Telltale signs of cultural decay…..

Posted on August 2, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Even gilt-edged party favors won’t help this time; these puppies are too close to being finished, and we can’t take the chance of having to start over again. But, then, it isn’t my responsibility to prepare ALL of the correct devices for service, only those in the alternate parlor. The rest are supposed to be taken care of by the out-sourced service teams, and I won’t have my crew all lost and depressed over a couple of distressed O-rings and a corrupted file….

There, I told them, didn’t I? Maybe someday, my brain will let me know what that was all about, but, until then, we’d best get on with this; I’ve got a lot to do today out in the BBR, and getting this posted first is fairly critical, to my sense of order, if nothing else…. Actually, I should just fake it today, and go with stuff from the archives, because I don’t think I have time to be fresh…. So, that’s what we’ll do…. Not only that, but we’ll cut this intro section short, as well, and just go right into the regular program…. I hope it doesn’t upset anyone’s applecart, but, sometimes, we just have to alter reality to suit the needs of the day….

Shall we Pearl?….
_____________________________

I haven’t ranted in several days, so here is a (sort-of) rant from February of this year…..

“I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle it’s much too confining.” — Lily Tomlin

This is one of many statements of its type, some from Miss Lily, some from other comedians and social philosophers, all of whom are special to me…. They are special because they poke fun at society in the mildest way, but with clarity that is belied by their apparent simplicity and obvious humor. It is easy for a lot of folks to dismiss little gems like this, as being unimportant, or less than serious, just because it speaks with tongue in cheek… Nothing could be further from the truth, as this statement is absolute gospel to a large percentage of the adult population of this country….

“Reality is for those people who can’t handle drugs.” — George Carlin
(My attribution here might be incorrect, but, George inspired the line, if he didn’t write it himself….)

This quote is another line from the revolution that happened back in the 60’s and 70’s, and it points up a very definitive difference between those folks who spend their time in the mainstream of society, and those who exist at the extremes, in this case, in what is generally conceived to be on the Left end of the scale…. Those who inhabit the other end of the political spectrum tend to rely on alcohol to blunt the effects of Reality on the brain, rather than what are dismissed by them as recreational drugs, such as marijuana, psilocybin, mescaline, etc. In some ways, you can get a good idea of the philosophies themselves by looking at how they approach the subject of drugs and alcohol, and by the differing methods of enhancing life with them….

Those who rely on alcohol are those who prefer to NOT know the truth, about anything. It seems to me that the physical effects of alcohol parallel exactly the way these folks look at life…. When under the influence of alcohol, one’s senses are depressed, and it is much harder to see the truth than at other times…. and that is the way they like it…. With consumption of alcohol, the hearing decreases, judgment is impaired, vision blurs, sense of touch is lessened, and fine muscle control is compromised, pretty much in that order of occurrence. It is the same each time, but with continued regular consumption, a certain tolerance is developed, a tolerance that slightly mitigates the effects, but certainly does not keep them from happening.

Those who use drugs to enhance or adjust their view don’t deny the truth, but they want it to be all prettied up for them in some way, so it isn’t so harsh and ugly…. Most of the effects of the drugs are in the mind, with some notable exceptions; the perceptions of all the senses are not depressed, but altered in some way, usually personal to the user, in physical response to the chemical in the drug that causes the cognitive alterations. Either way, whether with drugs, or with alcohol, perception of the truth is what ultimately suffers, which is what the proponents of both ends of the spectrum tend to forget, or deny….

“Have you ever wondered if taxation without representation was cheaper?” — Smart Bee

I have…. It is and it isn’t, and we are witnessing that phenomenon right now….. This may be why many people have such a hard time with reality; when one becomes aware of just how screwed up things are, and how much lying, cheating, and stealing is going on right before our eyes, it is rather daunting to take in all at once, so people do as they’ve always done, and slip into massive denial of the truth, preferring to just ignore the evidence that is slapping them upside the head…. One time, I actually sat down to do the math on the above question, and what I found was surprising…. Neither way works…. There just isn’t any logical way to govern people, and make it either profitable, or even reasonably cheap…. Well, not as long as the lying, cheating, and stealing is part of the equation, anyway….

“The word “dog” does not bite,” — William James

Boy, if that isn’t the truth…. but, try to convince the general public of that….. It is one of the basic issues to be considered when speaking to the public, one that the BRC and PTB members all know very well, as it is their chief weapon in controlling the populace…. Most folks don’t think…. when they do, it causes them pain, so they tend to let someone else do it for them, and just go along in blissful ignorance, accepting whatever they’re told without a clue. They never consider that the word itself is not the thing it describes; even worse, they don’t care to know….. It is the simplest thing in the world for the Beloved Ruling Class to fool the public, because they actively participate, with apparent glee, in their own debasement….

“As a matter of cold fact, a lot of people have no use for you because they can’t use you.” — Smart Bee

Sometimes, I’m not sure which disgusts me more…. the callous disregard for others that is the defining characteristic of all politicians and preachers, or the deliberately blind, fawning ignorance of those who refuse to become fully human, use their minds, and take responsibility for their own life…. To my way of thinking, both are deserving of every bit of trouble that reality can give them, just for their intransigence…. otherwise known as rampant stubbornness, or more simply, massive stupidity….

I’m being deliberately offensive this morning, as I’m sick and tired of how the general public refuses to wake up and smell the gunpowder, and I don’t really care if it hurts someone’s feelings. Anyone who disagrees with my assessment is free to offer up their own take on the matter, and I’ll give it equal time for discussion…. but, if what I’ve said hurts feelings, then apparently what I’ve said strikes just a little too close to the truth for comfort, and I would suggest that the person take a look at that before setting themselves up for embarrassment, by trying to argue without a leg upon which to stand….

In the past year and a half, I’ve written thousands and thousands of words trying to wake people up to how much they are giving away by refusing to think. It is my greatest hope that what I have to say may have some small effect on the world, an effect that might in some way contribute to our chances of surviving our own foolishness. I’m afraid my hope is, sadly, rather slim, but, I’m not ready to quit my campaign, nor to change tactics. I’ll keep on poking at the BRC, and the priestly hierarchies, and every other enemy of mankind (for that is how I see them….) for as long as I can, and hope for the best….

“One of the greatest advantages in the world is enjoyed by the person who says and insists that they are telling the truth, when in fact, they are telling the truth.” — Smart Bee
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I’ve stroked my ego enough today, by reprinting old rants and pearls from previous posts, so for our poetry today, we’ll go with the true genius I know can be found in this woman’s work….

A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem

I’m through with this grand looking-glass hotel
where adjectives play croquet with flamingo nouns;
methinks I shall absent me for a while
from rhetoric of these rococo queens.
Item : chuck out royal rigmarole of props
and auction off each rare white-rabbit verb;
send my muse Alice packing with gaudy scraps
of mushroom simile and gryphon garb.

My native sleight-of-hand is wearing out :
mad hatter’s hat yields no new metaphor,
and jabberwock will not translate his songs :
it’s time to vanish like the cheshire cat
alone to that authentic island where
cabbages are cabbages; kings : kings.

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

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Here is another pearl from the archives, again from February of this year…. not quite as long, but, it’s an old-school style pearl, so it is saved by its own grace….

“The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.” — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was a fascinating fellow…. His published words are usually considered to define him, as free-thinking, intelligent, and altruistic, in addition to his passion for politics. His private self was, by all accounts, sometimes less admirable, as he was prone to an aristocratic indifference that did not appear in his public persona. But, whatever his faults, he was, above all, a true Patriot of this country, and not only passionate in his defense of it, but eloquent in both the justification for its existence, and in defining its underlying principles.

He showed in his writings, both public and private, a clear understanding of how our country could prosper in the future, as well as the problems it could encounter from agencies in the world that wished to see it fail, or at least struggle to maintain the independence of its citizenry. He was one of the first to point out the danger that banks and corporations pose to the workings of Congress and the government, by their willingness to bribe and pay off whomever they could, to give themselves an edge in the making of the laws (an event that, almost unarguably, took place the first time during the Constitutional Convention itself… I have no doubt the bankers were very involved in trying to influence that body’s results, and spreading money around to do so…. Fortunately, they were largely unsuccessful, at first….)

Since I’ve already ranted once today about the BRC and their clandestine efforts to control reality, I’ll limit myself, and try to avoid repetition, by going old school from this point…. Here are some of Jefferson’s quotations on different subjects, all of which together give an idea of the range of his thoughts, and the depth of his insight….

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) — Declaration of Independence (A document heavily influenced by George Mason, a fellow patriot, taken almost verbatim from similar documents written by Mason, for the state in which he lived….)

“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.” — Thomas Jefferson, Writings

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.” — Thomas Jefferson

“…this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.” — John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter To Francis Hopkinson, Paris Mar. 13, 1789

“The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”― Thomas Jefferson
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Well, cheat, or no cheat, it serves its purpose, and all without a single whine for mommy…. I won’t comment on the relative degree of humanity implied by that, if you won’t either….. Let’s see if it hangs together well enough to suit our needs…. Okay, not bad, not bad at all…. Not fresh, but not rotten, either; we’ll go with it (like I’m going to stop now…. sheesh…. get a grip, Ned….) I have a feeling I’d do well to make my escape now, so…. 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

Filled with fanatical fervor for fennel cakes….

Posted on August 1, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“The attacker must vanquish; the defender need only survive.” I had forgotten this lesson, until today, when Smart Bee remembered it for me. It’s one I learned a long time ago, first learning to use it in a physical sense, then later hearing it spoken aloud, and explored as a concept one may use to form strategy and/or tactics, and ultimately, use to deal with real issues in life. I’m not sure, but it probably originated in The Art of War, the classic tome by Sun Tzu, that is still used today in military colleges all over the world, as the primer in that subject, the basic knowledge that all warriors need to understand. It is also an idea that many writers could use to make life easier, should they choose to observe it in their work….

