Tag Archives: Philosophy

Drizzled with mere seconds to spare….

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14

Ffolkes,
Far be it from me to ever put a roadblock up in front of my creative process; with the emotional pressure I put on myself to write, I’d be a basket case in hours if I did something so foolish. In me, the process is not a well-defined, step-by-step process, though I do have my rituals. Instead of being a walk with a dog on a leash, that politely stays on the path, and doesn’t chase cars, it is more of a romp with a dog in a dog park, off the leash, with both of us free to run and play. For me, it has always been more productive that way. So, it makes no sense at all for me to obstruct the process in myself, as it is a key element in my continued sanity…..

Once again, here I am, sitting here wondering who wrote that shit…. oh, it was me, and it’s all true, more or less. But, it isn’t anything like what I envisioned writing when I sat down to begin. As a matter of fact, the first five words were meant to push me off into one of my fantasy story openings, complete with witches, goats, three chandeliers, a devil, an angel, and a Peking Duck without sauce. Instead, I find myself at the end of a tidy little discussion that would most likely bore an accountant in tax season to desperate tears. (Aha, that reminds me…. do taxes!)  I can’t imagine what came over me; I seem to have misplaced my sense of whimsy, and can already see the ill effects of its absence…..

Ah well, the workaround for this particular problem is pretty straightforward…. ignore it and move on. That part of me that writes the boring stuff is easily miffed by such inattention, and will promptly stomp off in high dudgeon to find a quiet corner in which to sulk. So, we will now embark on our morning search for Pearls…. shall we begin?…. Aha, a fine specimen, practically jumped into the bag… we’ll give it primary billing, with no needed discussion….

“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” — Mark Twain

Good advice… let’s see how close we can come to following it….. Kowabunga!
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:Shub-Internet: /shuhb’ in’t*r-net/ n.  [MUD: from H. P. Lovecraft’s evil fictional deity Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young] The harsh personification of the Internet: Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity formed of all the manifold connections of the net.  A sect of MUDders worships Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for good connections. To no avail — its purpose is malign and evil, and is the cause of all network slowdown.  Often heard as in “Freela casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down.”  (A forged response often follows along the lines of: “Shub-Internet gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.”)  Also cursed by users of the Web, {FTP} and {TELNET} when the system slows down. The dread name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as it is said that repeating it three times will cause the being
to wake, deep within its lair beneath the Pentagon.  Compare {Random Number God}. — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

Every culture, and every sub-culture within that body, of which hacker culture is not an exception, spawns its own myths. These myths and legends are consistent with the principles of morality and beliefs that infuse the various elements in the group, composed of that culture’s deepest fears of the true unknown nature of the technology they employ. In hacker culture, their gods and demons take the shape and character of the antithesis of the wizards and demi-gods they admire, for their mastery of the nuances of the field of knowledge in which they all play and live; these unfortunate deities generally resemble the CEO of the company where they toil for pay.

I find hacker culture and mythology fascinating, as it is often based on concepts and ideas from science- and speculative-fiction, and fantasy, all blended together into such creatively conceived entities as Shub-Internet…. a creature both terrifying and playful….. Kind of like Lord Voldemort on laughing gas, but uglier, if you can picture that…. The highest form of humor to a hacker would be for Curly Joe to catch the Wolfman or Dracula with the old exploding cigar gag, in a movie where Curly is a programmer and Dracula is a management suit….. all after an elegant hack that saved the world, and the company, from evil bureaucrats from the Fast Food Dimension…..
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“Even for a wizard there will often come times when someone close to you, perhaps even your spouse, criticizes your habits by comparing them to those of animals. This is distinctly unfair to the animals, who have far better habits than we in many areas. When, for example, have you seen a frog collecting taxes or a squirrel running for electoral office? Present arguments like these to those people who criticize you. If they still do not see the wisdom of your ways, you may then feel free to bite them.” — The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. IX

Now, this is a philosophical attitude I can really get behind. I cannot begin to count how many conversations just like this I have had over the course of my life, with those who don’t like, or more often, and more accurately, don’t understand me or what I say and do.  While I’ve been either fortunate enough, or nice enough to not have run across a great many folks who are actively upset by my admittedly unusual mannerisms and expressions, there have been many who, because of their own dissatisfaction with their own lives, find it hard to keep their noses out of mine, or anyone else’s for that matter….. A lot of them wear badges, or work in government bureaucracies, and are just smart enough to realize how badly they have screwed up their own lives, so they try to make themselves feel better by criticizing whatever other folks are up to….. it’s pathetic, really…. and well worth the hullabaloo that ensues after administering the evidence of our displeasure….
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But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
— Thomas Gray (1716-1771) — Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 13

It isn’t often that ignorance is made so plain, nor the exact feel of it so well portrayed as in this little gem……

To each his suff’rings; all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,–
The tender for another’s pain,
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘T is folly to be wise.
— Thomas Gray (1716-1771) — On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Stanza 10

Life is so simple when you don’t know what you’re talking about. — Smart Bee  (Isn’t that what Bush Jr., the Shrub, had printed around the edges of the national seal while he was in office? I think it was….or should have been…. I know it was printed on his cards….)
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What can I say? I’m a sucker for puppies…. found this on Facebook a few days ago, and just love it!….

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No man is an island, but then no man is a potato salad, either. — Smart Bee

I haven’t lost my mind, I know exactly where I left it. — Smart Bee

Since it is obvious by now that trying to be serious today just isn’t going to happen without a struggle, I am bowing to the forces at work, and giving up on any discussion of any compelling issues.  We’ll just fill in with some pertinent observations, such as exemplified by those little gems above this blurb…..

“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.” — Lily Tomlin

I wasn’t picking my nose…I was scratching.

iT’s HArD tO tYPe WHilE HolDiNG a cAT…

Puns are bad, but poetry is verse.

“You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.” — A.A. Milne

A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president.
A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.
A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.
A billion dollars ago was late yesterday at the U.S. Treasury…
— According to a recent government publication … (I know, not funny… sad and pathetically true…. but interesting….)

“How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity, that his intentions were good.” — Mark Twain

Okay, okay, settle down! I can hear you whimpering in pain, no need to shout…. I’m done now, so you can take a moment to go lick your wounds in private….. see you below in a few minutes…..
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A long, strange trip indeed….. I’m kind of glad it’s over, and we can get on with the rest of the day. The chances of it being better than it has thus far been willing to allow will no doubt increase the further from Now we get…. well, I AM and optimist at heart…. perhaps it would be best to just stick to the usual approach, expecting nothing, and enjoying the actual results, whatever they may be….. what with the rather capricious events that have thus far been our lot, that is probably for the best….. Y’all take care out there….

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!


Today only: Tofu Doll Houses….

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Ffolkes,
Curious….. my mind this morning as I sit down to begin is empty again. I could have sworn when I woke up that there were lots of things going around in there, clamoring and pushing to be first to get out. But now that I’m faced with an empty screen, I find a matching empty screen in my mind’s eye, sitting there, staring at me like I’ve got something to put on there…. which, needless to say at this point, I don’t. I can’t say where all the stuff that was around earlier went to; if I did, I’d just go there, and cajole a few random thoughts to come on back with me, or maybe fool one of the weaker thoughts into turning into a comedy routine of some sort.

Since I haven’t a clue where they might be, I’m not sure now just what I should do. I can’t sit here typing stream of consciousness for too long; my stream is looking a bit thin at present. If only there were some way to magically call my thoughts back, like in a Harry Potter movie…. “Accio Inspiration!”  With my luck, Inspiration would be a big rock, which would proceed to smack me upside the head, thus inspiring me to curse mightily before heaving the rock out the window (hopefully, AFTER remembering to open said window….. the landlord gets so testy when I forget….). Like that’ll work….

Well, I suppose it’s back to Plan C…. pick up the axe, start chopping, and let the chips fall where they may. Not necessarily the most scientific or artistic solution, or even the most efficient, but brute force has always served me well…. so I’m going for it. If you’d care to tag along, please feel free, after donning the provided hard hats and goggles, both of which are required by law for all visitors to this site….. Thank you for you cooperation with these regulations…. they are filming us to ensure compliance. (See? Just over there, from that fourth story window across the way….) We hope you enjoy today’s tour through the WWW Ocean of Knowledge, and our search for Pearls of Daily Wisdom…..
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Tho’ lost to sight, to mem’ry dear        / Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,–       / The hope to meet again.
Oh fondly on the past I dwell,            / And oft recall those hours
When, wand’ring down the shady dell,      / We gathered the wild-flowers.
Yes, life then seem’d one pure delight,   / Tho’ now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho’ thy smile be lost to sight,      / To mem’ry thou art dear.
Oft in the tranquil hour of night,        / When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,            / And wish that thou wert by.
I think upon that happy time,             / That time so fondly lov’d,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime, / As thro’ the fields we rov’d.
Yes, life then seem’d one pure delight,   / Tho’ now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho’ thy smile be lost to sight,      / To mem’ry thou art dear.
— George Linley (1798-1865) — Song

I love these poems! I’ve seen several now, though at least two are probably this one seen twice. I’ve seen another in techspeak, written by some hacker. I know I’ve used this before, but it’s been quite a while, so, the hell with it, I’m using it again. I am just so impressed by the creativity, and perseverance, it must have taken to create these three poems in one, I am compelled to include it again today, in spite of my regular policy against repetition of source material for discussions. To keep the left column consistent as a complete work, then the right column, then the poem created by the two together; this to me is poetic genius, or at minimum, a complete refusal to give up on something until it is right….. fantastic!  Enjoy!…..
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“I don’t think we should punish the criminal [a rapist] by killing his child.” — Dr. John Wilke, President, National Right to Life Committee, — Search for Common Ground, taped for television 4/89, as quoted in “The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves”, a Planned Parenthood pamphlet

When I first read this, I could not believe that this is something that could pass the lips of anyone, anyone at all, without choking the speaker. There are so many wrong things about it, it is difficult to choose a starting point.  My next thought was to wonder how such an ignoramus could remember to breathe without someone there to remind them.  I certainly have serious doubts that this “Doctor” was awarded his degree by any accredited educational institution, in ANY field of scientific inquiry,  though I suppose it could be a Piled High and Deep Doctorate in Divinity, or some such faux degree. Such an example of extreme, deliberate ignorance is certainly not something that anyone with a) any compassion at all, or b) an IQ that exceeds 90, would ever contemplate allowing to come out of their mouth, at least, not without a grin and and a wink to assure the listeners that they were not serious.

After I got past the disbelief, (after all, there is no defined limit to just how stupid people can be… the bar keeps getting raised…..), I had a reaction not dissimilar to the one I get when I contemplate those who traffic in human flesh, i.e., pimps, brothel managers, and other WOS assholes of that ilk. (No, not preachers and priests, though they are certainly to be included in that category, for their active encouragement of the trade)

It is almost comforting to envision myself putting a double tap from a Glock 9mm right between their eyes, thus serving the sentence that Mother Nature herself would set if she were to judge such ignorance…. which she does, but leaves the execution of the sentence to other forces of Nature, such as the righteous anger of the brothers, uncles, and fathers of the abused victims…..
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“It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Sertorius

Infinite monkeys, pecking at typewriters over infinite time, would produce all the works of Shakespeare….. It now seems clear from whom the man who wrote that line obtained the obviously plagiarized concept he employed in its composition. If such it may be called, in light of this thought from Plutarch, a man whose reputation has stood through millennia.

With my complete faith in the power of Google, after writing the above little query into Plutarch’s statement, and in the interests of accuracy (and scratching the itch of curiosity it gave me), I typed the essential phrases into the search box, hit enter, and sat back to await the results, trying to find the current author to whom it is attributed.

Sure thing, the first link was to a comprehensive article on Wikipedia on what is known as the Infinite Monkey Theorem. Little did I know when I first took up this subject that I had blundered into a field of intense and continuous scientific and philosophical inquiry that has been raging among the academic and public sectors of society since the time of Aristotle, who is credited in the article as having been one of the first to propose the basic concept in writing.

