down, from five to three, with at least one always dedicated to poetry, mine or someone else’s. That format has worked out very well; it has plenty of opportunity, and room, for ranting, and the poetry always manages to soothe my mind in between rants, or old-school pearls, which I use when my creative side is less active than my habitual, constant inner dialogue, which I express in the old-school format.

That brings us to today, and today’s intro section…. As you can see, I’ve once again fulfilled the intro requirements, by composing and executing (interesting choice of words to describe how I write….) a number of rather useless paragraphs. Today’s examples have something more than the usual amount of relevance, and real information, than is the case in the recent past, but, I can truthfully say that is both providential, and intentional.

Out in the Big Blue Room, I have to start coordinating my SS and State retirement benefits, so that I can maximize both for my future use and convenience of operation. I am pursuing a relationship with a wonderful woman I’ve met, and wish to spend more time on that particular phase; she’s a sweet lady, and we enjoy being together, so I want to do more of that, for certain….

Probably most significantly, I will soon have the resources to travel as I wish…. I’m going to need to sit down and do some serious planning, to, again, maximize the resources I’ll have to have them get me to all the places I want to see, and support the activities I’ll need to pursue during this latter part of my life…..

One of the most satisfying parts of finally getting some of the resources is the sweet feeling I know I’ll get when I walk into a certain store to complete the very first item on all my lists….. I’m going, first thing, into the hock shop and getting my guitar out of pawn, paying the entire loan amount off, knowing that I will never again have to put it in gaol to be able to afford to eat….

All of this will be good for my ‘sanity’, so, I’m rather looking forward to the coming months…. Today, being the 22nd, is the second day of Spring, 2013, and I’m ready to rock the house…..

Well…. that was interesting…. almost like a complete little essay, right here at the beginning, where it will probably bore everyone to death…. That seems to have happened yesterday, as my stats show only four Likes all day, from some regular visitors…. oh well, I’ve never worried about stats, and I’m not going to start now…. What I will do, in the interests of my ‘sanity, is try to keep the creative process under control, at least to the extent of not trying to compose anything particularly scholarly or precise, as I don’t think I’m quite up to either of those today…. I’m feeling pretty lazy, in fact, and want to go do other stuff, so I’ll probably end up cheating, and use a bunch of old stuff, from my archives of ALMOST FIFTEEN BLOODY YEARS of writing these Pearls…..

Sorry, didn’t mean to shout…. that has apparently been sitting in there for a while, waiting for a chance to come out….. My unconscious MAY be a little more in turmoil than I thought…. I’ll have to think about that…. Meanwhile, back here at ECR…..  Shall we Pearl?…..
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I’ve probably given ample demonstration in the past of my innate laziness; I always thought of it as being smart, figuring out the easy way to do things….. but, I also call a spade a spade, and it is a fact….. I’m lazy sometimes…… This, then, is one of those times…..

This is an old, old-school Pearl, written sometime in 2008, or so…. I never did date them, other than the date on the email that contained them, so it’s hard to figure out sometimes, just when they were first seen….. and I’m not so vain as to have kept all those emails…. Five years is old enough for our purposes; that’s our story, so, we’re going to stick with that for now…… As you can see, the process of creating pearls remains much as it was, a random, chaotic process full of fun, laughter, and despair for the author’s obvious lack of ‘sanity’…..

Another attempt at so-called levity…

Ffolkes,
Today’s offerings are more of our usual,  a subliminal array of choices; no conscious thought went into the selection process. But there does seem to be some sort of coherency, if only in attitude. (Hmph!)  So, without further ado, enjoy……

“In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (Unfortunately, this applies to most religions, not just Christianity…..nrm)

“Dear Lord, I’ve been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us… a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird… a social being… capable of actual affection… nuzzling its young with almost human- like compassion.  Anyway, it’s dead and we’re gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family…” — Berke Breathed, Bloom Country Babylon

Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence. — Smart Bee

Beauty is skin deep. But how rich you are can last a long time. — On the role of beauty and handsomeness in love — Christine, age 9

“The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.” — George Santayana (1863-1952)

Actually, my goal is to have a sandwich named after me. Or at least an ice cream sundae…. — Smart Bee

Y’all take care out there….

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

~~gigoid
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I’m still lazy, so, deal…. but, I’m going to at least be honest, and use my own work to be lazy with…. Here is a poem I wrote last October, prompted by, and a response to, the quote that is given just before it…. I hope you enjoy it, it’s one I’m happy with, and it’s positive enough for today’s mood….

“But groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having.” — EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow, “Cynthia Horner’s Eulogy”, Apr. 1994

Unsolicited Gratitude

Fear becomes familiar when reality bodes us ill
pain assumes first position, no matter our will.
Powerless, we founder, no strength to prevail
anguished and afraid, against unwanted Fate we rail.

Still, a grain of hope deep inside, hidden well against need
gives us reason to survive, our starving souls to feed.
Failure of courage burdens time, of being bested,
until our souls, in submission, become foully infested.

Bitter tears wash through us each day, with little care,
no thought, no feeling, no wish, or need to be fair.
Rendered clueless, confusion falls upon us, as prey,
we surrender a piece of our soul, little as we may.

Yet, always, a bright beam of hope is seen from afar,
no matter how dreary, or dark, it may seem where we are.
None knows, nor would consent to tell, it seems
from whence it hails, or why it so brightly gleams.

Saving our sanity, absolving our unwanted fears,
dispelling the myths and lies that come with the years.
Each man has known the precious gift that hope may give
And gives glad thanks, as long as he may live.

