Spirit lamps have been provided, and lit from within….

Posted on April 9, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

‘Tis a fortunate thing for all of us, Time…. Just think of where we’d be without it….. Days such as yesterday would go on forever, and we’d have no way to either stop it, or start again, or anything…. I’ve always liked to think of Time as being our most important gift from the universe…. otherwise, everything would have to happen all at once, and how icky would THAT be? It would get old in a heartbeat, for me, anyway….

Howdy, ffolkes… I’m back, and none too certain about what happened yesterday…. I’m not going to even think about it, as it was miserable there for the first while…. It all got better, as Uncle Sugar, as my friend Jerry D. calls him, sent my monthly stipend, for which I slaved away my youth, scavenging pennies for my old age, dutifully, (though with little choice…) depositing a portion of them into the SS bank, so kindly thought up for us by ol’ FDR, that master slave master with the big heart….. Having thus been forced by society to save my money for my old age, I am now reaping the rewards for that diligence, even if it was not my own, but enforced upon me by society….

None of the above is a complaint…. it only sounds as if it is, because I’m a natural grump, a curmudgeon in training…. It’s perfectly natural for me to sound that way, and, in fact, I can be cited for being nice to the wrong people…. Suffice it to say things got better yesterday as soon as I checked my bank balance online, and could plan the day’s events with that in mind and hand….. I AM a trained consumer, like everyone else, and it’s soothing to my capitalist soul to spend money….

Now, with all that having been said, I COULD go on to the Pearl for today…. but, what fun would that be, as I haven’t tormented the passengers yet, or issued any of the standard warnings, codicils, updates, or weather and terrorism bulletins ? (We’ve found the latter to be a very popular addition to the program…. everybody seems to enjoy hearing the latest warning statements issued by Homeland Insecurity…. they always get the biggest laughs of the program…) Indeed, we have yet to even board the gigoid-mobile, which we cannot do until they bring the damn thing here from the hangar….

I’m going to pretend it’s already here, though, and just get on with it…. I don’t think we can afford to take the time away from our schedule to wait for the vehicle we’d planned to use; they’re already late, and nothing is in sight…. Can’t call to see, as everyone involved is busy moving the plane….. but, that means they’ll be here in time to dive, so, I’m going to issue the face-masks, body armor, and box lunches, so we can board as soon as it shows up…. which means we’ll be on our way shortly…. Whew, good thing, as I don’t think I could fake this much longer…

Shall we Pearl?…..

“And this,” said Caesar, “you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say than to do.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Caesar

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WARNING: The following pearl grew beyond all reasonable boundaries, until I finally had to use a variation of Emergency Method #6 to get quit of it…. I’m putting in a disclaimer so you may skim over it to the poetry section, if you wish…. but, I wish you wouldn’t, as it’s a pretty good rant, all in all….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/USAID-chief-to-face-questions-on-Cuban-Twitter-5384467.php

Ominous key phrase: “publicly launched shortly after the 2009 arrest in Cuba of American contractor Alan Gross. He was imprisoned there after traveling repeatedly on a separate, clandestine USAID mission to expand Cuban Internet access, using sensitive technology that only governments use.”

I almost missed this little “tell” from the media lackey who wrote this, shall we say, LESS than unbiased report…. Sensitive technology that only governments use… What was that? That only GOVERNMENTS use? When did a government become NOT a person with a laptop? What does this mean, that “only” governments use some kinds of technology?

Does this imply to you, as it does to me, that there are things they aren’t telling us, in terms of the available technology in certain fields? You mean the government is, GASP! , LYING TO US? They’re keeping advanced technology away from the public? Why, I’m shocked, I tell you, simply shocked…

What the hell ELSE could it mean, ffolkes? Apparently, the government(s)(!!!) have technology the rest of us aren’t allowed to have, if any of this is at all accurate…. and, I’m guessing it is. (!!!) There you go, ffolkes, they’ve let the cat out of the bag, and it is now clawing its way up your leg toward where you keep you wallet, to snag its contents for the corporate masters who assign the tasks for their government myrmidons to carry out…. clandestinely, with the technology they’ve kept hidden from us….

This whole scenario, all this noise about more instances of spying by the government, by the way, is just MORE BS, a big smoke screen being thrown up to distract the public from matters of greater importance, in those areas where the actions of the government require the darkness that is provided by pulling our attention to other matters….. The hullabaloo in this issue goes right along with what is taking place in the article listed just below, which we will now proceed to address….

Nothing much more to say here, except, ffolkes, you’d better keep a sharp eye on your perimeter, and stay aware of whomever is lurking about…. Then, take measures to protect yourselves from your own government, who are among those lurking about, looking for anything they can steal, or get their fingers into…. and, now, we know they’re also trying to hook your kids up to some sort of techno system that will farm your information for anything that will further their cause….

“As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do.” — Zachary Scott

I can relate…. I’ve spent many hours of regret for NOT having spent more time randomly shooting politicians, bankers, and/or preachers until I ran out of bullets…. Let’s move on to the next issue that prompted this outburst, which began two or three days ago, & is only now coming to fruition….

Yesterday morning, I felt like crap, without ever finding out why…. It passed, but not before abandoning this series of thoughts, which had been collecting in my head, and on this screen, for several days,, stimulated each time by each new outrageous news article I found, that could be identified as part of the government’s ongoing campaign to fill the heads of the public with useless, misleading information, or something that LOOKS like information, but, is actually just fluff, that will fill up their heads for a cheap price….

Below you will find the link to an article re: the continuing saga of DiFi and the CIA, (sounds like the name of an indie band, or a really bad, way-off-Broadway play…)…. which is followed by some of the key phrases I noted while reading it, with my comments appended where appropriate….. Just to keep y’all busy, some of what I said is in parentheses, and some isn’t….. Even after proofing, I’m uncertain as to which should be which, & it’s too late to go back and figure it out, so just deal, okay? Thanks….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Dems-slam-CIA-ex-boss-over-Feinstein-criticism-5382997.php

Key phrases in the article, taken from each side:

CIA: “We’re safe now, the CIA is here!” — Famous Last Words

(Okay, it’s not really in the article…. but, it fits, so it should be…. which is why I put it there….)

Hayden: “Hayden could not be reached for comment.” (Mr. Hayden is the CURRENT Director of the CIA….)

( This WAS in there…. All I can say is, well, I guess he would’t comment for this article, so they used stuff from another interview from earlier in the week, when he said the stuff that WAS included in today’s brief, such as the following….) (All excerpted portions from the article are in quotation marks….)

(The report…) “may show deep emotional feeling on the part of the senator, but I don’t think it leads you to an objective report.” Regarding Feinstein, he said, “When she gets an idea in her head, she’s very focused” — in much the same manner as current CIA Director John Brennan. Hayden said Feinstein’s report, however, was “designed to discredit the (interrogation) program and those who said this provided useful information.”

(I don’t know about y’all, but, those statements have a distinct tone of “nyah, nyah, nyah”, as might be heard on any third-grade playground….)

From the other side of the aisle, we have the statements on the issue by the Senator, and her supporters…. most of whom are Senate Democrats:

Feinstein: “Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement that declassifying the review of CIA’s detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11 attacks “would ensure nothing like it happens again.” She called Hayden’s reference to her emotions “nonsense.” “The report itself is objective, based on fact, thoroughly footnoted, and I am certain it will stand on its own merits,” Feinstein said.”

(Duh! What the hell else would she say? I don’t think she could say what ACTUALLY was true, such as ,”Oh, they’re right, the report is just another way of making noise, by accusing them of chicanery over here in this issue, so the public won’t look at what the White House is REALLY doing about all this….” That would go over real well over on Pennsylvania Avenue, ya think?…. Probably not….)

But, she had to say SOMETHING, didn’t she? Can’t leave a media hound without a sound byte….. It just isn’t done …. Plus, if she’s telling any truth at all, it IS all footnoted, thoroughly….. or so she asserts, anyway, so that’s something, right? That will scare them, boy,…. we all know how dangerous those footnotes are…. Shoot, the way she said the words, “thoroughly footnoted”, like their mere utterance was some sort of magical proof of truth, just MAKES me HAVE to read them, if ony so I can see what “thoroughly footnoted” means…. to them….

Udall: ” Sen. Mark Udall, a Democrat who serves alongside Feinstein on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the reference to Feinstein’s emotions a “baseless smear” that Hayden wouldn’t make against a man. ”

Others: “Does this sound like a person or party that respects women?” Reid said. Of Feinstein, he said: “She has been fearless. She has been thorough and fair… She’s being too emotional? I don’t think so.”

Good job, dudes…. Senators Reid and Udall chimed in to show the unity of the Dems in the Senate…. They wanted to be supportive of their colleague, plus, it was an opportunity to slip in one of their Party’s best strategic talking points, dragging down the Republicans about their views on women…. which, by coming to her defense, as if “the little lady” needed it, shows complete disdain for women, while simultaneously highlighting their own misogyny…. Utah must be proud….

Besides, thinking of Dianne Feinstein as a “little lady” is more than just stupid… the woman stands over six feet three in heels, and is built like a left tackle….. I know, I’ve seen her in person, in close proximity…. I’m not tall at 5’8″, but, I’m a wide-body, built like a fire-plug, or a linebacker, and don’t usually feel dwarfed by any woman, no matter how tall, but, she was BIG…. Scary, especially when one remembers she’s married to SF financier Richard Blum, a Chuck Schwab type of guy, who is definitely NOT a huge fella…. He was there, and is only about my own height and weight….

You’ll note, please, that I am confining myself to minor pokes and prods, without becoming overly vituperative…. This is because I am writing this ahead of time, and feeling quite glib right now…. thus, I am taking advantage of my momentary glib facility to get in some good licks from my sardonicism, and its ever-present side-kick, sarcasm…. hopefully, a bit of shameless guilt-tripping is getting through, as well…. But, no real ranting thus far…. I decided, here at the last, to rant no further, since this has grown beyond all reason….

Not only am I not going to subject you to a full-on, pedantic, pompous episode of ranting, at least, not any MORE of it, I’m going to stop my sharpshooting now, and finish off this epic section with a five-star pearl, with the expected parameters…. Enjoy, and I’ll see you in section three….

“He who reforms himself, has done more towards reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.” — Lavater

“The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it’s only the people who make them unsafe.” — Frank Rizzo (ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia)

(Typical attitude of an elected psychopath….)

“There are some remedies worse than the disease.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 301

(Yep…. such as any remedy for social ills proposed by a POLITICIAN, who, by nature, has no invested interest in ever solving any social issues, other than for the purposes of their own aggrandizement, thus, only in the interests of self-service….)

UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

(Typical…. Just ask any redneck, conservative, or anyone else who calls themselves a “Patriot”, those of the “My country, right or wrong” ilk….)

“Honor is the reward of virtue.” — Cicero (B.C. 106-43)

(Oops! How did THAT get in there…. That won’t go over well with an elected official; like George Carlin pointed out, such words make a lawyer or a politician feel uneasy; they know they take the risk of choking on either word, if they try to apply it to themselves…. Let’s try for another closing pearl, that will say something along the lines we’re seeking here today….)

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts.” — Bertrand Russell

That will do nicely…. NOW we can go on, with confidence we’ve kicked the shit out of THIS section today….. Even though it makes me a liar, (count the number of pearls herein…..) I’ll leave you with this final thought, from one of the designers of our modern government, as he comments on the already-suspect behavior of those who inhabited the halls of our government, even back then, in his time, and, speaking with a degree of clairvoyance he never knew, eerily describing the Beloved Ruling Class, as it exists today…..

“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress.” — John Adams, (1735-1826) in 1776

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WordPress recently began placing suggested related posts at the bottom of our blog pages, referring readers to older, archived posts with similar material for them to peruse… In doing so, yesterday or the day before, I came across the following, from From February 2, 2012…. I like it a lot, so I decided to format it into verses, whereupon it turned into a poem I think I can be very proud to have created…. Well, I like it…. Here then, is the original prose version, followed by the resultant poem….

Written 2/2/12:

But you shall not escape my iambics.

Soft, sinuous patterns of unearthly beauty blithely commune with sinking stars, as pale shadows of former virtue hover near, ever clean, ever tolerant. These unbidden habits are worn with age and care, ready now for dissolution, welcoming gladly the kiss of death’s handmaiden. Unknown to all, the child stands aside, and weeps for the lost days of youth, days that now shall never be, nor yearned for ever after. Only darkness shall lay upon the landscape, cold, hard, and eternal. Such then are the signs and portents as we enter into the unknown future, and they are grave indeed. Uncertainty will be our sole companion, as the search for hope yields no result. The lamentations of the gods shall sound the elegy for Man, who never learned to see the gift that was made, so many echoes ago, in the hopeful past; thus will we pass this plane of existence as we came, baffled and afraid…..

