Tag Archives: Shel Silverstein

Because it mostly resembles a codfish….

Posted on by
2

Ffolkes,

“Oh, no!”, he cried. “Now what?”  Sound familiar? It does to me…. Sadly, this sounds just like what I say almost every time I get up to another of Mr. Murphy’s less than welcome surprises. I’m certain I’m not the only one, either, because I refuse to believe that this kind of stuff only happens to me…. If that were true, I’d be seriously looking for God, to register a complaint, and, since I’m pretty certain that God doesn’t have an office, or keep office hours (hard to accomplish when one is a delusion….), it’s just more productive to take care of it myself…. I know, this makes me one of those heathens, and makes certain that Satan will hold me a place in Hell, right? Well, okay, as long as the A/C works, I’m good with that….

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all crusty right off…. I talked myself into that corner, and there wasn’t any other way out but through sarcasm, so, please, bear with me, as I try to stabilize my neuronic pathways, using my usual bee balm, aka coffee, blessedly strong and sweet. I’ve gulped down a good six ounces so far, and it’s starting to have some effect, so, we should be good to go in just a few moments…. I made this pot really strong, even for me, so it has a dose of caffeine in it big enough to win the Derby, and shouldn’t take long to bring surcease to those parts of my brain that are crying out for it, in such pitiful voices….

The piteous sounds of addictive neurons have faded into mere echoes, and the morning ablutions, including a second cuppacoffee, are well in hand, so, our way  is clear to head off into the hinterlands of perception, to find what there is to find out there to play with this morning. I’m thinking it’s a Smart Bee day, as I ranted yesterday pretty hard, to the detriment of my hips and back… Since old-school pearls, and archive-diving, are less time consuming, we’ll most likely go that route today…. Not that it matters to the three or four readers who stop by…. 😆

It’s rather ironic, actually…. In the last few days, and weeks, I’ve written some pretty powerful stuff, concerning main-stream news subjects that concern everyone in this country… According to the WP stat-bots, I’ve got 302 followers now, but, only about twenty of them are visiting the site on any kind of regular basis, at least, if the Likes and Comments are any indication. The site traffic stats also show small numbers, so I don’t know what to believe…. Ah, well, since I don’t really care if anyone reads it at all, it isn’t an issue that bothers me much…. I just hate not having accurate information…. Well, there is that, plus, I’d really like to be able to know that more than just a couple of folks read what I’ve got to say, because much of it is stuff that this country NEEDS to think about….

So be it…. shouting into the wind is one of my favorite things to do, so, I’ll just keep at it, and hope that the traffic picks up…. Maybe if I pick better poetry?…. Hard to do, since I already post the world’s best poets regularly…. If I keep my own stuff out of the mix, it’s a pretty classy line-up, so not much to complain about there…. No es importante, I’m going to do what I do, no matter how many, or few, folks, or even ffolkes, stop by to read it…. Someday, maybe after I’m gone from this plane of existence, all the millions of words I’ve penned will be published for real, and the world can see what they’ve missed…..

Until then, shall we Pearl?….

A monk said to Joshu, “Your stone bridge is widely renowned, but coming here I find only a heap of rocks.”

Joshu said, “You see only the stones and not the bridge.”

The monk said, “What is the bridge?”

Joshu said, “What do you think we are walking on?”
_____________________________

As threatened promised, below is an old-school pearl. This one was created using the “whatever” technique, which lets SB do the picking, whereupon, I deal with the results in a flexible manner, necessitated by the seeming lack of purpose, but enabled by the level of skill that I’ve developed over time of making something out of nothing…. another metaphor for my writing, I suppose….. Any who, this time, SB was instructed to pick some quotes that show the evolution of the BRC and the theory of government, contrasted by its relevance to the evolution of humanity at large…. I think it came out well…. It’s certainly obscure enough…. just enough, though…. all the needed information is there, if one can let go, and allow the mind to follow the path suggested by the pearls…. Enjoy!…..

“I hate to mention things like this in this feature, but it is one of the more pressing problems in America today, and that is the lack of tap-dancers in the Miss America contest.” — Smart Bee

Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt,
And oftener chang’d their principles than shirt.

— Edward Young (1684-1765) — To Mr. Pope, Epistle i, Line 277

“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.” — Albert Camus

“And waste their music on the savage race.” — Edward Young (1684-1765) — Love of Fame, Satire v, Line 228

“If you made a better rat than a human, that’s not much to boast about.” — Sirius Black, J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter”

“The message of history is clear: the past lies before us.” — Smart Bee

“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place.  And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.” — Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
_____________________________

Today’s choice of poems comes from one of my favorites, Shel Silverstein, who passed away in 1999. The range of feeling in his poetry is astounding, as is his talent of expressing those feelings in the simplest of language…. Abondanza!….

God’s Wheel

God says to me with a kind of smile,
“Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?”
“Okay,” says I, “I’ll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?”
“Gimme back that wheel,” says God.
“I don’t think you’re quite ready yet.”

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

Cloony The Clown

I’ll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.
His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, “Go back to bed!”
And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.
And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.
And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.
One day he said, “I’ll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown.”
And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.
He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,
And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,
They laughed until they shook the trees
With “Hah-Hah-Hahs” and “Hee-Hee-Hees.”
They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,
They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.
The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,
Over mountains, ‘cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.
And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,
While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.
And he said,”THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT –
I’M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT.”
And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

_____________________________

I was going to be lazy, and pick something from the archives to put here, but, what the hell…. It’s still early, and I’ve got the time… Here is another old-school pearl (still no rant in there, thankfully….), a harlequin, random variety, picked entirely by SB, with no parameters whatsoever…. Should be “interesting”….

“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage.  But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.” — Carl Sagan, “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” Parade, February 1, 1987

(Note the date, please; it is obvious that Carl had yet to process the evidence that proved this had already happened, to wit; Reagan was still in office, and his economic policies were just starting to kill the American economy from the top down….)

“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.” — Wendell Berry

“Many candles can be kindled from one candle without diminishing it.” — The Midrash

“Stereotypes are like a supermarket. They are convenient, economical, and useful. They do our thinking for us. We don’t have to waste time trying to make sense of our ignorance. Stereotypes slice through the niceties of language, tide us over the loose ends we don’t understand and wrap up into a comfortable package our narrow-mindedness about everything and everybody except ourselves” — Chuck Stone (Washington Post 6/3/96)

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” — Sun Tzu

“Listen carefully, I’m lying!” — Little known part of the Oath of Office, as administered to the POTUS every four years…..
(Sorry, couldn’t resist overruling SB on this one…. it’s just too perfect….)

“Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, “The descent to Hades is the same from every place.”” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Anaxagoras, vi

Well, I think it’s interesting, and that’s what counts, right?…. Since it’s my blog, we’re going with that theory for now….
_____________________________

“The chief aim of wisdom is to enable one to bear with the stupidity of the ignorant.” — Xystus I

There are those who would say the above is a somewhat arrogant statement, in which they’d be correct, to a degree. However, I can only respond, “and your point would be?”…. I’m not going to apologize for being smarter than the average bear; it’s not as if all my vaunted intelligence has enabled me to rule the world, now, has it? Nor has it made me rich, or famous, or widely known and respected, other than, I hope, amongst the few people I call friends… As for the rest of those folks out there, who get upset at having to use their brains for something other furniture, well, too bad, so sad, my bad, fuck it…. And I mean that in the nicest possible way….

Not sure where that came from, ‘cept that I like the quote, and felt it needed some comment or other to ease its passage into infamy…. Now that I’ve disrupted my own routine unmercifully, I should probably look for some way to bring this all to a close, before it gets completely away from me…. Oh, look! Here’s a spot now!….. Since I’ve completed all the required steps, and we have a good opportunity, I’m outta here….

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

dozer3

We were hoping for more of a gestalt version….

Posted on by
3

Ffolkes,

“…. crawfish pie, filet gumbo…”  Can’t say why, but that song is stuck in my head this morning…. “…. gonna have big fun, on the bayou.” I must have been dreaming in Acadian, or something….. There’s a word, a good word, Acadian, another word lifted from another language by English, used to describe the group of folks who settled in Louisiana in the early 1800’s.  Their culture, brought with them from France, melded into the mix of English,
Spanish, Indian, and African cultures that already flourished in the New Orleans area, producing what we now call Cajun food, music, and culture. (“Cajun” is a bastardization of the way the word “Acadian” comes through into English…. When pronounced correctly, it sounds like ‘a cajiun”, which, on the naturally lazy tongues of the new worlders, became “cajun”…..)