I’ve been approaching this whole writing thing with a bass-ackwards POV, assuming that certain standards needed to be met, in order to consider myself successful. In point of fact, nothing of the sort is true, and following that path only leads to ultimate frustration, as one’s needs and desires bump up against Reality, always a sure-fire clusterfuck.

In Reality, standards only exist for the convenience of the natives; they don’t really apply to the real world at all, as the parameters for that are completely flexible, and change all the damn time. Reality doesn’t CARE, you see, only we do, so we try to place our own hang-ups, our neurotic need for some kind of understandable order, onto Reality’s shoulders, whereupon it just shrugs it off, every time….

The truth of the matter is that all I need to do is please myself, and not worry about the rest of it….. The purpose behind my performing this exercise is to maintain some semblance of sanity…. I’ve found that if I DON’T get this stuff out of my head, it tends to cause problems for me, and ultimately, for everyone else with whom I come into contact.

I am afraid that if I didn’t get it out of there, it could eventually creep out into the real world, and start affecting the parameters of the space-time continuum, with unpredictable, but most likely bad, results for everyone. Sudden shifts in how space and time operate are not particularly welcomed with glee by most of this universe’s inhabitants; they tend to get annoyed, once they’ve stopped screaming in abject terror….

As you might guess, I don’t want that to happen, so, I try to get all this out of my brain every day, lest bad stuff occur… it’s just better for everyone if I do…. Yep, that’s me all over…. altruistic and generously compassionate. See, it says so, right here on the label….. If you can buy into that, I’d like to speak to you later about an investment opportunity, just for you, with no risk attached…. Bring cash, okay?….

Since I’ve made this decision, which, essentially says that I can do whatever I damn well please, I feel a lot better, understandably. It takes a lot of pressure off to know that one needn’t give a shit about anything anyone thinks, or anything anyone can do; quite liberating, you know? I’m not sure as to how that will translate into the pearls, but, hey, any changes are good, as we say around here…. Besides, how could it get worse? Here now, stop that snickering, and be nice….

Shall we Pearl?….
_____________________________

These days, the urge to rant is almost constant…. the primary stimulant is always a news headline, and is always out there somewhere, on the net, the radio, the TV, or in a newspaper, for me to find. I seldom need to even read the articles behind the headlines, as the irony comes clear quite well without doing so, and reading the entire set of lies that the pundits are trying to sell us just makes me more angry, which can make the rant more vicious.

No, there isn’t any difficulty in finding rantable material, the issue I’m having is in the motivation to do so, which seems to be waning a bit, leaving me feeling lazy…. It’s waning, I know, because my overall life is making me happier than it has in a long time, so it’s not as if I want that to change; that would be downright stupid.

It does make for less compelling Pearls, though, even though I think they are best when they’re a bit obscure. I was always taught that obscurity, used in this fashion, makes people work their minds harder, and that’s always a good thing, so that’s what I do…. Ranting is for ME, to get that angst out of my head….. creating old-school pearls is done with the reader in mind, to entertain and challenge, hopefully mixing in a bit of humorous irony, just for flavor (it’s the chef in me…. gotta feed people, even if only their heads….).

What I’m winding up to say here is that once again, we’ll go with an old-school pearl in this section today, because I’m not going to rant, having decided to leave that off today’s menu, as explained, in no doubt excessive length, above…. So, sit on back, relax, and limber up the old gray cells, ’cause this pearl’s for you!….

“Your knowledge would be useless without my ignorance!” — gigoid (Just kidding, found it in Smart Bee…. but, I could have said it!….)

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.” — Maya Angelou

“Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.” — Will Cuppy

“The Golden Rule is of no use to you whatever unless you realize it is your move.” — Frank Crane

“He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His sister’s husband’s niece.
‘Unless you leave this house,’ he said,
‘I’ll send for the Police!'”

— Lewis Carroll, “Sylvie and Bruno”

There! If that isn’t inscrutable enough for you, you’ll have to look elsewhere for your curly fries…. Oh, hell, okay…. Here’s a couple more, just so nobody can complain about not getting enough information to work with….

“We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth.- There is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will spread out before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows, will stay in our presence forever.” — Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

“A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one’s life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.” — George Santayana

Okay, if THAT isn’t enough, it’s simply too bad, because these two, in conjunction with the other five, make up a damn good set of directions for enlightenment, for those who care to follow it to its logical end…. Never tell me I never give anything away for free….
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In keeping with today’s theme of altered parameters and distorted paradigm, I give you a poem of mine, one that I’m quite proud of, all in all, and seemed to fit in to today’s theme… or not, but, hey, it’s at least got a good message of its own….

Off the proverbial cuff….

I never meant to kill that period of time,
it didn’t give me any choice.
It tried to hem me in without reason, or rhyme,
refused me any vote, or any voice.

You have to admit, I buried it deep and fast,
just as if I cared.
I knew, though, it would never last,
or ever be fully repaired.

No news, no pictures can bring it back,
once is all we get.
No pleas of public good, or even public lack;
in stone the past is set.

Futuristic visions now occupy my dreams,
I’m ready to go on.
Look! It fills up the screen, and it gleams!
Where’s the moment I’m sitting on?

Now, I remembered, at long, long last,
is all we really can hold.
Every moment goes by so bloody fast,
we’d best fill them all with beauty, warm and bold.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

“.. I see TOILET SEATS…” — Zippy the Pinhead

More often than not, Zippy seems to show up either as the opening pearl for a group, or as the concluding pearl. He often ends up in the middle of a group, too, probably more often than anybody but Smart Bee, whose only limiting factor is whether or not Google can find out who originated an unattributed quote….

The above, for some unknown reason, (and, no, I don’t want to know….), just reached out and grabbed me, saying, “Use ME!”, and I thought to myself, “Why not?”…… I’m pretty easy about that sort of thing, as you’ve seen….. Any who, what this means is another old-school pearl, as this is just too broad a statement to use for a rant….

I suppose it could conceivably be translated into an unusual sort of metaphor for society, or the mountains of knowledge (I can see them now, forests of toilet seats, reaching off into the distance as far as the eye can see from the top of the mountain….), but, even I have my limits, thankfully. NO, instead we’ll just let SB, and Zippy, figure out what they want said, and pick out the quotes that will shine the light on that path…. I hope….

“A hard beginning maketh a good ending.” — John Heywood (c. 1565) — Proverbes, Part i, Chap. iv

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.” — Albert Einstein

“To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be, not a virtue, but the groundwork of a virtue.” — Johnson

“Freedom is meaningless unless you can give to those with whom you disagree.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” — Albert Einstein

“Muddy water let stand becomes clear.” — Lao Tse

“I’m mentally OVERDRAWN! What’s that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where’s ROD STERLING when you really need him?” — Zippy the Pinhead

Okay, pay attention, please…. Back away from the screen, and carefully put down the mouse… We ended up in a place where the slightest wrong movement could produce a head-bomb of such destructive power, it could wipe out years of preconceived notions, a circumstance for which my insurance is not nearly extensive enough, neither to cover any damages that would ensue, nor provide any needed therapy in the coming years, should someone make a mistake….

There, all safe now… Sorry, didn’t expect that, but, that’s what happens sometimes when I let Zippy have his way. I think that’s probably enough fun for one day….
_____________________________

I happen to agree…. that’s probably enough for one day, fun or not….. Let’s check it out for typos and inconsistencies…. well, typos, anyway….

I’m forced to admit, some days it just comes out better than others…. Some day, I’ll figure out how to make that true for every day. For now, though, this will do quite nicely, and right on time, too! Sans further folderol….. 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

Remnants of hauntingly bad melodies….

Posted on July 31, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I believe I’m suffering a universal page fault in my brain…. I’m not entirely sure exactly what that is, but, I know when I see it on my computer screen, it’s a bad thing, and that’s what we have here, for sure and for certain….. a bad thing. Not unusual, not surprising, but bad…. Still, my heart beats in my chest, and my breath continues to go in and out of my lungs, so, I suppose I’d best get on with this….

I’m burnt…. baked, fried, sautéed, grilled, whichever method you choose, I’m way overdone….. I know it. The symptoms have been obvious for days now, but, I’ve been unwilling to admit it, or them, because I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t write…. Talk about diffuse anxiety! This is more of a specific anxiety, actually, one that strikes every time I suffer one of these burn-out periods…. Not only is my brain having a hard time deciding what to write about (which, if you stop to think about it, is nothing new….), but, actively resists making the choice, knowing that it will have to try to fulfill whatever it is I’ve come up with, one way or another… Of late, it seems to have been more another, than it has been one way…

Whatever THAT means…. I guess my vaulting ambition, to write more and better, has finally reached an end point, and my creativity, such as it is, is in active rebellion, at having to come up with yet another set of outstanding verses and/or phrases, to whet your appetite for more…. I am having a hard time finding the angst and outrage I need to rant, and my sleep patterns are getting so regular, my brain is getting fuzzy from sleeping so much (which really is NOT a complaint, just an observation…. better to sleep too much than too little, for sure….) In the past nearly three years, I’ve written so much that I may have inadvertently emptied out my bucket of creative ideas, before it has had a chance to refill from the well…..

This blankness in my head obviously doesn’t stop me from writing about nothing much; that seems to have been a skill I’ve perfected, or at least, gotten adept at using…. observe, if you will, these three-plus paragraphs of meandering blather, which has just poured out, once the subject, or, in this case, the lack thereof, was decided upon. I don’t seem to have a problem writing, once I know what I’m writing about…. it’s the figuring out part that is getting harder all the time. I’ve used, and re-used, and used again, every subject known to man, and a few he’d rather forget. My ranting seems to be getting to the point where everything I write sounds familiar, with good reason, as I’ve said it all before….