Well, sorry….this was supposed to be a poem, but it just ran away with me there for a few minutes. I’ll have to come back later and look at it with fresh eyes….. Okay, so it’s not bad, as a not-poem goes. I’ve certainly created worse…..I’ll just have to put it out there, and let it fly or not, as it chooses… (I do tend to anthropomorphize fairly often; its a gift…..)
_____________________________

This is how it looks as a poem, complete with brand new title:

Gently Came a Wounded Child

But you shall not escape my iambics.

Unknown to all, the child stands aside,
weeping for the lost days of youth,
days that now shall never be,
nor yearned for ever after.
Only darkness shall lay upon the landscape,
cold, hard, eternal.

Such then are the signs and portents
as we enter into the unknown future,
they are grave indeed.

Uncertainty will be our sole companion,
as the search for hope yields no result.
The lamentations of the gods
shall sound the elegy for Man,
who never learned to see the gift that was made,
so many echoes ago, in the hopeful past;
thus will we pass this plane of existence
as we came, baffled and afraid….

~~ gigoid ~~

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Well, I’ve made it this far, I may as well finish up…. This will be a standard old-school pearl…. I’ve ranted QUITE enough for one day, above in section one, so you probably knew this was coming… S’okay, I expected the regulars to figure it out, and the newbies, well, they have to take what they get, don’t they? I’m not trying to be smarmy, or anything, I just figure since we’re mostly done here for the day, I could get away with a touch of smarm, if I had to…. Okay, I won’t then…. Be that way….

Instead, I offer, then, for your viewing pleasure, a random, harlequin pearl, with parameters set to describe “a life lived well”…. or, maybe that was, “well, living life”…. Yeah, that was it…

“Don’t blame me–I was raised by humans” — Smart Bee

“A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” — Albert Einstein

” ‘He deserves death’. ‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them ? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.’ ” — J. R. R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” — Frederick Douglass

“All of the animals excepting man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.” — Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

“Mongo only pawn… in game of life.” — Alex Karras in “Blazing Saddles”

Okay, to end this, here is a statement of reaction to the above that is a perfect example of Art imitating Life imitating Art imitating Life, as perfectly highlighted by the immortal words of George Peppard, when he said, at the end of each episode of The A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together!”…. Serendipity is a wonderful thing….

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Go, forget me! why should sorrow
O’er that brow a shadow fling?
Go, forget me, and to-morrow
Brightly smile and sweetly sing!
Smile,–though I shall not be near thee;
Sing,–though I shall never hear thee!

— Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) — Go, forget me!

Actually, it would be rather nice if y’all DIDN’T forget me just yet…. After I’ve gone to my next appointment in the reincarnation cycle, THEN you can forget me…. Of course, my words will still be here, and one or two of them are, if not unforgettable, hopefully, at least, memorable…. On that note, anything other than tootling “ta-ta” would be anticlimactic at best….. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

Twisted versions of classical toilet accessories….

Posted on April 5, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I’m thinking the old saw about “Early to bed”, etc., is either a crock, designed purely to force dogmatic prejudices upon unwilling members of religious flocks, back when the preachers were not quite so thoroughly entrenched as the teachers of morality for our species, OR, it’s a typo rooted in being misheard….

I think the actual statement originally went “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man wealthy and wealthy, but not very wise.” To my way of thinking, this makes a LOT more sense, from a quality of life standpoint….. The other way is just how the preachers and snakeheads WANT you to believe, as it gives THEM the power over you they crave….

You see, they’re the ones who reap the benefit when you get up early, work hard, & go to bed, all without ever trying to use the brain you were given at birth…. These manipulators, the dogma-bearers and the snakeheads who reap the benefit of all your hard work, will tell you anything at all, without any reference to truth or reality, as long as it will get y’all to do what they want, which is to accept their words as truth, & to do as they say, not as they do….

What amazes me the most about this system is that it WORKS AT ALL! How can anyone, anyone with a brain, one that has more than three functioning neurons, allow themselves to believe such bullshit, just because they were told it was true when they were so young they knew no better than to accept what they were told by an elder…

“Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of the Training of Children

As long as people allow the corporate snakeheads, so ably assisted by the dogma-dogs, who have been manipulating mankind right along with the money-lenders since we first lived indoors, to fill our heads with bullshit like this, the world will never change, not in any way that will help you and me….. In our world, as it exists today, only the shadowy corporate slave masters ultimately benefit from what happens in the world at large….

I’m not sure what prompted this mini-rant here in the intro, but, it’s all true, so I’m going to not worry about it, and just get on with today’s program, such as it may be…. The above paragraphs MAY be the leftovers from the rant below, much of which was written yesterday afternoon, when I first saw the article in question…. It got me going pretty good, so, this is probably the consequence of the remaining bit of angst from that episode, that drove me to such depths of passion….

So be it…. it’s a good thing, I think, to use our minds first thing upon awakening….. The shock brings us out of sleep mode rapidly, and I’m pretty sure it adds to the clarity of expression that we are seeing. Hope springs eternal….

Regardless of all that, it’s done, and done well enough we can go on without any lingering guilt or resentment for having to contort ourselves unfashionably to create an opening section….. Not bad for an old fart with flat feet, frequent flatulence, & a startlingly bad attitude, all housed in a frail, broken old body, that strangely resembles a Frisbee-toting, card-carrying denizen of the wilds of Berzerkeley, as they looked back in the old days, when hippies roamed free upon the land…. The grey hair down to my waist, thin as it may be, is a dead giveaway, isn’t it?

Shall we Pearl?…..

And here, poor fool, with all my lore
I stand no wiser than before.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

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“In God We Trust.” I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true.” — Mark Twain

Boy, it sure wouldn’t, would it? But, you can add that particular phrase (“In God….”, etc.) to all the others coined by the snakeheads, and the BRC, to justify their social interactions, all of which serve THEIR ends, not yours…. Having the populace believe the above makes for a very easily manipulated group of people, all of whom are primed to believe whatever they’re told, by someone on TV wearing a suit with a flag pin, or up in the pulpit….

Now we’re supposed to believe them when they talk to us about spying, and lying, and generally being the assholes they cannot help but be…. ( Hmm, a bit awkwardly phrased, but you get my drift, right?…)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Senate-committee-OKs-release-of-CIA-torture-report-5375716.php

Following this line, in summary of the most critical of the information contained therein, I have copied an excerpt from the above article, a brilliantly obscure statement of compliance (?), kinda sorta, from some guy who works at the CIA. That critical excerpt, taken directly from the above, is this:

“CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said his agency would “carry out the review expeditiously,” but suggested the process may be difficult.”We owe it to the men and women directed to carry out this program to try and ensure that any historical account of it is accurate,” Boyd said….”

That’s right, that’s what he said, right out there in public, where it was recorded by numerous reporters…. This person, this… Boyd person, is the mouthpiece spokesman for the CIA, an agency whose very existence, (its raison d’etre, its excuse for being part of our world at all), is to provide intelligence (in the form of information, a task that does not necessarily require significant levels of IQ in its operatives…. Flexible morality, yes, but, not IQ points….) from outside the borders of the USA, by inhabiting, and exploiting, the world of shadow, the battlefield of covert operations in other countries, using techniques and methods of operation based on illusion, misdirection, misinformation, and lies…. This is common knowledge, and not subject to debate…. look it up in their charter documents….

This Boyd person, and I use the term loosely, by making this statement, obviously expects us to believe that his agency, whose very existence is rooted in lies and the spread of misinformation, is ready, and willing to give us, or anyone else, an ACCURATE picture of what they’ve been up to? I don’t know about y’all, but, I’m insulted….

In fact, I can’t recall at the moment anything more egregiously untrue, or as insulting, since Nixon’s “I am not a crook!” back in the 70’s…. Or, maybe, Shrub, Senior’s “Read my lips… no new taxes.”….. Since the sheer illegitimacy of both of those statements has long been a forgone conclusion, no longer a matter of debate, I’d say it’s a fair assessment to make of this particular little piece of verbal bullshit…

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Cuban-Twitter-heads-to-hearings-in-Congress-5375669.php

Then, searching further among the headlines of BS we are supposed to buy into, we come to the LATEST of the clandestine shenanigans our beloved Barry, and his “transparent administration” has been up to in the last few years….

Without bothering to actually TELL anyone, some government lackeys, encouraged by the “Arab Dawn” phenomenon in the Middle East, an event whose roots were nourished by the social networking capabilities of Twitter and Instant Messaging technology, decided to attempt to foment rebellion in Cuba among the youth of that country, by deliberately setting up a social network of their own, using it to not only encourage dissent, but, also, (they like to multi-task…) to gather information about the users in Cuba…

Well, I’m shocked…. just shocked, I tell you…. What a surprise, eh? To think that our Beloved Ruling Class here in America, land of the FREE (~~white Christian minority~~) would stoop to such egregiously deceitful and deliberate influencing of public sentiment to further their own interests, why it just makes me feel so…. slimed…. Which is how the Cubans must have felt when they found out it was all a sham…

Boy, there’s sure nothing like going around the world making new friends and influencing people, right?…. Christ on a crutch, what the fuck were they thinking? Have these assholes become so blinded by their own sense of entitlement they can’t see just how STUPID that is? Apparently not, which is what will come out, I think, in these hearings…. More stupidity, that is….

It’s all a big clusterfuck, just another example of entitlement gone wild and crazy, making the pundits and elected assholes at every level believe they can be as stupidly obvious about their self-serving avarice as they wish, and nobody will ever care, or catch them at it…. which is a concept, given today’s world, that is not only easily seen as more than just a little stupid, it approaches the level of severe mental retardation…. Having spent a lot of time, (3+ years), taking care of people whose average IQ hovered around 4, I can testify that this sort of belief is about the only sort of which they are capable…..

They’re all a bunch of smarmy, self-serving, avaricious assholes…. and THAT, my friends, is me being NICE!….. I merely used a bit of vitriol, with only one questionably unwarranted word of insult…. I COULD have been extremely nasty, turning viciously vulgar, without breaking a sweat, or becoming at all disconcerted…. Yep, I could have said, fuck them all, really hard, right in the ass, (unless, of course, they LIKE that….); then, kick their sorry asses right down to the lowest levels of the hell they so richly deserve…. but, I won’t say that….

gigoid, the dubious, has spoken. So be it….

“…. I’m IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a KOSHER DELI –” — Zippy the Pinhead

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Today is another day with mostly fresh material…. which means I’ll need to use another of my old poems, to protect the innocent… Here is one I wrote last December; obviously, I had the above rant in mind, or one like it….

Accentuated Lessons

Bold statements of calculated intent
Become common rule of the malcontent.
Avarice assumes such attractive wear
Beguiling deception, illusory and fair.

Grasping and pulling with ghostly hands
Legally proper in all the signatory lands.
Seeking and finding each vulnerable soul
Anguish as payment for exacting the toll.

Wraiths of commerce’s invisible dead guards
Still haunt the dreams left in sad empty yards.
While absentee nobles sit in stiffly elegant splendor
Served by sad-faced detainees in abject surrender.

Escape from reality is illusory at best
Often we falter and fail its daily test.
Only when focused on inner strength
Does peace stay with us for any length.

Peace lies within, always…..

~~ gigoid ~~

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I’ve ranted, twice, if you want to be picky, and found a poem to fit in with the rest…. Y’all know what that means, don’t you? Yep, it’s time for an old school pearl…. Some might say it’s about damn time, too…. Let’s see if SB can do it all by itself today…. All I’ll do is push the buttons…. Enjoy!

“It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter are still more benign, more decent than silence. Those who remain silent are almost always lacking in delicacy and courtesy of the heart.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“People are divided into two groups – the righteous and the unrighteous – and the righteous do the dividing.” — Lord Cohen

“Aren’t you beginning to feel time gaining on you? It’s like a predator. It’s stalking you. You can try to outrun it with doctors, medicines… new technologies. But in the end, time is going to hunt you down – and make the kill.” — Soran, Star Trek, Generations

“A wise man first determines what is within his control; all else is then irrelevant.” — Epictetus

“It was not for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.” — Plautus (254-184 BC) — Aulularia, Act iv, Sc. 3, 1, (624.)

“The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

“He knows not when to be silent who knows not when to speak. — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 930

I, having learned to do both, shall now be silent….

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

I’m impressed…. Yes, even I have to admit this one is pretty decent, as well as one of the smoothest ever, in terms of how well it went onto the screen…. I’m not going to tempt our old pal Murphy by trying to continue to write any further, but will use a variation of method #4 to bring this to a screeching halt…. See y’all mañana, ffolkes…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

We’ll call it “fashionably undead”….

Posted on April 2, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Considering the state of affairs in modern society, a relatively high degree of curmudgeonry among the citizenry is to be expected; a rough, gruff exterior is the protective barrier of choice in modern times, with good reason. We are all bombarded daily with demands upon our time, expectations upon our behavior, rules, regulations, and all sorts of other frequently frustrating demands that assault our senses, often transpiring right in front of us, necessitating our participation, if not our complete engagement, or investment….. Given all that, it isn’t particularly surprising to me that good manners have fallen by the wayside….