Now that the trivia portion of today’s post is finished, I’m left again in the lurch, with no intro planned. I could play my guitar for a while, and maybe sing y’all a song, but, I don’t really want to scare anyone away so early. Not that I’m terrible, it’s just that, so early in the day, my musical taste is a bit suspect; I’ve been known to listen to Mendelssohn, or Bach, for hours on end, and I don’t think y’all are ready to go back to sleep just yet, are you? I thought not…. Besides, I don’t do opera….

That does leave me adrift again, though…. Hmm…. now where shall I go to hide the fact that I am a poseur? That I am incapable of true creation, and all of my ambition to be a writer is a fool’s errand. I spend a lot of effort to keep it from becoming commonly known, but, days like today make it hard to keep it under my hat. If only I was ruthless, or politically minded, or had no shame at lying to people; then I could run for a public office, and make my living from the public trough. Unfortunately, I have lots of ruth,  no political ambition, and often break into hives when I lie, so, being a politician is out of the question….

If there was a way to start all this over again, without having to toss out what is already done, well, that would be good, and would save me a lot of headache…. No such luck exists, however, so, I’m stuck with this, and haven’t a clue as to what to do to salvage what’s left, of what started out as a perfectly good intro… one that turned so swiftly to crap, I almost didn’t see it happen….. I suppose I could recycle it; we are encouraged to re-use old stuff, but, I don’t think this will stand up to a second use. It’s liable to turn rogue on us, and injure someone in its death throes…. No, recycling old intros is a pastime rife with danger, and we’ll have none of it here….

Oh well, I’m going to have to once again resort to the whimsical methods I’ve used so effectively in the past, to amaze, to entertain, to educate, and, ultimately, to confuse the reading public, or, at the very least, those of that group who stumble into this blog, and can’t find their way out…. In other words, voi-fucking-la!  It’s an intro….

It would be quite insane, on the whole, to expect anyone to believe me if I claimed it’s a good one, in its own little way, but, it’s legal, it’s typo-free, and, it’s done, so there isn’t a damn thing to do but let it go out the way it is, and hope for the best….. In this case, I think that if we can get through the day without any further bloodshed, it will be alright…. If not, well, there’s always tomorrow, right?….

Shall we Pearl?…..

— Bother! said Pooh, as the pin fell out of the grenade.
_____________________________

So, I was sitting here, trying to decide what to do…. rant, pearl, or fake it? Any of the above would be acceptable and appropriate, but, I’m not feeling any of those particularly strongly this morning, so I’m going to cheat…. I was cruising through some old Pearls yesterday, and found some that I enjoyed (God, I hope so!….) Any who, I thought this one was kind of fun, and pretty coherent, on the whole…. Since I’m lazy, and in charge, I’m including it here today, just because I can…. This is from August of 2011, if it matters…..

Ffolkes,
Another day dawns, dammit!  Not really, but that was the first line that ran through my head this morning, so….better out than in, I say…Thus begins another fine day in paradise.

All of us have our secret fears; those little demons from our dreams that escape out into the real world and assault us at those moments we least expect it. How do we deal with it? Me, I’m a champion at denial; I can ignore most problems until they pretty much either give up or solve themselves. The few that aren’t subject to this method do tend to slap me around pretty well, but for the most part, I go along with King Ralph I, who said, “Well, the first thing we should do is order new globes.There’s no problem so big it can’t be ignored if we put our minds to it.”

While ordering new globes won’t help my current batch of woes, a dedicated state of ignorance duly cultivated while asleep can be of great use. In that state, even the news of the day can’t break through to that part of me that will worry over it. I’ve finally figured out that the rest of mankind is on their own; I’m retired, and no longer care about such mundane matters…..so be it…..

“But pain…seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?” — Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar

You may be a king
Or a little street sweeper,
But sooner or later
You’ll dance with the reaper.
— Reaper Rap (Grim Reaper, “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey”)

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

“Life is pleasant.  Death is peaceful.  It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” — Isaac Asimov

“Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.” — Jean de la Bruyere

So there you have it…..carefully applied, you too can take comfort in the ready arms of practiced denial….and it only hurts yourself!!! How many things in life can you say that about?…..  Y’all take care out there…..meanwhile, I’m going to try to get my tongue out of my cheek, where it has been firmly lodged for some time now……
_____________________________

“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” — ee cummings

The Dragon of Grindly Grun

I’m the Dragon of Grindly Grun,
I breathe fire as hot as the sun.
When a knight comes to fight
I just toast him on sight,
Like a hot crispy cinnamon bun.

When I see a fair damsel go by,
I just sigh a fiery sigh,
And she’d baked like a ‘tater-
I think of her later
With a romantic tear in my eye.

I’m the Dragon of Grindly Grun,
But my lunches aren’t very much fun,
For I like my damsels medium rare,
and they always come out well done.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

_____________________________

Below is another Pearl from the archives, from 2011… It would take at least two paragraphs and several hundred words to tell you the reasons why it is included here today, words I don’t intend to write…. Suffice it to say more than one compelling reason presented itself, so, here it is, for what it is worth…. It’s a pretty good one, all things considered, and could be considered as a bonus, were you so inclined….

Ffolkes,
I think it’s safe to say we all get pretty tired of the political circus as played out here in the USA; it all seems so pointless, until you realize it is directly affecting your own life, then it just gets irritating. Everyone I know has beliefs and convictions, with their own methods of dealing with the world, and their own methods of how to treat other people. Mostly they all get along just fine. Then I look at what is being said in the arena of public discourse, and there doesn’t seem to be any correlation, no connection with what I know is real for most folks.

The avaricious ones, the ones who seek public office, have an entirely different view of reality than most of the Americans I know. Even the conservatives I talk to think differently than the politicians, except for those few who allow the politicians to do their thinking for them, and merely parrot those talking points currently in fashion. It’s unfortunate that there are a LOT of the last category, which is part of the reason why the talking heads are able to maintain their death-grip on the almighty profit margin.

Since the whole point of the above is how sick I am of hearing the nonsense in the news, I won’t rant any further today on that subject. Don’t really feel like ranting anyway; it’s already been a tough morning, and I’d rather turn in a more positive direction. It took over 25 minutes on the phone, but I was able to complete a necessary task this A.M., and I’m using that to act as the driver for the rest of today’s tasks. All of this is just a long, convoluted and obfuscatory way to say, enjoy!……

“Confront them with annihilation, and they will survive; plunge them in a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.” — Sun Tzu

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeoning of chance;
My head is bloody but unbowed.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll;
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

— Henley

I know you think that you understood what you thought I said, but I am not  all that sure that you understand that I seldom say what I think and even less often do I mean what I say.

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

If you think women are moody and bossy – get a cat.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
— William Butler Yeats, “The Stolen Child”

There you go; a little whimsy is good for the soul…..so is epiphany. Y’all take care out there…..
_____________________________

As a practicing curmudgeon, and a critically acclaimed bozoid, it behooves me to say, at this point, just how proud I am to have been nominated for this award…. Oh, sorry, wrong file…. Okay, here we are…. Well, that was interesting…. Some rather esoteric remnants of sanity being bandied about here, eh? If one didn’t know better, one might think that I had gone around the bend, so far I’ll never find the way back…. but, then, illusion is what it’s all about, now, isn’t it?….

I’m somewhat relieved to find myself here in the closing section of today’s Pearl…. The lines and defining characteristics of reality are starting to become rather blurred and indistinct, due, I’m sure, to the volatile nature of what has been written here today…. We wouldn’t want to get charged for any undue wear and tear on either space, or time, so we’ll call it a day, before it gets any worse…. (Of course, as you can see, it’s already gone off the rails….). Let’s see how it reads….

Well, ffolkes, it’s a Pearl, and there is NO doubt at all about that….. As such, I’m going to take the money and run, before I lose the courage it takes to hit the “Publish” button…. Ta ta, then….

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

dozer3

They’ve pardoned all the equestrians….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

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

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

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

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

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

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

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

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

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

— Shel Silverstein

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Bard’s Epitaph

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

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

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

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

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

~~ Robert Burns ~~

_____________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He who laughs, lasts.” — Mary Pettibone Poole
_____________________________

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

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

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Precious memories of bizarre telegrams….

Posted on by
2

Ffolkes,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There!… Saved by the Zip-man, again!…..
_____________________________

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

The Little Boy And The Old Man

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

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

_____________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

“It takes a smart man to know when he’s stupid.” — Barney Rubble, “The Flintstones”
_____________________________

“The art of being a good guest is knowing when to leave.” — Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

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

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

I’ve never seen a poltergeist retch before…..