This is why you’ve seen more old-school pearls lately…. Old-school pearls, by the nature of their construction process, are always relatively fresh. The subjects chosen are often self-directed, in that I have no plan ahead of time about which quotes I will choose, only a vague idea of an area of study to head for, in a general way. The software program I use, Smart Bee, is random enough that every time is different, and the only difficult part is not repeating oneself in terms of those quotes that are chosen, which is fairly simple for someone with a good memory, such as myself…. In essence, pearls of virtual wisdom are easy money, for a writer; the process resembles walking down the beach and picking out the prettiest sea shells to take home….

Ah well, another intro spent wandering around the back corridors of my mind, looking at the artwork and wondering at the massive spaces filled with nothing much…. much like these paragraphs…. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about my burn-out, but, it is all moot, because my internet service company has gone belly up, thanks to one of the telecom giants hogging resources (long story), and I’ll be losing my internet service at home for a time…. I’m not sure if I will keep posting daily, or not…. we’ll have to see. But, if you don’t see a post for several days, hang in there, I will return eventually… It may not be until after my upcoming move to another house, but, I will be back, hopefully with new resolve, and new material….

Shall we Pearl, while we can?…..
_____________________________

Random, old-school, harlequin pearl…. the best kind….

“The day is the same length as anything that is the same length as it.” — Lewis Carroll

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

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

“We find it hard to believe that other people’s thoughts are as silly as our own.” — James Harvey Robinson

HUMAN — The human being either evolved from the biologically very similar ape, or was created along with the rest of the world in a six-day creative spurt by an anonymous god. The human body is a wonderful thing. Well, most of them are. Humans have one mouth and a limited number of genitals, which is probably just as well. — Daniel Bowen’s TOXIC CUSTARPEDIA

“Intelligence has much less practical application than you’d think.” — Scott Adams, Dilbert.

“Nothing can be created from nothing.” Lucretius (55 BC)

“A man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a Common Enemy.” — Lord Halifax

As advertised, the best kind…. It took a bit longer than I planned on, but, this came out very well, and, to my way of looking at things, it even came out less obscure than is commonly true… Well, it’s clear to me, anyway, and hopefully, if you let it percolate, it will become clear to you as well…. If not, well, hmm… too bad?…..
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“Universe: All-purpose poem.” — Ray Hand

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkn’d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

~~ John Keats ~~

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I figure, since I’m being somewhat obfuscatory today, I’d cheat a little, and go with an old school pearl from the archives…. this one is from the old days, when I was still employed by the State of California, and sent these morning pearls out to about 300 or so of my peers, for their daily, morning dose of reality, right there in their inbox each day…. This one is apparently from somewhere around 2008….

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, our’s 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…..
_____________________________

Considering the relative rush job this Pearl constitutes, I’m impressed. It’s a bit choppy, but hangs together pretty well, for something I cobbled together in about 90 minutes time. What I related regarding my internet connection was truth, so this may be my last post, until I figure out what I’ll do about service, since I’ll be moving in about 31 days… oh, joy…. Any who, for now, this will do, even if not Pulitzer material…. 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

Diligently dancing, despite the incandescent horror…

Posted on July 30, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Shadows danced over the walls, cast by flames from the logs flickering in the ancient hearth. Savory smells of onions and meat filled the air, as the stew simmered in the pot hanging over the fire, stirred slowly by the old woman in a tattered, grey dress. Though she had lived alone for many years, she showed no surprise at the loud knock on the wooden door, only shrugging her bony shoulders as she walked across to open it. Wind and snow blew in the door, pushing into the room a huge, heavily bearded man, in grimy buckskins, carrying a long, evil rifle, and a large pack on his back.

Following the giant into the single room of the old cabin, a dire-wolf, all black, large as a small pony, eyes gleaming with intelligent ferocity, stopped in the doorway to peer behind him, into the darkness, then trotted through the door, sinking to the floor in front of the fire with a weary sigh. The wolf, glancing at the old woman, spoke, in a wheezing, gravely voice, asking, “Will they attack tonight?”……

Whoa, wait a minute, there, big fella…. attack? Where did that come from?…. Oh, hi there… and good morning. I thought I’d try my hand at another fictional opening to a story, and, all in all, I think it came out fairly well, though I have no idea from what odd corner of my brain the last line emerged. It kind of fits, though, don’t you think? I mean, it did throw in a swift change of direction, which I always find to be an interesting plot device; it always snags my attention when I read something that surprises me like that…. But, once again, it’s a story I’m not going to pursue, at least not now…. too many pearls to find and share, don’t y’know?….

Of course, this assumes there is anyone out there to read these epics, and that is not, it seems, necessarily true. It doesn’t matter, though, as I have to get this stuff out of my head, or it makes me even crazier than I already am, and that is NOT a good thing. In fact, it can get downright ugly…. and none of us wants that so early in the day, no matter what the weather is like….. The weather has been even crazier than I am lately; the naysayers who claim that global warming is a myth are being proven wrong, definitively, and completely, by the strangeness of the weather patterns, or rather, broken weather patterns, that we have been experiencing in the last month or two…..

Alaska, when we cruised there, was warm, more so than usual, according to the locals, while down here in northern California, it was sweltering, in late May, and early June… Now, for this entire month of July, the weather has been cloudy, windy, and often chilly, causing people to dress in layers as if it were the middle of winter. For the entire month, we’ve had temperatures in the 70’s, with only a couple of days of more heat than that…. People, this is JULY, in CALIFORNIA. It is ALWAYS HOT IN JULY in California…. at least, that has been my experience over the last 60 some years…. Summers are supposed to be hot, with the weather pattens in July, August, and often September, frequently climbing to temperatures in triple digits for days on end. It is almost as if we had moved north about a thousand miles, into a different climate category, due to our location in relation to the equator….

Ah well, I could go on for quite a while, cataloging all the strange new weather the world is seeing, now that the temperature of the oceans, and the planet as a whole, is rising. We, as people, aren’t doing anything that will cause that to stop anytime soon, so, we may as well get used to not knowing what the weather is going to do next…. Its’ kind of ironic, that just at that point in our history when we are finally able to predict the weather with some small degree of accuracy, we mess up our own base of knowledge by changing the rules, causing the weather to become unpredictable by any means…. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!….

If I did go on though, y’all would accuse me of ranting in the intro again, and you’d be right in that. Rather than go through all that again, we’ll just dive in, and start the search for some pearls for today’s effort….. Besides, everybody always talks about the weather, but nobody ever DOES anything about it, at least not in a positive sense… For now, I think we should let this die an unnatural death, and get on with it…..

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

Here is an example of why I pearl…. The following seven quotes were searched out with absolutely no pre-planning. I had nothing in mind when I started, and was willing to take whatever Smart Bee came up with. What I got, obviously, was an example of Smart Bee showing off, because these quotes just fell through the cracks in my mind, to formulate a precís, a summary, as it were, of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous Essay on Self-Reliance, only without all the torturous twists and turns his words built into the path to wisdom… Just let your mind float, read these, and voilá, illumination!….. Enjoy!….

“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“That’s the effect of living backwards: it always makes one a little giddy at first, but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both
ways.” — Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”

“I count religion but a childish toy … there is no sin but ignorance.” — Christopher Marlowe

“Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA?” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.” — Laurens Van der Post, The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Krishnamurti

“Thus it is said that one who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements.” — Sun Tzu

I rest my case….
_____________________________

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” — G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

This observation, fortunately, includes myself…. as will be seen by the following two poems of mine. The haiku was written during the poetry challenge earlier this year, in April; the other is from sometime in 2012…..

Haiku II

An inner light glows
shining out of open eyes;
madness or wisdom?

~~ gigoid ~~

Raging at Aging

As old as you feel, we are told, is old as you are,
custom assures such vision will carry us far.
Reality begs to differ, may it be so bold
it is really quite painful, and very, very cold.

The power and strength felt in our halcyon youth
desert us with age, yet another unwelcome truth.
Irony rules our time here on this bountiful earth
as we reflect the changes over time since our birth.

As physical powers fade from this fragile shell,
we learn our mind can serve us quite as well.
The strength that once filled our bones and hearts
is now applied by our will, to more arcane arts.

Life’s greatest gift is our freedom of choice
no matter how often we forget, we still get a voice.
Energy, or apathy, by our will we may choose,
failing to do so, our only way to lose.

Each of us lives in the grip of time and space,
always seeking our balance, our own chosen place.
One must accept reality, for it is true at the core,
all we can do, is all we can do, and nothing more.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

“One should seek virtue for its own sake and not from hope or fear, or any external motive. It is in virtue that happiness consists, for virtue is the state of mind which tends to make the whole of life harmonious.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Zeno, (B.C. 335?-264), liii

Sounds simple, eh? Scholar Laertius has put his thumb print squarely on what I see as the basic flaw in human nature, the one characteristic that will eventually lead us to perdition, if not extinction. Every day, every minute, mankind, as a whole, and as individuals, are presented with a choice of actions, some of which are virtuous in nature, and others that are not…. These actions are chosen by each individual according to their own degree of virtue, or, more simply, they choose what to do according to what they believe…. What they choose to embrace as their life’s viewpoint will generally determine the nature of their choices, whether it is virtuous, or not….

I could rant about this; I do so frequently. Today, though, rather than rant, which just doesn’t seem to fit my mood this morning, I’ve put together a group of pearls that speak to this subject, at least peripherally…. Taken together, they poke a stick at the eye of humanity, trying to turn the mob back from the edge of extinction….

