Ffolkes,
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~~
The tree you see above is a gorgeous old black pepper tree a few blocks from where I live…. Its massive trunk is of a width that indicates it MUST be over a hundred years old, yet it still drips with the small red colored peppercorns that furnish us with such a basic element of quality to our food…. I for one would NOT like to think of a world without black pepper, to bring perfect balance to the salt our bodies need, and crave, an essential ingredient to make our food taste so much better, there is literally no comparison to food without such enhancement…
Looking at such a beautiful old tree makes me sad, to think about how long it has graced that corner, and its coming death from climate change issues…. which is a perfect lead-in statement for a rant, but, doesn’t promise good things for this introduction. Shoot, I’d been hoping to avoid any such ranting in this section; I’m not dressed for it, for one thing, and for another, I’m still half-bloody-asleep…. the coffee doesn’t seem to be quite doing the trick this morning…. It must be the shoes…
Well, perhaps not…. More likely, it’s just the way it is, on these mornings when my blood sugar is a bit slow to level out…. Hmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with the new diabetic control medicine I’m taking; sometimes it can take a while to see all the effects from a new medication. I doubt it, though… it’s supposed to help regulate the way my body processes sugar, so, it shouldn’t make it take that process too far…. What would be the point of that, when the whole purpose is to stabilize, not send it careening up and down like a roller coaster? None, as far as I can see….
Not that the American medical society would pay much heed to that, if the stats could be manipulated to show the pills work the way they want it to; how many times have we seen the pharmacy companies rush a new drug into production, only to find it has bad side effects? I’m not sure of the exact number, but, let me assure you, they don’t much care if a medicine is dangerous, as long as they can make a nice profit from it before they have to pull it from the shelves…. SIGH…. There I go again, don’t I?….
Perhaps it would be best to just get out of the intro, and get on with the rest of today’s mess, before this turns yet again toward one of the groups of assholes who plague us in our daily lives, and are slowly, steadily, killing us all with their intransigent avarice, greed, and lust for power…. They’re just such a good target, it’s hard to resist…. Well, that, plus their all-too-regular acts of idiocy, and their massively stupid proclamations of intent, have a tendency to bury us, daily, if not more often, in a flood of bullshit, lies, and manipulations, designed to keep us distracted, and too busy being afraid to look too closely at what they are actually doing….
For now, though, my hands are getting numb, and my shoulder is killing me…. so, I’m going to take a short break, while the necessary elements of style, and requisite degree of angst and passion are cultivated, stoked, and harvested, all of which takes some time, as well as concentration…. In short, I’m taking us outta here, now…. Hang on, we’re goin’ in!….
Shall we Pearl?
“When you have secured an area, don’t forget to tell the enemy.” — Murphy’s Military Laws, #19
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I’ve always enjoyed Rod Stewart’s music, ever since first hearing his breakout hit, Maggie Mae, sometime back in the late sixties or early seventies….. So, here is a concert of his for today’s video entertainment…. I like to go to the You Tube pages for the shows I find, to see what other groups or artists they have in the suggested videos on the side of the pages…. It’s like an endless list of artists from my past, and I never know who I might see over there…. For example, just on this page, you will find other shows by artists such as Do Wop groups from the sixties, seventies, and beyond, Cher, Adele, Lionel Ritchie, Elton John, and a number of others…. Any who, y’all enjoy the show….
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Ooh, ooh! I found a perfect opening quote for a rant on politics, especially if either our beloved Barry the Obama, or, even better, if the most visible member of the evil empire, the senator from that bastion of ignorance, Kentucky’s own Mitch the Clueless, last of the Dickless Ones, whose last name forever escapes me, (oh, right, it’s McConnell, I think… something like that….) have been living up to their usual level of asininity….
“This ASEXUAL PIG really BOILS my BLOOD… He’s so..so…..URGENT!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
Isn’t that just deliciously vicious? And, so vaguely insulting, the pig to whom one might apply it might not, at first, even realize they’ve been insulted…. I can see it now, with some chic reporter from an overseas bureau commenting on some idiotic statement, by asking them why they must be so ‘urgent’ in all their acts of stupidity…. to which either of them may or may not reply…
Right after finding Zippy’s cogent exclamation, I found this great lead-in quote for a nice little rant against those hypocritical manipulators of the public’s fears, our old friends, the dogma dogs….
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
— Rev. John William Henry Boetcker
Have you ever seen a more egregiously sycophantic statement as this?… It very nearly stumbles over into pandering, and, if truth be told, serves to remind me of nothing so much as a mental image I’ve had before…. I envision a priest, or preacher, or, as I like to call them, a dogma dog, kneeling in front of a pundit/talking head (or, alternately, kneeling under the desk in front of the talking head), mouth firmly clamped around their private member, head bobbing, with an adoring look in their eyes, chanting “use me, hurt me, make me eat dirt!”…. Meanwhile, the talking head smiles at a camera, & waves politely to the unwashed masses looking on in horror….