Posted on by
2

Ffolkes,
Having thus far lived, in many respects, a relatively uneventful life, it was a bit of a surprise to find myself, upon first arising today, gazing at a large, green, rather handsome alien, all seven or eight feet of him, sitting quietly in my easy chair, reading a Nora Roberts novel obviously plucked from my bookcase. He kept reading as I stared at him, obviously unaware of my regard, breathing, apparently, through his legs, which inflated and deflated in a regular pattern every few seconds. As he sat there reading, (I say ‘he’ for lack of any proper definition of his gender, or whether he has one at all… gotta call him something….) he gave the impression of infinite patience, and serenity, idly perusing the paperback novel he had chosen…..

Then, of course, I blinked my eyes, and he was gone, back to dreamland, from where he had escaped, apparently just to provide me with a compelling opening paragraph to grab your attention….. which, hopefully, worked well…. It would have grabbed me, I’ll give it that…. It leaves me without anywhere to go from here, but, I’ve been there a lot, and know I can just wander around in my head long enough to reach the legal requirement for an intro. It’s not as if there is any lack of nonsense on hand, it’s merely a matter of shoveling it into the correct venue…. a statement which will, I’m sure, cause as much confusion for you as it does for me….

Let’s face it, ffolkes, I’m lost already…. I suppose that isn’t a very unusual happenstance, but I’m not generally forced to admit it so early. It must have something to do with getting up so late; I actually slept in until 0610, and woke up in a panic, thinking I’d missed an appointment or something…. then spent a few minutes recovering from my alien visitation before successfully arousing myself to get coffee…. Once I’d had a sip or two, of course, all was well with the world, and I could turn my mind to composition….

Which brings us to here….. I’m going to NOT push my luck today, I think. I’ve got two days to get through before getting on a boat bound for Alaska, and I’m not taking ANY chances of fate intervening in any negative fashion. The lists I’ve made are getting checked off, item by item, and it’s down to the last few; my excitement level goes up with each item I gleefully check off….. Before I can turn to any of what is needed for today’s list, though, I have to complete this little chore that I’ve set for myself, so…..   Shall we Pearl?…..

“Is something VIOLENT going to happen to a GARBAGE CAN?” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

Having come to this so late in the day (time is relative, you know….), I’m feeling a bit pressed for time. So, I’ve dipped into my massive archives of material, and come up with this old style pearl, from August of 2011…. It’s a pretty good pearl, quite stimulating in a cogitative sense, not lacking in irony, and possessing a small degree of style… Well, I think so…. Enjoy!…..

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

Ffolkes,
As I was diving this morning in search of some fine, lustrous Pearls to start the day, it struck me that the decision making process in humans seems to have a definable limit. Not a limit of content, but rather a limit of use. No matter what it is that we are doing that requires a decision, there comes a point in the process where we say, “enough!” and end the process of gathering information by the decision to act upon it. Now in a cosmic sense this is not a particularly profound discovery, nor, I think, particularly useful. But then most things we discover don’t have a lot of practical use; we just file them away somewhere in the back of our memory where we seldom look for what we need now, but may find a use for later.

There may be moments in the future where such knowledge may become of use, perhaps even critical. But for the most part, a great deal of memory is crowded with stuff we’ve figured out on our own, but which has little relevance to our life at that time. I’m not sure if this trait is an important evolutionary development, or just something that stays with us because it does no immediate harm to our ability to deal with reality.

Little snippets of fact or conclusions we’ve come to, of a personal or general nature, seem to be destined to clutter up our memories, and I suppose that the mere fact of their existence my prove to be their evolutionary purpose; something to keep us from getting anywhere too fast for our mind to keep up. Who knows? Certainly not me, but hey, it was useful to me today, if only because I was able to finesse an entire paragraph while saying absolutely nothing important for you, or me, to know……useful after all……    🙂

“ICONOCLAST, n.  A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up.  For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth.  But the iconoclast saith:  “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
(So THAT’S what I’ve been doing all these years! Nice to know there is a word for it…..)

“Power is an illusion; only stupidity is real.” — Smart Bee

“Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.” — Oscar Wilde

“If we can put the names of our faiths aside for the moment and look at principles, we fill find a common thread running through all the
great religious expressions.” — Louis Farrakhan, 1993

“It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn’t too good either if you speak when your head is empty.” — Smart Bee

“Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?” — William James

Okay, “enough!”……. I guess it does have a purpose after all…..the prevention of terminal boredom…… Y’all take care out there…..
_____________________________

At this point in time, I am uncertain as to what style of poem will appeal today, so, I’m leaving this section for last…. I’ll be back…. Okay, I’m back…. and I brought with me one of my all time favorites…..

The Little Boy and the Old Man

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

~~  Shel Silverstein ~~

_____________________________

The way this has turned out, I should have just reblogged an old Pearl, and been done with it…  Instead, I have three parts of old Pearls that will serve to make up today’s Pearl, and the hell with the consequences…. Here is a fine old religirant I found, from late in 2012…..

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

Originally this morning, I had intended to write something less controversial here…. but, Smart Bee is being a bit recalcitrant this morning in coming up with suitable stuff…. so, I’m going ahead with this discussion of religious thought, even though I was trying not to be so sober today….SIGH…. “The best laid plans of mice and men, etc….”  Such are the mysterious ways of Smart Bee….

I believe in god, I just don’t like him. — Smart Bee

Now, here is a concept I can get behind…. I am often unsure of how to express my own beliefs about the idea of a God, or god,  capitalization depending, I suppose, on one’s sense of reverence regarding same. All the twaddle I was taught in Sunday School was an obvious pack of lies; even at age 5 I was unconvinced of the stories they told me. None of them seemed any more real, or plausible, than the cartoons I watched on Saturday morning, and there was certainly no bloodshed in the cartoons…. mayhem, yes, bloodshed, no…. But, the story of the crucifixion is enough to give even the most ghoulish of child nightmares, for sure and for certain…. What were they thinking?….

But, the statement above goes along better with what I would like to believe (which is no more, and no less, than any other human…. believing what we’d LIKE to believe is always more attractive than what MIGHT be true…. neither of which necessarily has anything to do with what is actually REAL….), because most of the stories and lessons we heard as children about God make him out to be a petty, narcissistic, vindictive asshole, to be quite frank.

Well, there is that, plus, most of the preachers, to me, seemed to me to be much more interested in other people’s business than their own, with many of the same characteristics of their ignoble so-called creator. None of them were much of a recommendation to me as proper examples of what a good man should be, and none of what I heard about god, or God, put (H)him in that category, either.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” — Jesus Christ (Gnostic Gospel Of Thomas, Saying 70)

Or, better out than in…. so to speak. Which, as you know if you’ve been reading here previously, is something I believe in wholeheartedly….. Jesus, for me, falls into a similar category for me as God, or preachers…. kind of in limbo regarding all the stuff that was, and is, said about him. He was obviously a real historical figure, and not a mythical supernatural being, and as such his words and actions were recorded for posterity. The accuracy of what was written is, to say the least, questionable, if for no other reason that he spoke Aramaic as his primary language…. that is pretty well established.

What many fail to consider is this…. in order for us to hear his words, we have to hear what was translated through at least four or five languages, from the original Aramaic. First, it would have been translated to Latin, or possibly another middle eastern dialect of the time, then into Latin. Then it was translated to probably Italian, French, and Spanish; then into German and, possibly, it underwent its first change into English, back when it was still considered to be Middle English…. I’m pretty sure the first King James version didn’t occur until well after the Renaissance period.

So, my question is this…. how much of the original meaning of his words came through into the English translation? It’s funny, but when, as a teen, I asked this of my pastor, all I could get from him was that, because the words were inspired by God, then the meaning would have been accurately translated by all those different people, as they were doing God’s work…. which, even then, made me go, “Hmmm? Could you explain that again, in English, with something, anything, that approaches an answer?” (This was before I spoke Spanish, or German, or anything else but English….)

That seems to be a problem with preachers/priests… they tend to lump everything into the same mold, and expect us to believe that what they say is true, even though there is no direct evidence to support any such twaddle. “The Bible says God said it, I believe it, and that’s the end of it!” seems to be their logical train of deduction, even though there is no logic, or deduction, to it.

I wasn’t born in Missouri, but, you’ve got to SHOW ME the evidence before I’ll waste my time trying to place any belief into such grandiose ideas. When one of the church minions asks me, sarcastically, if I expect God to send me a telegram, I usually reply, “Well, that WOULD be more persuasive than expecting me to take it on your word, now, wouldn’t it?”  Idiots….