To a gentleman, as I was raised to be, certain behaviors are not optional; for most of today’s young men and women, those behaviors are not only unknown to them, but have been replaced with a set of expectations of entitlement, and behavioral irritants, that, for the most part, are more effective in keeping others at a distance than they are in enhancing interaction, or improving communication.

This change in what young people are taught, or NOT taught, more accurately, has resulted in a society where rudeness is the norm, compassion is seen as weakness, and manipulation of others is a survival skill….. I see most of this as the logical consequence of our BRC’s nasty habit of attempting to modify public morality through legislation, to wit: making laws to tell people how to behave toward each other….

This, of course, is really, really stupid…. and I don’t mean that in a nice sense, either….. It’s just plain idiotic to assume that the inertia needed to make ANY sort of weather change in Society at Large can be provided by a new law….. Hell, I can’t think of where the idea came from in the first place, as ANY parent of small children can testify as to just how completely useless and ineffective it is to try to teach morality through the use of punishment for bad behavior, OR for rewarding good….. People, even small, essentially unformed human beings do NOT respond well to that sort of teaching, and, in fact, will often rebel AGAINST any such type of behavioral modification, making it not just useless, but, counterproductive….

Which word, counterproductive, leads us back to reality, as our beloved ruling class continues to thrash about, mostly wreaking havoc, instead of creating order in the world, by the consistent, deliberate application of stupidity and greed….. It seems to me that it has become not only acceptable, but routine, to try to legislate morals among the populace of this nation, with the unfortunate end result of convincing those in power that they have not only the right to do so, but that there is need for it…. both of which are failures of logic, and can only lead to more problems…..

SIGH…..This isn’t REALLY a rant, you know, it’s just a discussion, one that seemed to fit in with today’s mood, enough so to bring it to bear on the introduction problem we always face in the morning…. It seems to have worked fairly well, though it’s hard to tell this early…. Sometimes, the intro has a delayed effect on the Gentle Readers….

I’ll often hear ffolkes moaning and groaning, while I’m preparing a poem, or searching through SB, as certain phrases or words from this introductory part of the morning’s mental buffet hit home, naturally producing the typical response to such chicanery. In fact, I’ve noticed a resemblance, at times, to a gathering of punsters, which produces a variety of sounds indicating the presence of “humans in dire mental distress”…..

All of which doesn’t alter the fact that I’ve once again faked my way through the intro, bringing us to the required point in the process where we can smoothly wend our way to the next section, knowing we’ve fulfilled all the legal and technical requirements…. That isn’t to say our ONLY purpose here is to meet standards…. In fact, we spit on standards…. who needs them? We certainly don’t…. Not only do we not need them, we HATE them…. We don’t want no stinking standards around here, so just take them away…..

Oops, I think my coherency just failed, so to speak…. I’m probably starting to break out in a bozoid fever…. that’s how it always begins…. It’s okay, I’ve got a plan for that…. It never works, but, I have one….

Never mind…. This is spinning rapidly out of my control…. I’m going to employ Emergency method #4, to take us out of here before anything catches fire, or explodes…..

Shall we Pearl?….

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

I’m not certain that I have what it takes today to write anything particularly logical, or reasoned to any fine degree…. For the first time in several days, I didn’t sleep all that well…. Oh, it was GOOD sleep, just not enough of it: I didn’t WANT to get up when the furry alarm went off…. But, if I don’t, she picks on Pat, so, I pushed out of bed, and have been trying to wake up fully ever since, a matter of almost an hour now…. Some days it just doesn’t pay to begin the day at all….

Around here, though, we have a way to get around that little conundrum, called an old-school pearl…. I’ll just let Smart Bee pick out the parameters, and the pearls, and we’ll let it go at that, okay?…. Okay….. works for me…..

“It matters not what you are thought to be, but what you are.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 78

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

“There’s no problem so awful that you can’t add some guilt to it and make it even worse.” — Calvin and Hobbes

“Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.” — Pythagoras (BC 582-507)

“We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against Nature.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Eating of Flesh, Tract 1

“A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.” — Barbarella

“Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.” — Ogden Nash

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

Somewhere inside my mind, below the level of conscious perception where my ego resides, there is an area where poems percolate, words swimming together in an ocean of comprised of memory, perception, emotion, and reason….. I never know when there will be enough to begin leaking out into my consciousness, to create the verses which will give voice to my inner demons, because when I try to write one before it’s ready, I find nothing worthwhile, until the unconscious process, whatever it consists of, is ready to allow it all out into the light of day…. One unknown poet’s thought has always stuck with me; he said the following about writing poems….. “Poets never finish a poem, they merely abandon it.”…..

I can feel the chaos inside me swirling and mixing, but, trying to come together, but, nothing is ready to leak out into my awareness, so, we’ll go with someone else’s work…. Let’s see who we can find today to soothe my savage breast….. Okay, yes, that refers to music…. but, it works the same way…. try to stay focused, ffolkes, and enjoy….

Witch Burning

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll’s body.
Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches.
Only the devil can eat the devil out.
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.

It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door,
The cellar’s belly. They’ve blown my sparkler out.
A black-sharded lady keeps me in parrot cage.
What large eyes the dead have!
I am intimate with a hairy spirit.
Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.

If I am a little one, I can do no harm.
If I don’t move about, I’ll knock nothing over. So I said,
Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain.
They are turning the burners up, ring after ring.
We are full of starch, my small white fellows. We grow.
It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth.

Mother of beetles, only unclench your hand:
I’ll fly through the candle’s mouth like a singeless moth.
Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days
I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone.
My ankles brighten. Brightness ascends my thighs.
I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

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

I know it will cause a lot of disappointment, but, I won’t be ranting today…. Since arising, I’ve managed to put together what you see for today’s post, in hopes of some angst showing up to provide the fuel to drive such an outburst, but, I’ve come to realize I’m waiting in vain. Nothing is going to come together in my head well enough today to make the effort worthwhile; any rant I attempt is destined to resemble a whine more than a rant, and I don’t want to get in the habit of settling for less than my best…..

What this means for y’all is another old-school pearl, of course….. I’ll set the parameters to look for quotes and/or aphorisms that will serve the same purpose as a rant, either about the BRC, the SCM, the DD’s (Dogma Dogs…. you know, preachers & priests….), or some other category of Asininny…. Poking fun at public icons is, patently, our favorite pastime here at ECR, with Smart Bee leading the way in that respect, so, this shouldn’t take too long…..

“A government that fears it’s people is a government that should be feared.” — Smart Bee

“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.” — Agatha Christie

“They gave me a book of checks. They didn’t ask for any deposits.” — Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference — to answer questions about the House Bank Scandal

“Machiavel says virtue and riches seldom settle on one man.” — Robert Burton (1577-1640) — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part ii, Sect. 2, Memb. 2

“…when all government… in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1821

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” — Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Collected Essays

“Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy.” — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Okay, so it took forfuckingever…. which is, as it turns out, just as well, since it came out so well…. It isn’t often I can find such a perfect closing line as Albert’s, especially as it applies to our beloved leaders, and the show they put on…. I only wish I could say the show is for OUR benefit….

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

All things considered, this didn’t come out too badly…. As a result, it’s actually done, and I can go on to try to mitigate what physical ailments are currently making their play for attention….. Since pain is only peripherally involved so far, it should be a fairly simple thing to figure out…. assuming, of course, I can whip my brain into submission…. I’ll let y’all know tomorrow how that went…. See ya, ffolkes…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

How to train predator birds with vertigo….

Posted on March 31, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

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

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

Was Emily channeling the future with this poem? With the correct tilt to the head, with a slight look around the corner of the eye, this ~~would be~~ IS a very good statement to support the concept of blogging…. Each of us bloggers MUST abide by this feeling, in order to continue to post….

Well, I do, anyway…. But, I’m an Emily fan, so maybe that has something to do with it….. We all tend to fall back on the words of our favorites when it comes to justifying our own existence, or, in this case, our own continued presence on the web….

Okay…. So, was that a bit more comfortable? I thought a bit of a different opening might be in order….. Not that I feel the old way wasn’t working, but, I’ve never been quite satisfied with that part of the Daily Pearl…. Breaking past the morning block that almost everyone’s mind suffers upon first awakening has become, if not easy, at least doable….. But, the fear of the blank white screen still hovers in the background, always ready to jump up, freeze my brain’s connection to my fingers, & generally put a complete halt to the morning’s process of writing….. Damned neuroses!….

In the last few months, I’ve managed to NOT feel the fear so consistently, by using a combination of trickery, cheer leading, and flat out lying to myself, which seems to be working fairly well…. we haven’t had a freeze-up in close to a year. But, it’s never been an easy process, and I’ve never felt fully engaged in how it gets done….

I’ve always felt that somewhere, deep inside the back reaches of my brain, there is a structure, a building of words, so to speak, that I will someday find, establishing a solidly constructed edifice here at the beginning of each Pearl, to mark the beginning of another fine piece of work….

That is probably just another of my fantasies, but, hey, it’s MY fantasy, so leave it alone, okay? We all need our illusions to keep us going…. I know this; otherwise, why would we put up with so much fictional bullshit from our leaders? I’ve always known, and been saddened, by the knowledge that our leaders are liars; congenital, trained, or just naturally glib, it doesn’t matter, they’re all a bunch of self-serving assholes who would lie to their own mother if they thought it would buy her vote….

Oops! Ranting mode…. stand clear, please…. Okay, I turned it off, you can relax….. Almost started in on the BRC there…. I guess they just make too attractive a target to leave them alone too long…. I’ll not start that here in the intro today, though, for which I’m sure you are thankful….

I suppose, given we’ve managed to wander through a number of paragraphs already, we could conceivably call this completed, and get on with the day’s business…. Since I’ve had eight sold hours of sleep, and my pain meds are currently ahead of the pain, score-wise, I think I’ll go ahead and do that…. I suppose there are worse ways to start the day….

In fact, I KNOW there are, as I’m familiar with just about ALL of the different ways one can start badly….

Shall we Pearl?….

How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

— Robert Browning (1812-1890) — Saul, ix

_____________________________

As iterated above, ranting is on hold…. Since it is, and I want to keep going, we’ll put today’s old-school pearl here…. It will give me something easy to do, and pass the time until I am ready to go find something in the news upon which to focus my vitriol…. a waste bin, as it were, for the angst I wish to throw away…. For now, let’s find a group of pearls that says something about Life At Large….

“You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist, he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing.” — Sydney Harris

(Side note: When applied to politicians, the accuracy of this statement approaches 101% validity. — gigoid….)

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) –Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

“Wisdom outweighs any wealth.” — Sophocles (406 BC)

“I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.” — George Bernard Shaw, “The Apple Cart” (1929), Act II

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” — Beverly Sills

“In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.” — Mrs. Jameson

“Why does there have to be an end to the rainbow? Can’t we just let beauty exist without trying to prove that it dies?” — Spite, The University of Akron

PERFECT! Q.E.D., mon amis….
_____________________________

Here is one of my favorite poems; it’s been here before, and, no doubt, will be here again…. This time, it has the name of the translator, who does an excellent job of creating a compelling English equivalent from the ancient Chinese verses….Enjoy!….

Drinking Alone

I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.

But the moon doesn’t drink,
and my shadow silently follows.

I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.

When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

We share life’s joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.

Constant friends, although we wander,
we’ll meet again in the Milky Way.

~~ Li T’ai-po ~~

tr. Hamil

_____________________________

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” — Richard Cardinal Cushing

“If you call a dog’s tail a leg, what do you have? A dog. Calling a tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.” — Abraham Lincoln

Aren’t these complementary pearls great? They’re the perfect lead-in for a rant about politicians, most of whom are of the type of person (I use the word liberally….) who regularly attempts to convince the public they are NOT a duck, or a dog, when, in truth, they either quack, or bark, quite clearly…..

The subject of politicians lying to the public is one I spend a lot of time writing about here, so it would fit right in with all of my other rants very well…. Unfortunately, the news is currently being usurped with a story that makes it far to EASY to show how wide-spread the issue is in our government….

Leland Yee, a California State Senator from San Francisco, and Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a Tong leader from SF’s Chinatown district, (Kinda makes ya wonder, don’t it? “Shrimp Boy?”….. Personally, I get all SORTS of weird mental images popping up when I say those two words to myself….), have been arrested, and are being charged with a number of counts related to their (alleged….. 🙂 …) long-term involvement in drugs, gun-running, political corruption via voting, murder-for-hire, and just about every crime against society that exists, save for, perhaps, stealing from babies….. and that one isn’t out of the question for these two…. I just didn’t see that among the charges for which they were indicted….

It seems that for over twenty years, Yee was selling votes and political influence to Chow, and others, for lucrative economic advantage, for him, and for those who benefited from the programs he voted in to being. He also laundered millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains, by using his political campaign accounts to accept donations, for the Chinese Tong, run by Chow….