“The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life — the children; those who are in the twilight of life — the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” — Hubert Humphrey

“Virtue is that perfect good which is the complement of a happy life; the only immortal thing that belongs to mortality.” — Seneca (B.C. 3-65 A.D.)

“I have a feeling that at any time about three million Americans can be had for any militant reaction against law, decency, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, compassion and the rule of reason.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

“I’m just hoping that one day the sheep will realize that the shepherd is really a wolf in disguise.” — Sanjay Singh

“Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.” — Elbert Hubbard

To produce things and to rear them,
To produce, but not to take possession of them,
To act, but not to rely on one’s own ability.
To lead them, but not to master them –
This is called profound and secret virtue.

— Lao-Tzu (fl. B.C. 600)

“Make no mistake: the weeds will win. Nature bats last.” — Robert Pyle
_____________________________

At the end of each day’s Pearl, I try to measure, if I can, how it might be received by the Gentle Readers…. I have to point out, however, that I am handicapped in these assessments, by having to do so using my own viewpoint, which rather scotches the whole concept of judging it objectively. This may explain the lack of Likes, quite plainly, so I’m going to just forget the whole issue, and just get on with it…. Let’s see now…..

Days such as today tend to keep this process alive, reminding me that I do this to stay sane, not to win prizes… It’s all strange, and a little bit obscure, but, all in all, I think it’s pretty good, for all that it is an exercise in singing to the choir (regarding the danger of extinction; I think most of my readers will agree with my assessment… If not, they’re not saying so…). Nonetheless, I like it, so, it stays, or rather, goes…. And, so do I…. 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

We’re wondering if that CEO caught fire yet….

Posted on July 29, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I am indeed one of the world’s great Bozos….. I just realized, as I lay in bed this morning, thinking about the upcoming day, that for almost three years now, I’ve been approaching this whole process with a flawed perspective….. Now, for many, such an epiphany would constitute a great crisis, and cause a huge outcry, as the futility and sense of lost time would create a huge batch of disappointment, to say the very least. For me, it’s pretty much a normal thing to discover, as I can recall numerous occasions in my life when my nose became large, red, and noisy over the manifestation of one or another kind of stupidity, so it no longer embarrasses me quite so much, when I find myself guilty, again, of some measure of dumbness….

For all this time I’ve been blogging, I have been getting up and cudgeling my brain into submission, forcing it to think, and create, first thing in the morning…. I realized just now that this is NOT a good way to start the day, and I might find more to write about if I let my brain wake up at its own pace. I can’t be certain about it without some testing, but I have a feeling that it might be to my advantage to do so, if only for the simple reason that I would end up getting more sleep…..which may not sound like much, but, in my world, sleep is at a premium, and getting more of it, by any means necessary, is always high on my list of wants….

As it is, I’ve always used the Army method, which says to sleep whenever one has a free moment, as one never knows when the next opportunity to do so will come. I was raised that way, sort of, and have always regarded it as the lot of the common man, as we men tend to treat our lives as a stint in the military, if given half a chance…. It is a natural rhythm for us to adopt, so we naturally fall into it, unless forced into some other mode of existence, such as that of a night-shift morgue attendant, or some such exotic functionary, who necessarily changes their pattern of sleep and work.

The Army method is fine, for what it is, but, now that I’m retired, it isn’t so imperative for me to be up early, or up late, like when I was a Dad, making sure my family was tucked in each night….. Today, for some reason, I slept like a log for most of the night, (unusual in itself….), and kept falling back asleep at those times I would normally have arisen, until, now, it is after 0700, and I just got up…. a good hour, to an hour and a half, later than usual…. I feel energized, and clear headed, both of which are uncommon at this hour, and these four paragraphs have pretty much poured out, in just a few minutes time, all fairly clear, with no typos or misspellings, first time out….

Ah well, it’s all probably just an illusion that Murphy has prepared for me, to lull me into thinking that I can think this early….. It has been proven already that I’m human, and the years-long search for a template for this intro has shown me that early morning cogitation is not in my best interests, at least from an intellectual viewpoint…. I can sometimes come up with funny, or weird, or even, sometimes, beautiful prose when I first sit to write, but, I’m fairly certain I only do so due to serendipity, not intentional volition…. In other words, it’s mostly an accident, which explains why I keep a first-aid kit under the table where I keep my computer; it has come in too handy in the past to keep it anywhere else….

Still, accidental or not, I’m no longer certain that getting up to write in the morning is the best way to go about this….. But, since I don’t have a clue what I would do otherwise, I’m not going to worry about changing a thing…. I don’t get paid for this, nor do I do it for any other kind of compensation, beyond the friendship of good people, and a certain level of sanity that writing helps me to maintain… So, there isn’t any reason, really, to change anything, unless, of course, someone offers to pay me to do so…. I’m still holding out for the daily column in a major news network, which I doubt seriously will happen, so, I’ll just keep on keepin’ on, and produce the finest bits of virtual wisdom I can….

Shall we Pearl?….
_____________________________

“Banish Evil from the world? Nonsense! Encourage it, foster it, sponsor it. The world owes Evil a debt beyond imagination. Think! Without greed ambition falters. Without vanity art becomes idle musing. Without cruelty benevolence lapses to passivity. Superstition has shamed man into self-reliance and, without stupidity, where would be the savor of superior understanding?” — Magnus Ridolf

😆 I find this to be an extremely amusing little Analect, very bold and different than the twaddle that a lot of philosophy often resembles. It is, of course, a ridiculous set of assertions, but, it’s good exercise for the mind to look at things from a different perspective occasionally, as long as one knows they are wrong, based as they are on a flippant, egocentric point of view, one that categorizes according to self-set standards, not by any that are natural to the real world….. Who gets to decide? That, to me, is the sticking point when adopting a pose of intellectual superiority…. who decides?…. If it is the person who makes the utterance, then the viewpoint is inherently flawed, due to a severe lack of perspective….

I’m not sure why I chose this as a rant-stimulator, other than its cheekiness. It is true what is implied herein about contrast, and how the differences between good and evil are made clearer by their own natures, but, other than that, it fails to go far enough, logically speaking, leaving us stranded in a place where we have little or no control over what the universe does to us…. I, for one, refuse to go there, and will always feel compelled to point it out when I come across this kind of thinking, as it is a dangerous pattern to allow one’s mind to follow for long….. In fact, I am going to make an executive decision here, and turn this section 180 degrees around, into an old-school format, rather than a rant…. I think the point I’m trying to get to will be much easier to see than trying to show y’all what I mean with prose and logic…. Let’s see what Smart Bee can do for us….

“Man is ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.” — Paul Eldridge

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” — Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

“It is an important and popular fact that things are not always as they seem.” — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

19. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. — One of 21 Thoughts to Get You Through Almost Any Crisis

“The logic of writing is simply logic; it is not some system of arbitrary conventions interesting only to those who write a lot. All logical thought goes on in the form of statements and statements about statements. We can make those statements only in language, even if that language be a different symbol system like mathematics. If we cannot make those statements and statements about statements logically, clearly, and coherently, then we cannot think and make knowledge. People who cannot put strings of sentences together in good order cannot think. An educational system that does not teach the technology of writing is preventing thought.” — Richard Mitchell _Less Than Words Can Say_ P.45-6

Hah! See, I told you it would be a lot clearer this way…. and, if not, well, there’s always tomorrow, right?….
_____________________________

Some poems need no introduction, or comment; this is one of them…

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley ~~

_____________________________

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

On most occasions, the discovery of such a wonderful indictment would be celebrated here with a rant of huge proportions…. However, on this occasion, I’m going to let go of my ego, and just present this by itself, in acknowledgment of its very real provenance…. This man, Señor de Las Casas, was there! He saw exactly what the invaders of the new world did, and who did it, and had the guts to write it down. At the time this was written, even the act of naming the perpetrators would have been dangerous, as those self-same Christians held strong sway in society then, and were not afraid to punish what they considered to be slanderous writings with severe penalties…. Blasphemous writings were even more dangerous; this one merely points out the very human nature of those who spearheaded the drive to conquer the Indians, but would have nonetheless been poorly received by Church authorities….

Any who, I intended to rant about this, but, it’s just so perfect by itself, I’m letting it stand alone, to teach the lesson to be learned here… It doesn’t really need my help to do so, so I’ll just step back out of the way…. Well, since I AM obsessive, a little bit, about being clear, I’ll add a couple of short pearls to help drive the point home, but, beyond that, you’re on your own today…. I know you’re capable, so be encouraged….

“Difference of opinion is helpful in religion.” — Thomas Jefferson

Q: Does a cow have Buddha-nature ? A: Mu — Smart Bee

Again, clarity strikes serendipitously from above!…. This one will definitely be on the Quiz, so I hope y’all were payin’ attention…..
_____________________________

There are times when this process is a bit frightening to behold, from the inside…. It can be kind of like the fastest, twistiest roller coaster you’ve ever had the misfortune to board….. It has also been described as being like that instant of stark fear in a car wreck when you know it’s going to hurt…. Then, other times, it all comes out like a welcome session in the throne room, with a big sigh of relief, and a new attitude….

Before I get to the point of too much information, or even clarity, I’d best check out what I’ve done today; I suspect it of being, shall we say, NOT usual…. Yep, I was correct, it isn’t…. usual, that is. And, since unusual is one of the things I shoot for, we’ll call it a win, and mark it down as such, without even an asterisk….. I’m outta here, before anyone thinks to call the authorities… 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

They’ve pardoned all the equestrians….