“God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.” — H.L. Mencken

This attitude, the elitist idea that those who believe are somehow superior to those who do not, is one of the root causes of most of the trouble our species is having today. The insane attitude that this planet, and all the other creatures on it, were placed here specifically for our benefit and use, is responsible for all of the pollution that continues to pump into the ecosystem, for all the abuse and chauvinism against the other life forms who live here, and for a great number of the social issues, such as poverty, racism, misogyny, and violence, that plague us as a culture. 

We are not only NOT the masters of creation, we are not even qualified to be our own masters; we cause ourselves as much trouble as we do the rest of creation, if not more, all because religionists insist that those who believe them are good, and everyone else is bad…. a stupid idea at best.

“God made Man to his image and likeness, and Man, being a gentleman, returned the compliment.” — Voltaire

Hence, my lack of faith in the nonsensical claptrap that the various religions attempt to pass off as truth. Reality, to me, is scary enough, without the idea of some insane supernatural creature, sitting up in some fanciful Utopia, looking down and giving a rat’s ass about what I’m doing with my life. It just doesn’t make any sense to me to try to visualize a god…. by the very definition of the beast, they cannot be imagined by a creature of lesser scope…. and telling me that you have a direct line to God, and know what he wants me to do with my life, only makes me wish I could order your new medications personally…. Oh, didn’t I mention it? We now have medications that will keep people from believing delusional material, or at least keep them from acting on those beliefs before thinking about them at least a bit….. but, who’s going to give it to a priest, when the doctor believes the same bilge?

Now that I’ve alienated any number of true believers out there, I guess I’ll let this discussion die a natural death. I could obviously continue indefinitely, but, the rest of the day calls, and I should get to it…. If you have any thoughts on these conclusions of mine, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below…. and remember, please, the rules of engagement prohibit outright flaming on this site…. Confine name-calling to short, impersonal epithets, and please, include some logical thought in your responses, as neglecting to do so wastes my time, and everyone else’s…. I don’t mind being called a fool, but, as I said, let’s see your evidence….

“I find your lack of faith in the Force disturbing….” — Darth Vader (Star Wars)
_____________________________

Well, it’s clear that I’ve done some decent work in the past, though this may or may not fall into that category. Regardless,  I like it, so it stays…. Plus, this way, I can be done, and get on with what is important, like staring at the clock to make it go faster….. Where did I put those time distortion pills, anyway?….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Terrified outbreaks of uncontrolled shrugging….

Posted on by
3

Ffolkes,
As he sits down to begin, no angels sing, no thunder rings out, the earth remains still, and silent. Only the steady tick of the mantle clock breaks the quiet, until, slowly at first, then picking up the pace, he begins to type, words that have struggled to come forth from earliest memory. Like penitent soldiers, they line up on the page, tired, dusty, line after line, turned out from where they commonly hide, to face the light of day, and the harsher light of regard….. No promises of genius, no hope of publication, no real purpose…. just words, in a row, cast up in denial of repression, and hope of redemption….. Another day dawns, bringing, as always, trepidation, layered thinly with unreasoning hope, challenging all to arise, and survive another day…..

Well, I guess Hemingway doesn’t have to worry much that I’ll be challenging his reputation for powerful prose…. I can’t say the above stinks badly…. In fact, it isn’t bad at all, just rather lacking in direction, which isn’t surprising, since it has none to speak of; none was required, nor desired. All I wanted were some pretty words strung together in a reasonably rational order, just to draw y’all in, and perhaps, give a glimpse of something darker, and deeper, than is first seen… In that respect, it worked okay, I suppose, and, it has the added advantage of being done… Done deals are much handier than stuff left undone, for sure, wouldn’t you say?…. Rhetorical question, obviously, so don’t bother to reply….. unless, of course, you’re the type of reader who talks back to what you read…. in which case, feel free….

Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah…. If this is the best I can come up with, I may as well start mailing this in…. coming into the office doesn’t seem to be working out for me…. Oh, wait, right, I’m not going in to any office…. SIGH…. Oh, well, I didn’t like having to go, anyway, so it’s just as well, I suppose, that I don’t have to go in anymore. I have a feeling that, in spite of the nasty, rude method used to force me to retire before I was ready, the actual state of retirement was the right way to go for me… As it turns out, my body was done with work; flogging myself to continue toiling away would probably have ended up being a bad idea, prolonging my misery, and making it even harder to deal with the physical aspects of getting old.

Now, I have things exactly the way I like them, with the added advantage of a secure, adequate income, an advantage I did not have, or even seek very hard, during all my previous years. Even when working, my necessary outgo always seemed to exceed my income; now that I’ve reduced my needs and wants to the bare minimum, the amount I’ve managed to retire on is entirely adequate to meet those needs, and still have enough to save up to travel on a regular basis. As long as I’m careful, I should be able to live long enough to see all the places I’ve dreamed about seeing all my life….

I almost feel guilty that things have turned out so well for me…. but, then I think back over the last three or four years, (or, in further retrospect, the last 25 years….) and realize that, hey, much of it has been a miserable time, and any good things happening now can be seen as the Universe acting to balance things out…. Karma is asserting itself, I would guess, and all I can say is, it’s about damn time… I don’t claim, even in my most feverish dreams, to be the best man alive, but, I’ve always tried my best to be honorable, to do my duty and hurt others as little as possible; that has to count for something, right?….

Okay, you can stop laughing now… I didn’t really expect an answer, but there’s no need to be rude, either…..  Just kidding, it’s all good….. I should know better than to ask for that kind of feedback; nobody enjoys feeling dumb, even me…. This intro section, I think, is getting completely out of control, and needs to be given the three finger salute, soon (Control-alt-delete…). Sorry ’bout that, it’s what happens when I get too much sleep, and try to write with a clear head…. I wasn’t paying close attention, and this section turned into a ramble of massive proportion, covering far too many subjects in way too few paragraphs (or, too many, relative to your viewpoint, I suppose….)…. I’ve hardly left any room for normal pearls, whatever those might be.

I think I stop talking now, and see what kind of mischief Smart Bee has in store for me…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Well, this is taking a long time, but, so far, it seems to be worth it…. I had to be firm, but Smart Bee finally came up with the first five pearls below, which hang together well, and make a very strong point about living well, or at least living, as opposed to ignoring life as it goes by… Then, as if by magic, the last two came forward, shyly asking to be included…. When I added them on, I was amazed, at how well they fit, and how they enhanced the given concept…. Of course, all that might be just my weird sense of humor, but, hey, it works for me….

“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.” — Ursula K. LeGuin

“By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like a dot; by thought I encompass the Universe.” — Pascal, Pensees, n. 265

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes:
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle i, Line 123

“From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars.” — Heraclitus

“Truth can be a dangerous thing. It is quite patient and relentless.” — R. Scott Richards

See what I mean? Now, let the mind drift, with only that thought to anchor you to reality for the moment…. then, take in the two aphorisms below, and either grin, or guffaw, in acknowledgment and glee… I did, so I thought you should have the same opportunity….

“The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.” — Chuang Tzu

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” — Baruch’s Observation

Bang! It takes an accurate blow to drive in a nail with one clean strike…. Okay, put down the hammer now, I didn’t mean it…. calm yourselves…. Here, here’s a poem to look at, just give me the hammer, and I’ll put it away….
__________________________________

If you weren’t able to tell, I’m in a sort of odd mood today…. That, in and of itself isn’t all that odd, and isn’t a problem, but, it does affect the content herein, and nowhere quite as much as in this section… To go with today’s ambiance, I offer the following gem from one of my favorite contemporary poet/artists…..

Tryin’ On Clothes
I tried on the farmer’s hat,                                                  
Didn’t fit…
A little too small — just a bit
Too floppy.
Couldn’t get used to it,
Took it off.

I tried on the dancer’s shoes,                                       
A little too loose.
Not the kind you could use
for walkin’.
Didn’t feel right in ’em,
Kicked ’em off.