This money was collected from prostitution, drug, and racketeering enterprises, all run by the Tong. An undercover FBI agent infiltrated the Tong organization, establishing trust by posing as an ex-Mafioso of high repute, whereby he was able to gather tons of condemning evidence of their corruption, for over four years before the arrests were made…

But, it’s all too easy a target…. In fact, the focus being placed on these two will, long-term, have the opposite effect that it should….. These two clearly criminal individuals are providing too obvious a target for the public’s ire, thus taking it AWAY from all the other, less obviously corrupt politicians out there, almost ALL of whom are hard at work raiding the public treasury, but are much better at hiding their machinations than these two clowns appear to be…

Putting all the public’s attention on a couple of bozoids, who managed to get caught, literally red-handed, with their fingers in the public till, will ultimately have the effect of making other politicians appear to be more honest than they actually are…. That’s human nature, and the pundits, who all know this, will be using it to their advantage for a long time to come….

So, rather than waste a lot of my time and angst-driven energy on ranting about the corruption they are exposing, I’ll just remind you that what you are seeing is NOT atypical for politicians, and shouldn’t be thought of as an anomaly, but, rather, as an omen of things to come, when we expose ALL their asses, and throw them ALL out of office, and out of our lives…. (Picture an iceberg, 90% unseen, floating on the ocean…. Yee & Chow are a small part of the ice visible above the water line….)

Then, when I know you’ve realized that, in spite of all the nonsense in the news, detailing the shenanigans of what they’d like us to believe are swans swimming in the public pond, you now see they are really only ducks, stealing food from the swans, and the dogs, to wit: from you and me… Once you’ve realized how the politicians of this government are NOT in the business of helping us, but are only in Washington to steal as much as they can during their term of office, is the absolute truth, with a capital T, we can go on…..

Now, since y’all have put up with my blathering for so long on such an obvious issue, I’ll reward your forbearance by throwing together a set of pearls to further illustrate and/or enhance my points, to close this off with a flourish…. which, though not particularly common here, is, no doubt, warmly welcome when it occurs…. Enjoy!…..

“The seeds of our own punishment are sown at the same time we commit sin.” — Hesiod

(Sin, otherwise defined as voting…. the two words are interchangeable when politics are involved….)

“Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.” — Theodor W. Adorno

Gerald Ford: In the Bob Hope Golf Classic, the participation of President Gerald Ford was more than enough to remind you that the nuclear button was at one stage at the disposal of a man who might have either pressed it by mistake or else pressed it deliberately in order to obtain room service.” — Clive James

“If they become politicians they were switched at birth.” — Mom’s Hint #096

“A kitchen in every pot. I mean, a pot in every — I mean, a chicken in every…” — George Bush, 1988

“All a man needs to be elected President is the kind of profile that looks good on a postage stamp.” — B.B. Franklin

“We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…” — President William Jefferson Clinton, USA TODAY 11 Mar 1993

“As Athenodorus was taking his leave of Caesar, “Remember,” said he, “Caesar, whenever you are angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-and-twenty letters to yourself.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Caesar Augustus

“Now I’m having INSIPID THOUGHTS about the beautiful, round wives of HOLLYWOOD MOVIE MOGULS encased in PLEXIGLASS CARS and being approached by SMALL BOYS selling FRUIT..” — Zippy the Pinhead

Damn, that was close…. I thought for sure I’d NEVER get out of there!…. Smart Bee took me at my word, and proceeded to inundate me with pearl after pearl that just fit into the group seamlessly…. I managed to keep it down to eight, then got lucky, and found the perfect Zippy quote for closing it off with just the right touch of nearly-coherent insanity…. “He was bigger than me, Ma, but, I took ‘im down!”….. Now we can all go get some rest….

You, you, and you, panic. The rest of you, come with me….
_____________________________

I suppose we will be forced at this point to declare a moral victory…. We only had to leave behind three bodies in a state of panic, but, the rest of us made it through to here, so, I have to count that on the positive side of the scale…. Otherwise, they’d close me down….

Besides, one of the three bozoids we left behind was a trained bozoid, so they’ll all eventually stop screaming & jumping around like idiots, whereupon the bozo will get hungry, and the others will follow as he goes off to find the exit door behind the nearest banyan tree….

On that phantasmagorical note, I’m outta here…. and, none too soon, I’m can tell…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

Assaulted with logic by a Master of Balliol…..

Posted on March 29, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Oddity after oddity keeps piling up in front of me, daring me to question why all these strangenesses are happening so closely together…. Therefore, going with standard policy, I won’t bother to even think about it, as I’m not in the habit of answering dares from reality….. I’m old enough to have learned the usual consequences of that sort of stupidity, & have no desire to spend the rest of the day dealing with whatever my stupidity has cost me, in terms of having to fix something that can generally found to be both real, and critical to my serenity of spirit…. elusive as that may be…..

Having thus dodged a number of bullets at once, I’ll head off into the wilds of Consensual Reality,to see what kind of mischief I can find….. I suppose it doesn’t HAVE to be mischievous, but, that’s the venue I end up choosing most often, and I’m not one to break tradition, as you know, without sufficient reason to do so….. We have NO reasons today, so, mischief it is, provided I can find any…. It isn’t very hard, most days…..

Of course, most days, I’ve got more than five functioning neurons to work with; this morning, my brain feels as if I swapped it out for a bowl of oatmeal, or something; I just can’t seem to get going faster than it takes to keep up with this little snail over here….. Oh, wait, that’s a hallucination…. Never mind….

No, actually, my brain IS pretty foggy today, a result of once again getting more sleep than I know what to do with…. I had an attack yesterday afternoon, where my back seized up for some unknown reason, putting me into severe grunting mode for about an hour and a half, until shortly after six o’clock, pip emma, when I gave up the fight against gravity, & trundled off to bed…. Once I found a comfortable position, I fell out almost immediately, oddly enough, and spent the next nine hours in a restless, but heavy sleep…. go figure.

Now, it’s a bit past 3 AM, and I am once more up, typing, and hoping to find a bit of clarity, or inspiration, both of which have thus far been well-hidden from my desperately seeking gaze…. The cat is happy, but, I’m a bit less than perfectly situated, attitude-wise…. I’m feeling a bit of a grump, actually, & finding it convenient that nobody else is about, as I’d be sorely tempted to take a big bite out of them, just for existing in my space…. As you can tell, I’m finding it a bit tough to gather my wits about me….

I suppose I’ll have to cut this off here…. It would be completely self-centered, and more egotistical than usual, for me to continue in this vein; probably isn’t very interesting for y’all either…. So, I’ll head out now, to go for a dive…. Maybe the peace and serenity that often settles over the oyster beds at this time of night will seep into my soul while I’m there, and help me find some peace of mind…. Or, maybe not…. I suppose we’ll see, won’t we? We always do….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Some obstacles exist in order to challenge us. They are a test of our resolve. Others however, are there to awaken us to the undesirability of a course of action. Their purpose is to make us turn to some more fruitful path. The hard part is telling one kind from the other. ” — Smart Bee

Sometimes, Smart Bee is smarter than others…. This pearl was the very first one that came up in front of me today…. As you can see, it is a PERFECT pearl for the introduction that precedes it, restating the gist of the entire six paragraphs in three short lines…. and, in the process, waking up my mind, with the shock of recognition….. My first thought, upon reading it, was, “Well, no shit!”…. a clear indication of how much I liked it….

Okay, we can go Pearl now….

“The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.” — Vic Braden
_____________________________

Given the state of my intellect this morning, I’m not going to even attempt a rant until the third section…. I could hurt myself, as well as many of my Gentle Readers, in the state I’m in, if I tried to bring myself to the point needed to carry out one of those rather emotional episodes….. As cathartic as the experience may be, it’s still pretty volatile…. Since I’m well aware of my own (potential) lack of control today, we’ll skip right past a rant, to the next available old-school pearl we can put together on short notice…. Let’s not waste any more time, & get right to the dive, shall we?….

“So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Pericles

“Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, “It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Menedemus, iii

“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.” — Latin Proverb

“Morality is learned, not legislated.” — Smart Bee (at gigoid’s insistence…..)

“Bother!”, said Pooh, as he rolled another joint for the President. — Smart Bee

“Although it is tempting to resent disaster, there is not much use in doing so… Whether we remain ash or become the phoenix is up to us.” — Deng Ming-Dao

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.” — Carl Sagan

Not bad at all, even WITH the “one of these is NOT like the others” entry, from Pooh…. but, I will point out, even that one has a point to make….
_____________________________

I’m in the mood for Emily, so Shawna will have to skip over this section today…. (Sorry, S….)…. In fact, I’m SO in the mood for Emily, you get a two-fer….. Enjoy!…. I did….

A Book

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

A Bird Came Down

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,–
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

“I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends…that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.” — Adlai Stevenson

I really, really love this; it’s a PERFECT political insult, and much closer to reality than most would care to admit…. Of course, both parties lie about each other, so, one must keep in mind that to be truly perfect, one must realize it works also in the opposite direction, swapping the position of the party names in the joke…. An all-purpose political insult is always good to find, to paraphrase Mae West….

My memories of Adlai Stevenson are vague, beginning as they do when I was very small; he was involved in national politics during the years following WWII, and after I was born in 1950, during the Korean conflict, which, thanks to my birth, my father was not required to attend (though he did get stationed in Japan AFTER that time, in 1954, when the US ARMY was still there in force, keeping a weather eye on the Japanese, AND on Korea…..) But, I do remember that he was the sworn enemy of Joe McCarthy, that bigoted paranoid who caused such a stir back in the early part of the second half of the century….

During those years, McCarthyites pounded the public awareness with all kinds of verbal garbage, trying to drum up the public’s fear of Commies and Pinkos…. I remember a lot of the rhetoric being bandied about then, and can only be glad that such nonsense didn’t last too long…. thanks to people such as Adlai, who, even back then, as a four to seven-year old, I could tell was hated by the McCarthy camp….. The vitriol with which they spoke of him was VICIOUS, and had the effect of convincing me, and probably several adults, his was a voice of reason, one who spoke gently, clearly, and with intelligence, in contrast to all the loud, bombastic, ignorant bullshit being flung about by the idiot Senator and his cronies….

Today, of course, our political legacy from the past is one of unadulterated fiction; in my admittedly critical point of view, there isn’t a single elected official among the 455 men and women who sit in our federal government (SOTUS, HoROTUS, pOTUS, vpOTUS, & 12 judges on the SCOTUS….) who speaks to the public with only the truth to guide their words…. all of which is a long winded way of saying they ALL lie to the public, regularly, and consistently….

If you have evidence to the contrary, PLEASE, PLEASE, show it to me…. I honestly would LOVE to see some conclusive proof that even ONE of our elected officials habitually tells the truth when making statements to the press…. Just ONE would be good… It would imply the potential presence of others, which would be a big improvement over what we have now, which is a big ZERO….

SIGH…. I’m ranting, aren’t I? I didn’t even notice when it began, but, I guess I am…. Oh well, it’s never out of place, not in this society…. I’m going to pull an Adlai, though, and do something which, if not enlightening or particularly uplifting, may well come as a relief…. I’m stopping the rant here, and will come back to praise Mr. Stevenson (and, further vilify Mr. McCarthy) another time…. For now, let’s find some old-school pearls on the subject of our Beloved Ruling Class, and have some fun with that…. It will be better for all of us, I’m sure…..

“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.” — G. K. Chesterton, ILN, 3/14/08

“We have met the enemy; in fact, we elected him.” — Cruickshank’s Law #1

“To be overtly queer, in a culture that denigrates and hates queerness, is to be political.” — Michael Bronski

“Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.” — Seneca (8 BC) — Hercules Furens, i, 1, 255

“Anyone can grab a Tiger by the balls, but it takes a real man to squeeze!” — Smart Bee

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.” — Mark Twain

“There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth.” — G. K. Chesterton, ILN, 7/18/08

Aha!…. An Oreo pearl…. and if I need to explain that, I’ve done something very wrong….. Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did, because I damn near orgasmed there on the Twain quote!…. Bwuuuhahahahahaha!!!…..
_____________________________

I was right, or write, whatever the case may be, when I implied my own level of mischievousness today; it almost got away from me, but, I managed to keep it within the assigned limits, so, we’re good to go…. I’ve proofed the above, but, if my recent attempts at that are any indication, you’ll find at least one, if not many, egregious typos and/or errors of syntax, or grammar…. You can bet on it…. If not, well, good, but, otherwise, so be it…. I’m done with this one, and will now perform the necessary incantations and spells to get it online…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes…. Be well, and happy…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

As with excellence, stupidity is its own reward….