~~ gigoid

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“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” — Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”

I’ve always felt that a return to older ideas is not necessarily a counter-productive activity to pursue in seeking change in one’s own situation. Though there are hazards to adopting some ideas that are old, those can be mitigated to a degree with some care in choosing which ideas are considered for use. (Duh….) In other words, if we use ideas such as the one above, first heard about a century and a half ago, we have to take care to ascertain whether those ideas are effective or not when used…. This statement from Henry David can, I think, because of its very celebrity, and long-time inclusion in mankind’s treasury of wisdom, be considered one idea that is always true, no matter how much time has passed since it was spoken….

Choosing which ideas from the past that will be most helpful can be a daunting task, simply because when one is speaking of historical wisdom, there is a LOT of material from which to choose, much of which is considered to be very wise, while some others of which may not be such good advice…. One cannot always know with certainty what an idea will do, once adopted in a real sense, and used in a real-life situation…. Sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose, badly….. Of course, the latter events generally are very instructive, in the sense that they teach us what NOT to do in the future….

I suppose we could say that failing at experimenting with reality is most likely humanity’s preferred form of learning, to wit: sticking our finger in the fire to learn that it hurts to burn flesh…. Not terribly smart, but effective; most folks only need one lesson…. We dignify the process we go through in learning, by calling what we get from it ‘experience’, but, it remains a rather bozoid method of learning, depending as it does on our ability to survive the answers that Reality provides to some of our more volatile questions…. like finding out we can’t just do what we want to the planet, without suffering consequences that are incompatible with human survival.

This is approaching rant-like proportions, but, I think I can fix that…. What we’ll do at this point it to admit the truth of how we learn, and just realize we can improve our chances if we learn a bit faster, and more from using our imagination, than we do from subjecting ourselves to the lashes and bumps that experimentation can entail…. In light of that, I will now provide several pearls, all of which are good advice on how to learn, and how to live, and hopefully, do so with some dignity, some laughter, and a lot of joy…..

“If you want to go far in a decade you have to go far each year. If you want to go far each year, you have to make sure that you do something significant each day.” — Deng Ming-Dao

“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.” — Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

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

“Be patriotic – question authority.” — Bumper Sticker

“The strong live off the weak, and the smart live off the strong.” — Smart Bee
(Well, not ALL of us….. but, most….)

“I’m sitting on my SPEED QUEEN..  To me, it’s ENJOYABLE..  I’m WARM..  I’m VIBRATORY..” — Zippy the Pinhead

I suppose one can never accuse me of failing to be eclectic, nor of taking Life too seriously…. It got away from me for a moment, but Zippy, as always, managed to put things into their proper perspective….. Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of warm vibration to make life alright….
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I’m a little afraid today…. yesterday’s Pearl seems to have fallen off the scales, stat-wise, but today’s effort may just drive everyone away for good…. Or not, and, I don’t really care one way or another, as this is still all about getting this crap, er, stuff, out of my head…. I’ll go look it over, and see how it came out….. Be right back….

See? That never takes long….  Okay, well, it isn’t quite as bad as I’d feared, so I’ll go with it…. I know, I’m easy…. But, I do get posted every day, so, that’s something, I guess….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

Plainly, it isn’t wise to bump OR grind….

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Ffolkes,
While it is true that I did travel there at one time, the stories that have been circulating regarding my, allegedly, legendary trip to Kansas have been exaggerated to an extreme…. I left no broken hearts, or heads, behind, no dead bodies were found in my hotel room, nobody got married, pregnant, or abandoned, and that dwarf wasn’t even looking for me! And, while I’ll admit I was talking to the old lady with the dog and the pony, it isn’t true I was trying to retain their services; that pimp wasn’t even in the room with us!…. The reporter just got mad because I lied to him about the priest…. So, you can just put aside your shock and disgust, as none of it actually happened, and if it did, it wasn’t my fault! It was those damned girl scouts, with their damned cookies!….

Hi there….. Regarding that first paragraph: you may ignore it at will…. No excuses, and no complaints, I guess. I wrote it pre-coffee, so I can’t put the same expectations on it that are valid post-salvation. Given that stricture, it isn’t too bad, all in all, though I think I could have been a bit more graphic in the line about the dwarf…. a dwarf is always good for some laughs, but you’ve got to use good imagery, or you lose the total effect of the contrast in their overall appearance when interacting with, shall we say, less fascinatingly grotesque creatures, such as ourselves….. In my opinion, I could have been clearer in my expression there…. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day, and the dwarf is on retainer….

Now what? Here we are, three paragraphs in, and, so far, nothing is manifesting itself for inclusion. I’m beginning to think I’m going to have to just break down and write a template introduction, that I can just plug in each day at the start, to get me moving, in SOME direction, if not on a specific vector…. You know, something like, “Here’s today’s news,,,,”, or, “Another day dawns without hope here in America….,”, or, “OMG, shut that window, NOW!”…. You know, something gripping, that will pull ffolkes in without hurting or insulting them, and lead them gently into the body of the Pearl…. I’ve considered this idea for some time now; it’s an attractive one, that could conceivably save me a lot of time and worry over getting the intro done…..

But, what fun would that be? I think part of what I enjoy about blogging like this is the freedom I feel to NOT restrain myself in such ways, to allow myself the mental freedom to go anywhere my crafty little grey cells want to go, and say whatever I want to say, within the bounds of good taste and compassion… I do skate a bit close to the edge of the one about good taste, so it’s good for me to keep watch on that….. and if I cop out and make a template, that sense of alertness might get dulled from disuse….. All of our mental strengths are exactly like muscles, and will grow soft and useless if not exercised, so it’s good for me in that sense to have to be creative, in a small way, each morning, first thing….

Plus, it gives me the opportunity each morning to put together five or six of these nonsensical gems, full of absolutely diddly squat (hmm… Spell Checkers are funny… it didn’t like “diddly”, but was okay with “squat”… Oh, right, that’s actually a word… What, they’ve never heard of Bo Diddly?….never mind…), which I find to be both a good warm-up for the typing fingers, and a good warm-up of the grey cells, giving the coffee a chance to work its magic before I get into anything serious (And, as long as I can avoid the use of too many parenthetical comments in one paragraph)…. Yesterday’s intro, which grew into a pretty good-sized rant, happened for just that reason, to wit: I got into what I was writing before the coffee was fully on board….. a dangerous habit to form….