I tried on the summer sun,
Felt good.
Nice and warm — knew it would.
Tried the grass beneath bare feet,
Felt neat.
Finally, finally felt well dressed,
Nature’s clothes fit me best.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

__________________________________

Below you will find one of my favorite rants, regarding the events in 2001 that have caused many of the restrictions placed on freedoms we, as US citizens, formerly held, restrictions with which we now live, and regard as normal…. I see this as evidence of the accuracy of what is written below, and supports its validity today…..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom.  It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” — William Pitt (1759-1806) speech on the India Bill, Nov. 18, 1783

I had not intended to start with a political rant, but this just came up, so here we go…. This is as true today as it was in 1783, perhaps even more so. Since 9/11/01, when those fanatic idiots carried out their insane delusions of grandeur on the world stage, the “necessity” for Homeland Security has been the watchword of the political pundits who unfortunately are in charge of the legislative and executive branches of our government. Bill after bill after bill keeps coming down the pike and bulling their way through into becoming law, or even worse, is created by executive order, without the benefit of review by Congress, useless as that may be.

The entire incident that happened that day was blown completely out of proportion by the media. Yes, it was a tragedy, in which something over 3000 American lives were lost, in three separate incidents. The videos of those planes hitting the buildings in New York must have been replayed a thousand times before noon, all over the country, until every American who had access to a TV was informed of what had occurred….

The American media, and the political machinery that manipulates it so effectively, then proceeded to flood every channel with the after-effects, making sure that the sorrow and fear of every person they could find willing to speak of it on camera was put on the evening news, and ensuring that no rational, dispassionate examination of the events would take place. Before the first day had passed, the national reaction had been whipped to a frenzy, stirring the fears of every paranoid in society, and making it seem as if the entire nation was filled with anger and vengeful righteousness. Though I didn’t join in the paranoia, I could feel it happening all around me, as normally intelligent people became so angry they lost all sense of proportion, or for that matter, all sense of truth.

In the ensuing years, whenever the politicians have wanted to distract the nation from what they were actually doing, all they needed to do was mention the word terrorism, or national security, to immediately put attention off of them, and onto the pitiful  group of fanatical Muslims they blamed for the attacks (completely ignoring all the reasons those same politicians had provided those fanatics  in the first place, reasons designed to stimulate an attack….). And thus, the Hunt for Osama bin Laden was on!

In this country, as a result of those attacks, approximately 5000 American lives were lost (that figure is larger than the actual number, purposely…. it is near enough to correct to make the point…). At this time, in the quest to find Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, over 50,000 Afghani civilians have been killed. In Iraq, which we somehow decided to invade, even though they had nothing to do with 9/11, well over 250,000 civilians have died to soothe our national pride. In that same period, we lost another 1000 or so soldiers in fighting and bombings. And, as a side effect, the US Bill of Rights has been effectively eliminated, by Executive Order, disguised as Homeland Security (June, 2013 — Now authorized by what is so laughingly called the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012…. signed by President Obama on New Year’s Eve of 2011, while everyone was partying, not paying any attention to their so-called “rights”…..).

“Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated” — George Bernard Shaw

So, what is my point here? My point is this…. those pathetic fanatics killed more than they had ever been able to kill, one time. Since that one time, our country has killed over 300,000 civilians in retaliation; you can call it what you like, I call it schoolyard revenge by bullies. It has caused every politician in this country to wrap themselves in the flag, not to proclaim their patriotism, but to manipulate the unreasonable fear they created in the public to keep them from realizing the truth of the matter.

That truth is this: we are in no real danger from Al Qaeda,  or from any other splinter faction terrorist group, nor have we ever been in any real danger. They may be able to pull off stunts such as this one occasionally, but for the most part, the world has gotten pretty good at either catching them in hiding, or stopping their plots before they actually carry them out. Governments have a LOT more resources than terrorists, no matter how rich they may be personally.

No, the pathetic, desperate people who become terrorists are created by those same political pundits who are reviling them and hunting them down. They are not a real threat to anyone, as they don’t have the wherewithal to perform more than one act of violence at a time; they cannot wage a war, they can only try to act as guerrilla forces, at best. Mostly, they are just sad schemers, planning glorious deaths, that ultimately have no meaning, other than to provide the Western politicos another unreasonable fear to use against the American public, in order to continue their raping and pillaging among their own people.

The entire issue is one that is repugnant to me; I have watched in horror, not as terrorists have been hunted, but as the rights of the American people have been taken away in the name of “security”. Security from what? We don’t need more security from terrorists; those techniques for dealing with it are well-established, and effective, as they employ the very same methods used by the fanatics to achieve their ends. No, we need more security from our own pundits, who have utilized this tragic events for their own benefit, to the everlasting regret of every true patriot….. bloody assholes, every one of them…..

“I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel.” — G. K. Chesterton, The Judgement of Dr. Johnson, Act III

So be it…. gigoid has spoken….
__________________________________

Well, there you go…. Such as it is, it is done, and I’m glad, as it took a supreme effort this morning to stay on track…. Not sure why, but, it no longer matters, as long as it proofs okay….  Which, in fact, it does…. I will reiterate…. So be it.  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

A farce by any other name retains its innate irony….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,
And then, I woke up….. at 0303, again. I’m not sure what it is about that particular moment in time that attracts my subconscious mind, but I seem to end up awakening at that time a lot more often that seems logical, or even coincidental…. must be some unknown piece of magic or something…. I’ve found, in the wisdom of my years, that sometimes the universe’s actions can only be explained by the presence of magic, which is fine with me, on all levels. It’s somewhat satisfying, in a way, to know that we can’t explain everything without using magic; it kind of makes the universe a little friendlier place, y’know?…. It doesn’t even matter if what I believe is true, that all of us are god, playing a game with ourselves to pass the time; magic seems to fit right in, even in a universe without an identifiable higher power…..

Wow, is that good, or what? That paragraph took exactly the amount of time to write as it takes to brew a pot of coffee, which is, no doubt, a fortunate thing for all of us. Since it’s ready, I’ll take advantage of the fact, and go make a cup, then explain…. be right back…… Well, damn. And shit. And fuck me sideways, Murphy is back in the house…. Yesterday, I was thinking he might have missed the memo about my return, as nothing particularly untoward, or even vexing, had occurred since I got back to town.

I should have known better; he was just waiting for the right moment….. I made sure to buy some half and half for my coffee this morning, as the little bit of it I had left in the fridge couldn’t be counted on to be good, having sat for two weeks, some of which was past its “use by” date. It was fine, though, but there wasn’t much of it, so I bought a half-pint here at the neighborhood store, until I can get to a bigger store for a half gallon. I even checked to make sure it wasn’t past its date as well…

Now I’m looking at a cup of spoiled coffee, with broken cream nodules all through it….. I swear, Murphy is back with a vengeance; he KNOWS how badly I react when my coffee is fucked with, so he went right for my jugular, at 0315 in the morning, with unerring accuracy….. Now I have to suffer until someplace opens, since this town lacks 24 hour conveniences to a large degree…. Oh, someplace might be open, but I don’t know where it is, and using a rental car (which I got yesterday to go see my grandson) to drive around long enough to find one seems a bit over the top, even for me and my jonesing….. In the words of some irritated queen of the past, fuck, fuck, fuck!….. I suppose it’s a good thing nobody is around for me to bite….

I suppose this means I’ll have to soldier on, without coffee, until the store opens at 6:30 or 7:00, which might even be later, today being Memorial Day and all…. I’ve often wondered about holidays; they challenge my sense of order. They are, basically, created by the government to stimulate the economy during times when it would normally be slow, to give businesses a chance to make some money at slow points in the financial year. In spite of this, many of the affected businesses close, to celebrate the holiday with the people who otherwise would make up their customer base. Makes no sense to me to have businesses closed on holidays…. Hell, the holiday was usually created FOR their benefit…. Oh well, I’ll just slide that over into the category with all the stuff that people do that makes no sense to me…. which I call the Mortimer file, for lack of a better name….

The Mortimer file is a very thick one, filled with an incredible number of activities promulgated by humans that just don’t fit anywhere into any system of logic, or stable philosophy. Stuff like…. oh, bank hours of operation. Rain on the ocean. Heaven and Hell. Eating foie gras, or any kind of organ meat, and pretending it tastes good. Zumba. Pilates. Madonna…. now THERE’s a big one! Why on earth do people pay any attention at all to her? Or, Lady Gaga, for goodness’ sake? Neither one can sing worth a shit, they dress really funny, and consistently say really stupid stuff, yet people buy anything with their name on it…. Now, THAT’s really stupid, and just doesn’t compute for me….

Oh well, I could go on forever with stuff from the M-file, but, it’s getting on toward dawn, and I’m still blathering on in the intro section, rambling and spouting off about not much at all. I guess I should get started on a Pearl…. I will, too, right after a session on the porcelain throne, which, I sure, it too much information…. Suffice to say…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, utters another.” — Homer (c. 700 B.C.)