Posted on March 22, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Regardless of how it may seem at times, no matter what it says on that commitment paper, I am NOT insane….. I also insist on making it clear that no matter WHAT the doctors may believe, it ISN’T insane to want to kill someone…. It is only when one carries out that sentiment, without having one of the several exemptions provided by custom, does society become all bent out of shape. Customary exemptions from this degree of upset over one’s actions are given when society itself wants the killing done, or, in other words, if it is done in the name of GOD or the State, (they’re often interchangeable, especially in some people’s minds….) then, it’s okay…. Go figure…

These exemptions, and the customs by which they are spawned, can be a bit complex to understand, based as they are on philosophies which are, in turn, based on a delusion…. But, most of us have the gist of it by the time we’re in our teens, even if we don’t necessarily agree with all of them….. To me, that’s the oddest part of all of this, that one’s agreement, or disagreement, with these principles, has not a single bit of influence over the idiocy they embrace…. And society doesn’t CARE whether or not any of the rules make sense; as I said, the rules are based on a delusion, and, thus, don’t require agreement, or understanding, much less any logical justification…. they only require compliance…

In my mind, the rules based on society’s view of killing another human being are completely immoral, founded, as they are, solely on the supremacy of the State over the individual, or the Church, using as its root structure the morality described by the priestly hierarchies….. This set of principles, as I see them, are so egregiously insane, I will never adopt them as my own , no matter how expedient, or how much grief it might save me…. I’ll gladly deal with whatever consequences my actions bring, as long as I have the right, and the wherewithal to make my own decisions about any of these issues…..

You might be wondering by now, just what the hell I’m talking about…. Well, damn, ffolkes, if I knew THAT, why would I be here at all? It’s not as if there is any law about whether or not what is written here has to make sense, or be logical, or even come close to what we’ll find in Reality, much as we like to claim it as our own…. No, the actual reason for all this is hidden, anyway, deep within the furthest reaches of my mind, in those dark corners where I put all the things I don’t want to see the light of day….. It’s not that I’m cruel, and wish to cause unnecessary discomfort to any poor, innocent reason…. I just don’t want to know…

You see, I DO want to kill somebody…. a lot of somebodies, now I think about it. I feel that urge several times a day, usually as I’m reading some news article about the latest shenanigans of some lying politician, or some entitled police officer, or some bigoted preacher who has managed to get their insanity covered by some reporter with no more sense they they have themselves.

Every time I see a report of a cop breaking the law instead of upholding it, or an article about some pimp beating up his women, or some corrupt judge making a decision favoring a corporation over a real person, or a politician making a speech telling us all how they’re going to help us, when all they’re doing is letting us see their latest method of stealing from the public treasury, or any number of other assininical societal trends…. well…. At those times, it takes every bit of will power I possess to keep myself from buying a gun, and a shit-load of ammunition….

Yes, I feel like killing someone regularly…. But, since I am NOT insane, I realize that before I can give in to my oh-so-justifiable urge to go kill myself an idiot, I’d better make some arrangements for making tracks afterward….. Hence, since I’ve procrastinated on that thus far, I am kill-free…. unless we’re counting mosquitoes…. How ’bout that, eh? Maybe I’ve got more will power than I thought, to be able to keep from giving in to this powerful urge for so long….

I’ll tell you, though, the way things are going these days, I’m not going to be able to get all the way through to the end of my life without first letting myself go, indulging myself in the fulfillment of my lifelong dream, of making a difference for good in the world, by the simple expedient of taking a few politicians down with me as I go….

On that pleasant note, (well, it’s pleasant to ME…. I LIKE the idea of going underground to go hunting pundits, talking heads, and assholes of all descriptions….), I think I’ll bring this already out of control introductory section to a crashing close, & head out to get started on the rest of today’s effort…. Or, as we’re fond of saying ’round here….

Shall we Pearl?…..

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another — the classification is for advantage of the lawyers. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“For they starve the frightened little child
Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
Is a foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity’s machine.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword.”

— Oscar Wilde ~~

from “A Ballad of Reading Gaol”

“I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which these things would be by me unavoidable.” — Henry David Thoreau
_____________________________

1. No matter what they’re telling you, it’s not the truth.
2. No matter what they’re talking about, they’re talking about money.

— Todd’s Political Principles

Is this not the perfect beginning for a political rant of some sort? It would be hard to find anything better to start with, as this little aphorism delineates two of the truest, and most powerful pieces of information about politicians that anyone could discover. I’d say, if this were common knowledge, if there were a lot of people who knew this, and acted accordingly, we’d have a completely different set of people in office than we do currently….. In fact, we might have an entirely different system of governance altogether, as the inherent flaws in the one we are using now would become critically obvious in a society that knows the above, thus requiring changes to be made….

However, since I’m not up to ranting right now, I’m going to cheat a bit, and turn this into an old-school pearl, using the above Principles as the defining parameters for what is to be included….. It should be interesting, if not completely cool…. Myself, I think this should make for a great pearl, but, I AM the one who writes them, so it’s obvious, as well as perfectly justifiable, I’m a bit prejudiced…. At any rate, I hope you enjoy these little pieces of virtual wisdom….

“A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.” — J. Pierpoint Morgan

“Be careful what you vote for. You may get it.” — Smart Bee

“The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.” — Al Capone (1899-1947)

“America’s one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.” — Bobcat Goldthwait

“If law school is so hard to get through, how come there are so many lawyers?” — Calvin Trillin

“Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he. But we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry IV — Act v, Sc. 4

“The most useful tool for dealing with management types is, of course, an automatic weapon.: — Smart Bee
_____________________________

Today’s poem is from the senior of the two O.W. Holmes’s, both of whom wrote poetry, though, in my opinion, the junior example could have saved himself the effort…. He was a better jurist than poet, in my view…. His father, however, was an excellent poet; this one shows why I believe that….

Sun and Shadow

As I look from the isle, o’er its billows of green,
To the billows of foam-crested blue,
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,
Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue:
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray
As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,
The sun gleaming bright on her sail.

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,–
Of breakers that whiten and roar;
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun
They see him who gaze from the shore!
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,
To the rock that is under his lee,
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,
O’er the gulfs of the desolate sea.

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves
Where life and its ventures are laid,
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves
May see us in sunshine or shade;
Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark,
We’ll trim our broad sail as before,
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,
Nor ask how we look from the shore!

~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes ~~

_____________________________

Today’s intro section was the closest I’ll be able to come to a true rant, I think…. I know, I’m breaking your heart, right?…. Nonetheless, I’m going to forgo any such vocal egotism today, & go with another old-school pearl, just because I can, and because I want to….. As a retired dilettante, I can do that, legally, so, back off…. Alternately, you may stick around, and enjoy the rest of today’s pearls, as best you may…. There will be no parameters for this one, so, watch your step…. sometimes, they squirt……

“I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!” — Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)

And in your dreams you can see yourself
As a prophet saving the world
The words from your lips
I just can’t believe you are such
A fool.

— Frank Zappa, “Oh No”.

“Invite the man that loves thee to a feast, but let alone thine enemy.” — Hesiod (c. 700 BC) — Works and Days, Line 342

“Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes.” — Oscar Wilde

“You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.” — James Baldwin.

“Belief is not the beginning but the end of all knowledge.” — Goethe

1) Things will get worse before they get better.
2) Who said they get better?

— Ehrman’s Commentary
_____________________________

“I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, “Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Superstition

Same goes for gigoid, ffolkes…. I don’t think, at this point, I can do anything more…. Positive or negative, I’m done…. not just done, but, finished, as well, which is a much more serious thing. To deal with the expected legal challenges, I’d better head out into the rest of the day….. See you tomorrow, should I figure out how to survive another day….. Odds are pretty good, I think, given my track record….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

Would chartreuse fill the bill?…

Posted on March 20, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I remember fire, and fear, and the smell of blood. Blurred, confused images pass behind my eyes, unheeded, as I try to separate all the conflicting perceptions clamoring for my attention from all directions…. Panicked, I open my eyes, only to close them immediately, as the smoke and heat fly into my awareness, and into my lungs. Coughing madly, I start to run, anywhere….

Crashing into walls, screaming in abject, unreasoning fear, I run blindly down the hallway, with flames and smoke pulling at me, reaching out to caress with seductive, lethal fingers, as I flee past the open doors, all with more flames and smoke pouring out…. As I near the window at the end of the hallway, the glass bursts, sending millions of glittering sharp needles raining down at my face….

So, I ducked, grabbed a fire extinguisher, & put out the fire….. Actually, what I actually did is stop writing, because I couldn’t decide whether to kill him off, or save him, & it was getting close to the point where I’d have to do one or the other…. Rather than make up my mind, I decided to just give up, and bring y’all into this paragraph, where a taste of real-time will bring us right into line with our agenda for today. Well, that’s the plan, anyway. Given the general state of affairs around these parts, there’s really no telling what will ACTUALLY occur…. That’s just fine, though, we like it that way….

That’s what we keep telling ourselves, anyway…. that’s our story, and we’re sticking with it. (As you can see, we are also using the royal “we” today….) Besides, what with the way that Reality generally treats ALL of us, I’ve found it’s best to go along with whatever happens, without argument. Trying to make things work the way I want is not what I’d call a lucrative occupation, not for a person who claims to be a realist…. Reality seldom asks us for our opinions about how things should go; it just lets the shit fly, with no worries about what it sticks to…. No nose, y’know?…. the smell doesn’t affect ’em….

I’d claim it had one, (a nose, that is….), but, the anthropomorphizing of inanimate forces of Nature seldom results in anything other than a black eye, or a bloody nose, with the ubiquitous Murphy being both the obvious exception that proves the rule, and, the perpetrator of Reality’s sardonic attentions…. Besides, y’all are probably aware by now of what is going on here…..

No doubt, the regulars among you have tumbled to what I’ve been doing for the past five paragraphs, as they’ve seen this sort of trickery before…. Yes, we’re deep into the depths of another of my famous meanders, and it’s too late now to say we’re not…. Not only is it too late for that, but, we’ve also lost our way to the end….

But, we have the means to deal with that, no worries…. I’ll just open up this little cupboard right here, and pull out this little package, containing all the denial I’ll need to deal with the reporters later, while I surreptitiously apply Emergency Method #4….. otherwise known as the sudden complete stop…..

Shall we Pearl?

“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. ” (Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.) — William of Occam, Occam’s Razor

Aha! I KNEW there was SOMETHING I was doing wrong!….. Ah well, it DOES add more to the arguments explaining why using EM #4 is a good idea on mornings like this one…
_____________________________

I’m in a strange place today…. I suppose, coming from me, that isn’t saying anything particularly unusual, but, it still holds true; even for me, I’m feeling weird…. I read the two articles below yesterday, during the short period of time I was able to sit and read news-type stuff….

The first was added to the evidence in my mind regarding the imminent world-wide environmental crisis that Mankind has to face in the coming years, while the second offers at least a small bit of philosophy that could be of help to us in our struggle… by which I mean, the article by Mark M. has some very rational points to bring out, points which, if heeded, can’t help but make things better for a lot of people…. But, who listens to a smart-ass, semi-millennial, faux hippie with a big vocabulary, except ffolkes like me?….

I could conceivably, and quite easily, I’m sure, rant on the first article, about society’s pending demise, thus proving it fits into the prevailing theory of civilization to which the article refers, a theory which delineates how cultures age over time, until their predictable, eventual, inevitable collapse, destroyed from within by corruption, and the weight of its own folly. Our society is a perfect fit for this theory, for which there exists a LOT of evidence, all provided from our own history. But, I’m still a bit tired, and not able to sit long enough to do justice to such a critical, complex subject….

Instead, read the two articles, to get a good idea of where we are today in the World at Large… For your reading and cogitative pleasure, I’ve followed these with a religirant from the archives, just for fun….. Enjoy, ffolkes, as much as you can, considering the subject matter….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/NASA-funded-report-says-society-is-trending-5328327.php

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/03/18/is-work-life-balance-a-lie/

The following rant is one of my best, all in all, as it didn’t start out with the intent to rant, but just grew naturally….. Abondanza!….

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

From 11/24/13:

The following religirant is from June of 2012; in my opinion, it remains as cogent as the day it was first written….. Thank goodness, as it gives me a reason to use it now. (Note from 2014: It’s as valid today as it was last November…) My advice is to take it with the usual grain or two of your favorite flavored salt….. Myself, I like a mixture of onion and garlic salts, with some cracked black pepper, and a touch of chili powder, for interest, and balance…. Metaphorically speaking, you could think of that as Reason, Doubt, and Imagination…. apply them to any subject, and they’ll come out a lot better than merely using Faith and/or Fearful Denial….

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

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

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

There are many folks out there who, when reading my material for the first time, might get the impression that I am an atheist, and an anarchist. The stuff I write would tend to give that impression, I have no doubt. But, it really isn’t the case, and just goes to show that not everything is always as it seems….

I’m not an atheist, at least not in a classical sense. I would more accurately be described as agnostic, as I believe strongly in a spiritual component in the universe. But, the very concept of omnipotence, and omniscience, implies that one cannot define God, or whatever entity one considers to be the ultimate authority. A finite mind cannot comprehend an infinite mind; anything we can imagine cannot, by definition, be accurate or complete, as our minds are not infinite in scope.