Why look! What’s this? I do believe it’s happened again! I’ve found another complete intro section, just laying here, ready to go…. What do you know about that? Now, don’t get all antsy, and upset with me…. SOMETHING has to go in this section, so what’s wrong with some deliberate nonsense, and a bit of prattle? Nothing, that’s what… Besides, it’s all finished now, so you won’t have to try to figure out if it will ever get anywhere significant…. It won’t. It’s done, It’s time to dive…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a lamb.” — Smart Bee

I’m in a mood today, one that, if typical of such, will not yield to any sort of alteration or modification into something less abrasive, or more tasteful… In other words, I don’t know why, but I feel like biting somebody. I have no reason to feel this way; all is proceeding quite smoothly in my life just now, pretty much, so I don’t have any really good reasons to feel grumpy.

No excessive pain going on, money and food are in the house, computer’s functioning well, as is the internet service. I have plenty of reading material, and I just finished watching all seven Harry Potter movies last night. I could ask for fewer sirens at night stopping just up the block, but, alas, there is nothing I can do about my neighbors’ behavior late in the evenings…. My lady friend isn’t feeling well, but, I think, and hope, she will feel better, so I’m only worried a little about that, not enough to cause a grump….

I could also ask for Social Security to move a bit faster, but, they have already shown me over the last two years what their typical pace is…. Their bureaucracy’s automatic cruise control is set at “crawl”, and isn’t going to go any faster anytime soon. I received verbal confirmation of my approval for benefits on Tuesday, the 12th, when the caseworker told me she would be sending out a packet of information for me, with the notice of the granting of my appeal of their original denial (long story….)…

Any who, that was eight days ago, so, I speculated, then, that she might send out the information the next day, or perhaps on Thursday, and I would receive it a couple days later. The office from which the packet is to be sent is here in the same town, so I thought, hmm, two days to go 30 blocks would be a reasonable estimate, even for the USPS, for a 10 X 12 inch envelope…. HAH! So much for speculation about the USPS…. Serves me right for assuming ANYTHING…. Especially for assuming normal behavior from an organization that has already proven to be broken, and abnormally anomalous, or anomalously abnormal, or both….

I suppose I’ve found why I’m grumpy, as these last two paragraphs show on whom my subconscious is placing the blame, squarely…. So, before I give Ms. H., my new case worker at SS a call, to ask WHEN she might be sending the stuff to me, I’m going to put together a pearl, with a specific type of pearls in mind for the search process… those that bring me peace of spirit in some way…. Enjoy!…. Oh, and, given my tendency to not be able to shut myself up, I’ll put any thoughts that occur to me about the pearls in parentheses, which is as usual as it probably is annoying….    😆

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” — Agatha Christie

“1 four letter word is sometimes worth 1000 pictures.” — Smart Bee

(Which may be why there are so many of them….. We humans are nothing if not hilariously and prolifically vulgar….)

“In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away
— for the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.”

— Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

POETRY, n.  A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

(Ambrose was a Grand Master of Sarcasm, and a social critic of immense genius…. )

” What is it the Bible teaches us? – rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches us? – to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.” — Thomas Paine — The Age of Reason

(    😳    Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself…. This one isn’t particularly soothing to most ffolkes, or folks, nor is it part of the connective tissue for this pearl; it just sounded like something I might use for a rant some day, and I saved it before I could stop myself….. Just ignore it, please, or set it aside for later perusal… Thank you for your cooperation….)

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” — Albert Einstein

“Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand.” — Spinoza

I don’t know about y’all, but, after those last two, I’m soothed….     Okay, okay, we’re going!   No need to shove!….
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Here is an obscure little poem from Keats; I like it, which is all it needs to get included here…. but, it’s also a nice example of classical romanticism, with precise cadence and rhyming, and very personal imagery… I hope you enjoy it, as I do….

A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode Of Paolo And Francesca

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

~~ John Keats
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“We are the protagonists and authors of our own drama. It is up to us; there is no one left to blame. Neither the system, not our leaders, nor our parents. We can’t go out and hang the first amoeba.” — Rebecca McClen Novick

Oh. My. Goodness. This is the perfect quotation for a rant on global warming, or overpopulation, or climate change, or any of the other immediate threats to our species’ survival one may consider. It begins at exactly the correct point to have a discussion about what might be done, for whatever can be done, can only be done when people admit the need, which, obviously, entails accepting the responsibility for causing it in the first place… Duh!….

But, as I said above, I’m in a mood, which isn’t the time to start ranting…. Outrage is necessary, and a touch of anger to fuel the outrage…. but, in a mood like this, I would likely get vicious, and lose track of what I promised to keep track of, to wit: good taste…. Instead, I’ll do what I always do in such situations, and fall back on yet another old-school pearl… I’ll make it a short one, with only five aphorisms, as small as I can find, on the subject at hand, again to wit: Our own particular brand of human foolishness, or, as I labeled it many years ago, the Principle of Bozoid Tendencies…..

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

“These round things Asur has attached to his sled: they take the wood away from the Earth-Mother, they make it move too fast; they turn around and round in a strange, e-ville fashion.  Indeed, they are ungodly, and Asur should be stoned to death forthwith.” — Translated from proto-Indo-European — scratched on clay tablets, circa 6500 BC

“I haven’t committed a crime.  What I did was fail to comply with the law.” — David Dinkins (Mayor, New York City) — Answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes.