In scrolling down the Wikipedia page in a quick scan, I realized what I saw there would be equivalent to 30 or more pages of a book, in a tiny font, mentioning discussions by most of the philosophers of the last two thousand years, including many examples of historical and cultural explorations of the concept. This first glance I took only covered the basic elements of the discussion, which was organized into what seemed to be endless divisions of academic, mathematical, and cultural aspects.

There are several other articles listed as well, some even longer and more detailed, that explore the idea’s mathematics, and the implications of that math. There are entire articles on the cultural aspects of the question, and each article is filled with links to more information, literally thousands of web pages of data. It is, in short, a subject worthy of weeks, or even years of study before any discussion to be held would cover any ground that hasn’t likely been covered previously.

It would take a few weeks of eight hour days just to check if any ideas I had for discussion had occurred already somewhere, or some when, not leaving much time to develop the any possibly new arguments in a fresh way, or even much time to organize any, since their relative newness was as yet undetermined. A challenge of a lifetime, or at least one worthy of a doctoral dissertation…. hmmm, I wonder if some university would accept such an article for a doctorate?

Hell, somebody probably thought of that already, too….. I guess I’ll find another subject for discussion here. This one seems to be a dead end….in spite of the 300 or so words I’ve already spewed.

Damn monkeys anyway! Who asked them to write Shakespeare? Though, as I’ve said before, there is some of his stuff that could use a bit of work….. just sayin’…..

“Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you hear it.” — Laurence Peter, “Peter’s Quotations”, 1977
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“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.”– Goya

Master Goya knows whereof he speaks. If you believe it not, just view his body of work, and we will discuss it again.  Here is one of the marvels of which he speaks… I had forgotten how excellent a poet Keats could be. This is obviously a “toss off” poem, a spur of the moment reaction, yet effortlessly gives the reader a taste of the grandeur of what he had read in Chapman, and felt about what he read.  Enjoy!….

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
— John Keats (1795-1821) — On first looking into Chapman’s Homer

Gorgeous! If you can believe it, I am speechless in admiration….. watch me….. See? Nothing more to say…. well, maybe one thing….

“True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, not all that could be.” — Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
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No, ‘t is slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Cymbeline
— Act iii, Sc. 4

Not to belabor my point, but see? Shakespeare. Really bad verse. At least 10 too many words, way more than needed, and still so obscure the point has to be shaken out like a peach from a tree. Not unusual for him, in my mind….. I rest my case…..

Kirk: “Spock, comment.”
Spock: “Very bad poetry.”
— “Catspaw”, Stardate 3018.2.
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Well…. I’d feel strange about the lineup today, but, in truth, it’s not an unusual grouping to find here. Since I never plan what to write ahead of time, I suppose that isn’t particularly surprising. It keeps me busy….. a bit of housekeeping, if you would spare me a moment of your attention….

*Smart Bee — Smart Bee is the database program in which a lot of the quotes I use as pearls are found. More of them than I would like are not attributed, as might be expected in a database of 111, 111 quotes amassed by a collection of geeks and programmers (i.e., hackers) in their spare time, and distributed for free.

In the past I have attributed all such orphaned statements to Anonymous, Unknown, and occasionally, no one at all (I feel plagiaristic every time, but whaddyagonnado,  when it’s perfect and you’re in a hurry to get done?) So, in the future, just for the sake of my sanity, such as it is, I’ll be attributing all such taglines found with no one to blame to Smart Bee itself. That way, I don’t have to try to figure out which to use each time, and can just get on with it… thanks for your patience with this little condom for my mental health.

And on that note, classy and elegant guy that I am, I shall bid thee adieu… be warned, please, that I intend to try to post to my blog site again later today…. but it won’t hurt, I assure you, especially if I don’t get to it….. Y’all take care out there…..

 

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

Kowabunga!

Strike the tent! We’ve been pacified!

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13

Ffolkes,
Possessing a passionate nature is not always a blessing. There are many times that my passion is so great that I feel as if I will burst if I cannot do something that will fulfill it somehow; to soothe it, or calm it so that I don’t feel as if I am trying to hold the leash of a rhinoceros who really, really wants to walk, NOW! The hard part of that is that taking the walk, or even slipping the leash off and letting it run, does not necessarily soothe the beast, or release the pent up energy. But, if it’s the only thing to do, or that CAN be done, well, we just have to try it, and hope for the best.

The other hard part of having unresolved passionate feelings is knowing that the event or issue that prompted the feelings is often something for which we have no solution, at least not in the short term. The reasons  behind that failure of solution are not important, other than to point out that reality can often not be changed to suit our desires. But the fact of the matter is that our, or my, passion is thus being controlled by factors in the world over which I have little or no control, and that is a hard pill to swallow, especially for someone who feels responsibility for their own feelings and action. I HATE knowing that there are things going on in the world over which I have no control, and that those things are evil.

This line of thought was prompted by a couple of comments made by a reader who had been taking in some of the articles on human trafficking, sexual abuse, and sex trade practices that I have re-blogged,  articles written by survivors, who know first-hand the evil of which I spoke above. The comment was a plaintive lament, expressing sorrow and astonishment at the extent and Medusa-nature of the trade in modern society, referencing a recent shut-down of a sex trade operation nearby, with the subsequent appearance of three new operations in the same area.

Her lament, naturally, struck a deep chord in me, for it echoes the hollow feelings of my passion over this issue, feelings so deep I weep, even now, as I think of the pain and degradation of my sisters who are trapped by those WOS assholes (I know, pretty lame insult for such evil; I’m still searching for words powerful enough to really show the level of hatred and disdain that I feel) (I don’t engage in hatred very much, it is generally an unproductive emotion. But, in the case of these people, a term I use in lieu of anything more accurate, I am making a deliberate exception to that policy, allowing myself to hate them without reservation…. damn straight I am…..)  who engage in the sex trade.

Sometimes, the only way I can stop myself from crying is to envision myself walking into a place like the Mustang Ranch, or some other brothel in any random city, and methodically assassinating any male figure that stepped into my sight, customer or staff, preferably with some sort of hollowpoint ammunition that would make a real mess when I shoot them in the head. That vision will usually make me feel better, if only for a moment or two.

For now, though, all I can do is try to help these women, who have survived and moved on, but have the compassion in them to want to share their strength with the other women, and children, still enslaved, to tell their story to the world, painful as that is for them. And all I can do to help, until I can get more ammunition anyway, is to help them to spread that story, to engage as many people in society as possible, who may then be pushed to add their voices, and their energies, to stopping this plague, this blight on society.

Since this issue has been present in society for many thousands of years, the eradication of it in its entirety will be a nasty, time-consuming job, not unlike getting rid of an insect infestation in a house or community. But it is a job that is long overdue for completion, so I’ll be doing whatever I can to help, for as long as I am well enough to type, and move a mouse around. (Or pull a trigger, but that is another story, yet to be written…. rest assured, before I die, I will personally take a significant number of assholes down….. one bullet for each asshole, one asshole for each sister I find there…..)

Well, that was a pleasant start to the day, wasn’t it? To be honest, I was torn up pretty well by the emotional storm this created within me…. but those last couple of lines had the beneficial effect of lifting my spirits quite nicely. I’m not sure what that says about me, getting my serenity from thinking about killing assholes, but, hey, too bad, so sad…. I refuse to feel any guilt over my intended future acts. The only guilt I intend to suffer over any of them will be if I miss with my first shot, and have to waste another round to put them down like the dirty, evil dogs they are…… karma be damned, in this case… I’ll take the risk.

“I must do something” will always solve more problems than, “Something must be done.” — Anonymous

There, that said, we can now go on to something a bit less dark and dreary…. well, we can if I can find an appropriate pearl to stimulate said lightness. Let’s go see what we can see, shall we?….. After you……
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“The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.” — Eugene V. Debs, US labor leader.

(Note: Debs received one million votes in 1920 as candidate for US President, while serving a 10-year jail sentence for having said in June 1918: “Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder…the master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.” Since we were at war, or just done with one, the beloved ruling class was able to label him a traitor for his words, thus hoodwinking the public, again….)

This pearl is another that doesn’t really need embellishment or long discussion, as I placed it here merely as a warning. Society today is no less tolerant of those who question those in power than it was just after WW I when Mr. Debs was cast down for dissing the beloved ruling class while they were in the middle of their victory dance. Though it is encouraging to note the number of intellectuals that were alert and active in 1920 at the polling booths, it must also be noted that, by virtue of force (i.e., shutting Debs up by locking him away on some trumped up charge) all million of those votes were effectively nullified, and made useless, except as a statement.

I think that all of us today who consider ourselves to be intellectuals, with responsibility to stay alert and speak out against the madness, would be well-advised to keep the example of Eugene Debs in mind, and be ready to repel any attempts to shut us up, by force, or by stealth, or by lying and cheating, all of which have been tried and true methods used by those in power…… Be alert, folks, the world needs more lerts, and that is NOT a joke, but a warning…..
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Just jiggle it a little, it’ll open. — Smart Bee  Wisdom for the ages…. known only to those with the soul of a true engineer…

As a rule, I didn’t, and don’t, write about men/women relationships in a serious vein, a practice most likely left over from my years as a thoroughly married man, one who was, of course, subject to the rules and unwritten laws that go with any such social contract (and, if you are paying attention today, you’ll see I’m not about to start now….). Talking about the relationship seriously is DANGEROUS TERRITORY for a man alone, as such things are more in the purview of women, at least in my experience. I mean, regardless of how honestly, or sincerely, or logically, or reasonably I have approached discussions of a serious nature with a women in relationship, what I said had absolutely no impact at all on the outcome. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a damn thing.

What I discovered in my years of experiencing the phenomenon is that the outcome of all such conversations is a foregone conclusion; whatever reason the woman had for initiating the conversation was irrelevant, as were any thoughts on the matter I might entertain. What was key was to learn to understand that they didn’t need or want any input from me, because their mind, and feelings, were already set in stone; the discussion was merely some kind of ritual formality, necessary to show that they were trying to discuss things with you, or in this case, me….. and my thoughts and feelings on the matter were not merely irrelevant, but counter-productive in their eyes. (Echoes of past cliches are resounding in my mind, but I’m far too polite to include them….   🙂    …… )

One of the less emotional, but still potentially volatile, subjects that might prompt such discussion in a marriage involves chores, or tasks that come up in any household. For example, “Honey, the car is making a funny noise. Would you fix it, please?”  Questions such as this are pretty common, from woman to man, wouldn’t you say? Common enough at my house for the fact to have surfaced that hey, I’m not a mechanic! The one class in school that I ever got less than a B was auto shop, and she KNOWS this. I’m not an ignoramus in the engineering field, but it is NOT my field of expertise by any stretch of the imagination.

Yet my wife would continually assign tasks to me for completion that a man who had worked for 30 years on cars would scratch his head at (not an exaggeration. I took a cars to my VW guru more than once, asking him to track down whatever it was she heard, and he would frequently give it back with no charge, because he couldn’t find anything wrong with it…. not once, not twice, but…. more than that….. at least four times I can remember…. not hard to remember as it was really embarrassing, every time….)

But it didn’t matter to her; she wanted it fixed, and that was my job, regardless of whether or not I had an engineering degree or not, and that was all she wanted to hear on the subject….. SIGH, it was tough living up to those kind of delusions, er, standards, when she obviously believed the following to be a natural law, and expected me to be able, or even willing, to obey it…..

“Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.” — Wyszkowski’s Second Law

By God, for a moment there, it all made sense…
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“It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions. I believe it was Magellan who said, “The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church.” On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.” — Robert G. Ingersoll, quoted in _The Great Quotations_

And, on that note, we offer the following…..

1. Politics without principle
2. Wealth without work
3. Commerce without morality
4. Pleasure without conscience
5. Education without character
6. Science without humanity
7. Worship without sacrifice
— Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins

Of these principles, I can fully support 6 of 7, which is the best percentage of belief I’ve admitted to for ANY system of philosophy, so, good for Mahatma…. These two short statements don’t really need my comments, so I’m not going to give any, other than to say that both are very good meditation focus tools, with just a bit of practical editing to put them in the right form, as mindful questions to answer during our meditations…… enjoy!….
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Ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, A-1 steak sauce, ice, salt, pepper, celery.
Fill a large tumbler with vodka.
Throw all the other ingredients away.