Posted on July 28, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Did you ever have the feeling you’re stuck living in a Credence Clearwater Revival song? This morning, when I sat up, an old song of theirs popped into my head, first thing, and the lyric line “Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi, again…” is now playing over and over in my mind’s ear….. It wouldn’t be too bad, as it isn’t a bad song, but it won’t stop repeating that one line, endlessly….. Having been stuck in Lodi myself a time or two (I once had a girlfriend whose home town was in the hills above Lodi, in a little town in the Sierra Madre foothills, called Angel’s Camp….), I can attest that it isn’t the kind of place where one wants to spend a lot of time…. just another hick town in the boonies of California, whose residents didn’t even like John Fogarty….

You probably wonder how I can be so callous toward what is probably a group of nice folks, dismissing them offhand in such a cavalier fashion, not caring what my words may imply about innocent people…. Well, ffolkes, it’s called literary license, and is commonly used in literature to set up a joke, just like I did above. Of course, it is generally used to set up a joke that contains more than a mere dram of humor, but, one has to go with what is on hand, yes? I’m afraid that at this time of the morning, before coffee has worked its magic, that is about as humorous as it gets around here…. If I wanted to be really funny, I’d wait until the coffee kicked in, but I was trying to save a little time, and this is what happens…. I should know better than to try a short cut so early…

Is this stilted? Too formal sounding? It seems that way to me…. Of course, that’s me, and I’m not the best judge of what is appropriate at this time of day. I do try to keep from getting overly pedantic too early, but, that’s fairly easy, as it merely means keeping myself from ranting first thing… It’s the outrage that fuels such vituperation, which makes me feel all righteous and moral, which turns me into a pompous fool, a state that giving in to righteous morality will always put me…. I don’t know why, but being angry at the immorality I see causes me to turn into a prig, at least from a writing standpoint…. Something about the formality of presenting logical arguments, and discussing serious subjects that makes it hard to stay casual in my writing style, or in my approach….. Probably, if I’d just break down and be vulgar, it would flow better…. Fuck it, I’ll try it…. eventually….

That isn’t to say that my style is always pedantic and pompous…. Hell, I’d have a hard time classifying my writing into any single category, as it tends to go all over the map, chasing off after tangential ideas, or attempting to follow some train of thought, as suggested by a group of old-school pearls. But, I do get pretty serious at times, especially when I’m ranting about the political or religious scenes we see every day, and have then a tendency to turn into a pompous old bozo…. An accurate one, but a bozo, nonetheless….

Once again, I’ve managed to blather on to such a degree as to find myself at the end of the intro section, without ever really saying anything useful, or even relatively coherent, at all…. I gotta say, it’s much less stressful when I let myself wander like this, without worrying overmuch about where it is going, or whether it is an appropriate start to the day’s effort…. Just letting it flow out seems to be getting it done, though not necessarily with any panache…. One mustn’t expect miracles, I guess, but, at least I’m not agonizing over something that seems to be unresolvable by ordinary means…. Since anything more than ordinary is too much to expect at this hour, I’m happy with whatever happens….. plus, it’s less fattening, or, so they claim…

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

It looks as though ranting may not be feasible today…. I just found a great quote, one that will eventually give me the impetus for a fairly good-sized rant on human nature, and the flaws that nature exhibits…. but, not today. I put the quote in place, and even got a decent first paragraph started, then started giggling, for some unknown, and apparently, uncontrollable reason…. I guess my spirit is rejecting all attempts to be serious today; sometimes, guys just wanna have fun, too. So, I’ll be putting together an old-school pearl, using the premise of the now-defunct rant I had begun, but, with an eye toward causing mirth rather than outrage…. Let’s see how it goes….

“Kids toot or poot. Men fart. Women pass wind. And Ladies never, EVER have gas.” — Smart Bee

Listen to the MUSTN’TS child,
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVE’S
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

— Shel Silverstein

“What do you call a short psychic who escapes from prison? A small medium at large.” — Smart Bee

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

(Okay, so, not so funny, but, hey, it could be, if we put some makeup on it….)
(It’s also an interesting idea to contemplate as truth….)
(Hmm… If it IS truth, it would explain a lot of stuff about Congress, wouldn’t it?….)

“The SAME WAVE keeps coming in and COLLAPSING like a rayon MUU-MUU..” — Zippy the Pinhead

Okay, well, that’s just about perfect, for a five-star pearl, but I see it’s a bit dense…. Rather impenetrable, actually, so I’ll add a couple of clarification quotes….

“I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.” — Dorothy Parker

“About them unfinished sentences and what they should be. And them subjects and objects which ought. Never no way should they not. Sometimes it is that they are and other times they aren’t. I took the Evelyn Woods Speed Reading Course and don’t know where I put it. Anyway, a sentence should always be.” — Smart Bee

Well, I don’t believe I can make it any clearer than that…. If it still isn’t gelling for you, don’t fret, it won’t be on the Quiz…..
_____________________________

Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

— Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux (1636-1711) — The Art of Poetry, Canto i, Line 75

Aye, happy indeed, would he be…. Nothing new leaking out of my head so far today, so, we’ll go classic….

A Bard’s Epitaph

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.

Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.

Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life’s mad career,
Wild as the wave,
Here pause-and, thro’ the starting tear,
Survey this grave.

The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn the wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain’d his name!

Reader, attend! whether thy soul
Soars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit:
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom’s root.

~~ Robert Burns ~~

_____________________________

“A heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others.” — The Wizard of Oz

I spend a lot of time addressing what I call a flaw in human nature, without ever completely putting my finger exactly on the point I’m seeking to grasp, or to have y’all grasp, whatever… The point is, this flaw is one of choice, one that each person must decide within themselves, about how they will view life, and how they will approach living, especially concerning how they live with others, including animals, and our planet at large, which needs to be considered in any question of survival as a species. I see the flaw as most obvious in those people who end up in positions of authority, but it is a flaw that all of us have, to some degree, that concerns me, because it is the one that will ultimately seal our fate, as individuals, and as a species….

The above quote can be considered as the diametric opposite of the flaw, as it manifests in us. If one holds the above as true, then acting in a manner that will cause any loss or pain to another would be acting against that belief. In order to take advantage of another person, or thing, a human must first view that person, or thing, as being less important than they themselves consider themselves to be, by whatever standards are applied. By doing so, it objectifies the person, or animal, making it easier to detach emotions from anything done to them… In short, these people, who exhibit the flaw of choosing self over not-self, in all situations, consciously and deliberately decide to cause harm to others in order to achieve their own ends, and don’t feel any compunction, or guilt, about doing so, as they feel justified, by whatever rationalizations they have adopted….

This ability to disconnect from others is one of the most common features one observes in those people who make politics a career…. It is also commonly seen in certain professions, which, because of the key importance to people who need their services, tend to attract this type of personality, as such jobs offer many opportunities to take advantage of other people’s misery and trouble…. professions such as lawyer, preacher, doctor, judge, or any other areas that provide key services to people, that deal with situations that affect their lives and well-being…. These professions all provide sociopathic personalities with ample opportunities to carry out their agendas in life, which are focused on increasing their own control of resources, and power over other people….

Over time, these folks have gotten very good at what they do, and the whole world is now organized in such a way that almost everyone accepts the idea that there is no other better way to do things than the way they are being done… Any ideas to the contrary are either buried by those in positions of authority, or are ignored, or made superfluous by the construction of imaginary enemies…. Every time I hear from a government official that I should be afraid of someone who wants to kill us, or take away our rights and homes, I start to wonder just what it is they are trying to distract me from thinking about, or paying attention to….

You see, I make the automatic assumption, when ANY government source speaks, whether an elected official, or an official spokesperson, that that person is lying to me…. If the lies are not directly untrue material, then the lie is in what is NOT said, or in what is behind whatever they are speaking of, which, I always assume, means little or nothing beyond its intent to distract or befuddle me. Once that assumption is made, that the truth is not being told, then it becomes much easier to determine just what it is they are trying to do…. and, I find that what I see is never to the advantage of the public….

“DON’T STEAL – The government hates competition.” — Smart Bee

Actually, this sounds as if George Carlin might have said it; I know he had a short comment on why one couldn’t have the Ten Commandments displayed in courthouses; he believed it was because you couldn’t have all those exhortations against lying, cheating, and stealing around so many politicians and lawyers, as it would make for an uncomfortable work environment…. He saw exactly what I am talking about in society, and pointed it out clearly, and with sublime sarcasm, for all of us to see…..

Unfortunately, most folks don’t realize how close to the truth all of his assertions were, any more than most people know that the government lies to them on a regular basis, often, it seems, just to keep in practice. For those of us who DO see what is going on, it gets to be a challenge not to go around just slapping people left and right…. but, that doesn’t make any friends, and can lead to jail time if one isn’t careful…. Besides, nobody listens anyway, and even a two-by-four won’t make someone listen, if they don’t want to…..

I guess the Firesign Theater had it right, when they claimed we are all Bozos on this Bus….. It’s too bad that only clowns and comedians are the ones who seem to know what is going on in the world, because nobody votes for the clowns…. Hmm…. maybe we could get some of the comedians to run for office?…. It’s worth a shot…..

“He who laughs, lasts.” — Mary Pettibone Poole
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I feel better, even if I already know I’m shouting into the wind…. and, that’s what this blogging is all about, for me. If the NSA don’t like it, fuck ’em…. Assholes….(Occasionally, I am influenced by an imp, sometimes dangerously…. Today, he advises me that if I really want to grab the attention of the NSA, I should put the two words together, so they can’t miss the allusion…. which, I think, is brilliant, so, here…. NSA-Assholes….)