“Yes, many primitive people still believe this myth…But in today’s technical vastness of the future, we can guess that surely things were much different….. I think we’re all Bozos on this Bus!” — The Firesign Theater

“An INK-LING?  Sure — TAKE one!!  Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS??” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, there you go…. Perhaps I should have known better…. Ah well, at least it’s all over now, but for the shouting….
__________________________________

I’ll try not to shout so loudly it will awaken those who decided to nap early….. I probably should be ashamed, but, I’m not being paid for any of this, so I have nothing to feel ashamed about, other than the entire content herein…. Too late now, I’m committed…. Or, will be, once I go back and proof it…. which, I will now do, in the interests of getting something else, anything at all, done today…..

It isn’t often I can write myself speechless…. but, there is a first time for everything, I suppose…. Here it is, such as it is…. WYSIWYG, and that’s the truth…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

An aged, elegant marmoset sat beside the oracle…..

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6

Ffolkes,
The baleful, weary eye of the sun poked itself reluctantly above the horizon to the west, spreading a pale, washed out flood of light over the stunted, ugly landscape. Shadows deepened behind the huddled buildings by the side of the slow moving river, rippling against the cold, dark water, as the weakling sun rose slowly into the angry purple of the lightening sky. Huge, ragged-looking  birds rose in the air, cawing in hoarse, angry-sounding squawks, arguing over pieces of rotten trash. Calls to morning prayer echoed in the alleys and courtyards, along with curses of adults, and the irritated shouts of children getting dressed.  Morning came hard to all of the denizens of planet Malorda, as it did each day, on this world of trouble and woe…..

I don’t believe I’m going to take this any further…. it’s too much like the morning routine around here for comfort…. We’ll leave the poor fools who got stuck colonizing a less-than-perfect choice in planets to their miserable lives, and go on to bigger and better things, right here on Earth….. Lucky us….. I don’t suppose y’all have any cool ideas on tap, do you? I could use a few to punch up this intro section once again, since it seems to have made its usual fast start, and quick death…..

Unfortunately, I’ve already moved beyond the point where anything would actually help; it could even make things worse, should I try now to add ingredients that might not mix well with what is already down on paper, so to speak. In fact, at this point, it could conceivably start a flash fire, and then I’d have to break out the extinguisher, and call the fire department, and…. well, it could end up a real mess. I think not…. I’m not quite in the mood for any such nonsense so early in the day…. Shoot, it’s just barely 0700, no time to play around with potential conflagrations….

If things don’t alter course soon, I’m going to have to use another emergency procedure, and I don’t want to have to do that; I’ve had to use several lately, and haven’t had time to replace them. If I use another one, I’m going to end up with only one on hand for a real emergency, and that would be the one that NOBODY wants to see me use, #9, which involves the use of incubi, enferi, and the invincible armies of Hell, just to clear the way for the real procedure, which, sad to say, involves the end of life as we know it…..

No, I’ll wait on #9, and on # 6, which is what I was going to use today, a rather effective procedure that entails some rather entertaining creatures from a planet halfway across the galaxy, who have a fascinating tendency to explode when they reach a temperature above freezing…. They are a bit tricky to handle, especially in the summer, and expensive to keep frozen between uses. I guess it’s time to stock up again, on #’s 1-5, and #’s 7 & 8, all of which I’ve had to use recently….. Oh, well, it will give me something to do on these long, cold winter nights…. Oops, I live in California; we don’t have any of those here on the coast…. Well, I’ll have to make time somewhere….

Oh, look, it’s an intro section! I wonder how that got here? Gosh, if I didn’t know better, I’d think I designed it this way…. but, we all know better, don’t we? Sure…. Any who, it’s six paragraphs, none of which make any more sense than the one before, and that is enough to fulfill the rather loose standards I’ve come to accept for this section. It’s gotten so that I’ll take almost anything that holds together for that long, as I can’t seem to find a cozy, familiar pattern to follow each day…. Of course, if I did find a method like that, it would bore me to tears within a few days…. Better I stick to what I know, and just babble for a while, before I start diving for pearls….

Speaking of which, shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Republican views of the world differ from Democratic views of the world. The reason for this is that these views are based on different compilations of misinformation.” — Smart Bee

There are moments, such as this one, when I believe the people, or person, who put together the database known to me as Smart Bee, is perhaps the most intelligent creature on this planet….. I’ve been ranting about politicians for years, trying to show people how dangerous it is to believe ANY of the stuff that either party is slinging at us to try to convince us they are worthy of our votes. Now, in one short aphorism, of two lines, we are given a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of the crap we hear from them…. Essentially, this says that every one of them is full of shit, and everything they say and do is destined to fail, because it is ALL based on incorrect information, or, to be more accurate, on unwarranted assumptions about reality…..

The most important part of this description is its impartiality of indictment. Both parties are brought into scrutiny, and found wanting, of any real knowledge of the truth, because they are both basing all of their premises on false beliefs, just for starters. Add to that, since they are politicians by choice, their genetic predisposition is to self-aggrandizement, and they show an inherent inability to tell the truth. It becomes rather easily seen why our society has become, well, insane…. It’s a short trip to crazy from where they begin the journey…. and they don’t take any detours on the road….

You see, both parties are convinced of a complete falsehood, one that humanity has been struggling with for centuries…. This lie is so basic, it colors and affects everything they do to try to manipulate the world into going the way they wish it to go. As long as they continue to try to do this, our society is doomed to failure in the long run, for the lie goes against the very nature of reality…. Simply put, these people believe they can legislate morality…. They believe that they can make laws, and people will go against their very nature to follow them, in spite of the fact that the law they propose is contrary to what comes naturally to humans, to wit: self-centered, grasping behaviors that only benefit the perpetrator, and no one else…..

We have laws against stealing…. and the most accomplished thieves we see in our culture wear suits and live in Washington D.C. We have laws against killing each other, but, people still get killed, and, if the killers do so while wearing a flag, or a badge, they are considered heroes, no matter how many they kill. We have laws that supposedly protect women, children, and the aged, from suffering abuse, but, just look around you, and you will see no end to the depredations that society allows to be perpetrated upon these three most vulnerable members of our society, all very much within the legal limits of the public morality, as given in the law books….