— The Real Man’s Bloody Mary

Having been a bartender for a time, I rather enjoyed making Bloody Mary’s for the club members. As a chef, too, I played with recipe a bit, and came up with a pretty good set of proportions that made the list of classical ingredients able to be brought together into a “perfect” Bloody Mary, by the reports of the members. So, knowing those ingredients, upon reading the above, I was able, and happy, to burst into guffaws of laughter at the last line. Funny, funny, funny shit!  My recipe, which, classically, contains no A-1 sauce (an abomination!), and does contain both celery salt and fresh, strong horseradish, (along with my secret, a half teaspoon of chopped garlic) was popular with a number of the early golfers. But there WAS one member, who came in to play 18 holes just about every day, who would come in and ask for his personal Bloody Mary, (which he told his wife was what he drank while playing each morning).

This gentleman’s (he was no duffer, for sure….) version of the classic drink called for a 32 ounce opaque white cold cup, ice to 2/3 filled, then filled to the top of the cup with straight vodka from the well, a decent, but cheap plonk (it worked out to about 8 or 9 shots of vodka per drink). He’d slap a lid on it, take a huge swallow, grin, ask me to replace the swallow, and hit the course, both of us fully aware that regardless of his score on the front nine, he would be picking up an identical refill on the turn. 

Now, that was a drinking man! Can’t say I admired him, particularly, as a man, because he had a son and daughter, and no doubt spent too much time wasted to be of much use as a father.  But I did stand in amazement at how well he could play golf in that condition (he maintained an honestly earned handicap of 4; he was very, very good, according to his partners, all damn good golfers themselves…..), and at his liver, which hadn’t killed him by the time I left…..
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“It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!” — John Muir, American Naturalist (1838-1914)

John Muir probably did as much, and more, to ensure the preservation of much of the American wilds as any man who ever lived; his lifelong love affair with Mother Nature was not a front. His passion and sheer joy at being out of doors, almost anywhere, but especially in his beloved Yosemite, was obvious in every one of the thousands and thousands of words he wrote, trying to describe what he saw and felt when he was connected to Nature (always capitalized in his mind). He was a good writer, with excellent observational skills, and an engaging style. But, when waxing poetic about the wonders of his love for Nature, he tended to well, gush….. and since he had a very extensive, powerful vocabulary, his is not just gushing, but major gushing….. it can get everywhere if it spills…..   🙂

It’s okay, that is not a complaint, or intended to disparage. It’s just a personal opinion, from a curmudgeon in training, who gets a bit weary after a while of all the hyperbole Mr. Muir uses in his descriptions …. but THIS quote is perfect, to me, and I like it a lot. The image of Man and Tree walking the earth together, side by side as we ride our planetary roller coaster through space, is a lovely one, bringing a smile to my face upon first reading it. I was reminded of the scenes in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy where the hobbits, Pippin and Merry, are introduced to, and learn to appreciate, Greybeard, the Ent, the last and oldest tree in Middle Earth, the remaining guardian of all the less-sentient trees…. a truly wonderful vision of the inter-connecting lines of life force that are common to all the creatures and plants who inhabit Earth….. and not a gush to be seen….. lovely.
___________________________________

Wow. 0711 and I’m done. Not bad, even if I did start before 0500 by a good half hour….. I’ll take it. Maybe today, I can actually get a jump on the day’s email, before it has a chance to bury me again. Yesterday evening, I found myself still going through emails I had not gotten to yet, from 4/3/12, three days ago last night.

It is getting discouraging; I had it down to only 20 unread, and about 85 read but not yet site-visited, for those posts I wanted to acknowledge, or read more fully. Now this morning when I finish this, I flip over to email and find…… yup, as I suspected, 45 new emails to read….. SIGH… the price of fame, or in my case, an equal amount of folly, I suppose.

No es importa, es una problema personal, verdad? Si….  Y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Plain, old-fashioned articles of modern design….

Posted on by
16

Ffolkes,
Malaise. An innocuous word, wouldn’t you say? Almost sounds like one of those drinks you get on a cruise ship, in a colorful plastic cup with a bamboo umbrella sticking up from the top….. Makes me thirsty just thinking about it, until I think about what the drink inside those cups usually taste like, to wit: six fruits, sugar, and a bunch of cheap rum, with bubbles. This is also only until I remember what the word actually means, and its relevance this morning…..

In the psychiatric healthcare industry, malaise refers to a certain set of symptoms experienced by people who suffer a wide range of mental issues; it is common in depression, neurosis of several types, schizophrenia, and a number of other diagnoses. Malaise is generally reported as a vague, unsettled feeling, centered in the abdomen, much like a low-grade fear, but without any specific cause or stimulus that the sufferer is aware of. All that unfortunately afflicted individual knows is that they are accompanied by a constant sense of impending doom, of dread at what may happen; they cannot tell you why they feel that way, they just do so.

I am here to tell you, it isn’t fun. As a man who has in the past suffered from the deleterious effects of long-term exposure to violence, i.e., post traumatic stress disorder/syndrome, I experience this on an irregular, unwelcome basis. This morning is one of those unwelcome times. I awoke, no earlier or later than usual, and from sleep not troubled by uncomfortable dreams, or excessive pain, either of which are common.

But, as I sat up to begin the morning routine, I was washed over completely, like an unexpected wave at the beach, by a feeling of trepidation and mild fear; sort of anticipation of disaster, much akin to the first moments before wading in to physically control a raging psychopath bent on ripping my head from my shoulders, an event with which I am all-too-familiar.

As a result of all the years I spent doing just that, it is a feeling I know well, and recognize easily. What isn’t so easy is convincing my conscious mind that all that fear does not require any action on its part; the fear is accompanied, you see, by a good strong jolt of adrenaline, which kind of takes over the metabolism, preparing the body for fight or flight. No fight, no flight, just the adrenaline coursing through my system, looking for a convenient asshole, or a plane ticket….

So, here I sit, vibrating lightly in every muscle, determined to ignore this feeling that I should be up searching for the danger so obviously present, according to the feelings of malaise I’m trying to ignore.  It will pass, after a time; it always does. It resembles Murphy in that respect; you never know or expect it when he might show up, and can never be sure he’s really gone, just because you don’t see him anymore. Patience, and will power, are the keys to handling this without ill effects, and needless to say, I’ve had lots of practice at this particular process.

So, we’ll just gather up our belongings, and get back on the bus, which will take us directly to the jumping off point for the day….. Shall we go Pearling? I say we must….. or I’m doomed to spend the rest of the day in a medicated haze, in order to keep from running around naked, throwing rocks at the seagulls, and scaring the neighbors….. Shall we be off, then? Let’s do………
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Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of Heaven: a happiness
That even above the smiles and frowns of fate
Exalts great Nature’s favourites: a wealth
That never encumbers, nor can be transferred.
— John Armstrong (1709-1779)

Virtue is the subject of this poem, and justly so, as it is a key element in the make-up of an evolved Man, by my definition of such. In my mind, one of the most important of these virtues is Duty, which could also be said to possess the same qualities as ascribed to virtue in this beautiful piece, in that it “never encumbers, nor can be transferred.”  In fact, Duty is unique among the most important virtues, as it is completely a matter of choice. One must choose Duty; it cannot be thrust upon us by others, unless we consent. It may not be our first, or best choice to assume a Duty, but it is OUR choice, not that of society, or of other people, or of Fate, whatever that means to you.

For the first ten years of my life, my family spent most of those years living on US Army bases. Fort Lewis, Fort Ord, off-base housing in San Pedro, all were what we called home until my father mustered out in 1961. As a result, my upbringing was a bit different from that of most of my civilian classmates. By the time I started school at age 4.8 (November birthday), I had already been to Japan with the family, was well able to perform such tasks as making a bed on which you could bounce a quarter, sweeping and vacuuming, mowing lawns, raking leaves, minding my younger siblings, and a bunch of other stuff that a family with five kids tends to outsource to the young’uns for completion.  And, most significantly, I could perfectly address my seniors with well-rehearsed protocols of politeness, as well as give a pretty fair definition of what the term Duty meant……

Duty has remained as one of the most important elements of my life; to this day there are certain things I must do before I can go to sleep at night, all related to a chosen duty of some sort. And that is the point of this little discussion (at last, they cried!)….. Duty is chosen, not given. It may be accepted if offered, but the choice still remains. If we do not choose a Duty, then we will not be invested in fulfilling it, other than for how we wish others to see us, a very poor way to structure one’s actions. Only by choosing our Duty do we feel the responsibility for completing it; only the choice determines our investment. But, the reward for making that choice, and for meeting the demands Duty places upon us, is being able to sleep at night, with a clear conscience, and an easy heart…..

Self-respect . . . is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has its price. — Anonymous, but true nonetheless….
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“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” — Thomas Paine

The Founding Fathers had a strong, and justifiable, lack of trust in organized religion, and that mistrust is exemplified in this statement from Thomas Paine. It is a sentiment shared by a significant number of those men who left us our legacy of freedom, as evidenced by similar statements seen in correspondence written by, and/or to, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, among others. All these men had direct experience with how organized faiths fall into corruption and oppression, and how those organizations attempt to force non-believers into submission to their dogmatic influence. This corruption and oppression was, after all, the driving force behind their journey to the New World in the first place…..

If we look around society today, the picture that organized religions present is very similar to what was seen back then, only on a much grander scale. The leaders of those religions continue to pervert the teachings of Christ, changing them around to suit their own agenda and purposes, until what they say is completely unrecognizable by any true Christian, and would most likely have Jesus blushing down to his toes at the thought of them using his name to justify their perversions. The only difference in today’s world is in how many different sects of Christianity have surfaced over the intervening 240 years. When the US Constitution was signed, there were maybe eight or ten sects among the populace; now there are literally thousands of different interpretations of what the Bible, and the New Testament, say about life. This doesn’t even address or count the presence of at least five other major religions that the American populace embraces. And each one is thoroughly convinced of their own rightness, that all the others are wrong, and will go straight to hell when they die…..

SIGH…. all I can say at this point is, a) I am VERY, VERY glad that our forefathers had the good sense to build a solid wall between church and state, and b) I am equally as happy that I have not bought into the lies, perversions, or dogma that ANY of these charlatans in priestly robes are handing out, even when they make the offer with candy, or cakes, or sacramental wine, not even a nice Chianti, with some fava beans….. otherwise, I’d feel worse about it all than I already do…..

“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” — Bertrand Russell
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Truckin’, like the do-dah man
Once told me “Gotta play your hand.
Sometimes your cards ain’t worth a damn
If you don’t lay’em down.”
Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
— Truckin’ by Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Hunter

I’m pulling my covers again, though I’ve never really worn them very tightly. I’m a hippie. I became a hippie in 1968, when I decided to attend the University of California at Berkeley, and entered into a world so different from that I had heretofore experienced that I am still seeing, and feeling, the effects, both good and ill. This verse from an iconic tune from those halcyon days is a very good expression of how I feel today, some 44 years later…..

I’ve met the do-dah man, even played a few gigs with him back in the day. I’ve played enough poker to know he was giving me the straight skinny on that; it’s good advice, as evidenced by my lifetime record of breaking even at the game that isn’t a game. I’ve been in the light, and found my way out of the darkness on more than one occasion. And I am completely convinced that my long, strange trip is not yet done, and that there are strangeness’s and wondrous beauty still to be seen and experienced before I pass into the great unknown that awaits us all.

I’m not ashamed of being a hippie. We, as a group of American citizens, were directly and indirectly responsible for a great many societal changes, and the activism we espoused back in the day has not mellowed with age. I’d guess that a significant number of us are active in such organizations as MoveOn.org, the Occupy Protests, the push for equality between the sexes, and those that seek justice for the victimized and oppressed, that are active today, as has been true since the 60’s. Just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I’m going to cut my hair, stop playing poker, or reduce my sense of outrage at the atrocities I see in our society.