To my mind, it’s a perfect representation of the reality our culture presents, with the BRC, owned and manipulated by the corporate snakeheads, blindly propped up in power by fawning religious sycophants, who preach salvation to the great unwashed masses, in solemn trade for obedience to temporal authority, augmented in their efforts by their myrmidons, the police and military, who are ever ready to supply any amount of violence needed to keep the animals in their pens, slaving away at their masters’ behest….
“Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation.” — Smart Bee
Bah, humbug! My urge to rant is strong, and my anger is great…. Unfortunately for me, (though probably good for y’all….), my hands are giving out rapidly again, making the composition of an adequately large number of epithets and specific curses somewhat problematic, from a physical standpoint…. This is, perhaps, lucky for y’all, as I felt a really BIG rant in there…. Instead, I’ll sublimate the urge into putting together an old school indictment of the assholes under discussion….
Here then are the best Smart Bee can find today, all intended to draw metaphorical blood from talking heads, dogma dogs, and/or faceless myrmidons, as they exist in the wilds of Washington D.C., and the larger urban centers in Amurrica….
“Stupidity is not a handicap … ask a Conservative!” — Smart Bee
“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.” — Parkinson’s Law of Delay
“The Founding Fathers warned us about this!” — Smart Bee
“The Texas Legislature, God forbid, will be with us again shortly, thus depriving many a village of its idiot.” — Molly Ivins
“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness *positively*, by uniting our affections, the latter *negatively*, by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last is a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one….” — Thomas Paine, opening lines of _Common Sense_ 1776 — *asterisks denote Paine’s use of italics*
“1) Don’t cheat. 2) If you do cheat, don’t get caught.” — Opening lines, US Senate Orientation Manual
“CONGRATULATIONS! Now should I make thinly veiled comments about DIGNITY, self-esteem, and finding TRUE FUN in your RIGHT VENTRICLE??”
— Zippy the Pinhead
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For two days now, my hands and shoulders have been informing me of their disapproval of the recent temperature and weather changes; in spite of all the medications I take, which includes magic cream, they tend to ache, and ache, and ache some more, much of the day…. This, as you may guess, makes typing somewhat of a challenge…. This, in turn, makes me use my archived material more often, a habit which, while convenient, does little to relieve the pressure inside my head…. It also makes what happens here less than amenable to outside influences… In short, I don’t want to place any of the blame for all of this on anyone else…. Today’s blast is from the relatively recent past, a poem that describes well how this works for me…. or not, depending on how one listens to its message…. It seems long, but, it really isn’t; it’s just long….
Yesterday
I wrote a poem.
It bled out of my head,
like I’d been struck with
an axe,
right through the artery,
in the neck,
spraying blood around
everywhere,
like a pulsing garden hose….
It hurt, at first,
then came the feeling,
of quick relief,
of timeless beauty,
of pain avenged,
of lust aroused,
of outrage aflame,
of deep compassion,
of endless empathy,
of truest love….
Now it’s gone, cast away
like pearls before twine.
(Grin…)
You thought
I was going to call you
a pig,
didn’t you?
Hah!
Well, you’re not.
You’re a person.
I know, because
you’re reading this poem…
if that’s what it is.
I think it is,
so,
maybe it is.
Or, maybe,
it will be,
someday, when it
grows up,
and learns to rhyme.
Whew…
Just in time…..
That’s all.
Reality often sucks wind,
y’know?
S’okay, though….
It keeps us busy,
and out of some of the
mischief,
so much part
of our
nature.
We all can do
only what we
do.
Or, don’t.
Two sides, one coin.
~~ gigoid ~~
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Today’s old school pearl will be random, harlequin style, with parameters picked out by Smart Bee…. Honest, I had very little to do with this, so, you can’t blame me for it…. Well, not entirely, anyway…..
FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war — founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting — such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man’s evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.” — Lin Yutang
“Who does not trust enough will not be trusted.” — Lao Tzu
“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.” — Thomas Jefferson
“George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.” — Mark Twain
“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.” — Edward Abbey
“You can lead a yak to water but you can’t teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke.” — Opus
Hmm…. It seems Smart Bee had a few comments to make on Life at Large….. Not bad, all in all…. it can stay….
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It seems a trifle strange to consider, given our opening status today, but, I do believe we’ve done it again…. It certainly LOOKS done; I’ll do a quick proof, and get back to you on that, okay?…. I love it when I’m right; since it happens so seldom in any significant arena of existence, I’ll take it. Not only that, but, I’ll take it, and run with it…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, unless somebody talks me out of it….
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
À bientôt, mon cherí….
gigoid 