“[…] For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner […] on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. […] That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that.” — Carl Sagan

The people who get involved in politics, and religion, for much the same reason, believe they are special, and entitled to take all they can from the universe, because they are the be-all, and end-all of the evolutionary ladder. It says so right there in the Bible….. They don’t care that reality says differently, because their sense of denial has been fine-tuned since shortly after they were born, and they are capable of ignoring facts right up until they slap them in the face…. (Witness the Republican melt-down in the last Presidential election, when the Republican party got slapped in the face by their own lack of contact with reality…..)

In spite of all the massive amounts of evidence to the contrary, these folks believe in their own divine entitlement as the lords of creation, chosen by God to do with this planet as we would, without regard for any of the other creatures that live here with us, or for the beauty and balance of the land that sustains us. As far as they are concerned, other people and animals, and natural resources, are theirs to do with as they wish, with God’s blessing…. The fucking assholes…..

I apologize for the vulgarity, to my readers, but not to those at whom it is directed…. To them, I say, fuck you, and fuck you again…. I regard all politicians, priests, preachers, police, lawyers, judges, and corporate misogynists of all shapes and sizes to be INSANE…. floridly, and viciously insane, without any of the moral standards that the rest of mankind embraces. These assholes are responsible for our imminent demise through environmental destruction of the ecosphere, as well as for the endless preying on the weak and vulnerable to suit their own depravity, and lack of moral fiber.

“All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.” — Joseph Conrad

Sexual slavery, corporate collusion to fix wages and prices, legislative corruption and oppression, judicial malfeasance and more corruption, governmental incompetence, religious repression and collusion with politicians, all serve the purposes of the ruling class to a T, no matter how much suffering it causes to others…. As long as they have what they want, nothing anyone else says or does matters at all….

I hate to be a harbinger of bad news, but, I call ’em as I see ’em, and I see what is real…. None of what is wrong in the world will change, until the major portion of mankind makes a change of spirit, and the people, as a whole, decide that the few among us who are bold enough to act must, in fact, act. The evil among us will not go away, or stop, of its own accord, and waiting for them to come around to a more amenable state of mind isn’t going to work, as that just isn’t going to happen.

If we wish to survive, they have to go, and mankind must find a new way to get along with each other than the out-dated ways we have been trying for millennia… Those old ways leave too much power in the hands of people who will give in to the temptation that goes along with such power over others, and must not be allowed to happen any more, not if we wish to survive to see any future at all….. The universe doesn’t care one way or another, so we’ll have to be responsible for our own actions…. as we have always been, and have always been afraid to admit….

“If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will not produce food either.” — Joseph Wood Krutch
__________________________________

After a rant, I sometimes NEED some Emily to balance the scales, so to speak… call me Ishmael, or call me crazy, I don’t care…. Any who, here is some Emily that just seemed appropriate, or, if naught else, appealed to my disturbed sensibilities…..

It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,–
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And ‘t was like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.

But most like chaos,–stopless, cool,–
Without a chance or spar,–
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.

~~ Emily Dickinson
__________________________________

Since I’ve ranted, and found an excellent poem, I can relax, sort of, and not feel too guilty if I go with an old-school pearl…. They’re less work, and more fun than a rant, though without certain qualities of emotional release that ranting provides. I’m too close to the issue to make a decision as to whether that is a good thing, or not, so, I won’t…. Instead, I’ll follow mankind’s most common tool for dealing with reality, and ignore it completely….

In the meantime, why don’t you enjoy the following group of pearls, once again chosen randomly, as that seems to work the best?…… (I know, the ? mark seems out of place, but, if you’ll look back in the preceding sentence, you will see it IS a query, and the mark is appropriately placed, if a bit awkward…. So says the grammar nazi who hangs out in my head…..)

“Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.” — Walt Kelly, Potluck Pogo

“We accept every person in the world as that for which he gives himself out, only he must give himself out for something. We can put up with the unpleasant more easily than we can endure the insignificant.” — Goethe, Elective

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” — Aristotle (384-322BC)

“The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.” — Euripides

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

” Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing?   What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you? If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that.” — Epictetus

“It is inconceivable that a judicious observer from another solar system would see in our species — which has tended to be cruel, destructive, wasteful, and irrational — the crown and apex of cosmic evolution. Viewing us as the culmination of *anything* is grotesque; viewing us as a transitional species makes more sense — and gives us more hope.” — Betty McCollister, “Our Transitional Species”, — Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1
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Well, it’s about damn time…. that’s better…. Today’s Pearl was brought to you by a special effort, due entirely to my own sense of honor, and how to keep it….. It probably won’t win a Pulitzer, nor will it make me rich; it does, however, please me, and that will do…. I’m not going to tempt Fate any further today, and so, I bid thee adieu until tomorrow….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

Rebates are better than debates….

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2

Ffolkes,
Pitiful….. just plain pitiful. Maybe, pathetic would fit better? I suppose both, or either, will do…. Hmm? Oh, sorry, forgot y’all were due in now…. Oh, nothing much, just trying to come up with the right adjective to describe my social life…. I do have a lady friend, with whom I have been spending some pleasant hours, but it’s a slow process, carrying out a campaign of courtship with virtually no funds that can be assigned to recreational purposes. Other than the small number of hours I spend with her, I’m pretty much limited to my trips to the library for my social interactions….. Not exactly party central around here, is it?…..