In fact, just the opposite is true. Though much thinner these days, my hair still reaches half-way down my back, and there has been no less outrage in my responses to the news, not that I can see. (I do play less poker, but that is due to lack of available playing partners and a stake, not lack of want-to….)  I can only hope now to provide an example for the youth of this time, to continue to show that honor, duty, and and the journey toward justice for all (Free our sisters, free ourselves!) are not out of favor, but continue to be key elements of right behavior, and right action, for a large number of citizens, past their prime or not…. hell, it just makes us meaner and tougher, not weaker. The PTB and the beloved ruling class might do well to remember that…..

“Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.” — little known, but apt, advice from Merlin the Wise, the most influential wizard in the history of Mankind….
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~~~//\\_~~//\\_~       ~(\_\_\_\)
~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~

This beautiful example of ASCII art will hopefully translate from where I found it to this post and still retain its clarity. To be certain, and to segue into the discussion I’m planning, allow me to say that you SHOULD see here a picture of a magnificently plumed Tom Turkey, as envisioned in the mind of J. Random Hacker.

Now, when I saw this, after my initial response (“Perfect!”, I thought….), a second, slightly more wicked thought struck me, and I thought I should share it. I have a proposed change to suggest for both, or hell, all of the political parties in the US today. Republicans,Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, Whackos (the Santorum/Romney/Gingrich contingent….    …. sometimes called the Tea Party), they all need to consider taking this image as one to replace the elephant, the donkey, the cartoon characters, etc. that they now use to represent their party line, and how they wish to be viewed. A turkey is very American, much more native here than the majority of political hacks on parade.

Turkeys are survivors, and are considered to be one of the toughest birds to hunt and kill, as they are fast fliers, hyper-alert, and smart as hell in their own environment. Of course, none of these characteristics are common to these political groups as they exist now, but hey, maybe by changing their icons, they can take on some of these virtues…. it couldn’t hurt, and just might make them more palatable to the rest of us……. What do you think? Think they’ll go for it?…. They might just earn my vote, if they should all of a sudden show some common sense, and go along with this novel idea…. Probably not going to happen, but I can dream, can’t I?……
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Limericks are art forms complex,
Their topics run chiefly to sex.
They usually have virgins,
And masculine urgin’s,
And other erotic effects.
— Anonymous

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

So, it occurred to me, after writing the above haiku, to ask myself, “Self, which came first, the limerick or the haiku?”  At first, I thought I was just being silly. Then I realized I really wanted to know, but I’m too lazy to Google right now. So, here is the deal…..

I’d appreciate a response from anyone who has any ideas or reactions on this, either by commenting, or by posting a reply; if I follow your blog, I’ll be notified of either method of response, and be able to reply in turn. No prizes will be awarded, though I will mention your name, and your answer to this time-honored query, in a future Pearl. (Well, it’s been honored for the two or three minutes since I asked it, and by the time you answer, it will be more, so….) So, join in the fun, and the challenge, and send me a response today! You won’t regret it, much…..

It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don’t be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit, it’s so easy to quit:
It’s the keeping-your-chin-up that’s hard.
It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten–and die;
It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight–
Why, that’s the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each grueling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try–it’s dead easy to die,
It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.
— Robert W. Service — The Quitter
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Got ahead of myself there for a moment. I was so excited at being done, I started to copy and paste to the appropriate destination files, and only then noticed I had not quite finished. So, here I am, to compose one more witty ending to another meandering journey through the labyrinth I call my mind…. easy money, as they say.

Well, the meandering and the ending parts are easy; the witty part is, as always, a notably arguable characteristic of what I write for publication. Ah well, I suppose it is well to remember that the journey is the lesson, not the destination…. Y’all take care out there……

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Betwixt perilous ideological sideboards….

Posted on by
11

Ffolkes,
Asleep, I lay dreaming I was awake. Now, awake, I sit dreaming I am asleep. Which is true? Am I awake, and dreaming, or am I asleep, dreaming of being awake? How does one tell, when there are no external sources of evidence to check against reality? If awake, am I really asleep, dreaming? And if I am dreaming, what is real? I confess to being confused….. at this hour, with no one about to whom I can appeal for a different view, the edge between reality and dream becomes somewhat indistinct….. It is most likely a good thing that I don’t weird out at weird stuff, or I would definitely be feeling thoroughly weirded out….. but, since I start from weird, it’s all good. I’ll just sip a bit more of this fine coffee, and wait until reality adjusts itself to a bit more clarified state….. no worries!

There are times when I do wish I wasn’t so strange, in relation to the rest of humanity. (No, no, don’t bother to argue…. I know I’m strange, and there’s no need to try to keep from hurting my feelings about it… I accepted it long ago, and now it’s just another part of me that other folks need to deal with…. at their own risk….) Not that I don’t like being strange; there are distinct advantages to having other people think twice about approaching, much less about asking for favors, or “just a moment of your time”.

No, it’s just that it can make it really hard sometimes to write anything people will look at twice. My words, as indicated by the first paragraph, can touch up against weirdness at the drop of a cliche, and it is getting to be an onerous task to edit such weirdness when I’m already feeling strange, such as this morning.

I’m guessing it’s just another little memo gram from reality, reminding me that any perks I may enjoy, due to my inner oddness, are always going to be counterbalanced by an appropriate kick in the ass, and there is no sense or benefit in either trying to avoid any such boots, or in complaining about them. Hence, I’ll just shrug my shoulders, offer a sheepish grin, and move on…..

One section of yesterday’s Pearl was a discussion on the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. I don’t need to go over that again (not after approximately 800 fairly passionate words….), but did wish to note the usual Murphy effect that accompanies much of what I write…. some time after publishing, I found the following pearl, which, as is obvious, is a perfect summary of the concluding portion of my thoughts yesterday. To keep Murphy happy, (always a good policy with that particular force of Nature), I include it now…..

“I believe everybody in the world should have guns. Citizens should have bazookas and rocket launchers too. I believe that all citizens should have their weapons of choice. However, I also believe that only I should have the ammunition. Because frankly, I wouldn’t trust the rest of the goobers with anything more dangerous than string.” — Scott Adams

That seems to cover it…. let’s go Pearling, ‘kay? ‘Kay!….. Kowabunga!…..
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During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai E. Stevenson “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”

Obviously proving he was part of the minority…. Mr. Stevenson was perhaps the last truly rational man to ran for the highest office our country offers. I’ve seen a number of articles about that campaign, and it’s clear in my mind that his very rationality is what gave the election to the other candidate. He made every attempt he could to try to engage the minds of Americans, naively, as it turns out. His opponent, Eisenhower, just mostly kept his mouth shut and let his slogans speak for him, such as “I like Ike!”, and other such intellectual standards, that appealed directly to the American public’s misplaced sense of national pride.

After four years of post-Korean war economic boom, it wasn’t hard for the Republicans to rest on their laurels, firmly attached to the coattails of a war hero…. There was, and still is, no place on the political scene in this country for rationality, obviously, as Ike and his ilk won in a landslide….

So much for the opportunity to see what a “thinking man’s president” might be able to accomplish…. The chances of such a man being elected today are even slimmer, considering that those candidates who can be the most sly, underhanded, and completely dishonest are those who catch the eye, and the votes, of the great unwashed, uneducated masses that now comprise the voting public…..

“It has been said that man is a rational animal.  All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.” — Bertrand Russell
___________________________________

FOLLY, n.  That “gift and faculty divine” whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man’s mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once
In a thick volume, and all authors known,
If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,
Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,
To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
However feebly be his arrows thrown,

Howe’er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,
With lusty lung, here on his western strand
With all thine offspring thronged from every land,
Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.
And if too weak, I’ll hire, to help me bawl,
Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.

— Aramis Loto Frope — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

Perhaps it is a result of having learned to see around corners at an early age, or that silly prophecy made by that supposed witch who scared my mother a week after I was born.  Perhaps it has to do with spending so many hours and days of my intellectual formative years with my nose buried in a book, generally one that made me a familiar inhabitant of the sleaziest, most disreputable spacer’s dives in every far corner of our Galaxy, surrounded by grizzled old first mates from a dilapidated freighter out of the Pleiades, and a motley group of aliens of all descriptions.

I could probably blame it on being the middle child of five, with a neurotic, if perfectly lovable mother, balanced by a perfectly stable father, and four siblings who had no clue how to deal with me.  Or, it could have been the daily ingestion of frozen, processed vegetables so common on our dinner table during the 50’s and 60’s; as it turns out, the benefits of the vegetables were pretty much nullified by the process of preserving and preparing them for consumption. Who knew?

Whatever the root cause may have been, Folly has long been a fascinating area of study for me, and its influence on my life at large has been extensive. My first attempts at blogging, via email since 1998, then via SFGATE since 2011, were known as “Gigoid’s Folly”, and that was almost used as the title for this blog, as well. But, not wishing to tread, even peripherally, on the estate privileges of Robert Heinlein, even out of respect, I left it at “gigoid” with the subtitle, “Exploring consensual reality” as a tip of the cap to Murphy, and Mother Nature’s fondness for him…..

Folly remains a big part of the process of pearling, and Pearling; if that isn’t obvious, I’m doing something wrong. It has been for me a boon companion throughout my life, ever a contrast and strong defense against the powers of darkness and ignorance, always to be trusted to coax a smile out of me, often in the deepest moments of my despair. If it were not for my Folly, and the humor it infuses into my daily existence, I most likely would have bitten somebody, hard, long before now….  I can only be grateful, and proclaim, “May I and my Folly never part ways, throughout all of my days!”……

“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” — Willie Wonka (Roald Dahl)
___________________________________

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Twelfth Night
— Act i, Sc. 1

I’ve been pretty clear in past posts in expressing my lack of enthusiasm for most of Will Shakespeare’s work. To my mind, the greatest part of what he wrote is overblown, heavy with excess imagery and verbiage, and even in the time in which it was first written and performed, must have been a pain to follow just by listening…. sorry, but that’s what I think.

But, at the same time, I can acknowledge, as well, that he was an excellent word smith, and did occasionally write material that is far beyond anything else of its time, or of any time. His sonnets hit that nail squarely more often than his plays, in my opinion, but there are exceptions…. this is one of them.

These few lines of verse possess that timeless beauty that is the hallmark of genius, beauty so great that one can not merely see it in these lines, but is surrounded by beauty that floods every sense. Far be it from me to fail to acknowledge such genius…. I’m no Shakespeare, nor do I consider myself either infallible, nor a critic, but I know what I like, and I like this, a lot…..
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“I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.  so I ran over and said “stop! don’t do it!”  “Why shouldn’t I?” he said.  I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!”  He said, “Like what?”  I said, “Well…are you religious or atheist?”  He said, “Religious.” I said, “Me too!  Are you Christian or Buddhist?”  He said, “Christian.”  I said, “Me too!  Are you Catholic or Protestant?”  He said, “Protestant.”  I said, “Me too!  Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”  He said, “Baptist!”  I said, “Wow!  Me too!  Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?” He said, “Baptist Church of God!”  I said, “Me too!  Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”  He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”  I said, “Me too!  Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?”  He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”  I said, “Die, heretic scum”, and pushed him off.” — Emo Phillips

(Whew! Whoever transcribed this for the database where I found it was really lazy. They didn’t bother to capitalize the “I’s” or any of the Church names, so I had to go through and put them all in; it’s much clearer to read now, and looks a bit more refined…. but I didn’t change any words, just added capitals, just so you know…..)

Although I had a feeling as to where this would end up, I read it through to the end, and sure enough, it’s worth a full read, just to get to the punch line. My immediate thought was, “What a perfect statement of modern religious philosophy in America!”   🙂

Not trusting my original reaction, I put it down here, then prepared some breakfast, and consumed said comestibles, before coming back to look it over after some inner percolation. It’s still valid, and it still makes me smile, so it stays. No need to embellish any further, either, as I think it pretty well says it all…. Ignorance and bigotry are alive and well, and living in the Mid-West….. in a house, together…..
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Visions of Absolute Truth and Beauty; The Tragedy of Severus Snape

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

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

Here is a man who spent his entire life enduring unrequited love, love that, in his mind, could have been his, had he chosen differently. Yet, knowing that he could never have his deepest desire without destroying that which he loved, he still acted with honor to do all he could to keep the object of his obsession safe, to honor her and the love he felt, even after her death, and in defiance of the threat of his own death. 