It could be said that our imagination IS infinite. We can, at the very least, comprehend the concept of infinity, even if we cannot touch it, or see it, or count that high. But, to actually think that what we imagine about God is the same as reality is not only arrogant, it is foolish. Yet a large percentage of the human race not only believes they know what God looks like (ironically, God always looks suspiciously like the folks who are claiming Him as their deity….), but, also have the temerity to say that they know what He wants. To my way of thinking, this is sheer self-aggrandizement, and unjustifiably arrogant….

I suppose it helps them in dealing with the everyday stresses of life to think that they are special. It must be comforting to think they are beloved of God, and what they do is important to Him. This sense of belonging is important to a lot of folks, in reaction, I think, to their own fears about their ability, or, in their eyes, their inability, to deal with reality as it exists. It gives them a sense of entitlement, and justifies their actions, no matter how immoral or unethical they may be. It allows them to act upon their impulses without restraint, to lie, to cheat, to steal, all in the name of the Lord. And, if they should happen to feel a tiny shred of guilt about what they are doing to other folks, why, they just confess their sins to Jesus, and all is forgiven!….

Sorry, ffolkes, but I could never buy into the whole scenario, from my earliest days on this planet…. All of my experience, and all of my reasoning has led me to a different view of reality than what is described by any religion. I have observed the behavior of most people of a religious bent to be, as a rule, hypocritical, cruel, bigoted, racist, and, for the most part, unrelated to any moral or ethical system of any depth. Those who claim to be the MOST religious in society go so far as to threaten violence toward anyone who disagrees with their beliefs, justified by their own self-proclaimed right to spew their hatred on anyone who differs.

I believe in compassion and kindness. I believe in love. I believe in protecting the vulnerable, and helping the less fortunate. I believe in beauty. And, I believe in reality, whatever that may be; it’s purely subjective for the most part. I DON’T believe in the divinity of Jesus, or Buddha, or Lao Tzu, or Mohammad, or any other religious prophet. I don’t believe there is some white haired, bearded old guy sitting on a throne of gold up in the sky somewhere, looking down and getting his shorts in a bunch because I didn’t salute his graven image first thing after I got up.

That whole graven image thing, and the idea that God wants, or needs, our worship has always been a thorn in my side. I mean, can’t these zealots understand the irony of worshiping an image of Christ on the cross? Don’t they know that the cross is a graven image? And, most importantly to me, why would an omnipotent being NEED to have MY worship? It makes no sense. None. I cannot imagine of ANY reason for a God to care at all about such petty bullshit; I don’t care to be worshiped, why should He? Having someone act that way toward me makes me uncomfortable, so I can’t see why a God would even want to go there. What purpose does it serve? In my opinion, it debases the worshiper, AND the one worshiped.

One of my computer alarms just went off, and made me realize I was ranting, which I had not started out to do. I think y’all can get the gist of my arguments by this time, and, since those who are in disagreement with what I’ve written aren’t going to be persuaded away from their long-held delusions by my words, further soliloquy would be futile.

I’ll just finish by saying this…. until Mankind grows up enough to be able to put aside the crutch of religion, until the species as a whole learns to stand up to reality as it exists, without the delusional imaginary friend to intercede on their behalf with the universe, then our path to extinction will remain clear…. It’s too bad, really, because we do show a lot of promise, at times, and under the right conditions…. It’s too bad we will never be allowed to explore our limits as an adult species, because we will have killed ourselves off before we ever got out of childhood….

“There ain’t no devil, there’s just God when he’s drunk.” — Tom Waits, Heartattack and Vine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There you go…. Now, I COULD continue ranting on this theme; it’s one I can pick up in a heartbeat. But, I’ll be nice, and get on with the rest of today’s effort…. See, I CAN be disciplined…. and compassionate, as well…. it just takes a while sometimes……

“It is in changing that things find repose” — Heraclitus
_____________________________

On days such as this one is turning out to be, I try to NOT let any of what takes place here splash onto other people…. In that vein, here is one of my older poems, just to fill up this space with something that rhymes….

A Dubiously Soft Morning

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

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

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

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

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Fiddle de dee, fiddle de dum….. I smell the blood of an English mun…. I always hated that rhyme; it isn’t QUITE right, and, thus, hurts my obsessive sense of order…. But, it’s a nice little phrase to indicate the passage of time, with the added attraction of being thoroughly nonsensical…. As such, it’s handy for those of us who rely on literary tricks to get by…. Patently, it’s useful, if only to get us where we needed to go, which, oddly enough, is right here….. Fancy that!…..

I COULD get really silly, and go for Monty Python style in this next section, but, I’m not terribly expert in the Silly Walk. I CAN do a decent “Ni ni ni….”, but, how many times can one fall back on that? Not too many, I can assure you…. No, we’ll stay with what we know best, which just happens to be an old-school pearl, with parameters unset, to give it that random, harlequin look… It works for me, as it will for you, if you give it half a chance…. that’s all we’re asking for, ffolkes, just half a chance….

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” — Albert Schweitzer

“Regrets and complaints about relations are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men’s characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but for someone with the opposite deposition, youth and old age are equally a burden.” — Plato,_The Republic_, Book 1

“And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the bible were used to beat plowshares into swords…” — Alan Watts

“Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man,–yesterday in embryo, to-morrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hair’s-breadth of time assigned to thee live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 48

“Nature does nothing uselessly.’ — Aristotle

“Extinct is forever.” — Smart Bee

“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you please unless it causes others harm. With it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.” — P.J. O’Rourke
_____________________________

I seem to be incapable of reaching any sort of conclusive resolution regarding the nature, and/or disposition of this Pearl; some time during the creation of today’s piece, my mind took a hike, and hasn’t returned all the way…. Something out there in my subconscious is drawing a good portion of its focus, so, I guess I’ll have to finish this without benefit of being 100% present…. and if anyone makes a comment as to that being a normal state, I WILL be hurt….

Not really, cuz it’s perfectly true, and I try not to let true stuff hurt me…. (see the last pearl in section three to see why….)…. Actually, I’m all here, I’m just not ALL here, if you catch my drift….

Now that I’ve gotten to the point of deliberate obscurity, I’d better bring this to a close…. It’s true, though, I don’t know what to think about today’s Pearl; it felt strange while putting it together, and still defies my complete comprehension…. I’m a little worried about how that will affect others, but, hey, we all take a risk, every time we try to use whatever it is we keep between our ears, so, like me, and everyone else, y’all are on your own in that respect…. I don’t think any of it will actually HARM you, unless, of course, you try to use it as REAL wisdom….

See ya tomorrow, when things will be different…. None of us has much of a choice about THAT, do we?…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

May I see your license to glean, sir?….

Posted on March 19, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I know it’s going to be a tough morning when I get up….. That’s it…. When I get up…. THAT is the point in time when I know I’m about to make a mistake, again…. Yet, each day, I drag my sorry ass out of my nice, warm, comfy bed to come out here and go through all this, just to clear out the excess of corrupted files in my head.

I mean, it’s not as if anyone is paying me some huge amount of money to do this, nor am I, apparently, taking the blog world by storm, as my site traffic still isn’t what I’d call heavy, or even moderate…. In fact, I’d say it was pathetic, but, the few ffolkes who DO make it by each day are anything BUT pathetic, so that wouldn’t be appropriate, by any means….

Nor, it seems, is yet another attempt at a chatty, intimate, conversational opening going to cut it for long; I can feel this going wonky at me as I type…. Too many assumptions of real-time connection, without any actual control modules being hooked in, thus preventing many of the really neat things we COULD be doing if they were….. like graphics, and many other artistic flourishes, that often go missing in what we see happening around here….. I suppose it would help if I possessed even a smidgen of real artistic talent, but, the best I’ve ever come up with is a stick figure and stick trees under a pale blue sky…. and that was using Photo Shop!

Now, I know y’all can tell when I’m being facetious…. the lights automatically dim three times before each planned occurrence (when it happens inadvertently, we’re all on our own….). But, even with that, I don’t think we’re going to be able to salvage much from the wreckage of this opening. It’s gone pretty well off the rails already, and we’re only three paragraphs in…. I’m fairly certain, if I try to continue to beat it much longer, this dead horse is going to rise up and turn zombie on me…. Y’all KNOW how much I dislike having to deal with zombies…. It reminds me too much of watching televised Congressional hearings…. sheer torture….

Before I get any weirder, or become even less comprehensible, I’m going to abandon this mess. I don’t know exactly what happened, nor do I care much….. It’s over, which, as far as I’m concerned, is all I need to know right now…. We’ll go on, just as if we’ve had a regular, chatty little opening conversation, just like we do every day, thus putting the lie to our insistence on having reality match our description; today, it ain’t gonna happen, so we may as well get used to that…. However, we do have one saving grace remaining to us….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.” — Mark Twain

A school board member, it should be noted, is the larval stage of a politician…. It’s the lowest, most local level of elected official in this country, and, as such, Mr. Twain’s description, labeling them as idiots, was far more accurate than he knew; to be an elected official, one must be, at minimum, a proven psychotic, so, as idiots, they fit right in….
_____________________________

My ranting skills, while not ‘faded and gone away’ for good, are most definitely not in evidence today; I’m actually pretty fatigued in my head, all in all, from the events of the past two days, during which I waged a moderately tough battle with pain, with a large portion of my time spent in a happily-drugged stupor…..

Now that the pain is receding a bit, I’m still feeling the aftereffects of the battle, which can be more extensive than might be surmised….. It’s a tough row to hoe getting past such episodes; they require some rather strong applications of will power to ignore the pain at times, until the drugs can take full effect, and fatigue builds up rapidly, after a certain amount of time spent exercising that will….

Thus, I’m using another rant from the archives today, just because I can… This is from the period AFTER the last presidential election, in 2012…. It was beginning to become clear that though we had chosen the LESSER of two evils at the polls, our choice was still evil, as more and more evidence of cover-ups and lies began to emerge, lies that decried Barry’s promises of “transparency” in his administration. That lack of transparency has now been confirmed as a huge lie, so, this becomes even more accurate in its generally non-specific accusations of chicanery among the ruling classes…. Enjoy!….

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

From 12/30/12:

“History is a lie commonly agreed upon.” — Nietzsche

I often wonder how people in the future, (if we have one…), will view these times, it being a given that the fabric of our society is based primarily on lies and/or delusions.* Which ones will stand the test of time, and end up in the books as being the one everyone agrees upon? It has also been said that history is always written by the winners, and that seems to me to be fairly close to the real truth of the matter. It would be a bit more acceptable to me if it weren’t so bloody predictable, and that there was at least a small chance that the events we experience would be reported truthfully. Alas, I am not hopeful that will ever be the case…..

* (Note the use of the technique of the positively stated assertion, using the assumption of its truth as PROVEN, the very same technique of verbal argument used by ALL religious doctrines as the basis for their truth and relativity…. Just thought I’d make it clear at the outset, this is real, serious stuff, just like their stuff is….)

In all honesty, I’m not convinced that we, as a species, will HAVE much of a future. Given the current state of the environment, I can’t see us lasting more than a couple hundred years more, without some major changes to society, changes that are neither imminent, nor under consideration.

When I first started this blog, over a year ago, I posted a link, to what is called a World Clock, at Poodwaddle.com ( I love the human imagination!…..What a great word, eh? Poodwaddle…. I like to say it out loud; it’s even more exciting that way…..). You can find that clock here: http://www.poodwaddlecom/clocks/worldclock/

The clock has a number of faces, one of which shows exactly how much carbon-monoxide (CO), and carbon dioxide (CO2), along with unnatural amounts of other toxic substances, are being pumped into the atmosphere every second, by industrial and manufacturing facilities, and by cars and other vehicles. Other faces give real time statistics on other subjects common to the theme of the site, to wit: environmental activism…

I am a scientist, first. I chose the path of the scientist in my youth, before my tenth birthday, even before setting my feet upon the warrior’s path I chose to include as part of my later life. In essence, scientists ARE warriors, and vice versa; battling the universe requires study in order for one to be effective in coping with whatever happens….

In addition, the acquisition of knowledge requires the curiosity and courage of a warrior, in order to find, and face, the Truth, in all its many guises. Each path complements the other, and, in my time, have combined to lead me on a journey of great beauty and wonder. My journey, though, is in danger of being ended before its time, by the mundane asininity of the human race….

There are some scientists who believe that humans do not have the power to harm the planet; nor do they believe the danger is as great as the evidence might indicate. In one respect, they are right…. I don’t think the planet ITSELF is in danger from what we are doing, though I’m sure it is suffering pain from the symptoms we’ve managed to saddle it with in our time. (Why WOULDN’T a planet have consciousness?… It’s large enough, and complex enough, and we don’t know, or perceive, all there is to know about the universe, or consciousness, for that matter…. Answer that first, before asking me why it would suffer pain….)