S’okay…. I never was a big partier, anyway…. I always preferred just a few folks sitting around shooting the breeze and imbibing adult beverages, or other recreational pastimes that shall remain unnamed, due to the statute of limitations, which has NOT expired….  🙄  Let’s just say I wasn’t what might be called mainstream, not that I ever have been…. But, clubs and big crowds were never on the list of stuff I enjoyed a lot…. Thankfully. I never saw much sense in the group scenes that were prevalent in my youth; it all seemed to me to be the same impulse as getting excited over celebrities, and I just wasn’t going there….

What does all this boring shit have to do with a Pearl of Virtual Wisdom? Well, not much, really, other than the physical facts, i.e., here it is, sitting here at the front of this post, taking up space that could have been filled with biting sarcasm, or thrilling inspiration, or even a compelling poem. Instead, all you’re getting this morning is a chatty, boring discussion of my social history…. whoopee….

I know, I know, now you’re wondering what I intend to do from this point on…. which, if you will stop to think about it, is a rather silly question, considering of whom it is being asked….. Do you think you’ll get a straight answer to that query? If you do, you haven’t been paying very close attention…. and you will deserve whatever happens. Those of you familiar with my style will know by now that all of this is just a smoke screen, covering my retreat from reality, until I can consume enough coffee to ensure that I won’t kill anybody in the first hour after arising….. It’s not a guaranteed outcome, but, it’s better than the alternative, which involves a lot of screaming, and more blood than is convenient….

And, there, see?…. Here we are, five dumb paragraphs in, and it’s enough to call an intro! Well, we can call it that, as it is big enough; whether or not it meets ANY of the other parameters for such is questionable, to say the least. But, given the issues I’ve been encountering in getting these intro sections done, I’m not going to be overly picky. Especially on a morning like this, when I’m not even sure if I WANT to be awake at all…..

Thus, we will gird our grid, hitch up our belt, gather up our rosebuds, and get on with the show…. I’m sure we’ll all be better for it, and who knows? We might even find something worthwhile in our search for pearls…. If not, we can always drop back ten yards, and punt….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Though I have said above that all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality. Age or virtue may give man a just precedence. Excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level … And yet all this consists with the equality which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion, one over another.” — John Locke

Whew! As an explanation of the opening of the Declaration of Independence, this hits the top of the pomposity scale, but, all in all, is quite clear, and correct in its conclusions. It’s merely a long-winded way of saying that all men are not created with equal abilities or resources, but, they all are created with equal rights under the law…. hopefully. (That last qualifier is my contribution to the idea, prompted by my opinion of most of those involved in the justice system as, shall we say, less than completely honest, and less than completely impartial?) (I mean, really, ffolkes…. we choose our judges from the ranks of LAWYERS!…. How many honest, impartial candidates are we liable to find?…. Not many, I assure you…. it just doesn’t go with the territory….)

“Once I belonged to a group that really had THE WORD.  I fought like hell for them.  But another group came along and exposed the word of my group as shallow and degenerate.  They had a better word.  So I quit the first group and lost all the friends I had made and I joined up with this new group.  I fought like hell for them.  But another group came around.  They exposed the word of my group as false and materialistic.  Their word was very much better.  So I quit the second group and lost all the friends I had made.  And I joined up with this new group.  I fought like hell for them. Till this one guy came along and proved that there wasn’t any word at all. That I should go off as an individual and grow!  So I quit the last group and lost all the friends I had made.  And now I sit home alone all day and all I do is grow.  It would be nice to join up with some others who feel the way I do.” — J. Feiffer

One of the reasons we humans have such a hard time with the concept of equality lies in our own level of ignorance regarding ourselves. There is a delicate balance between what a person thinks of themselves, and what the world knows about them to be true…. If the two are not at least within shouting distance of each other, that person’s life will be filled with pain and controversy, as his own self-image is repeatedly destroyed by reality…. And, our self-image can be a very difficult thing to maintain because, as humans, we need the company and approval of other humans. The paragraph above by Mssr. Feiffer describes very well the philosophical journey that many take while learning to assess their own place in the world…. it’s kind of pathetic, in a way, but typical for all that….

“In my day, we didn’t have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.” — Jane Haddam

This lack of understanding of self is what allows most humans to be controlled by others. The others, by whom I mean the BRC, the priestly hierarchies, and all those with no compunctions about how they go about achieving their own ends, find those who have no self-knowledge quite easy to fool, to convince, and to control. They merely tell them what they wish to hear, no matter how outrageously false it may be, and the blindness of the ignorant will supply all the belief required, because it is what they WANT to hear…..

A man, or a woman, who knows themselves cannot be fooled into that kind of acceptance of anything without compelling evidence; their self-image allows them the confidence to make their own decisions, rather than relying on someone else to do it for them. Because they are honest themselves, they are able to differentiate truth from fiction, and thus cannot be fooled into accepting what they know to be false.

Their own self-honesty acts as a protection of sorts against that sort of manipulation, while at the same time giving them the freedom to exercise the right to make their own choices. Those who do not believe they are strong, are not….. This is why people are not equal, not in abilities; it is also why it is important that the law ensures that they at least are granted equal rights with everyone else… This at least makes an attempt at leveling the playing field, while acknowledging that a great many of the players are going to cheat…..

“For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.” — Ivan Panin

Whenever I look at humanity as a whole, I am often filled with a sadness that comes from my own knowledge of science, sociology, psychology, and extensive experience in Reality. The sadness is because I know how much promise humanity holds, such promise as to make the gods weep in envy of the beauty we are able to create with our imagination…. and I know that our own foolishness is very close to shutting off that promise forever, or at least, for this period of the history of the universe…. I suspect we will have another opportunity to interact with reality, though it may not be this particular version of it….

But, there are just too many of the selfish, unfeeling, manipulative, power-hungry assholes mixed in with all of us relatively nice ffolkes, intent on grabbing all the power and money, which they equate with happiness, that they can during their short stay here. They are, unknowingly, rushing us all to an early death, seemingly, without caring, as they do not believe they are vulnerable to the same dangers as the rest of us…. Ignorance is firmly tied to belief, and even strong evidence does not convince those who will not see it…. All I can say is, it’s a damn shame…..