He braved the wrath of the most terrifying of villains for almost 20 years, betraying that master of evil at every turn, to do what he could only hold as his Duty; he did this, knowing full well that in the end, he would have to kill the only man in the world who trusted him, and that he would die because of it. And, he knew as well, that his sacrifice would never be known to anyone but the son of the man he most envied in life, the son that might have been his…..

I’ve read a lot of what may be termed as classical literature, and in all that I’ve read, I have never found a character who fit the mold of the tragic hero any better, or more deserved the title of nobility it implies. Though flawed and miserable, Snape makes the hard choices, correctly, at the most critical junctures of his life, all for love of his Lily.

As Dumbledore exclaims when he sees the Patronus that Snape produces, a doe, identical to that of Lily, the only other human being he has ever loved,  “Lily! After all this time?”  Snape merely replies, “Always….”   Now, that is a hero, flawed and unlikeable as he is….. a hero that will go down in history, along with many of the characters from this series of books that will one day certainly be called “classics”……
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Not a bad lineup…. personal foibles made light of to begin, with a bit of housekeeping, a taste of political irony, a touch of whimsy, Shakespeare, a dip into religious humor and more irony, and a discussion of literary archetypes in modern and classical writing. I think we’ve approached the demarcation between reality and esoterica quite adeptly, without completely crossing over where the border guards might hassle us about returning to our regularly scheduled activities here in Reality…… that should definitely make an impression. On whom, I couldn’t say, but, hey, I’ll take it…. Y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Empty spaces should be filled with tokens or mangoes….

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16

Ffolkes,
I know it’s going to be an Interesting Day when I sit down here to write, and the first thing that pops into my head is, “Whew!”….. Here it is, 5:01 AM, and I’ve already written about oh, 800 or so words in reply to comments made while I was asleep. The comments, from some of my readers with the most stimulating responses to my work, tend to kick in my muse at a moment’s notice, and I have now spent 40 minutes at it, before I even get this started…. hence, interesting day ahead…..

There’s a lot going down out there in Meat Space today; sometimes I think we are approaching Heinlein’s “Crazy Years”, but then I realize that we’ve been there already since the late 1960’s. If you don’t believe me, or him, just go back over the headlines of the world’s newspapers in that period, and see if you don’t agree…. it’s pretty fucking crazy out there, and that is NOT an exaggeration, nor is the vulgarity misplaced. It is more than merely crazy, and less than an End Game Scenario, (though not by much), hence the euphemism for Very Crazy…. any who, there is enough and more to find something about which to rant, er, write this morning. Hell, I could be done before sunrise, if I can get to it…. so let’s Pearl, shall we….? Aye, indeed….

I find myself beside a stream of empty thought…… let’s fill it up!
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Guns don’t kill people… bullets do.

Of late I have been reading a number of articles, news items, and posts about gun control, and/or the concept of nullifying the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. The main argument seems to be centered on the obvious fact that society has changed since the Founding Fathers wrote the amendment, and the conditions that prompted its inclusion among the other basic rights they wished to secure are, supposedly, no longer present, or are no longer valid reasons for leaving it intact. Their arguments point to the number of killings and crimes that involve guns, and how much of a plague on society the guns are, how we’d all be better off, and somehow safer, if we took away all the guns from the American citizenry.

I could easily scoff at such naivete, were it not so dangerous. Dangerous to me, and whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, dangerous for them. So, rather than scoff, I will first acknowledge the presence, if not the accuracy, of their statistics on how much guns contribute to crime. These statistics are, in and of themselves, fairly scary, but, they fail to take in to account a couple of very important considerations that tend to skew, or even nullify, the accuracy of their claims.

For one, they never seem to include in these statistics the number of deaths and injuries caused by guns IN THE HANDS of POLICE; they only seem to account for the civilians who use guns to commit crimes. I’d say the numbers would increase dramatically, if the times the police use their weapons inappropriately are included…. second, the statistics do not compare the number of incidents to the total number of guns that are owned by citizens.

I would, in the absence of hard figures, estimate that the number of incidents of crime involving guns is a very, very low percentage of the number of guns that are actually out there in the hands of private citizens. All the quoted figures are bloated to make them seem larger than they really are in comparison to the whole; the by-far largest majority of gun owners do not use them at all, unless threatened. Most never use them at all, at all, keeping them only for home protection, and most of those have neighbors who probably don’t even know the guns are there.

Then, after addressing these two key issues that are not accounted for in their quoted numbers, I would ask a simple, but key question of those who believe we, as American citizens in a modern society, should not own guns. That question, simply put, is this: Do you honestly believe that the people to whom we would be entrusting our safety are going to give up their guns? Do you really trust those of our beloved ruling class to, all of a sudden, out of some irresistible urge to altruism, heretofore absent from their nature, stop lying to us? Do you believe, even for an instant, that they would not be laughing all the way to the bank, at you, me and the rest of the American general public?

Should your answer be yes to any of these questions, I would say to you, as gently as I can, that you are then ready to put on your collar, and admit that you are willing to be their slave, because that is exactly what will happen….

Our beloved ruling class is NOT going to give up their guns. They aren’t; if you don’t believe me, ask them; it’s one of the few queries to which they’ll give an honest answer.  And I don’t care how much you may argue to the contrary, I don’t believe for a nanosecond that anyone in our government, and that includes Saint Barack, can be trusted to hold my best interests in their lying, cheating, sociopathic hands.

Nope, I’m 61 years old, and have sufficient experience in these matters that I can honestly say, with every assurance of being correct, that those who either seek office, or are in office, in this country, or in any other, are NOT people to whom I would give that kind power over me; not for anything, If you want to label me a NRA Nazi, well, feel free; it’s still a free country, for the present.

But, if you convince enough citizens of this asininity that the guns are actually made illegal for citizens to own, it’s not going to be a free country for long. And if you are naive enough to believe the lies that the Powers That Be are handing out re: their trustworthiness, well, then, you will deserve the consequences of that belief, which I would term blind faith…… but don’t expect, for even a second, that I will ever consent to give up my right to own a gun, as I will dispute that to the death. Yours, mine, that is immaterial; if we play that game, it’s to the finish.

I’ve never been a member of the NRA, nor do I feel I have a lot in common with its vocal proponents, but I agree with one of their statements of purpose, to wit: you can take my guns, alright, when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers, but no other way….. I’m NOT giving up my guns, knives, rocks, words, or wit, or the right to bear arms in my own defense, and letting the assholes in charge of this government keep theirs…. uh uh, nope, ain’t gonna happen in my lifetime…. believe it or not, at your discretion….

Hollow point ammo – the ultimate in feminine protection. — Smart Bee

“A society that lacks the patience to read, and loses the ability to do so, is rendered defenseless against its most profound stupidities.  As an example, consider the ease with which Americans came to regard a president known for his inaccuracy and imprecision as the great communicator, and by the tendency of American elections to give victory to the candidate who can afford the greatest number of 30-second TV spots.” — Mike Schmoker  (THESE are the people I’m supposed to allow to hold me at gunpoint?  Snort!….pathetic….)

Who could imagine
That they could freak out in Kansas
Who could imagine
That they could freak out in Washington D.C.
Everybody’s clean, it can’t happen here, no, no
And they thought it couldn’t happen here
They were so sure it couldn’t happen here
It can’t happen here
— Frank Zappa
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I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it,
Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.
— Henry Vaughan — The World

No comment here; this just caught my eye, and my interest, so I put it here, just as a little break from the seriousness of the previous discussion. Balance shall ever be sought herein….
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“Honor isn’t about making the right choices.  It’s about dealing with the consequences.” — Midori Koto

Honor, and all of its implications in human society, is in serious danger of becoming atrophic, and of disappearing altogether from sight; not only is its presence seldom felt by society at large, it seems to have fallen out of favor as even a topic of discussion or inquiry. I see very few, if any discussions of honor when reading the news. There is ample evidence therein to indicate it absence, for sure, but none I can see to indicate that it might be hidden somewhere on the back pages. Even the reports of good things happening are spun with humorous disdain clear in the author’s style of reportage; they’re only writing about it so people will think well of them, not of what they are reporting. Hypocrisy in action, as it were…..

But of honor, I see, and hear, nowhere nearly enough, though I keep a sharp look out for it everywhere. There are occasional nuggets of such activity one sees; in the compassion and support given by some people to the victims of abuse, of any species, and of any type (the sheer number of types of abuse common in the human herd is astounding, without even counting how we treat other species on the planet!)

One sees honor in the actions of those who serve their countries out of their sense of honor, and duty, for sure and for certain.  But, I am compelled to ask, how much honor may we attach to the purpose behind the actions they are asked to perform, and to the choice of to whom they are to commit those acts? How much honor is shown by the old men who choose where and against whom these honorable men are to fight, for the personal agendas of the leaders, not for that of the country?

One sees honor in the men and women who love and guide their children, and do all they can to provide them with a loving, secure life. One sees honor in many areas of normal human existence. But, one seldom sees any evidence of honor among those who are in power and authority in the world. One seldom sees any evidence of honor in the news at all; it doesn’t sell well, except as contrast or “comic relief.”

Therein, perhaps lies the problem…. it’s hard to say what the root cause may be, or what solution might exist. What I can say is that though not dead, the concept of honor among men is in serious danger of becoming not only uncommon, but unfashionable…… and then Hell Night begins….
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“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross an infinite sea and so make it finite… The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” — G. K. Chesterton “Orthodoxy”

This is so nicely phrased and written that when I found it, all scrunched up in justified lines, I thought it was a poem. Then I noted the author’s name, recognizing it as one whose poetry I had never seen, and never thought that he wrote.  Lots of prose, quick wit, and handy with a finely turned phrase, but no poetry. So, I re-formatted the lines, and, voilá, instant prose! But, nonetheless poetic, for all that, too.

Even before I had reworked its structure, the names and icons of about a dozen or more poetesses, to whose work I’ve been so pleasantly introduced since joining the WordPress World, sprang into my mind, as being perfectly described thus: “The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens.”

I started to list the names that sprang up, but then felt guilty, for fear that I would forget to include one or more, only to hurt their feelings without intent. Plus, there are a couple three or four poets whose work I’ve enjoyed as well. So, to avoid any such unintended circumstance, let me just say this, and you may consider it as gospel truth to me: if you see that I follow your blog, and you write poetry, you may rest assured that I think it is wonderful, even if I don’t always have time to go to the site and click the Like button. I read really, really fast, and I do so with all of what I see in my email, if not at the blog sites, so I see all of it….

Some, of course, is better than others, all in turn, it seems to me. Everybody hits the nail squarely sometimes; other times, not so much. But, since I don’t do it well at all, it’s all admirable in my mind, and in my less-than-humble opinion, much superior to a lot of what passes for classical poetry (call me crazy, but I’ve always thought Shakespeare was over-rated…).

I’ve seen poets here whose work will, in my belief, stand up eventually, and proudly, next to that of Emily Dickinson, ee cummings, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and other such luminaries of the poetic literary pantheon. No shit…..
___________________________________

“Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, and despite the changing fortunes of time, there is always a big future in computer maintenance.” — Anonymous

I would say this is proof positive that not even Anonymous gets it right every time out of the gate. While this was perfectly valid say, oh, ten years ago, the state of computer technology has progressed beyond this stage, to the point where computer maintenance has become only a minor sector of the industry, thanks to simple economics. It is already the case that one can now purchase a new, improved model of one’s computer for less than it would cost to find someone to fix the old one.

In probably close to 50% of these cases, I’d guess, it’s just easier,  now that they can take the old, even broken, machine, and pull all of your data out of it, and put it in the new one for you, for about the same price as saving the old one. Only physical destruction of the hard drive can make that impossible with current technology. Fasten your safety harnesses, ffolkes, because the future is now here….. break out the party hats and kazoos!…..
___________________________________

Well, I think I have stretched the boundaries of eclecticism enough for one day; I don’t know about you, but I’m dazed and confused, so my work here is done….. “It promises to be an Interesting Day”, as Pooh might have said, but didn’t…… Y’all take care out there…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Awash in hours of unnamed dreams….