Deliberate untruth is, to my mind, the absolute worst thing of which humans are capable. Nothing is more hurtful to others, or more damaging to the spirit of the person who commits the act. It is a stain on the character of a man, to deliberate tell a falsehood, especially for gain. It is a bit more understandable, if no less wrong, to tell a lie, in order to protect one’s own feelings or reputation; to tell a lie in order to gain power over others, or to gain some kind of material advantage, is the worst thing a person can do to another, short of causing them physical harm, or even death. At least killing someone to get something is honest, if reprehensible in its own right…..

Truth is what makes us free, and strong, and insisting on it in all one’s dealings with others is not only a good policy, from a philosophical, moral, or ethical standpoint, but is the mark of a person who can be trusted, one who is worthy of our love, and consideration. The inability to be consistently truthful, or worse, the deliberate use of lies to achieve ends, is a sure sign of someone to avoid, at the least, if not one to be watched with caution, in order to prevent being victimized by their lack of morals. Having a large stick handy is a good idea when dealing with these individuals, or groups, for that matter…..

I’m not sure what prompted this little discussion, unless my unconscious is directing me to stop my own use of untruth in dealing with a certain situation. My thoughts of late, especially at night during those moments before sleeping when we tend to chew on stuff that is bothering us, have turned to my relationship with my doctor, in relation to the relationship I have with the HMO for which he works, as contrasted by the mask of invisibility I have worn for 43 years in public, of all venues except personal.

I know, that’s pretty obscure, but has relevance because my decision to either maintain or drop the mask will have far-reaching effects for me. What I wrote above is what I believe, so I’m afraid I will be compelled to start telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that is a dangerous thought, and proposition…. And, as you can tell by my obscure language, I’m not yet ready to tell that particular truth to the Internet; not out of fear, I don’t think, but out of a life-long habit of being conscious of security. My insistence on telling the truth doesn’t extend to being stupid about it in defense of my own well-being; we have to survive to be able to speak, whether truth, or lie…..

But, I have obviously (to me) decided to call my doctor’s bluff, and tell him the truth, since he is legally bound not to share it with anyone else. I don’t know if this will make it impossible to remain as his patient, as, up to now, he has been a good doctor to me, concerned with my welfare over the needs of the system. If he continues to reject the onus of responsibility, and make decisions about my medical care based on legal and policy strictures rather than any medical basis, I will have to seek someone who will put my health first….. And, the truth is the only way to do that, so….

“. . is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

Okay, I won’t bore y’all any further, and that’s the truth, for now……

“Well done is better than well said.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
__________________________________

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
…
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.
— TS Eliot

Again, I’m uncertain as to my own motivation for saving this, other than its obvious power of expression, and obvious excellence. My life doesn’t currently present any such negative connotations as implied in this snippet from Eliot, yet it speaks to me somehow…. I guess there are some things we are destined never to understand, especially about our selves….

I’d be bored, I think, if
I allowed “bored” in my life.
I never wanted to think,
I got tired of my own head. ~~ gigoid

I know it doesn’t rhyme, but it feels like one. But, I don’t have anything else right now, so I’ll go consult with Google and my whimsy, and see what happens…..

Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can’t do a handstand–
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said–
I’m just not the same since there’s rain in my head.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

__________________________________

There’s nothing for it now, ffolkes, I’m going to have to go old school on you…. I’ll do my best to not make it too obscure, but, no matter what, it will be different, and interesting, for sure…. Enjoy….

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.” — Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam, 1926

“Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.” — Samuel Johnson

“There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.” — Charles P. Steinmetz

“It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.” — Galileo Galilei

Are there not, dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver,–
One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge;
One, when a prince he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge.

— Robert Browning (1812-1890) — Paracelsus, Part i

“It’s easier to curse the candle than light the darkness.” — Smart Bee

“Naive alien.  And if certain things stand in our way — Klingons for Kirk, reality for me — well, we just have to suck in our guts, set the phasers on Stun, and hope for the best.”” — Merle Kessler, IAN SHOALES’ PERFECT WORLD

There you go…. I keep telling you, it’s all in the wrist….
__________________________________

“”To post or not to post, that is the question…Whether ’tis nobler on the ‘net to suffer, the flames from outrageous loonies or to press ‘F’ against a sea of slander and by opposing end them? To send KILL signal; to sleep(1); No more…” — 25 million Internet monkeys channeling Shakespeare….

I have to say, it’s been an interesting morning, all in all…. I’ve been up for almost five hours now, and have gotten a lot accomplished already, before most of the world, at least, this part of it, is even awake. I’ll take it….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Never curl your lip at Art Deco…..

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,
Bashing myself repeatedly in the forehead probably isn’t the most productive way to begin the day, even if I am using the old paddle instead of the new one…. The available alternatives, however, seem to leave something to be desired, consisting of a choice between self-flagellation with a cat-o-nine tails, or suicide by immolation….

Neither of those choices gives me a warm fuzzy, and forehead bashing gets old quickly, so I should most likely try to avoid that, too, I guess. It’s hard to know what to do when I’m still half-asleep, but I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t like any of the choices I seem to have this morning…. more’s the pity……

I can see your furrowed brow, there, wondering about why on earth these nasty events are even part of today’s agenda…. Before your face gets stuck like that, I’ll tell you that all three of the described activities are fictional…. That’s right, I made it up, in a blatant attempt for sympathy, first thing…. Why, you ask?

Well, I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t have any real introductory remarks, and the template I’ve been using seems to be losing me readers by the bucket full…. Well, maybe it’s that, or it could be something else, but my readership seems to be dwindling, while the number of followers keeps rising…. Statistics drive me crazy, which is why I don’t often pay attention to them….

I have noted, though, some puzzling aspects to the numbers that are shown, and can’t figure out, for the life of me, how to view the numbers I see for this blog. It’s all good, though, as I figured out some time ago, it doesn’t matter to me at all if nobody ever reads what I write. It’s nice to have ffolkes read it, and if it stimulates thought, or a comment, I’m happy….

But, the main reason I write is to clean out my head each day, of all the stuff that otherwise would sit in there and go bad, and end up giving me indigestion, or, worse, mental constipation, a fate worse than death, to me…. Come to think of it, it’s not pretty, so you’d most likely not enjoy it either….

I see that I’ve whined and complained my way through to another legal-sized introductory section, even though the content has little or nothing to do with proper literature….. It’s all just filler…. A sack of sand, as it were, put here to bolster the false image being projected, of a caring, erudite old fart who loves to paint pictures with words…. Well, I guess it’s not a false image, so much as a wishful one…. and, regardless of which kind it is, we’ve gotten far enough to give it a shove into the deep end….. In other words….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

I had originally intended to rant a while this morning, but Smart Bee had other ideas. This seven star pearl is presented at the behest of SB, who shoved each of them under my nose, without bothering to tell me why it should be included. As I look the group over, though, it came out pretty well, as some good advice on how to live, and how not to live…. or, as we are fond of saying down at the club, “Just the fax, ma’am”….. enjoy! Memorization of the quotes is encouraged, but, please, no flash pictures; it frightens the Ooompa Loompas……

Those who know others are intelligent
Those who know themselves have insight
Those who master others have force
Those who master themselves have strength.

Those who know what is enough are wealthy
Those who persevere have direction
Those who maintain their position endure
And those who die and yet do not perish, live on.

— Lao Tze

“Often when he was looking on at auctions he would say, “How many things there are which I do not need!”
— Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Socrates, x

Thou, silent form, doth tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

— John Keats (1795-1821) — Ode on a Grecian Urn

“I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.” — Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, — The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87

“The faster you go, the shorter you are” — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

— Tao Te Ching

“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
__________________________________

It’s been a whole month of not reading very much of other people’s poetry, and I’m glad to be able to get back to whatever I want in this section… I think I strained my brain writing poems on a deadline, and I missed the daily dose of genius…. So, here is today’s pick, from another of my favorite poets…..

The Little Boy and the Old Man

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

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

__________________________________

“Don’t hit me!!  I’m in the Twilight Zone!!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I don’t know why Zippy so often is able to pinpoint the way I’m feeling, or what I’ve been thinking about, and give it expression in a way that anyone can understand. I’m very much feeling like I’m in the Zone these days, as I try to fill up the hours with productive things, hopefully, with a dual effect…. One, it will help me check another item off the list for my upcoming trip, and two, it will take my mind off the number of days until I leave….