“The improver of knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties, blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” — Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

Luckily, there are still a few of us out there who don’t buy into the BS that most of society goes along with…. and a great many of us are blogging…. It gives me a bit of hope, though not much; there is a LOT of historical momentum to overcome for anything to change, and I am not aware of it happening, try as I might to see it. But, every time I read more blogs, I see more ffolkes who have a clue, so, I guess I’ll go so far as to cling to that one little hopeful sign, and keep on preaching to the choir…. It’s about all I can do these days to try to help the situation, and little as it may be, I’ll keep on truckin’ down that lonesome road…..

“The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.” — Benjamin Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield) (1805-1881) — Vivian Grey, Book viii, Chap. iv
__________________________________

It’s been awhile, and I feel like some Emily…. here’s a three-fer…. Please enjoy!  (Shawna, you may skip down to the last section, if you wish….  😆   )

I stepped from plank to plank
So slow and cautiously;
The stars about my head I felt,
About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch,–
This gave me that precarious gait
Some call experience.

~~ Emily Dickinson
————————————–

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d advertise — you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

~~ Emily Dickinson
—————————————

I went to heaven,–
‘T was a small town,
Lit with a ruby,
Lathed with down.
Stiller than the fields
At the full dew,
Beautiful as pictures
No man drew.
People like the moth,
Of mechlin, frames,
Duties of gossamer,
And eider names.
Almost contented
I could be
‘Mong such unique
Society.

~~ Emily Dickinson
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Not being inclined to fuss with something that isn’t broken, here for your delectation is a harlequin pearl, fresh from Smart Bee to you, with only the bare minimum of rational thought involved in the selection process…. I find that irrational works better in these cases…. enjoy! Oh, yes, if there does end up being a point, you get a bonus prize for voicing it…. The nature of that prize will remain my secret, until launch hour, er, until such time as I find a winner….  😀   It won’t be on the test, though, so that’s something….

“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.” — Voltaire

“I thoroughly disapprove of duels.  If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us.” — Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

“Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.” — Leo Rosten

“Every day, people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” — Lenny Bruce

“I searched into myself.” — Heraclitus

The cup goes round:
And who so artful as to put it by!
‘T is long since Death had the majority.

— Robert Blair (1699-1747) — The Grave, Part ii, Line 449
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Is it possible to be mindful and detached at once? Well, I guess that’s rhetorical, because it must be; that’s how I feel right now. Let’s see if the Pearl reflects that at all….  Hmm…. not too shabby at all…. I’ll take it. Such being the case, I’m going to break tradition, and leave it at that….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

In the mall of the fountain Ming….

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4

Ffolkes,
Picture, if you will, a man…. his head is bowed, as he sends his thousand-yard stare into the ground, every line of his figure speaking of inner turmoil and emotional pain. He rocks back on his heels, his head flown back, uttering a cry of absolute anguish to the heavens…. “I’m a fucking idiot!” A huge voice comes out of the sky, and says, “I know….”

Now, if you can extend your imagination just a tad further, placing an image of my face on the man…. Yep, that’s me…. the f__ing idiot. (Why hide the curse now? I dunno, just felt like the thing to do…. Leave me alone, I’m writing on instinct here….) Just one more bozo on the bus, without the advantage of the horn or the big shoes…. and not a squirting flower in sight! SIGH…. it’s a sad day, ffolkes, for sure….

What’s all the fuss about, you ask? Who knows?…. No, actually, this is all just putting myself through the wringer for the dumb-ass move I made yesterday…. I was reading the Pearl from yesterday, and noted that my rant spoke to a certain issue, which I glibly described as “global warming and overpopulation”, whereupon, just as if I knew what I was talking about, I proceeded to speak about climate change….

Now, climate change is indeed an issue of note, and it IS connected directly to the issue of global warming… but, neither is directly connected to overpopulation, which was NOT the issue whereof I intended to speak…. Any who, it should have read “global warming and climate change” which is what the POTUS was addressing; overpopulation, while a serious issue, is not the same thing, and should not have been anywhere near the discussion at the time…..

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…. consider that I’ve said that six times, just like the priest would want me to do…. Besides, what can we do now about population control? Hand out more condoms? Doesn’t seem to be working too well at this point, so maybe we should re-think that particular issue, eh?

Well, the intro isn’t the place to worry about that kind of stuff…. though, it has yet to be determined exactly what kind of stuff DOES go into an intro around here… That particular item seems to change its shape every day, as I go through new and exciting (hopefully) formats and scenarios in my search for the ultimate opening. My random approach doesn’t seem very effective in finding same, but, hey, it keeps me off the streets in the morning, so, bonus….

I’m now certain I’ve piddled around long enough to call it a wrap on this intro section, but, even if I weren’t, I’d stop here, as I’m completely out of ideas about where to go with it….. Heading out for the daily dive seems like the best solution all around…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Capt’n! The spellchecker kinna take this abuse!” — Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott

“Dew knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl yore mistakes.” — Brendan Hills
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Smart Bee is having a tough morning, pearl-wise; I can’t seem to find a single worthy quote…. so, I’m going to fall back on my vast repertoire of Past Pearls, which I try not to abuse by using too often. In fact, I think this is only the second time in almost two years I’ve done so…. Any who, this particular pearl is a tough one… I wrote it last July, on the third of that month, and it remains as valid today as it was then…. Perhaps more so, as the situation has changed not at all, nor will it, until people start to realize the extent of the problem…. I won’t say “enjoy”, as you won’t…. I will say, “listen up, please”…..