I have a feeling I’ll be ranting more in the next few days; some of the stuff I’m seeing in the news is disturbing my equilibrium, and I’m going to have to vent some of it, so, be warned…. Let’s see how today’s effort came out….. I guess I I ended up in a state where I COULD be serious, but, at least I tied in the humorous aspects of the serious material…. Not too shabby, all in all, and certainly worth a moment or two of anyone’s time and mental energy…. Well, I think so, and that’s what counts for this purpose, if not for yours….

Don’t worry, none of what you’ve read today is toxic, unless, of course, you are heavily invested in maintaining that all is right with the world…. You Pollyanna, you…. Take that!… And, that!…. Oh, sorry, got carried away by the urge to be in a cartoon…. I suppose I’d best be going now….. 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

Precious memories of bizarre telegrams….

Posted on July 27, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I’m a little confused, and though that isn’t anything new and different, it is unusual in the sense that I don’t often get this way without good reason. The reason today has to do with how yesterday’s Pearl came out, and how it was apparently received by readers….. As I’ve stated, the number of Likes I receive isn’t important to me, as long as I know I’ve written a good Pearl, because this is therapy for me, not connected to how well it goes over, just how well I feel about the content, and how getting it out of my head has helped…. No, I just don’t get the patterns that statistics show about site usage, and what those show about the number of visitors and readers….

The two short little blurb blogs I wrote day before yesterday, and the day before that, which were just short pieces explaining that I wouldn’t be writing those days, both got way more readers, and Likes, than yesterday’s massive effort, wherein I wrote over 3000 words, all tearing my heart out, to rant against some of my favorite targets, and produce a new, fresh poem, one I thought was quite good….It is possibly the best Pearl I’ve written in over a year, yet, only four readers stopped by to peruse it in the first 24 hours it was up, at least, according to the Likes…. Not that I blame Murphy, or anything like that…. of course not….

SIGH…. Oh well, I guess I’ll never understand how it works, and I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, that’s for sure…. Three of the four who stopped in, Willow, Ashi Akira, and Lou, are perhaps the most regular of my readers, as well as three of my favorite blogs to read, and it’s always nice to see them, so I do appreciate that…

Today’s effort is liable to be of lesser degree, at least of quantity; keeping high quality will remain as a priority. Of course, that doesn’t factor in the Murphological aspects of the morning, which have yet to be revealed to me; I’m sure he has something planned to screw with me, but, so far, he’s holding back on it, letting the anticipation build, and trying to get me to let down my guard…. Little does he know that my guard, in respect to his assholishness, is never let down, as I’ve had too many examples of what happens when I let it get sloppy….. Of course, he wins anyway, but, I’m always ready for it….

Hmm…. Spell Checker doesn’t seem to like the words I’m making up today, but, that’s okay, I don’t much like it, either…. It’s often wrong, and has no sense of humor at all…. Besides, I like the words I made up, so, it will just have to deal with it…. I don’t give a shit about what Murphy himself thinks about them; his actions toward me, and everyone else, over the years has earned him NONE of my respect, and he’ll just have to learn to live without it, for he’ll never have it….. Any more than a God would have it, as long as they claim to be responsible for the mess they’ve created and left us sitting in here….. Sorry, didn’t mean to slip up in the intro….. I’ll save the ranting for later, if needed…..

I’ve once again managed to blather my way through five or six paragraphs of sheer twaddle; if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was getting easier…. But, that is an illusion, I know, one that is designed to lure me in and lull me into a false sense of security, before once again dumping me into a situation with no clear resolution to be seen…. You see, I do know Murphy!…. He’s out there, just waiting for me to relax, then, POW!…. Right upside the head…. We’ll go on now, but, keep your eyes and ears open, ffolkes, it could get ugly today….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

I ranted so long yesterday, there isn’t much left in there today that is worth bringing out for discussion…. Besides, I did manage to say most of what I had to say, so repeating it today would be silly, not to mention boring…. So, we’ll go old-school, and let Smart Bee pick out some fine little gems for our consideration, and see what they have to tell us today…..

“After the lawyers are all dead, kill the Politicians!” — Smart Bee

This is perhaps the best summation possible of what I ranted yesterday in this section; short, sweet, and to the point. It does overlook, however, a simple point, and that is, if you kill all the lawyers, you will already have eliminated the politicians, as practically all of them are lawyers, anyway…. Shoot all the lawyers, and there won’t be many politicians left to target…. Sorry, couldn’t resist, after yesterday’s rant…. Okay, now we’ll let SB pick ’em, and see what’s what….

“The field cannot well be seen from within the field” — Emerson

“It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.” — H.L. Mencken

“A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.” — John Ciardi

“The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow shit, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies–and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West.” — Edward Abbey

“Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafarer on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you reach your destiny.” — Carl Schurz

“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.” — Chuang Tzu

At this point, it would be well for me to stop and point out the danger of going forward from here…. I see that SB has allowed Murphy to lay a trap for us, but, thanks to being alerted, as noted in the intro, y’all were saved from having the rest of your day ruined by an intellectual meltdown…. If we took the next step indicated by the above group of pearls, our brains would seize up, just like an old motor with no oil, and we’d be stuck in that limbo until found by neighbors and rescued, or buried and waked… So, I will apply the correct antidote here, by giving you, NOT the quote that SB, and hence, Murphy, had picked out for you, but, instead, one that my own sense of whimsy provided, instinctively…. Whew! My insurance agent would have been really pissed!….

“We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home. 45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head!” — Zippy the Pinhead

There!… Saved by the Zip-man, again!…..
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My body is feeling its age today…. As I noted yesterday at one point (in my head), if I were a NASCAR aficionado, I could say that “my trans axle is gettin’ a little gritty”, and everyone would know what I meant…. But, since I have no idea what that actually means, I’ll just say that my back and hips, where they join together, is experiencing some age-related stiffness today, and leave it at that…. Now, however, since I’ve again shared more than anyone could conceivably wish to know, I don’t have to explain why this poem is here today, or why it is one of my favorites….

The Little Boy And The Old Man

Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you mean,” said the little old man.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

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There I was, muddling along, minding my own, trying to think of a rantable subject, when a random thought intruded into my consciousness…. Since it was in some foreign language I didn’t recognize, and thus do not speak, it was only mildly upsetting; if I knew what it said, it might have frightened me….. However, since I was in the vicinity, I went ahead and allowed myself to go a bit mad, and used that state of mind to go a’hunting for pearls…. Here is what I found, while the rest of my mind, apparently, was avoiding ranting….

“Philosophy, means, first, doubt; and afterwards the consciousness of what knowledge means, the consciousness of uncertainty and of ignorance, the consciousness of limit, shade, degree, possibility. The ordinary man doubts nothing and suspects nothing.” — Henri Frederick Amiel

How lov’d, how honour’d once avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee:
‘T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 71

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” — Smart Bee

“Every time history repeats itself the prices go up.” — Peter’s Observation on History

“It [the Bible] is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910) — Letters from the Earth (1905-1909)

“Wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience – and laughter.” — Smart Bee

Okay, so whimsy can only take me so far…. I couldn’t decide which of these two gems should grace the final position for today’s final pearl, so, I’m putting both of them up, and you can use the one you like…. I did… or will, depending on your point of view….

The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary two;
Or else the other way around.
I’m never sure. Are you?

— Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

“It takes a smart man to know when he’s stupid.” — Barney Rubble, “The Flintstones”
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“The art of being a good guest is knowing when to leave.” — Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

I would suppose that someone of Prince Philip’s cache would know about good manners, having had them bred into him for several thousand generations…. along with tendencies toward being bloodthirsty, mercurial, prone to treachery, and a dozen other nasty characteristics that are common in the English aristocracy…. You could never say that the English kings were impolite when committing their chicanery; they lopped off heads with great charm and politeness, and never a harsh word…. Any who, I find the Prince’s statement a good one for ending today’s mess, such as it is…. You may have noted my reluctance to rant, after yesterday’s massive outburst… I’m afraid of what I might find in there… Let’s see how today’s journey went….

Okay, well, I like it, but, then, you know me…. always ready to give myself a break. If I don’t, who will?…. At any rate, it’s done for the day, and I can go on to finding new and better ways to laze about without purpose…. Or, I can get the laundry done…. Any bets on which one happens?…. I thought not….. 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

Further examples of filial chicanery….

Posted on July 26, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

As some of y’all may have noted, yesterday’s Pearl was disrupted by Reality, whereas today’s will be characterized by Fantasy, or a reasonable facsimile thereof….The most pertinent item I recall seems to be the unexpected increase in planetary gravity that hit about 2 PM yesterday…. Didn’t you notice? It seemed quite significant to me; I had been struggling all day to keep upright, as the normally severe sucking power of our planet pulled at me constantly, no matter what I was doing…. sitting, standing, walking, typing, driving, all of it seemed harder, as if I were swimming through heavy syrup, or wearing extra bags of sand or something…. By eight o’clock at night, I was exhausted from the effort to remain a simian of the modern variety, standing upright like a true hominid….

And, then, I woke up…. t’was a new day dawning, turning the blues and grays of the morning sky to a pale pinkish blue, lifting spirits along with hopes, unbidden. All the bad, mad stuff that filled the last days was gone, banished to wherever such things go when pinned with the light of day, and I am once again filled with piss and vinegar, so to speak, ready for whatever the new day will bring. Of course, being an inveterate planner, I already know what will happen today, at least, according to my schedule, but, Murphy has a tendency to ignore my schedules in favor of his own, with mine usually ending up in the trash, while I adjust to his…. the asshole….