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24

Ffolkes,
Starts with S, ends with T, says howdy in between….. sorry, no, I don’t know where that came from. I know what it says (C’mon, it’s easy…. s_ _t, in between is hi (howdy) = well, you know… )  But, I have no clue as to why it was on the screen when I sat down; I did have a nightcap last night, and I was pretty wiped out tired when I poured it. Maybe I got a burst of inspiration from the whiskey, and put that thought down just before falling into bed; I can see that happening.

But, in my morning state of consciousness, unaffected by the questionable creative urges that the Beast often brings, I haven’t a clue why my mind thought it was either cute enough, or clever enough, to start out the day with. I suppose it will just have to get filed in that folder of things in this universe to which I will never know the answers…..

Now that the initial nonsense is out of the way, REAL panic can set in; my mind is currently a vast, empty plain, without even the saving grace of shiny objects off in the far distance to draw the eye and attention away from the absolutely deafening silence and lack of…. well, anything, to either see, or to write about…..

I may have to resort to an old writer’s trick, of writing about not writing, or writing about the fact that there is nothing to write about….. which confuses me already, and I haven’t even gone there yet…. I’ll keep scouring my brain, something will come up, it always does…. I’ll just go diving, and it’ll be waiting for me when I get back…. that’s the ticket….. see ya in a while….

Practice good mirth control — use a conundrum.

Sorry, an early pearl here…. I’m not going to use it for a discussion, but I like it, a lot, so I’m putting it here, out of the way, where you and I can enjoy its sharp wit, excellent vocabulary, and finely turned phraseology without the distraction of my chatter…. well, we could have, had I not proceeded to chatter anyway…. oh well, onward….

Okay, I’m  done…. let’s go Pearl, before it all gets away from me…. again….
___________________________________

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.” — Alan Watts

Alan Watts may be one of the least known major influences on modern thought in society today. I first encountered his writings in the late 1960’s when I left home for college at UC Berkeley. It would be hard in one of these short discussions to fully describe the effect of his work on my as yet inexperienced philosophical education. Now, though, many years later, having read the work of many different philosophers, and explored extensively the written tomes of the religions of the world, I can still say that his ideas, and his manner of expressing those ideas, remains high on my list of preferred systems of thought. It is also clear to me after all this time that the content of his work has the highest percentage of concepts that I agree with, unreservedly…..

The statement included above is one of those statements. This is deep, so deep t’is impossible to entirely plumb its depths, without first learning to “breathe water”.  And yet, it is so simple, and so clear, that the most naive and simple man can easily absorb the lesson, and use it in life to his advantage. It is typical, in my mind, of the type of philosophical statement to which Alan was prone, and why he has been a major influence on society, though only a few people can tell you who he is. His knowledge is so penetrating, and his words so simple, and so apt, that one learns lessons while completely unaware of being taught. He knew the secrets of the ancient sages, and lived a life in harmony with the earth, as few in today’s world are capable of living…..
___________________________________

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

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

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

Now, there’s a pearl! Albert Einstein is generally regarded as one of mankind’s most brilliant members, but most people do not have the capability to see how or why this is so, other than knowing that he was responsible for E = MC².  But if one takes the time to look past this bit of common knowledge, and look at some of the statements of philosophy and life he is reported to have uttered, it becomes clearer that the key to his genius lay in the simplicity of his thought processes, not in their complexity.

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

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

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

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

___________________________________

When all else fails, blame it on the guy next to you!

Fix the problem, not the blame.

Serendipity…. always a surprise when encountered, yet why should it be? Ah well, just one of those things we’ll never know, thank goodness… Any who…. these two diametrically opposed statements bring to light a particularly egregious, and, sadly, effective method of counter-strategy used extensively by those members of society whose primary goal is power over others. For each and every statement such as the latter, there are probably a hundred like the former, all perpetrated with the single intent of discrediting the value of the attitude expressed therein, for if people begin to handle life’s problematic issues by the second method, it makes it much more difficult to manipulate events to the advantage of the manipulators.

The ubiquitous presence of these lies among the body of common speech is astounding, if for no other reason that most folks never even realize that a) people, especially those in positions of authority, are lying to them consistently, or b) they are being easily manipulated by their willingness to accept these lies as truth. The sociopaths who take advantage of this are perfectly aware of this natural tendency among the human herd to accept what they hear from those in authority, and count on it heavily to assist them in maintaining the facade of their benevolence and good intentions.

Well, if no other way, perhaps it would help if a lot of folks came to realize that these assholes do express good intentions, and we all know where good intentions will lead us, don’t we?….. One may hope…..

“A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.” — W. C. Fields (1880-1946)

See what I mean? How despicable is this? (Very. It will be on the quiz.)  Even the humorists fall into the traps set for them…… and humorists influence society very heavily, reflecting as the do the common mores and attitudes of those they are trying to get to laugh, i.e. all of society….. but, the manipulators are laughing the hardest….
___________________________________

Data:  “Felus catus.

Is your taxonomic nomenclature
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature?
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Control your hunting skills and natural defenses.

A bit of whimsy is always appropriate, especially before breakfast. I think my only reason for including this little ditty is to point out that poetry can take many guises, but is nonetheless recognizable in whatever clothing it assumes…. even android clothing, or fur….

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
A farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.
— Robert Burns, Ae Fond Kiss

And then, again, there is the clothing of old masters…..
___________________________________

“I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.” — Edward Moore (1712-1757) — The Gamester, Act ii, Sc. 2

In the movie Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, during a scene in which Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott are trying to convince a plastics engineer to produce the needed walls for their whale aquarium, Bones uses a small paraphrase of the above line, to inflame the imagination of the engineer by appealing to his innate sense of greed. It was a brilliant piece of movie making, and a brilliant line. (Pretty well acted too; the light that came into the engineer’s eyes when he thought of all that money was priceless, along with the perfectly faux innocent sly look on his face….)  It’s one of my favorite scenes from the movie, a cult classic for true Trekkies, but I had never heard, or seen, the line before, and thus did not know who the author might be.

This morning, when I came across this while searching for the last pearl of the day, a huge smile, and feeling of completion, stole across my face and being, and I knew that all would be right with the world today…. well, maybe that’s a bit optimistic, but I sure feel better, knowing the name of the person responsible for such a beautiful phrase. I’m not sure in which philosophical direction it points, not having the context of the rest of the play to study (though I now may do so, at my leisure). But, if I choose to believe it comes from the concept of being rich because of how well loved and filled with joy is my life, and not from the concept of actually amassing monetary wealth, then it is absolutely a piece of literature for the ages….in the category of Truth and Beauty…..
___________________________________

Well, that went better than I had expected, but I guess that is a natural outcome of having expectations; the percentage chances of being right diminish the more we entertain them ahead of the due process of reality. In short, it’s what I get for being a git…..  Nonetheless, how this has turned out is fine with me, so I’m going to send it off to cyberspace with my blessings. Y’all take care out there….

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!


May we cauterize now, milady?

Posted on by
6

Ffolkes,
No time for fooling around this morning. Up a bit late, thanks to an extra hour of sleep my body insisted on taking (thanks for small favors!….), and stuff to do. I’m starting the day exhausted, with a sore right forearm and wrist. This is because of the unnatural activity I forced the arm into yesterday, when I went through over 300 emails that had exploded in my inbox, like some kind of replicating virus. I almost wore out my delete button, and read about 150 blogs (very, very quickly, I might add), at least 30% of which demanded a comment. It was a monumental task, and I’m glad it’s done; so is my mouse, I believe…..

That said, I will now proceed to head out into the hinterlands, to dive for pearls, which, for expediency’s sake I hope are not going to hide or be difficult to harvest today. Oysters can be hard to intimidate, and are not known for their quick thinking or pleasant dispositions, so if they’re not in a good place, it can turn on me quickly. In that case, I usually settle for those on the outer perimeter of the oyster beds, and call it a day. We’ll see, I guess, when I get down a few fathoms…. see ya in a while….

Ooh, ooh, here’s my first find; couldn’t wait to share it, trekkie that I am….  

— SMILEY   =-O~~~   The Enterprise firing phasers…

Is that genius, or what?  Well, I like it…..  Okay, the dive is going slowly…. currents are a bit tricky today.  Hang in there….

Still diving, but it’s moving along…. we’ll save a bit of time here, and bring this intro to a close, so we can get on with the regular business of pearling…. Shall we dance, then?….. Perhaps not…. well, let’s go Pearling then, if that is what you really want…..
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” … for these truths hold good for everything that is, and not for some special genus apart from others.  And all men use them, because they are true of being qua being …  For a principle which everyone must have to understand anything that is, is not a hypothesis …  Evidently then, such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the subject in the same respect.” — Aristotle

I’ve run this through the filters in my head, and thought about it, studied it from all angles, even rinsed it off, shook it out, and let it air-dry…. I still can’t figure out what the FUCK Ari is talking about here….. The most reasonable idea I could come up with is that, while he was out walking through his garden, contemplating some esoteric line of reasoning, somebody came up and asked him where the nearest toilet could be found….. otherwise, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever…. especially the last line. A true tautology, to my mind, that is both proof and disproof of its own, well, silliness…. and I wonder how in hell it got included with the rest of his work that has come down to us through the intervening years…. if it were mine, I’d have deleted it long before it reached the printer, er, scribe for transcription….
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“As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.” — Ursula K. LeGuin

I think that everyone can agree with the above statement; it would be hard to think of an argument that would have any kind of negative effect on this concept, as it is about as true as true can be. Arguing with this would be akin to trying to describe the contents of a room with no lights or windows, from outside the room, with the door and your eyes closed, and no moving around or touching allowed…. Having thus identified the importance of imagination in human existence, we can move on to a discussion of how powerful a tool it can be when applied to the mechanics of living.

As humans, we use imagination in every aspect of life; whenever we encounter a new situation, whether problematic or merely interesting, it is our imagination that we use to inspect the characteristics of the event, and to judge its relative size, shape, and degree of difficulty. It is our imagination we use to discover a course of action that will enable us to deal with the situation to our best advantage, or not, depending on our own skill at using it. And in those situations where a clear course of action is unclear, our imagination can provide us with entirely new ways to approach and cope with what we have encountered.

Of late, I have been reading a lot of articles written by women who have survived and exited, by their own efforts, the atrociously cruel life of those trapped in the human sex-trafficking industry. These articles are perfect examples of the power of imagination, from women who have experienced, and survived, the most degrading, debilitating, indifferently cruel treatment known to humanity.

That life, or living death, more like, was the lot of these enslaved women, and children, until they were able, by virtue of their strength of will and imagination, to free themselves.  For every single one of them, their imagination was both friend and foe, first as fuel to the fire of their very real fears for their lives, but ultimately, the force that enabled them to see the path they would need to walk to take back their life. Without it, they would be doomed to death, ultimately, for the insane, perverted misogynists who control this deadly trade have no compassion, and no compunctions about silencing those who would defy their will…..

But, happily, for these as yet all-too-few amazingly strong, imaginative women, a path to freedom was found, and now, they are all determined not only to live out their own lives according to their own standards, but to support each other, and to speak out against those who would continue the madness from which they fled, to do whatever is needed to give aid to the women and children who are still enslaved by these indifferently cruel masters of evil…. and one of the forms that aid can take, is to stimulate imagination in the victims, so they to may come to an understanding of how it can help even the most despairing soul to fight for freedom….. understanding like this…..

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure… that you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
— Unknown, but brilliant….

And that is what it is all about, to me. Once these unfortunates realize that they do indeed have worth in the eyes of the Universe, a whole new vista of possibility opens for them, each one with the promise of freedom shining brightly, to show the way…..

For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear (believe the aged friend),
Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,–
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
— Robert Browning (1812-1890) — A Death in the Desert
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A poet is someone who is astonished by everything. — Smart Bee (Anonymous’ new user name…..)