No, our activities, such as polluting the air and water, wasting resources, and indiscriminately killing the other creatures with whom we live, only endanger US, and the other life forms on the planet. Once we are gone, the planet will easily clean itself of the trash we deposited everywhere, and move on to the next evolutionary step in the parade of Time.

“Where man walks the earth hurts.” — Smart Bee

Many years ago, I used to believe in the ingenuity of scientists, to overcome the technological difficulties we’ve created, and find a way to keep us alive, perhaps by colonizing other planets in space, leaving the Earth behind. But, the figures don’t lie, and the figures say we don’t have the time to fool around waiting for space travel to solve the problems we have. By the time we could achieve any kind of significant progress there, we would be forced to live in domes, to wear protective gear to go outside, just to walk on the surface of our own world. That is, IF there are enough remaining resources to build the domes, and to power them sufficiently to survive.

Another, though less likely possible solution is for the ruling classes of our species to come to their senses, to reverse their moral compass, such that they start acting in the best interests of everyone, instead of just themselves. The entire problem with pollution we have today exists solely because the ruling classes, the people who control all the resources, don’t have any moral compass, or, choose to deliberately ignore its influence.

They choose, instead, to structure society in their own favor, so that they, and ONLY they, have the power, and the control over what society produces, while the rest of us try to survive on their leavings. It is the same picture that history has seen portrayed for all the millenia since we came out of the caves to live in cities; the 1% of mankind who are in control are not interested in helping anyone else, unless and until they have fulfilled their own desires….

Even the lies upon which we all agree, in all of our written history, show this to be true, so I don’t think there is a huge chance that we will see any significant changes before it is too late for them to matter. I just don’t see those in the beloved ruling class, all of a sudden, suffering a change of heart, reversing the entire course of the history they’ve chosen to write in their name; it is not in their nature to be altruistic to even a small degree. We are either going to have to rise up and throw them out on their asses, or suffer an ignominious death, when the air we can no longer breathe begins to choke us, as we walk down the street toward our destiny….. a destiny which, at this point, leads us straight to a coffin…..

“I can’t decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB GUCCIONE has these problems!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

What often amazes me when I read poetry by one of the classical Chinese poets, such as Li Po, is how beautifully the translations were written…. It takes a high degree of insight to be able to not only create a poem in translation from one language to another, but to make the translation as beautiful to read, or to hear if read aloud, as was the original piece…. It makes me want to learn to speak Chinese, if only to gain some understanding of the process involved, in creating such beauty in either language…. Enjoy!….

Amidst The Flowers A Jug Of Wine

Amidst the flowers a jug of wine,
I pour alone lacking companionship.
So raising the cup I invite the Moon,
Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us.
Because the Moon does not know how to drink,
My shadow merely follows the movement of my body.
The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while,
The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring.
I start a song and the moon begins to reel,
I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely.
While I’m still conscious let’s rejoice with one another,
After I’m drunk let each one go his way.
Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings.
Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.

~~ Li Po ~~

_____________________________

Oh, yay…. I am filled with enthusiasm and excitement…. NOT….. I am, however, mildly pleased (about as strong an emotion as I’m capable of just now, I think…) to have reached this final section, where I can lay down my insane need to appear normal, at least for long enough to put together an old-school pearl to finish off today’s effort…. which has, indeed, been an effort…. I’ll keep the parameters simple, as well as hidden, so the point of all of this may, or may not, be immediately obvious… So, what else is new?….

“Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) — The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, i

“Invincibility depends on one’s self; The enemy’s vulnerability on him.” — Sun Tzu

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

“You speak truth,” said Themistocles; “I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus;” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Themistocles

“What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place.” — Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), Musician, the Grateful Dead — Rolling Stone magazine, (November 30, 1989).

“Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.” — Muad ‘Dib

“I’m a GENIUS! I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

I make no apologies, nor do I make excuses, even though the process of making them up can be a lot of fun…. (My dog pooped on my homework after he ate the cat…. you know, like that….). But, when one has taken on the creation of a daily Pearl of Virtual Wisdom as a personal Duty, in spite of all the advice and counseling, in spite of all the urgings of his family and friends, in spite of the obvious humiliation and embarrassment he causes to others, as well as himself, well…. there isn’t a lot of wiggle-room for getting out of it, so making either apology or excuse becomes undignified, as well as counter-productive in the sense of maintaining one’s self-esteem…. whatever THAT might be!….

In spite of the tone and tenor of the intro section, I’m a bit disappointed this is already done; I’ve had more fun than I thought would be possible when I began…. About half-way through getting this completed, my brain woke up for real; as a happy result, the latter half of this process has been much smoother than the first half could possibly have been, given the handicap with which I started the day…. I was pretty mushy-minded at first today…. Truthfully, I’m kind of pleased with myself for showing the grit to get this done the way I did…. Now that I’ve strained my shoulder, patting myself on the back, I’ll go put on some of my magic cream, so I can make breakfast…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

Perhaps not, but his spatula was meticulous….

Posted on March 17, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

I’ve previously used this poem; it may be one of Emily’s most famous, so it’s probably familiar to many people…. I don’t know if Emily had pain herself, of a physical nature, beyond what everyone else feels, when they bark their shins, for example…. If she didn’t, her depth of insight was even greater than I had previously imagined….. This is an assertion I believe implicitly; Emily was, without doubt, the most advanced human EVER in that respect, in my opinion, and by all the evidence at hand…. Her poetry must be considered as proof of that, proof that leaves no room for doubt as to the accuracy of the claim..

This particular poem explores a couple different sides of the nature of the beast, again displaying that incredibly elegant, towering talent only she possessed, by cramming so much feeling, so much meaning, and so many ideas into eight short lines of verse, it almost explodes into one’s consciousness, growing there like a flower in spring…. She wrote at least one other poem on the subject, a bit different in scope, but nonetheless powerful for that…. It went like this….

There is a pain—so utter—

It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

As lovely and powerful as her poetry may be, I’ll bet you’re wondering why we’ve begun today with a discussion of American English poetry of the Nineteenth Century…. Some of y’all, who have been around ECR a while, will guess why I’m writing about it; they’re already aware of how much my pain can distract me from Life at Large…. and would guess that today’s words are in response to a bout with it of major proportions…. They’d be right to think that, too….

Yesterday, as part of a personal quest to get into better shape, if only for the purpose of being able to walk around in those places to which I travel, such as on shore excursions during a cruise, I went for a short walk… The day before, I had tried a new technique, of taking a pain pill, applying some of my magic ointment to my back and hips, then going for a walk…

I was rewarded by a relatively pain-free stroll all the way downtown, with a few sit-down breaks to blow, and let the numbness recede from my thighs; all told, I walked about two miles, and a bit more…. This is much further than I’ve been able to walk for a couple years now, so I was encouraged enough to try again the day after, i.e. yesterday…

This time, I applied my cream, took my pill, and enthusiastically left, to try to cover the same ground…. After a couple of blocks, I stepped off a curb, onto a small twig, which proceeded to roll about two inches, taking my foot, and my balance, with it…. Using my walking stick, a quick shuffle, and a hard, rapid twist, I was able to keep from falling down…. BUT….

The quick movement, with the accompanying twist, gave the injured ligament in my lower back a good, hard yank…. This, naturally, caused me to experience the customary sharp, intense burst of excruciating pain in my lower back, just as if a large knife had been thrust about two inches into the hip, followed instantly by the total freeze-up and pain of my entire back entering full spasming mode…. This also aggravates the hip joints, so I was barely able to keep upright, and mobile enough to walk…. Hell, it was ALL I could do not to start screaming and beating on the nearest object, animate or inanimate, with my stick….

Turning around, I made it back home without getting arrested for assault, took an extra pill, ate some magic chocolate, put on more ointment, and went straight to bed, where I’ve been for much of the last eighteen hours or so…. I’m up now, and still in full spasm mode, though quiet right now, thanks to about a ton of Norco and all the cannabis I could eat…. Since the pain has been my constant companion for most of the last day, I thought I’d try to share some of that, though I’m not sure why…. I guess I thought it would make a little different start to the day….

I guess it’s also because it’s really hard to deal with this unless, and until, the experience is purged, at least verbally, in order for me to process it in a timely fashion…. I’ll stop here, as y’all have no doubt had enough of my near-whiny neurotic need to share….

Sorry, but, getting the concepts, and the feel of the experience, outside the mind helps to deal with what is still there, which currently requires a good large piece of my consciousness to keep me from running down the street, screaming in pain, HOPING that someone will tell me to stop, so I can BITE THEM REALLY, REALLY HARD!!!!!!

Now that I have further indicated the depth of my insanity (Six exclamation points makes that fairly obvious…. A mere four of them has been shown by research to be proof of clinical psychosis….), I suppose it’s time to go for a dive, to find some pearls…. Hopefully, I can sit long enough, and keep at this long enough between breaks, to finish…. If not, well, we may just be here all day, so, if I were you, I’d check to make sure I had my box lunch, and a supply of water on hand….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Despair leads to boredom, electronic games, computer hacking, poetry, and other bad habits.” — Edward Abbey

Such as blogging….
_____________________________

As might be guessed on a day such as this, I won’t be ranting, any more than I already have…. I’m going to go for old-school pearls for both prose sections today, to avoid going back to the archives again…. I COULD go back there, but, even the research involved in that seems like more work than I’ll be able to do…. So, I’m going for a dive, where being surrounded and supported by the waters of reason, I can maneuver almost normally…. You’ll see what I find…. Oh, yeah…. no parameters at all today, just random weird nudges toward virtue and/or dignity (if such is possible during the creation of a Pearl….)…..

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

— Theodore Roethke

“And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.” — H.L. Mencken

“Everything, saith Epictetus, hath two handles,–the one to be held by, the other not.” — Robert Burton (1577-1640) — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part ii, Sect. 2, Memb. 3

“Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and consequently should not be any part of your concern.” — Epictetus

“Psychedelic drugs cause paranoia, confusion, and total loss of reality in politicians that have never taken them.” — Timothy Leary

“Addison, what are we going to do?” “Me, I’m examining the major Western religions. I’m looking for something that’s soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a short initiation period.” — Dave and Maddie on Moonlighting

“There were two brothers called Both and Either; perceiving Either was a good, understanding, busy fellow, and Both a silly fellow and good for little, Philip said, “Either is both, and Both is neither.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Philip

And there you have it…. Madness incarnate, right there on your screen….. Well, it WOULD be, if it weren’t all so damn true….
_____________________________

After a relatively short break of twenty minutes, spent in a frantic search for my glasses, (which, it turns out, were stolen and hidden by Jo Jo, the Psycho-Cat From Hell…. I found them in one of her cat caves, where she had stashed them after taking them off my desk….), I’m back… I’ve already used Emily today, so we’ll go with another classic favorite of mine, one of the most influential Romantic poets from the eighteenth century…. There are those who say he was THE driving force for the entire Romantic poetry genre that burgeoned during his lifetime, an assessment with which I have to agree…

The Human Seasons

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness–to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

~~ John Keats ~~

_____________________________

I can see the light at the end of this tunnel I’ve entered; I’m pretty sure I can make it that far….. Again, an old-school, unguided (and, please, no comments about misguided….)** pearl, ripped fresh from the oyster beds of my mind….. and Smart Bee’s nearly endless database of excellent cookies….

** (Without, of course, a reasoned justifying argument to explain the assertion….)

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 43

“Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.” — Oscar Wilde

“Liberty don’t work as good in practice as it does in speeches.” — Will Rogers

“Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies.” — Smart Bee

“- if it GLISTENS, gobble it!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” — Albert Einstein

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~
_____________________________

Well, I made it, and about time, too…. I’ve again consumed a massive amount of drugs, all with the purpose of smothering my nervous system to the point of insensibility….. After a seemingly endless amount of time spent in agony, trying to keep occupied in my mind, I am now starting to enjoy the results, and will soon be free (True freedom is the release from pain….) Since it won’t be long before all coherence flees screaming into the night (well, early morning, anyway…. it’s still dark here at 0530, now that we’ve begun daylight savings for the year….), I’ll bring this to a grateful close (the gratitude is on YOUR end, I’m sure….)

I can’t do this anymore…. See you tomorrow…. Hopefully, by then, I’ll be feeling more like a human being than a pharmaceutical test subject…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

We’ll find some in the bargain basement….

Posted on March 12, 2014 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Hello there… When I lay down last night to sleep, at 8:00 PM, or thereabouts, I had little idea I’d be up now, at 2:00 AM, asking myself why I ever thought I liked cats, or where I put the damn squirt bottle, so I could soak its evil little ass with sulfuric acid… or, with just the water in the bottle. The acid will have to wait until I catch it, preferably by the throat….