I’m up at my usual hour, and intend to write as usual…. Intentions aren’t always enough, though, so we’ll see how it goes today. It has to be better than it was the last two days, which, even sans the kind attentions of the Murph, I spent in the dumps, thanks to the gift that keeps on giving (PTSD). I’m all better now, having thrown off the unreasoning sense of anxiety that pervaded my conscious mind, and gone beyond whatever it was that triggered the episode…. Once more, I am completely in the dark as to what that might be; I do wish I could figure it out, as it is a pain in the ass, and if I knew how to block its ascent into my consciousness, I would do so in a heartbeat…. Until I do, I am at the mercy of whatever it is, destined to fall into despair in an instant, never knowing why….

Ah well, so what else is new? Life with PTSD goes on, as I said, yesterday, sort of, if we don’t hang on to it too tight, and I’m determined NOT to grip it tightly enough to hold it in its place…. If you see me doing so, please tickle me, or throw some water, or something to let me know, as I’m done with feeling bad for no good reason…. It’s a waste of time I could use to be doing something more constructive….. Of course, writing this blog may or may not fall precisely into that category, but, it’s what I do, so deal…. And, speaking of what I do…. Shall we Pearl?
_____________________________

“One of the merits of democracy is quite obvious: it is perhaps the most charming form of government ever devised by man. The reason is not far to seek. It is based on propositions that are palpably not true — and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true.” — H. L. Mencken

With this statement, Mr. Mencken has put his finger on the pulse of America, that is for certain. It goes a long way toward explaining why so many people in this country are so willing to believe the outright, egregious lies that are told to them every single day by the officials they elect every year at the polls that characterize our republic…. They do lie, you know, with almost every statement that comes out of their mouths…. They begin with the most important lie they tell, from which all the others spring, and that is the lie they tell when they tell you that they want to be elected so they can work for YOU! Each and every politician learns early in their career, if they are at all to be successful, they MUST portray themselves as a public-spirited, honest, and tireless worker whose only purpose is to make life better for their constituents….

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth…. NONE of them are at all concerned with any of that nonsense; they are there to carry out their own agenda, which has very little to do with what is good for the general run of mankind…. No, they are there to serve the interests of the men and women who pay them, those lobbyists and special interest representatives who run the businesses of the corporate masters.

The people on the street cannot provide them with the perks, or the cash, that the clandestine rulers are able to come up with, other than peripherally, by electing them in the first place…. Once elected, their true colors come out into the light of day, and it can be easily seen how their actions are never congruent with what they have promised to the people who elected them….

It’s all about power and money to these folks, not service. In my entire life of observing politics around the world, I have yet to see a single elected official who could be shown to be honest, not at the national level. The one who came the closest was Jimmy Carter, and his presidency was marked by how little got done, because he was so honest that the true politicians in Congress blocked every reform he tried to institute during his time in office. His actions during that time showed him to be the exception to the usual rule for politicians, which is why, I believe, he was so ineffective as a legislator….

“Invest in America — Buy Japan!”– Smart Bee

Other than Carter, I have seen concrete proof that EVERY President of this country has lied to the American people, not just once or twice, but continuously, about nearly everything. Time and time again, public outcries are heard or seen in the news about some new revelation regarding something some politician lied about, just like it is breaking news or something, when it is actually the normal state of affairs….

I don’t know why it is, but if a man on a TV set, wearing a suit and tie, makes a statement to the public, the general public will believe it, sometimes fanatically, without ever examining it for whether or not it is true… Then, when it turns out they were lied to, they get all upset and vocalize their displeasure, never once admitting it was their own cupidity that allowed the lie to occur in the first place…. It makes me wonder what happened to people in this country, to make them go soft in the head….

“Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.” — Anton Chekhov

Did you ever notice how many politicians were lawyers, first? Most of them, as it turns out, for the simple reason that learning to be a lawyer gives a politician two advantageous types of training… One advantage is that law school teaches the student how to lie in every imaginable way, in order to ascertain which kinds of lies are legal…. The other advantage is their primary motivation….

If asked, a very large percentage of lawyers will tell you their reason for becoming a barrister in the first place is that it is a good way to get rich, ( without mentioning, of course, that this is true only as long as one doesn’t give a shit about other people, and what that might do to them)…. In other words they make their money by taking advantage of people’s misery, holding them as hostages against their own destiny, in order to gain resources, i.e. money, and its sidekick, power…..

Then the lawyers realize that their training is perfect for politics…. The ability to lie with facility comes in very handy to anyone who wants to be in the public eye, as that is how one gets elected in the first place…. Tell people what they want to hear, and they will vote for you, every time, coming back to the same trough to eat, even though they get screwed, time after time…. Having the facility to ignore what happens to others, due to their own actions, is the other skill so important to the political set, and the training one receives as a lawyer fits right into that category….

“Watching the democratic party in a presidential contest is like watching a washing machine with a defective bearing: It starts up smoothly enough, but soon, it begins to wobble and shake, jumping violently from place to place, until it tears itself to pieces, spewing dirty laundry all over the room.” –Smart Bee

Some people will say that there ARE some good lawyers out there, and I won’t argue that…. but, they’re still lawyers, not politicians, aren’t they? They’re doing what they can to help ffolkes find their way through the morass of our legal system to get what they need, even occasionally finding some justice…. But, they aren’t going further, and going into public service, are they? They’re still in place, where they can help, but, they are so few and far between, they are hard to find, and so are very busy, seldom having the time or resources to work against their less honest colleagues. Plus, they really are very few in number, as altruists seldom become lawyers in the first place….

I can see that this has evolved into a full scale rant, and we’ve just begun the day, so I’ll call a halt here. I often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir, anyway, when I go through this stuff again…. It’s all familiar material around here, so it isn’t as if I’m presenting new ideas for your examination…. No, this is all old stuff, and, sadly, doesn’t seem to ever create the outrage that I feel in very many other ffolkes… which is too bad….. I forget who said that “if you keep on doing things the same ways as you always have, things will always be the way they’ve always been….”, but, they were absolutely correct…. We are on a path to our own destruction, clearly, but, nobody seems to care…

Nobody, that is, who seems able to DO anything about it, and they are the ones who will need to make the changes….. The people in authority over the rest of us are wearing blinders in this respect…. The idea that what they are doing is wrong, and will eventually kill us all, doesn’t fit into their world-view, so they won’t believe it, and will continue to refuse to make any of the changes needed to re-direct our steps onto a path less dangerous.

It is up to the rest of us to get it done, and that may entail overthrowing the current crop of rulers, either by the vote, or by the less agreeable option of using the necessary force, while making sure the new crop will act in OUR best interests, rather than their own…. If it does happen, it will be the first time in history, which is fine with me…. just as long as it is not the LAST time in history….

“… democracy is not something you believe in, or a place you hang your hat, but it’s something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles and falls apart.” — Abby Hoffman
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At least one poem that has been marinating in my head has leaked out this morning, as I suspected it might….. I’m not sure where it came from, or what I should do with it, but, here it is…. any suggestions?….. Be nice, now…. I ain’t Yeats, but, I’ve done worse, too….

A Dubiously Soft Morning

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

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

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

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

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

“The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.” — Max Born, physicist

I like this, mostly because of its clarity and brevity of expression…. It’s perfect no-frills wisdom, with no ups and no extras, all you need for enlightenment in one short, pithy phrase. It also exposes the basic untruth of the mindset against which Thomas Aquinas warned, when he cautioned us to “Beware the man of one book.” I often wonder how the Church scholars managed to rationalize that statement into their set of dogmatic rules, and still canonize Saint Thomas as one of the icons of their faith; this statement is so diametrically opposed to all they teach, how did it become his entry into sainthood, with all the perks that involves, like, I don’t know, what, a better seat at holy dinners?

Any who, all sarcastic smirking aside, it doesn’t make sense, but, then, most of what I have heard and read about the more popular Christian religious sects doesn’t make much sense, either…. People seem to find it compelling, though, and manage to invest a lot of time and energy fulfilling whatever agenda items having those beliefs will engender.

“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.” — Lazarus Long

These, to me, are the folks who find it easier to go through life allowing what other people believe determine their own thoughts and feelings, as it is less troublesome for them to have someone else do it for them, than making the effort to understand the world on their own….. I suppose it’s okay, for them, to allow this, but, for me, it would drive me crazy in no time at all to try to believe some of what they would have me believe, because A) It doesn’t make any sense, and B) the assertions made, aside from the fantastic unbelievability of their nature, are offered without any evidence of their veracity, no proof of their actual truth. Given just those two requirements of mine for accepting something as true, none of what I heard in church makes the slightest bit of sense…

But, for well over two thousand years, this church, along with two or three competing churches, with slightly altered versions of the same set of beliefs on the same subject, has attempted to dominate human existence, saying it has the ONLY answers to the eternal questions, to wit: Is there a God? and, if so, What is He/She/It like?…. Simplistic, I know, but, an accurate paraphrased summarization, I think…. Honest, anyway, right? I mean, when one strips down the basic ideas to their bare bones, they sound ridiculous; then, when one sees there is also no real, incontrovertible proof of any of it, beyond logical constructions based on assumptions not proven, they become simply unbelievable, to my way of thinking….

Of course, one must actually THINK about this stuff, and not just assume it is true…. even what I’m saying should be examined for its own veracity…. I think all I need to do to offer proof of most of my assertions is point to either some part of reality, which generally proves without question what is real, or to something in the news that demonstrates the fallibility of what the churches offer as their dogma, which is legion. Then, once the information has been presented, it must be examined for it’s connections to what is real, in order to be able to determine for sure that it IS or IS NOT true…. Sadly, in my experience, most people skip that last step entirely, preferring to go along with what they’ve been told since they were little, because to examine it, one must first accept the possibility of being wrong in the first place…. and, that they are not willing to do….