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom’s aid!
— William Collins (1720-1756) — The Passions, Line 95

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that ‘s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
— Lord Byron (1788-1824) — Hebrew Melodies, She walks in Beauty

Jove lifts the golden balances that show
The fates of mortal men, and things below.
— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Iliad of Homer, Book xxii, Line 271

I have touched the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry VIII — Act iii, Sc. 2

Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows,
And the fresh flow’ret pluck ere it close;
Why are we fond of toil and care?
Why choose the rankling thorn to wear?
— J. M. Usteri (1763-1827) — Life let us cherish

Knowledgeable waitrons, maitres d’hotel, chefs, etc., all know that in presentation of food as visual art, odd numbers, 3, 5, 7, etc., make a more compelling and, oddly enough, more balanced, more artful picture than do even numbers. Go figure…. but in this case, exhibition of classical poetry, I think 5 is just right, even if one cannot chew it. No lessons here, unless it is a lesson on how to enjoy beauty…..
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“God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.” — Billy Graham

Now, if that isn’t a scary thought, I know nothing of fear; however, I assure you, fear is an old friend, with whom I am quite familiar, in all its guises. Now, to give credit where it is due, I suppose it must be noted that, from the standpoint of someone of Mr. Graham’s ilk, this is a very powerful statement of belief; it has all the proper elements for that particular delusional thought process (if one may stretch the definition of ‘thought process’ just a bit).

It is based purely on assumption, with no hint of anything resembling direct, tangible evidence. It implies omnipotence, displays immeasurable deified arrogance, identifies a source for guilt, and encourages a fear of death. Its vagueness allows the moral ambiguity necessary for the complete abrogation of personal responsibility for one’s actions. And, like all such proclamations of this nature, its very words indicate a complete and utter dislike for humans, both individually and as a species.

My immediate and forceful response to this was “If you truly believe that, then you, and God, seriously need to get a Life! If y’all have nothing better to do in your copious free time than to try to shove this kind of crap into people’s minds, then you need to find a new activities director for the imaginary cruise you are on…. or find some better drugs.”  But, that’s just me…..
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Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you wish you weren’t. — Smart Bee (Anonymous, by any other name, smells as sweet…)

Insane politicians (is there another kind?). Human trafficking of various kinds. Rampant racism. Ubiquitous bigotry. Child abuse. Spousal abuse. Slavery. Crack cocaine, heroin, morphine, or other drug abuse. War on crime. War on women. Televangelists. Fundamentalist zealots. National Security Agency. FBI. CIA. Untold trillions of dollars of national debt. Threat of world-wide economic collapse. Genetically modified food. Military Industrial Complex (yep, it hasn’t gone anywhere). The 1%/99% Society. Taxes. Global warming. Air pollution. The oceans are dying. Terrorism. Nuclear accidents. Massive global weather changes. Ozone depletion. Ice caps shrinking. Overpopulation. AIDS. SARS. Mutating viruses. The Bohemian Club. The Tri-Lateral Society. Reaganomics. Nationalism. Elitism. Illuminati Conspiracy. Women’s reproductive rights. Bill of Rights (or rather, loss of same). War on the US Constitution.  Rampant ignorance. Lawyers. Priests. Rabbis. Imams. Pastors. Popes.  Puppy mills. Wall Street. Corporate personhood. The IRS. Insane politicians. (Did I say that already? Well, it deserves mentioning twice….)  Rising incidence of halitosis.

Except for the last, which is more of a personal foible, I’d say that’s a fairly extensive, and reasonably complete, list of stuff I am aware of that I wish I weren’t; and it all came right off the top of my head, no research.  It certainly keeps my sense of outrage in good shape….. which is why we all need to practice the following sentiment at every opportunity…. otherwise, we are all going to be up Shit Creek without a paddle, proverbial or otherwise…..

“Speak out. You’ve got to speak out against the madness.” — Steven Stills
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Having thus spoken my share, and possibly a bit more, against the madness, I reach the end of another day’s Pearl of Virtual Wisdom. This one took some effort; late start, reluctant oysters, tricky currents, my own intra-cranial  oddity, all have served to increase the difficulty points to overcome to get to this point in the game. Thanks to a good pot of strong coffee,  with real half and half, and a bit of perseverance (no telling where that came from), what we have here is a “fait acompli”, and boy, am I glad for that!

Thus, I can enter the portal leading to the remainder of the day with a reasonable degree of contentment, if nothing else. Y’all take care out there…. and Blessed Be…..

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Question is, was it a carefree dart?

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6

Ffolkes,
One of the items of import that was left out of the information and instruction manual we all got at birth relates to the aging process. Nowhere in that manual is any mention of the joy and adventure that awaits one as the years go by (though, admittedly, my battered old copy was missing pages when it was handed down to me. But, they were out of the adolescence section, anyway, and wouldn’t have much relevance for me at this stage of life….)

One of the most consistent adventures at my age has shown itself to be sleep. Or rather, the amusing lack of sleep one may expect on any given day. Getting to sleep, staying asleep, sleeping deeply, all have become a hit and miss proposition, completely lacking in any sort of regularity….. As might be surmised, this presents one with some fascinating and essential adjustments to make in relation to said altered sleep patterns, and how to fit that into one’s life, without going BLOODY FUCKING NUTS from persistent fatigue…..

I wrote the above paragraphs last night, right before toddling off to bed, ever hopeful for a swift journey to the arms of Morpheus. As it was one o’clock AM by that time, and I was very heavy-lidded, I figured I had a decent chance at success. And, as it turns out, I did fall out fairly quickly….. only to have my eyes pop open at 0535, not wide awake after 4.5 hours of rest, but not going back down easily, either. Thus, I find myself once again typing in the dark morning, wondering what the hell I’m doing up so damn early, and putting all my angst and resentment over not sleeping into this morning blurb. SIGH…… Woe is me, alas, alas! Woe is me!

Okay, there, that’s done….. having reached the point of no return, also called “losing one’s cool”, I will now turn a 180, and head off down an alternate path for today, provided I can find one through all this bullshit angst. Woe is me, indeed! I’ll woe is me…. I’ll woe me so much woe, that the house next door will rattle, I will…..

I must apologize, I don’t know how that little snipe got away from me, and got to the typewriter before I woke up all the way. But, I’ve collared the little shit, and we’ll have no more nonsense today from the likes of him. Woe is me…. I’m appalled! I can’t believe he thought that would fly! Such silly, old-fashioned words haven’t seen my typewriter for simply ages, and with good reason, as you can see. That particular phrase is one he KNEW would get to me, as it was placed on the banned usage list some years ago (I had used them for an elegy of a friend, and his wife just cried harder at the funeral when I read it, so I took it off the list…. way too sappy anyway…)

Well, really, this has gotten completely out of hand….. I suppose the only thing left for us to do is to Pearl….. let’s get to it, shall we?…..
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“Don’t SAY things. What you ARE stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson — Social Aims

It’s Spring! And the air is full of….. activism and outrage!  Shortly after completing yesterday’s Pearl, and sending it out, I received a response from one of my friends who has been getting these gems in their email for over 10 years. The email was actually from his wife, who had seen the pictures that are at the other end of the link below, and whose sense of outrage and anger over them prompted her to request that I show the link on this blog.

Since I happen to agree with her on this one, as the subjects of the pictures are the children of one of the biggest WOS’s on the face of the planet, I am happy to comply. (Yes, I know, WOS seems to be my latest favorite insulting title….. and in this case falls well short of being too harsh. More like not mean enough, by a long shot…. we’re talking about some MAJOR assholes here…)

And who, you might ask, would that be? That would be that all-too-familiar, and all-too-real, fat, greedy-eyed face of Donald, the Trump, and his spawn. The pictures are of his spoiled, elitist, never worked-a-day-in-their-lives sons, in a display of arrogance and sheer ballsy indifference to any normal set of behavioral standards heretofore unseen in public, even by a Trump. And, if the pictures are any indication, these assholes are not merely monumentally indifferent, but are proud of their lack of moral standards, and even revel in flaunting their complete disregard for any other life form on Earth.

The pictures, no doubt intended as fond memories to take home to their doting, terrified spouses or more likely, mistresses, show us the utter lack of humanity in these two ditto heads,  which clearly indicates that they are perfect clones of their infamous pater familias, sharing his hatred of women, Americans, and anyone else who doesn’t worship at the Altar of the Almighty Dollar…… caution, these images may produce the urge to fire shotguns…. at idiots…..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2114122/Donald-Eric-Trump-pictured-posing-trophy-carcasses-big-African-hunt.html

Please add these names to your twit lists….. and should you see any of the persons pictured here, please feel free to publicly humiliate them to your heart’s content. Hell, you can spit on them, if you like. Being who they are,  they’re used to it. I’m sure it’s happened before…..
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“Education is a weapon.” — Josef Stalin

“Sleep is a weapon.” — Phillipe D’Anjou, to Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum.

You see where this is going, right? C’mon, it’s plain as the rain in Spain…. “Therefore, Education while Asleep is the ultimate weapon.” — gigoid, Sunday, 2012…. Damn skippy it is…. 

Well, it always worked for me, anyway… my teachers, it seems, were unaware of the untapped power of the subconscious, and the  advantages to be found in sleep learning, and tried to insist on my staying awake in classes, other than just at test time, (when I would wake up, dopey smile in place, pencil in hand, seemingly delighted to be there). I didn’t care, I just slept away, soaking in everything said around me, and remembering it perfectly. It was always such a shock to them when I would ace the tests, when I apparently had ignored every word they said; quite fun, actually, to see their faces go purple…. awesome colors! Must have something to do with diet….. or repetitive exposure to smart alecks such as myself….   🙂
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I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There’s more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line.
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
— the Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

Even though I am performing my duties as Emperor of the Entire World clandestinely, using puppet figures, and liberal application of the Imperious Charm, trying to balance writing, quietly assassinating my list of PTWWBBOW’s, (People The World Would Be Better Off Without…) and getting enough sleep, has all become too taxing for someone who just wants to fully retire and enjoy seeing all of the world I can before my allotted time has elapsed. 

Plus, I figure, if I abdicate now, I will have more time to work on my new list of WOSTBSFE’s (Wastes Of Sperm To Be Scheduled For Elimination….), and still be able to have the time to consume unlimited numbers of brightly colored adult beverages, served by indentured ex-CEO’s in oddly-shaped plastic glasses with bamboo umbrellas, while basking on a semi-tropical nude beach with my entourage of sycophants…..

To be honest, I’m sick of being Emperor OTEW (by now you should have figured out how this works….); even staying in the background is time-consuming and tedious in the extreme (what is it about bureaucracies and their love of forms in triplicate?). And since I had already consented to turn over the reigns of power to Lizzie Cracked and Ginger Snaap when I am done with the job I came to do, I have decided that the time is right for the process of transition to begin.

Therefore, within the next few days, you should see announcements of the power shift, hereinafter to be referred to as The Ascension of the Ambitious and Totally Gorgeous Princesses in all published news releases, and your new Empresses of The Entire World will begin their reign of terror, er, benevolent generosity, months in advance of initial estimates. (Riiiiight…)

I believe it has been agreed that The Indigo Girls will be hired to perform at the Transition Ball, hence I have included my favorite line from one of their best songs above, to give you a taste of what is to come. I think you all will enjoy having the Cracked/Snaap sisters at the head of your beloved ruling class; if nothing else, it should prove to be a unique period in human history…..
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“There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves.  Success and failure are unavoidably related in our minds with the state of things around us. Hence it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to preserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change. The tendency to look for all causes outside ourselves persists even when it is clear that our state of being is the product of personal qualities such as ability, character, appearance, health and so on.” — Eric Hoffer

Whoa! Eric took some mental steroids, or something, when he came up with this. This is as deeply insightful a glimpse into true human nature as I think I’ve ever seen, and I thought I’d seen some pretty good examples of that particular kind of vision. Truly, this is a truth that explains so much of what is giving humanity such a problem, in terms of achieving any real progress of an ethical, moral, or spiritual nature. The kind of progress that would give some new hope to those who would like to continue to live to enjoy what beauty the universe has to give us, as opposed to enduring the lack of connection to reality and truth that most of humanity engages in, to our common regret.

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Following are a number of “Jokes” that perpetuate the lies and propaganda regarding the subjugation of women so ubiquitous in society…… (My comments will appear in parentheses….)

I looked up executrix. It has nothing to do w/ leather and high heels. (Obviously, he wishes it did….)

