To all of those wonderful friends, in India, Australia, or, wherever you live south of the Equator, my bad…. Sorry ’bout that; everything I said yesterday was sent to you as well… Believe it….

A few days before Christmas, I went back in time, as suggested by a link below the day’s Pearl, at the bottom of the page, to July 26, 2013. I re-read the Pearl for that day, & I liked it well enough to use it today, in toto, but for the poem, which was used a short time ago here. Below this paragraph, written today, you’ll find the Pearl from that date, as it appeared, but, with a different poem, so as to refrain from repetition too often…. Pearls at that time didn’t have a video section, which evolved later, in 2014, so, no video today; sorry…. Not many quotations in the pearls, either; it’s all pretty serious/somber material…. Nevertheless, I hope y’all enjoy it as much as I did….

Plus, posting this gave me a whole extra day to work on the next Pearl(s) you’ll see…. Bonus, for me, and you, as I’ll have more time to make it right…. Here then, is my version of a re-blog, but, of my own work… Works for me…. See y’all at the bottom of the page….

From 7/26/2013:

Ffolkes,

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

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

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

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

Shall we Pearl?…..

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

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

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth…. NONE of them are at all concerned with any of that nonsense; they are there to carry out their own agenda, which has very little to do with what is good for the general run of mankind…. No, they are there to serve the interests of the men and women who pay them, those lobbyists and special interest representatives who run the businesses of the corporate masters. The people on the street cannot provide them with the perks, or the cash, that the clandestine rulers are able to come up with, other than peripherally, by electing them in the first place…. Once elected, their true colors come out into the light of day, and it can be easily seen how their actions are never congruent with what they have promised to the people who elected them….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I would rather be ashes than dust!  I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.  The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.  I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.  I shall use my time.” — Jack London, Jack London’s Tales of Adventure
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Such an outburst! I can see that I am right to write every day…. This stuff tends to build up if I go too long without letting it out, and there’s no telling what kind of harm THAT may cause to the space-time continuum…. Let’s see if it reads half as well as it flowed out….. Hmph, well, I think that the Pulitzer committee may want to stand down, but, it’s better than most Pearls, all in all, and it’s all freshly made stuff, so, so be it….  WYSIWYG, today, anyway…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….