“Yow!  I’m having a quadraphonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel mill!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I am both excited, and a bit anxious, about the trip. It will be a fulfillment of a life-long dream, and is coming at a time that is at once convenient, and at the same time, inconvenient. The inconvenient part has to do with the lady I asked to go with me, who has another commitment next month, and still needs to get her passport, as well. She’s already started that process, so she’ll be able to go next trip, which I am planning for later this year…..

“I’m using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER WORKINGS of this POTATO!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

So, this time, I’m scouting out the territory, and getting an overview, to mark down the sights I’d like to see when I will have more time for sightseeing in Ireland… This trip will give me several days in London, then the rest on a cruise ship, with day excursions in the port cities we’ll stop to visit…. Since I am also interested in the countryside in Eire, I’ll have to go back to see more of it than I will on this cruise…. But, on this cruise, I should be able to get a lot of good pictures of the sights in the cities we’ll be touring, which include Le Havre/Paris, Dublin, Cobh, Liverpool,Glasgow, Belfast, and a couple others…

“Why is it that when you DIE, you can’t take your  HOME ENTERTAINMENT CENTER with you??” — Zippy the Pinhead

I just LOVE the way Zippy brings us right back to reality, by asking the tough questions, those thorny philosophical queries that wake us up in the middle of the night, like this one…. Why CAN’T we take our video boxes with us? What’s up with that?….

It’s stuff like this that keeps me from buying into the whole Heaven/Hell controversy….. none of what either side has to say really makes any sense, so what’s the point? It’s like Bob Heinlein had one of his characters say…. “There is no real, compelling evidence that there is life after death. There is also no compelling evidence there is not. Soon enough, you will know, so why fret about it?”

It is this kind of practical, sensible reasoning that will help me get through this agonizing period until I get to hit the road…. Well, that and my lady’s sweet kiss…..  🙂

“..  ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr… ich lande im antiken Rom…  einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble… ich rieche PIZZA…” — Zippy the Pinhead

Translation: “I’m in a (jet plane?) in 53 BC… I’ve landed in ancient Rome… Some gladiators are playing scrabble… I’m ordering Pizza….” Zippy the Pinhead

I guess, what I’m trying to say here is…. Ooooh, shiny! I’ll be going now, out into the Big Blue Room, to pass some more time, however I can….
__________________________________

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

If you are still with me, I commend you for your patience, and your willingness to undergo extreme hardship to reach the end of today’s effort, which it was…. effortful, that is…. Any who, I’m done, so let’s see if it floats…. Hmm…. I guess I’ve seen worse…. It’s all spelled right, anyway….. It will have to do, because I’m NOT doing it over….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Safely insane amid the noise and tedium…..

Posted on by
12

Ffolkes,
Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the warranty on this state of reality has expired, and I don’t think there will be any renewal, not for us, and not for the dreams we once held. Sad, but true….. A lesser man might become depressed, or fall into the state of mind where a lack of caring, about anything, becomes attractive, rather than the low-level sense of doom that is the lot of those who have any wit to spare. Instead, I think…. I’ll have a beer…..

Or maybe not…. it’s a bit early for a Budweiser, I suppose. I’m not sure exactly what the above paragraph is all about, other than as a possible lead-in to a rant, and it’s WAY too soon in this process to start that….. I haven’t even had enough coffee to be able to blink without concentrating, and I can’t be trusted to tie my shoes yet, much less start ranting about the environment, or whatever…. Hell, as is obvious, I couldn’t get through an entire paragraph without resorting to silliness….. It may be a gift, in some instances, but, just now, it’s more of a PITA…… If you don’t know that particular acronym, well, that is probably just as well…. If you do, then you’ll get my drift….

As might be apparent by now, I’m a little scattered, a little off, today. In such cases, it’s easy to tell how I’m doing, as this intro becomes rather a battleground for sanity, and gets stranger by the second the longer it goes on, and on, and on, and on…… Now, strange isn’t necessarily a BAD thing, not if it’s adequately appreciated, and taken full advantage of….. It’s when folks try to stop it, or make it normal that it gets all crazy and violent. Some folks never pick up on that, and so spend their entire lives fighting against it, rather than being able to embrace it, and allow it to become an asset, rather than a liability…. It’s easy, fun, and much more comfortable than trying to be a conformist…

Since I don’t wish for that to even have a chance to happen, I might do well to get on with business today, rather than trying to squeeze out every last drop of asininity I can from the beginning of this missive. There’s still a ways to go before I can call it a day, so, I’d best be getting to it….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Oh my GOD — the SUN just fell into YANKEE STADIUM!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I’ve just spent more than enough time looking for a pearl, and this is the best I’ve seen….. Pathetic, don’t you think? Although I really like Zippy’s little pronouncement for it’s absolutely brilliant level of strange, it doesn’t help in coming up with something, anything, about which I can write. Having already started late today, and now an hour or more into the process, I am, relatively, no further along than when I began, especially if you don’t count the intro section, which is, if not exactly Pulitzer material, at least has the distinction of a small dollop of humor, bordering on verifiable silliness…..

Well, that last sentence certainly wound its way through the grammatical and punctuation minefield, didn’t it? Any who, I was busy complaining about the lack of material…. I’m so dry, in my own head, I’m actually going to resort to a re-post…. Here is an old, and old-school, Pearl, first published, or sent out via email, while I was still working at NSH, which would make it about six to eight years ago….

At that time, the Pearls were all in the format you see below, and were sent out to about 250 hospital employees each morning via the hospital network….It drove the IT dept. crazy when they’d see the network bandwidth patterns go crazy when I sent it out…. Apparently, the Pearls, enjoyed by so many, were a bit of a load for the network at the time of sending….. Oh well….   Any who, enjoy…..

When Reality becomes moot…

Ffolkes,
Spinning, twisting, caught up in the vortex Reality creates, we look about with trepidation, seeking, seeking, and never finding the path to the future that will ease our way. Entropy makes us weep, with deep regret, the choices we never made, the truths we never spoke, the challenges we didn’t meet. In spite of all this, we go on…with courage and good humor. And why? Because we can…..and must.

Did you ever watch Sesame Street? If so, you may remember a repetitive piece called “One of these things is not like the others.” This morning we bring you another version of that, called “Betty Likes It”. If you don’t get it, don’t worry, it’s just about as obscure as I can be, meant to confuse, as the puzzle is an easy one. Comments or criticisms are welcome, though the latter will most likely be cheerfully ignored. You computer ffolkes should like it…..

RTFM – Read The F#*@^| Manual

I admit it, I tried MS-DOS, but I didn’t inhale.

“If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.’ — Weinberg’s Second Law

For Dessert? I’ll take a piece of cherry 3.14159!

The definition of a successful life must include a commitment to serving others.

So, which is different? If you can’t tell, well, just look for the one that feels the best when you use it…. y’all take care out there…..

This Pearl was first published circa 2006…..
__________________________________

Where The Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends.

~~ Shel Silverstein
__________________________________

Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle iv, Line 261

Ah, Pope! I regard Alexander Pope as the premier of all the romantic poets…. Deeply insightful, and ornately beautiful, his verse continually amazes me. This poem, Essay on Man, has more couplets and quatrains of great power in it, all of which make excellent excerpts, than in any other work I have ever seen, bar none, save, perhaps, Ode on a Grecian Urn, by Keats. Line after line of great composition, and insight after insight into the nature of Man, Mssr. Pope created one of Mankind’s most precious treasures in this epic work…..

I identify very closely with this couplet, as it is rather a good description of what goes on here. Even though I continue to rant and rail against the people and institutions, and ideas, that I believe are holding us from becoming all we could be as humans, I am often struck with how little response I get from anyone who doesn’t feel the same way….. which is another way of saying that I believe that, most of the time when I rant, I’m preaching to the choir, in a manner of speaking…. It’s more than just a little bit of a frustration, as I believe what I have to say is important to all of us, to, as Alexander so aptly puts it, to “teach, or save a sinking land.” If people continue to ignore what I’m saying, the consequences to be faced are horrendous, not from me, but from Reality…..

“All fear, none aid you, and few understand.”  This, too, seems to be a completely accurate picture of ECR and the rants that are fostered here. Actually, if the BRC was a little more nervous, and paid a bit more attention to me, I think I wouldn’t be so frustrated, as what I’m saying SHOULD make them nervous, since most of it pulls their covers ruthlessly. At least, I hope it does…..sometimes, I have a hard time with ‘ruthless’…. too much of a softie….. SIGH…. I can’t help it if I don’t enjoy hurting people…..