“I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.” — Chang-tzu, Taoist

So, as it turns out, I am a coward. What I mean by that is, when it comes to emotional pain, I will go through all sorts of contortions to avoid it. I will distract myself, I’ll deny, I’ll forget…. all time-tested methods of putting something unpleasant aside. I can say in my own defense that a) I’ve already experienced enough turmoil in my life, and don’t need more, and b) I have yet to start lying to myself about being a coward in this area…..

How does the butterfly koan apply? That’s for me to know, and you to figure out…. No, really, sorry, I didn’t mean that, just fooling around. It applies because the world exists in duality; we perceive that universe by defining and evaluating those dualities according to their relation to each other (light/dark, etc.) as well as according to our own preconceptions and/or preferences. Sometimes what we perceive is clear and readily defined, while at other times, one can make no “heads or tails” of what we see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. And sometimes, the perceptions are just so powerful that we cannot easily deal with what we are perceiving, so we retreat from them. Or I do, anyway….

Now, my cowardice in this respect is, perhaps, justifiable. I put myself through a lot of hard times during certain periods in my life, and the emotional toll was heavy. I am now more in balance, but the feelings and thoughts I had can come back in full force, at unexpected moments… Such is the case when I read about the sex trade, and think about how many of my sisters in the world are still being abused, physically and mentally, by the misogynistic assholes that perpetrate the atrocities so prevalent in that trade.

I have previously re-blogged several articles from blog sites written by women who have survived, and left, the sex trade. The stories they tell, and the insights they have come to have, are incredibly powerful, and wrenching to the emotions. It is a rare thing for me to be able to stop myself from crying after reading the first paragraph, and it can take me ten minutes to read a two page article, as I have to stop and compose myself before returning to the story being related. I am always astounded by the strength of mind it took for them to get where they are, and I grieve for the pain and misery they still must contend with, as survivors of Hell, burdened with PTSD (my old friend….).

Reading their stories also has the effect on me of wanting to buy a gun, and start eliminating some of the traffickers from the planet. This urge arises out of my anger and guilt, for it is males who perpetrate the  atrocities, and I am ashamed of how low others of my gender can sink. But, alas, until I CAN afford to buy one, that little dream will have to wait…..

All I can do is to try to make people aware of the extent of the problem, by directing them to the stories told by the women who have lived through that Hell, with re-blogs and pearls such as this one. That is why I say I’ve been a coward, because my mind cravenly hid the awareness that connects to the outrage I feel when I get started on this issue, not being brave enough to put my emotions up on that higher level….and used the technical glitch I’ve been having with WordPress as an excuse (I’m currently unable to connect to any other WP sites if I’m signed in… I just get sent to a blank page while the browser falls into an infinite loop….).

Hence this somewhat dispassionate discussion of the issue. I’ve managed to get through this without bursting into tears, so I’ll consider myself lucky, and make myself a promise to re-blog for them as soon as I can get there to do so…. and I’ll not let myself chicken out…. This is an issue that will not go away; we men will never be free until we free our sisters from this bondage….

To read some of these articles yourself, use the WordPress search function to find these three sites, by blog titles….  Diary of A Dublin Call Girl; rmott62- Are We Not Human?; and Stella Mar, a Manhattan Call Girl…. All three have powerful messages that need to be spread around the planet….
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For some reason, this just seemed to fit…. not that I have any intent of checking out of this hotel anytime soon…. But, it kind of goes along with the other material…. It’s a bit long, but I know that won’t scare any of MY readers…. Any who, please enjoy a bit of the classics….

A Poet’s Epitaph

Art thou a Statist in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
–First learn to love one living man;
‘Then’ may’st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou?–draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff?
Welcome!–but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant’s staff.

Physician art thou? one, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanise
Upon his mother’s grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside,–and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears;
Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,–
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.

–Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.

~~ William Wordsworth
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In keeping with today’s theme, I’m re-printing here  a pearl, part of a five-section pearl, from when I was even more prolific than now. This one is from a Pearl I posted on March 24, 2012…. It’s got a little bit of everything in it…. enjoy!

Here are a few historical observations on our preferred form of public entertainment……

“Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.” — Plato, The Republic. Book VIII. 558

“Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.” — Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium CIV, c. 63

“Termiter’s argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwilling to risk offending God’s grandmother.” — Len Cool, American Pie
(Okay, it’s not political, but, hey, funny, right?….) (and kind of appropriate, if I stop to think about it…..)
(kind of sounds similar to the current controversy over creationism and evolution….)

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence the act of the whole American people  which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” — Thomas Jefferson, to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association in 1802
(Whoops! How’d he get in here?….)

Man is a religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion – several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight.” — Mark Twain — The Damned Human Race
(Okay, okay…. busted!  Religion and politics seem to have merged in my mind this morning…. funny how that happens…. but it still fits the category, so, deal….)

and, on a final note, let’s combine the two previously revealed (reviled?) culprits in one fine, almost-a-limerick plea for mercy….

Dear Lord, observe this bended knee
This visage meek and humble,
And hear this confidential plea
Voiced in reverent mumble:
Give me Shylock, give me Fagin
But O God spare me Ronald Reagan!

— Ansel Adams

If God is omnipotent, why does he need my money?  (Sorry, couldn’t resist…. I’m done for now…..)

See? Not everything from the past is old and grey and useless…. sometimes it’s new, black and white, and useless….
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So, you may have noted that today’s Pearl contained very little new material…. This is due to necessity, which dictates I take a trip to Kaiser this morning, so, I opted to produce a Pearl out of the past, since I’ve got so much material, not even I have any idea just how much there is to choose from… but, it’s a LOT!

So, to save some time, I raided the past…. Deal with it, is all I can suggest…. As I look back over what I’ve done today, I find it hangs together pretty well…. I’m keeping it, as it fits my needs perfectly…. As we are all humans here, you will naturally expect me to act in a self-serving manner, so, it won’t surprise you to be escorted out briskly, now that I’m done with you…. See ya….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3