At approximately 1:45 AM, I was awakened by some hard-to-identify, weird scratching noises, coming from somewhere in the bedroom…. Investigation found the cat, underneath the laundry basket, digging at the carpet, just for fun, I guess…. I chased her out of the room, & decided to just get up, as I was now fully awake, thanks to the middle of the night search routine…..

This is fucking early, ffolkes, even for me…. I’ve been sitting here staring at this mostly empty screen now for a good twenty-five minutes, with nothing but static running through my mind….. Great….

Now I’m stuck awake, without the boon of being able to write, or even thinking about writing, to help pass the time until the rest of the hemisphere gets going…. I’m smart enough to remember that the ffolkes on the other side of the world are already up…. as well as, obviously, too stupid to outwit a four-pound feline with a brain the size of a walnut….

I swear, though, this IS the cat from Hell you hear about so often….. She seems to have a direct line to Murphy’s office, where she gets advice on timing her acts of instigation to perfection…. I’ve never seen one better, as she seems to get us when we are least expecting it, every time….

She has her morning wake up routine down to a science, knowing she can get me up anytime at all, as long as it is AFTER my lady has gone to bed, so it will wake her up, too…. For some reason, the cat likes BOTH of us to be awake whenever she is, even if it is the middle of the night…. Neurotic little asshole…

Ah well, at least she’s stopped her old trick, of “accidentally” clawing one’s toes at night while stretching….. I declare, I really don’t miss that particular habit she used to display…. Waking up from sleep to excruciating pain in one’s toe is not what I’d call conducive to a restful night, and she used to get one or the other of us a couple times a week, before apparently giving it up….

I guess she must have gotten tired of flying out of the bedroom, as opposed to walking out under her own power…. I can be a bit irritable when awakened like that, and show a strong tendency to throw whatever comes to hand….. hard…. I know its cruel, but, hey, at that time of night, whatever comes to hand is gone before my mind registers what it might be…. living or inanimate, doesn’t matter at that point…. it’s going to fly….

Well, since there doesn’t seem to be much else to do at this time of the day, and, I’ve apparently blathered about nothing much for long enough to fulfill the local requirements for such documented insanity (too bad I can’t get a discount for how early I had to start….), I may as well get a head start on the dive for the day…. Of course, I won’t be diving right off, as today’s first section is set aside for a new-format pearl, but, I’ll get wet a bit later, for section three’s old-school pearl…. Whatever, right?….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Yow! We’re going to a new disco!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

So, today, we’re going to use the newest format for a pearl of virtual wisdom…. This is the one where I show you a link, to an article that, to me, demonstrates one (or more) facets of how bad, weird, strange, and/or screwed up the world has become, (or, as in one case today, how good things CAN be, if well-written), followed by a comment or two from yours truly, to highlight whatever point has been dug from the article’s subject matter for discussion…. Easy, right?….. Well, I like it, so let’s give it a whirl, okay?…..

Our first article is a discussion that shows, once again, just how low the butt heads in the cyber-security sector of our government will stoop to protect their asses from prosecution…. and just how far they’ll go to spy on whomever they can…. regardless of WHO it might be…

http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/S-F-judge-blocks-destruction-of-NSA-phone-records-5305045.php

I’m encouraged by this decision; it’s one of the first that indicates there might just be hope of putting a stop to their machinations, at least in this particular arena…. It’s getting harder for them to hide what they’re up to, thanks to our über-patriot, Eric Snowden, may he be forever blessed for his sacrifice…. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m just a little pissed off at the administration and the PTB** for their harassment of this man, and hope he is able to find some peace…. I also hope that, someday, he will be able to return home, to the hero’s welcome he deserves….

** To be clear, the “administration and the PTB”, along with their myrmidons, the NSA and other cyber-security agencies that steal data, or acquire and use the data gathered…. are the “their”, and the “they” of whom I speak above, (“their machinations” “to hide what they’re up to”), who are illegally spying, or manipulating data, or making false statements to attempt to deny or cover up their guilt….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Former-Christie-aides-to-judge-Quash-subpoenas-5305649.php

When I saw this, my first, immediate reaction to hearing these assholes say they don’t want to have to ‘fess up to what they’ve done was, “Oh, those POOR babies! They’re being SO persecuted…. and all they did was a) commit felonious activities while in a position of authority, for the purposes of political punishment, and b) act like the guiltiest bloody assholes they could when caught, attempting to cover up the incident, instead of just admitting to their foolishness…” As might be surmised, I’m not terribly sympathetic to their pain, as they are getting exactly what they deserve….

I can only hope that the shit they flung around in their mad attempts to hide their guilt gets all over that major asshole, Chris Christie’s, shoes and coattails, and is dirty enough that he will be forced to drop the insane idea that he is an appropriate candidate for a major office…. I don’t think the rest of this country is quite ready for a New Jerseyite in the White House…. That particular state has always had its own strange methods of political action, which is, quite simply, too frigging crazy for the mainstream….

Think about it…. it would be like “Goodfellas” in lock step with a Tea Party Congress…. Brrr…. the very thought makes me shudder….

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/Continents-roam-people-come-and-go-5304865.php

As usual, Jon Carroll applies his particularly acute vision and his very personal, companionable writing style to say a lot of the same stuff I’ve been ranting about over the last few months…. and says it more engagingly, and much more clearly than I…. I’m not ashamed to say he’s better at this than I am; I’m a realist, and I’ve always appreciated his intelligence, and his very balanced outlook on reality….. A good piece, well worth a read….

http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Feinstein-blasts-CIA-over-torture-probe-documents-5307500.php

I’m not sure how to take this article…. Dianne the Gargantuan has been one of the most vocal supporters of this administration’s policies on the subject of illegal surveillance, even going so far as to throw her support behind the potUS, making a number of supportive statements as part of the program (pogrom?) of persecution against Mr. Snowden….

Now, however, it seems the table has been turned, and she, along with her oh-so-powerful committee members on the Combined House and Senate Intelligence Committee have been the targets of the outrageous spying being done, this time by the CIA, in conjunction with the NSA, the FBI, and all the other federal agencies who have a hand in the “War on Terrorism”…. They’ve been messing around with trying to hide documents that prove their complicity in torture during numerous interrogations, which occurred, naturally, under the Shrubs….

Now that this sacrosanct committee has suffered at the hands of these out-of-control dogs-off-their-leash, who aren’t afraid to steal from, and manipulate, whomever they see as an enemy, she’s all a-flutter, and very angry that this agency, an arm of our own government, has been spying on, and manipulating data at the expense of their own governing members!! Me, I wonder why she is so surprised, even if I understand why she is so mad…. Welcome to the club, Di-Fi…..

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Jose-police-officer-charged-with-rape-5306907.php

I really don’t think I need to comment much on this…. It’s pretty clear that this is just one more example of how the police forces in this country attract the most aggressive, angry individuals, with the accompanying sense of undeserved entitlement, to work for them, refusing to consider that their recruiting tactics, and their own lack of ethical discipline, are the very reasons they continue to have these kinds of incidents take place….

It is my firm opinion that the job of police officer, military officer, fireman, or any other type of public service job that has people put into positions of authority over the public, should ONLY be filled by people who have passed certain psychological tests, to weed out those people who will, if given a chance, take advantage of their position….

I believe this should be the case now, and should have been the case for a at least 50 years, since our knowledge of psychology advanced to the point of being able to test for these attributes in people….. If we tested applicants for these kinds of public service jobs for the possibility of aggressive patterns of behavior, it might just prevent some of the problems that NOT testing has created, to the point now where over half the police on the ground are what I would term as, if not insane, neurotic as hell, with issues of low self-esteem, aggressiveness as their first response to crisis, and a lack of ethical discipline….. As a point of evidence, I would submit this question…. When was the last time you saw a police car use a turn signal correctly?…. Think about that for a minute, and you’ll begin to understand whereof I speak….

I found myself having to stop gathering more articles, as I could have kept collecting them all day…. Then, we’d NEVER get out of this section…. As it is, I’ve taken it upon myself to end this here, with just the following as a closing thought for today….

“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” — George Carlin
_____________________________

I decided I wanted to put in a poem of my own today, one from further in the past than most of what you’ve seen lately…. I found these two, from a couple of years ago, and couldn’t make up my mind…. so, being the egotistical fool I am, you get them both…. I hope you enjoy them….

Dreaming, I wait….

In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.

Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.

Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.

Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.

Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.

When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.

Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night
aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart
Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,
tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art….

~~ gigoid ~~

Random Visions/Coloring Between the Lines of Grief

Everywhere is dark, and shining,
with points in dissonant pain.
Sharp, senses dull past divining,
tears burn, a torrential rain.

Escape! Flee within to cower,
find an unconscious cave.
Call on Morpheus’ power
deny reality’s beckoning wave.

Light breaks, drawing the inner eye,
leading to the slippery slope.
Risk is critical, we may only sigh,
yet welcome, for bringing hope.

Sanity seems far out of reach
Insanity’s a stronger friend.
Decisions made will merely teach
our way toward Death to wend.

Lost, while still on familiar ground,
the future yet undesigned.
Making way on paths unfound,
to Now, as yet undefined.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Now comes the fun part, for me…. I’ve written rant-like material, and poemed, so now it’s time for an old-school pearl, to loosen up the old mental muscles, for those among us who enjoy keeping those muscles in the same kind of condition that any world-class athlete enjoys…. To keep any muscle conditioned it takes regular, consistently challenging exercise, that pushes the muscle to its limits before slacking off, preferably for just a bit longer each time, to increase stamina… The mind, though not composed of the same kind of tissue, nevertheless responds to the same sort of challenges; they are simply of a different nature than those that work the muscles attached to our skeletons….

I only wish I could still use those other muscles, the big ones on my body, to stay in the physical shape I was in until my mid-forties, when my injuries began the progressive decline I’ve seen, in my strength, and stamina. Now, sadly, my mind is in much better shape than the rest of me, though I’m still pretty tough…. I just have no stamina, and trying to use my strength and/or skills as if I were younger, stronger, and still limber is more expensive than it is worth, in terms of the pain that comes after such use. As I’m fond of saying, I can still do anything I used to do, but now I pay a much higher price to do so…. So, mostly, I don’t do so…. Now, I’m more likely to say, “I spend my time avoiding pain…”….

I’m uncertain as to how this devolved into a short intimate discussion of my frailties, but, since it did, we’ll just have to ignore it the best we can, and go on to bigger and better things, if that is still possible…. I think if I can just shut myself up for a minute, I can jump in the water before any further incidents of sharing TMI can occur….. Like, right now… Just for the record, no known parameters were used in the collection or inclusion of any of the following pearls…. They’re all fresh from the oyster, just as Mother Nature intended them to be…

“Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.” — Albert Camus (1913-1960)

“Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Roman Apophthegms, Cato the Elder

“He is the best of men who dislikes power.” — Mohammed

And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book xiv, Line 520

“These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the scriptural parable, the bland lead the bland.” — John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 – )

“The art of government consist in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens and giving it to another.” — Voltaire

“We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.” — Smart Bee

Well, in today’s case, parameters might have been a good idea…. But, since this one is done, and it’s fairly decent, all in all, I think we’ll let it fly…. I mean, they can’t all be immediately obvious, or for that matter, indelibly relevant…. All they have to do is make you think, and NOT make you feel bad about anything that doesn’t deserve it…. Which, I suppose is what Life is all about, yes?…. Hey, I’ll take whatever metaphor that presents itself, and turn it right into an assertion of consensual reality…. it’s what we do here….
_____________________________

Okay…. I’ve stretched this process until it screamed…. I’ve taken breaks… (in fact, I’m taking one now…. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice…)…. I’ve perused the news, I’ve searched SB for the best pearls I could find. I’ve pre-edited & pre-proofed, which means there will be, without doubt numerous errors in syntax and/or typos which will drive me batty when I find them after I’ve posted this… I’ve racked my brain to find something new, and funny, or compelling to write, which was obviously unsuccessful in the extreme…. I’ve subjected myself to reading a number of my own poems, along with several of Emily’s, and Keats’, before settling on subjecting y’all to a two-fer of my own…

All of that, and it is now 5:09 AM…. The wind here in Northern California is currently blowing at a good semi-typhoon speed, swinging our plant and wind-chime all over where they hang on the porch…. The cat continues to seek out whatever mischief she can find, and I am desperately wishing I could fall back asleep…. Alas, that isn’t to be, at least, not for a while yet…. I may as well post this, and get a bite to eat…. Then, having completed all the tasks involved in my day, I can begin another, while everyone else is up, too…. SIGH…. See ya tomorrow, ffolkes….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

gigoid

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

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Plutarch

Spirit lamps have been provided, and lit from within….

Twisted versions of classical toilet accessories….

We’ll call it “fashionably undead”….

How to train predator birds with vertigo….

Assaulted with logic by a Master of Balliol…..

As with excellence, stupidity is its own reward….

Would chartreuse fill the bill?…

May I see your license to glean, sir?….

Perhaps not, but his spatula was meticulous….

We’ll find some in the bargain basement….

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