That is the simple truth folks, no matter how much anyone tries to deny it. Reality determines what is true, not belief, or faith, and nothing anyone can say or do will ever change that simple fact of reality. There are no magic bullets, so, if we want to have magic in our lives, we have to make it ourselves, which leaves out the possibility of depending on anything in nature to do so for us, no matter how much we want it to be so, or how strongly we maintain our faith in what is unreal…. As some other philosopher has stated, “Just because a million people believe something is so, doesn’t make it so…. A lie is still a lie, even if a lot of people believe it…….. or, more colorfully…..

“If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does the dog have? Four. Calling a tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.” — Abraham Lincoln

So, spare me, please, the sermons, and pitying looks, because, quite frankly, the concept of Heaven bores me to tears; it sounds as if the Angel Satan throws a better party, and doesn’t expect his acolytes to curry favor…. plus, they never expect him not to lie to them, as he is right up front about it….

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” — Jack London, Jack London’s Tales of Adventure
_____________________________

Such an outburst! I can see that I am right to write every day…. This stuff tends to build up if I go too long without letting it out, and there’s no telling what kind of harm THAT may cause to the space-time continuum…. Let’s see if it reads half as well as it flowed out….. Hmph, well, I think that the Pulitzer committee may want to stand down, but, it’s better than most Pearls, all in all, and it’s all freshly made stuff, so, so be it…. WYSIWYG, today, anyway…. 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

Mostly, folks LIKE big portions….

Posted on July 25, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Life does go on, if we just let it do so without holding on too tight…. I managed to get through yesterday’s bout of depression, aided ably by my son, who called just to make sure I was okay, which made me cry, but this time in a good way…. I really am proud of the way he has turned out. In spite of the difficulties his life has presented him (some of which were his doing, but, most of which was not….), he remains a generous, caring, compassionate individual, and is living his life with honor, for the sake of his own son. He’s working at three jobs right now, since the modern business model refuses to hire people full time anymore, but still has the time and energy to worry about his old man…. It was definitely an uplifting call…

Today, I am much less bothered by my unwanted feelings of fear and angst; my only tears today are the result of good thoughts and feelings. Strange, how one day can make such a difference in our world; if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect myself of being human, and therefore subject to the whims of Father Time….. Oh, wait, that’s right, I am human, and Father Time laughs at me just as often as he does at anyone, and quite possibly, he laughs harder.

I don’t know if it hits everyone the same way it does me, but this aging process is giving me fits, at least part of the time. Add in the emotional lability to the mix of crap (sorry, couldn’t find the Thesaurus to find the exact right word…. ‘crap’ will do, though….) that aging brings us, and it all gets even more muddled up….

This Pearl is liable to be late getting posted, as I must leave soon to take milady to an appointment, and won’t get back to this for a while…. I could cheat, I suppose, but, after yesterday’s unexpected melt-down, I feel a need to produce a fresher product, without resorting completely to archived material, which is probably better than what I can come up with today, but, seems too much like giving up, or giving in, to my baser impulses, which I do far too often already. One must have a certain degree of honesty with self, or life just isn’t worth living…

Well, it’s like that for those of us raised by master-sergeants, anyway… I can’t say I see the same degree of self-honesty in many of our public figures, whom I suspect are often less than honest, with themselves, and even more often, with us….. Hell, I don’t suspect them of lying, I am sure they are lying to us; I was just trying to be discrete, but, what the hell, they’re up front with the lies, so I’ll be up front in pointing them out whenever I see them…. It keeps me off the streets, and gives me something relatively harmless to do, right?….

I’m blathering again, and meandering, but, hey, that’s what seems to work best here in the intro section. It seems obvious by now that I’m never going to get the hang of it, nor am I going to find a template that can be used every day; that would be too easy, and I’ve come to realize that Murphy is never going to allow that to happen. So, I’m becoming inured to the embarrassment, and calloused about the overall effect on the world at large. It’s just the way it is, and will have to remain, so I, and, concomitantly, you all, will just have to deal with it, because it’s not going to change anytime soon…. Well, not as long as I keep blogging, and who knows how long that will go on? I don’t, so, chances are, it will continue, until, as they are fond of saying in the military, they find someone better, or I’m dead….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

What a beautiful beginning for a rant…. too bad it will have to wait another day….. please see the last section for an explanation, of sorts….
_____________________________

Theres no poem here…. you may be wondering why, and I will say this… see below….
_____________________________

“The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.” — Max Born, physicist

Another fine start for a dissertation on a particular religion, but, one that will have to wait, again…. I will reiterate…. see below, please….
_____________________________

So, here’s what happened… I wrote the intro, and was done at 0730 this morning, whereupon I left to go take care of the business for the day….. As it turned out, that kept me busy, and/or distracted, enough to keep me from finishing this missive…. so, it has to wait until morning…. Rather than worry ffolkes who might wonder what became of me after yesterday, I’m posting this late, for any who care to peruse what is here…. I did like the into, section, after a fashion, and as much as I ever do, so, instead of throwing it out, here it is, in all its glory…. Tomorrow, I promise, I will have a fresh, complete Pearl of Virtual Wisdom for your delectation and elucidation…. 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

A frail piece, outlined in pink aspic….

Posted on July 24, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

— Bother! said Pooh, as he realized Piglet was indeed the essence of Chaotic Evil.

As unbelievable as it may seem at first, this is exactly how I feel this morning. Oh, not to worry, Piglet isn’t here, so I don’t have to bother about that, but, I know just how frustrated and surprised Pooh felt when it became clear just what those late night episodes with Piglet meant…. it’s a bummer, to say the least.

The problem is, I have absolutely no reason to feel any such emotions right now…. Oh, there are the usual number of worrisome events going on in my life, the kind that are always threatening to occur, but, nothing that should cause the degree of fear and anxiety that is sweeping through me as I write, and, as has plagued me since getting started today….

Ah, gotta love this mental illness, it’s such a joy. To awaken in the grip of diffuse anxiety, and unreasoning, unspecified fear, with tears, ready to flow, sitting behind the eyes, adding the pressure of filled sinuses to the catalog of the day’s events…. So, you can add a runny nose to all that is bugging me right now, just for good measure….

The pisser remains that I have no good reason to feel like this, in truth; it’s all a gift from my unconscious, which has apparently decided to continue punishing me for allowing myself to become broken, by the work that I did for so long…. I don’t know why it is still so upset; the choice at the time was either to go to work for the state, taking care of the mentally ill, or to go into the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines (shudder….) and get carted off to play soldier in the jungles of Southeast Asia….

I didn’t use heroin, so I had no investment in fighting over there that at the behest of the government, to protect THEIR drug interests, and had no intention of falling into the trap of lies they told the public, all about how Communism would overrun the West Coast if we didn’t go over there to fight them gooks….. I have no problem with the armed services, only with the illegal use of them for the private interests of the politicians, who lied to the public, both about why the war was necessary, and about why we needed to go there to fight. Since it WAS all lies, I had no compunctions about refusing to participate in it…. Of course, they’re still at it, but that’s another story, for another day….

A lot of my peers went, though, and suffered the hell of being in extreme danger for long periods of time, eventually becoming depressed by their experience in such numbers that the old term “combat fatigue”, around since World War I and II, used to describe how people react to long-term immersion in situations of life-threatening danger, evolved into a new psychiatric diagnosis, called PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder…..

It is a condition with which I can empathize, as well as sympathize, as I fell prey to its depredations in my own work, with dangerously violent mentally ill individuals, who lacked any and all control of their actions, resorting to violence on a regular and frequent basis to achieve their wants and needs…. It doesn’t take bullets flying through the air to make a person afraid for their life, believe me….

Any who, that’s all in the past, but, it does reach out to slap me down now and again, and today is one of those days… I have a lot to do, out in the real world, so, I’m once again blazing new trails in blogging…. This is all I’m posting today…. just the intro section, and then a teaser for each of the three sections that normally would follow…. I’m so….. fraught, I guess, is the right word…. I’m so fraught with anxiety and distress right now, I don’t even have the wherewithal to use archived material, so, rather than cheat more, I’ll just post again tomorrow, and hope that I still have a Gentle Reader or two out there, hoping to find another pearl of virtual wisdom….

Shall we NOT Pearl?…..
_____________________________

Tomorrow, I will use this quote by Mr. Mencken as either the basis for a rant (for which it is eminently suited…), or as one of a fine, lustrous old-school pearl on the subject of politics and government, or, as we say around here, we’ll take a few shots at the BRC…. I’m almost looking forward to it….
_____________________________

Here, I’ll post a poem…. duh!
_____________________________

“The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.” — Max Born, physicist

Boy, if this isn’t another fine rant, waiting to be written…. It almost makes me want to throw off this depression, and start writing…. But, since I still can’t seem to go five minutes without tears starting to flow, we’ll just go on to another day…. Sorry, ffolkes, I hate when this happens, but, it’s best to get past it before I do something stupid, which, as you know, is anathema to my soul….
_____________________________

That’s all I’ve got today, brothers and sisters…. Again, my apologies, or, if I haven’t offered them yet, here they are…. Sorry ’bout that, but, I just don’t have it today, and don’t feel like pretending I do, as is often the case…. I’m going to go let it go now, and go finish crying, so maybe I can get on with the rest of the day without further embarrassment…. If I can find any pride left, I’ll see y’all tomorrow…. 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

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

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Philosophy

Telltale signs of cultural decay…..

Filled with fanatical fervor for fennel cakes….

Remnants of hauntingly bad melodies….

Diligently dancing, despite the incandescent horror…

We’re wondering if that CEO caught fire yet….

They’ve pardoned all the equestrians….

Precious memories of bizarre telegrams….

Further examples of filial chicanery….

Mostly, folks LIKE big portions….

A frail piece, outlined in pink aspic….

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