“Women: You can’t live with them, and you can’t get them to dress up in a skimpy Nazi costume and beat you with a warm squash.” — Emo Phillips  (Do I need to even say how wrong this is?…..)

How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. It’s not the light bulb that needs changing. (Reverse psychology; making the feminist the unreasonable party….)

Man who lifts stones off woman get rocks off. — Confucius say  (Nothing of making an object of a woman here, move along, nothing to see…) (Let’s not get into the racist element here…though no less ubiquitous or egregious, one thing at a time…. as if Confucius would actually have said this…)

“Breast feeding is popular now. It wasn’t when I was growing up. In high school, my mom caught me with an inflatable sex doll. I told her, “Hey, you’re the one who got me hooked with those plastic baby bottles.” — Xavier Skinner  (Linking sex objects with addictive nature… and blaming Mom for it…. what a nice guy!)

(Note: as a comment on the ubiquitous nature of these “jokes” in the fabric of society, finding these first six examples took less than three minutes in my database of quotes, which contains a very wide cross section of the diverse segments of our society’s tastes in humor. The numerous others hereafter were found in random database searches for pearls, in only one day)

(This one isn’t a joke, in any sense…. ) “As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.” — Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)**

( **Just at first sight, without going into societal norms at all, it seems to me that the fallacy herein is rooted in the deliberately false assumptions that are glaringly apparent in the statement; first, that only a virtuous woman could blush innocently, out of virtue, and second, that a “whore” could not be a virtuous woman….. and a modest fool IS a man of sense, to my way of thinking. At least such a fool knows he is a fool, a condition which seems to have escaped Jonathan’s notice. Sorry Mr. Swift, you win the ignorant button today….)

“There’s no such thing, you know, as picking out the best woman: it’s only a question of comparative badness, brother.” — Titus Maccius Plautus   (Apparently, misogyny is not a new concept in human society……)

What do you call a prostitute with a runny nose? Full!   (I have to say, there are some real sick people out there! Not even very funny by sick standards….)

A woman can never be too rich or too thin.  (Really? I’d wager good money this was first said by a man, not a woman; if not, it was surely a thoroughly indoctrinated woman…..)

That’s enough for now. I think the point is clear….. there is still a long way to go to overcome thousands of years of social propaganda, and there’s no more time to waste…. Free our Sisters, Free Ourselves!  And don’t forget to stand up and point to the things you see that maintain and support these abominable practices; good intentions are useless if not acted upon…..
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You may note that there is no mention herein of the significance of today’s date; no April Fools party here, thank you. Though I can admire a good prank as much as anyone, provided it does no harm to anyone’s pride or self-respect, in general I avoid the day altogether.

This probably is due to bad memories connected to this date; yesterday, March 31, would have been my 33rd wedding anniversary, had my ex-wife not chosen to abandon the family we created some 13 years ago, just prior to both our anniversary, and our daughter’s high school graduation. Great timing, eh? (I’ve never asked her, but I’d guess she blames me for her departure, as having “made her want to leave.” SIGH…..) 

Any who, I’d rather not spend any time thinking along those lines, so I don’t…. I don’t miss it at all, at all….. April Fool’s Day, that is…. I’ll miss my the woman I loved, and still love, and the family we worked so long to make and keep, for the rest of my life…..

We have again reached the end of another day’s work, or whatever one might call this process, and now I must hie off to my Inbox, delete button close to hand, to start the process of eliminating about 200 emails that have piled up over the last two days. It promises to be a long, involved process, so I’d best be about it. Y’all take care out there……

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!

Just putt the damn thing, Rollo….

Posted on by
18

Ffolkes,
Oddly enough, I woke up today feeling odd.  That is to say, not quite wrong, but not quite right, know what I mean?  No? Well, hmm…. okay, how’s this?  As I look around my humble abode this dark morning (well, it IS only 4:30 AM or so…..), and I rest my gaze upon some random item (such as my guitar, rescued at last from the clutches of the pawn shop…. I swear, it’s never going back there again….), out of the corner of my eye, a shadow moves, just enough to catch my attention. Of course,  I look over quickly, but nothing is there, of course.

It’s not really disturbing, or scary…. just odd. Well, having had that word applied to me often enough in my life, beginning at a very early age (four year-olds tend toward confusion when one of their peers, me, of course, prefers to stay inside and reading to being outside torturing insects….. they’re not confronted with that attitude a lot….) (actually, I loved it outside, I just hated the pulling wings off flies part…. sickos, even back then….), I’m not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it…. unless the shadow gets a lot more solid, and makes a threatening move toward me……  “Worriers spend a lot of their time chasing smoke.”– Claude McDonald

Well, I don’t see how I could have come up with an introductory section with any less gripping interest than this one, and that’s for sure and for certain…. quite the yawner, isn’t it?  Ah well, I suppose I can’t hit the sweet spot EVERY day……. I guess we’ll just go Pearl, and consider this a wash….. after you, just down those stairs and through the dimensional portal at the bottom…… I’ll meet you there in just a moment…..

If God goes to sleep will the universe dream? Just wondered…. even if there is no answer, pondering the question has value, I’d say…..
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“The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things.” — Buddha

When I came across this today, I sat and thought about it for a few moments, trying to absorb the meaning, which is unaccustomedly obscure for something Buddha said; his homilies and koans are usually quite clear. After some time following the twisting path this sentence takes one down, I had to start chuckling, for I had realized the truth. I think the Buddha was misquoted on this one (hey, it happens….); whoever was on transcription duty that day was tired, or forgot his ink brushes, or some other little peccadillo that caused this particular statement to get garbled.

I think Gautama was just working out a new homily, and the student took what he was muttering as a serious quote, meant to be added to the teachings. Look at it…. he could have said, with different punctuation, something entirely different than this seems to be.  I mean, think about it…. would one of history’s greatest teachers, known for the elegant reasoning and beautifully worded form of his lessons, allow a statement of quadruple negatives to be put out with his name on it? I think not…. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out how this one can help you in your search for truth and enlightenment; you’re liable to get stuck in the same position for a long time, trying to find your way out of the endless loop this koan produces in the mind…. while the boat leaving for Nirvana leaves without you…..
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Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
Now ‘s the day and now ‘s the hour;
See the front o’ battle lour.
— Robert Burns (1759-1796)  — Bannockburn

One word.  Bagpipes. Okay, okay then, two words; try not to be so shrill, if you please….  Skirling bagpipes. There, that says it all… Maybe it’s the wee bit of Scots blood I have in me that makes me hear the skirling of the pipes whenever I read this from Robert (which is pronounced “Rrrrawberrrrt Burrrrrns!”, with the “r’s” rolled like they hoops fleeing a small boy with a stick. The exclamation point indicates the volume at which it is spoken, or shouted, whichever term you wish to choose….).

Then again, hearing the pipes at all can be considered a hallucination, or a delusion, or at minimum, a perversion, at least in the eyes and ears of the English.  The English still do not have a comfortable time thinking of the Scots; probably something to do with their long history of periodically having to confront large, angry, naked, madly capering, blue men with large, sharp weapons, who were about to do their best to kill them, dancing about insanely to the tune, for lack of a better word, of the pipers.

Fortunately for the rest of England, the English monarchs figured out how to pacify the Scots.  They just began granting public house licenses to every little hamlet in the Highlands, and made sure the ‘pubs’ were amply supplied with Scotch whiskey and stout. They also encouraged Scottish involvement in their own pacification, by also granting licenses to manufacture even more & better varieties and brands of single malt, double malt, blended,  and other exotic Scotch whiskeys.

Finally, to put the cap to the issue, the English cleverly taught the Scots how to angle for trout in the Highland streams, to keep them fed, fit, and healthy (and not occupied with revolt against the king), as well as convincing them they were all fantastic painters of their homeland, so they would stay there trying to paint….. pretty clever, eh? No wonder the Scots still refer to the English as Sassenach, which is, I doubt, a term of endearment….. Google only says it means ‘English, or a lowlander’. (I would say, to a Highlander, there IS no greater insult than to be called either English, OR a lowlander….)  Ain’t history grand?…..

Bagpipe: Stuff cat under arm. Pull legs and chew tail. — found scrawled on the bathroom wall at The Duke’s Wanker, a pub in the back alleys of London….. honest, I’ve seen it!….
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“When you slithered out of your hole that day, and you spewed your venom all over this defenseless 12-year-old girl, you made this court’s top 10 hit list. In a way, the best sentence this court could give would be no sentence at all, because if you left this courtroom I don’t think you would be alive 10 minutes. You are nothing but a weed, a weed among wheat…And when we have a weed, it’s my job to eradicate the weed, because if you don’t you will choke the wheat. Therefore, I’m going to take you off the streets for just as long as I possibly can. It means you aren’t even eligible for parole until you’re 92. That leaves only one more count, aggravated robbery. ..You stole this little girl’s bra as a souvenir, probably to brag about it to your friends later on. Well, I’m going to give you a souvenir of Trumbull County justice. And that is, you will receive a maximum sentence of 10 to 25 on the aggravated robbery for the stealing of that bra. And I hope that if you last 25 years in prison that you remember that souvenir.  Get this scum out of here!” — A sentence passed by Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County, Ohio

One down, several million to go…. I wonder if this judge is still sitting on the bench; we could refer all the cases of human traffickers, rapists, abusers of women or children, and others of that ilk to his courtroom, and trust they will receive the maximum legal punishment of which the law is capable…. then, once they are inside, we just leak to the other prisoners what they are in for; I imagine they’ll take care of the rest…..

A fella has to have his dreams….. and in my dreams, I can hear them, sisters, daughters, children, all crying out for help, waiting in anguish for someone to care….. who else, then, will stand up with me?….. During the 1960’s, in times of social changes gone ‘viral’, there was a poster I saw all over Berkeley…. It pictured men and women marching together, united in purpose…. the only caption said, “Free our sisters, free ourselves!”  This is a sentiment we all need to embrace, as valid now as it was over 40 years ago; if not now, when?…..
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Okay, let’s try this….. I’ll lump all these together, and get them all out of the way (translate: out of my head….) all in one swell foop.  See, perfect timing, again….

A new Sports Stadium was completed in Warsaw, Poland, recently. There have  been a large number of complaints about the design, since no matter where  you are seated, you are seated behind a Pole. (Sorry about that, really, terribly so, awful much!)

“I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up  and down and run around yelling and screaming…They don’t know I’m only using blanks.” — Emo Phillips

Catastrophe: An award for the cat with the nicest buns.

“Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.” — Fred Allen (Sarcasm is the sour cream of wit.)

“A poet who reads their work in public may have other nasty habits” — Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein)

Elvis Presley had a twin brother named Jesse who died at birth. (Did I HAVE to know this?….)

Yeah, I love cats too…want to trade recipes?

Okay, that’s probably enough of that…. I wouldn’t want to cause any nausea before breakfast….. I feel lighter and cleaner now, with all that stuff out of my head. Hopefully, so do you…. of course, this is not to say that dark and dirty doesn’t have its place…. I’ve always loved mud football at night…..   🙂
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Ode on a Grecian Urn

by John Keats

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? what maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal–yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’–that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Obviously, no critical or extensive comment from me is required…. saw a snippet of this yesterday while diving for today’s pearls, and thought it would be nice to show the entire Ode, as evidence, should you choose to agree, of why this poem is considered by many to be the best of the best, the most influential poem in modern English literature in the time since it was first published….. ’nuff said. Just read and enjoy…. or not. To each his or her own…. gotta say, though, I can see why folks would say so….   ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’–that is all, Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know…..  Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time…. Whew! Good stuff….. and I am a connoisseur of Good Stuff, having read every copy of Mad Magazine cover to cover since the first one hit the stands……
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As I look back over what I’ve written this morning, I am struck, as I often am, by the diverse subject matter included. I suppose it is a direct reflection of how my mind works, not stream of consciousness, exactly, but sort of.  I’m not certain most of the time how it will fly out there, but once I hit Publish, there’s little sense in fretting over it. I’ll just do as I always do, which is to deal with whatever responses I get, one by one, and settle for that. Not a bad way to spend time; I’ve had worse gigs in my day, that is for sure and for certain…… Y’all take care out there……

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

gigoid

Kowabunga!