However, any hurt that I cause the BRC is NOTHING, NOTHING when compared to the pain and misery that will be our lot when the massive stupidity our species has displayed for the past 5000 years finally catches up to us…. Yesterday, I posted a quote from Lazarus Long, from The Notebooks Of, that is germane to this discussion…. It said this:

“Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” — Lazarus Long

We are writing our own judgment, with our continued denial of the facts about global warming, and the serious effects of overpopulation and pollution on the ecosystem, and are being quite insistent on making it happen as fast as we can. This leaves us little time at all to save those of us who don’t go along with this stupidity, who would sooner survive into the next millennium, rather than die, to the last man, in this one.

I only wish that more people would start to throw off the state of mind that leads to denial, and start kicking some 1% ass, as the issues around all of this aren’t the major problem for us. The main problem is the assholes who are in charge of the world, who don’t have a clue as to just how stupid they are being, and are driving us, blindly, down the road to extinction…. Their intransigence in denying all of the evidence that is there is, in my mind, about as deliberately stupid as one can be, and it’s just a damn shame that, because they are stupid, I have to live with the consequences…. or, more accurately, die from them….

Ah well, c’est la vie! Writing my rants, and shouting the message from the vantage of this blog, are about all I can do…. As I’ve said before, all you can do, is all you can do…..

“Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
__________________________________

I’ll take it…. and there is nothing about “settling” in that decision. It isn’t bad, considering the struggle I went through to write it…. It’s tough to come up with around 2000 words a day, and make it all fresh and excellent…. Not that I’m complaining; I’m the one who decided on this format…. It’s all good, or,  as John Lennon’s mom used to say, it’s nothing to get hung about…. Not sure what she meant by that…..   🙂   Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3

Well, it does match the door stop….

Posted on by
9

Ffolkes,
One week into the six, and my ass hurts already….. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it all six weeks here in front of the computer without suffering from some major ass bite. Which is fine, if only I had some way to exercise without turning into a lump of pain. That, to me, is the worst part about having the type of pain I do, i.e., I can’t DO anything I used to do, in the way of physical exertion…. it’s all history, thanks to the cumulative effects of hard physical exercise during the first 40 years of my life…..

Some years ago, when I was first seeing my doctor about my back, and the pain therein (which, at the time, was constant and unrelenting….), he told me that my condition was becoming increasingly common in men and women who had been athletic for much of their lives…. It seems that in later years, the body begins to break down faster, and to a greater degree, than those of people who were not so sports oriented. According to him, my years of playing football, basketball, and baseball, when added to my martial arts conditioning, and over 700 fights in which I engaged in my work, all served to take its toll on my back and joints…. If I had stuck with being a nerd, rather than a warrior/nerd, I’d have been better off, it seems….

I found, and still find, it ironic, that the very activities that I was always told would keep me healthy until my dying day are responsible for the rapidly deteriorating tissues and joints that are giving me fits, here in my declining years. And still, because of the way our culture is skewed, sports and physically extreme activities are encouraged, because it is a billion dollar business, selling sports, and sports accessories.

Sports figures are made into cultural icons, and even held up as examples for the young to emulate, no matter how strange or stupid they may be….. There are a number of things that the BRC encourages among the populace, such as sports, for one, that are NOT what they seem to be….. More than anything else, these activities, (the movie industry, travel industry, and others) exist for the benefit of the BRC, not the people, and actually serve to distract the public from what is actually going on…. The public is actually encouraged to take part in these activities, as the leaders know that those things keep the public busy with stuff that really doesn’t matter, and not focused on what they are doing behind the scenes, about things that DO matter….

How the hell did that happen?….. Here I am, only four or five paragraphs into the intro, and I’m ranting already…. I didn’t even notice when I slipped on the Ratty Old Robe of Outrage and started in on the BRC…. it’s becoming too natural, I guess; I barely know I’m doing it…. Well, it could be worse, I suppose…. I could be the kind of person who didn’t give a shit, and not get outraged at all…. which wouldn’t make ME a happy camper, though there might be some who would smile and nod in approval….

Ah well, it’s quite liberating to let that kind of angst out, so I’ll just let it go without further comment, and get on with today’s Pearl…. Once more, I’ve managed to create an intro out of virtually nothing; that’s got to count for something, right? It says so right here on the label….. Right….. Shall we Pearl?….
__________________________________

“Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on society’s whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.” — John J. Miller, And Hope to Die (in _Jokertown Shuffle – Wild Cards IX_)

Fiction is the repository and temple of the Metaphorse…. which explains this passage from a novel I haven’t read, but obviously need to get around to finding, so I can. This is such a perfect statement of Reality in society today, it could only be said in a work of fiction, because anyone stating this in the public venue would be shouted down by the aforementioned politicians, lawyers judges, policemen, and may I add, preachers/priests and the rest of the priestly hierarchies…. none of whom would wish for the truth of the idea become commonly held knowledge, or even a point of discussion…. They have too much invested in keeping things just as they are to allow any such utterance, without the protection of metaphor….

With metaphor, in both prose and poetic form, the truth can be intimated, and made clear for those who otherwise would never even consider the concepts involved, without being connected directly to Reality itself. Most of society has been brainwashed since birth, and are trained to accept as true anything told to them in a newspaper, on a TV by a person in a suit, or by someone holding a Bible, no matter how disconnected from Reality that may be. Reading things in a book, a piece of fiction, they are taught, is suspect, and not to be believed without corroboration from someone in authority….

“God said it, the Bible told me, and I believe it, so that’s the end of it!”  How many people do you know who would say that? It saddens me no end to know that even I, who tend to drive that sort of person crazy in no time at all, know several folks who feel this way. I have to say, if nothing else, these folks are stubborn, but, stubbornness is not always a survival technique… it can also serve as a death warrant. One has to learn to give up knowledge that is shown indisputably to be false, or face consequences not to their liking.

As I’ve stated before, I have no issue with ffolkes who are sincerely devout in their beliefs…. I’ve found that people who do try to live by the rules that Jesus put forth are generally good people, with good instincts, and have a lot of compassion and kindness in their nature.  I have at least two people in my own family who fit that description, and at least three of the people with whom I grew up are what I would call true Christians, because they use their faith as a supportive tool to enhance their lives, not as a crutch, or a reason to feel entitled…..

In other words, they don’t use their faith as a mask, to hide from the world what they really are like inside…. or, as tool of manipulation, to further their own agenda, which generally involves theft from everyone else, in one form or another….. I have found, by experience with real people in the real world, that a good 95% of those who claim to be Christians are NOT true believers…. Only about 5% of those who call themselves Christians make any attempt to live up to that social reformer’s rigorous standards….

Of that figure, 95% of all self-identified Christians, the great majority can be considered, and are generally labeled, as the ignorant masses, whose minds have been under the control of someone else their entire lives. The smaller percentage of that number, probably only about 1 or 2% of the 95%, are those who either don’t believe in the dogma at all, but use it as the modus operandi for their sociopathy, or those who at least believe it on the surface, but only because it is to their advantage to do so… They would believe anything at all, if it kept them in power….

“Always watch where you are going.  Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.” — Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

I’m not sure whether those who stubbornly cling to their faith (i.e., they walk through the Forest with eyes closed….) are like that because of their nature, or their nurture, and in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter. But, it sure would be nice, for those of us who ARE aware of the truth behind the lies we’ve been told all our lives, to have a few more of us out there, working against the small percentage of people who are taking advantage of the massive ignorance and apathy of the great masses of people, who don’t have the time or mental energy to care about anything but what is happening right in front of them.

Those who control society for their own personal benefit, without any regard for the rest of humanity’s suffering at their hands, aren’t going to change, and they aren’t ever going to give up what they’ve got without a struggle…. I can only wish for enough ffolkes like myself, who can see the truth, to find a way to save at least a few of our species, if only for some galactic zoo of extinct species…… If enough of us get together, there is still a small chance, though the odds of success are diminishing, second by second….

“I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.” — John Wayne

(Did your jaw drop as far as mine when you read that?)

Bah! Enough pessimism for one day…. let’s go find something a bit more uplifting, shall we?….. As a parting thought, please note the following, which serves to illustrate and define the general feeling in modern society, in terms of ethics and morality…. Consider, if you will, the cultural paradigms that are needed to make this statement a joke, one that no one at all would think was out of place…. In other words, by its calm acceptance of the implied lack of ethics, it shows how deeply ingrained is the attitude (made crystal clear by Mr. Wayne…), in the members that make up that society….

“I think our No.1 problem is that nobody wants to take responsibility for anything, but don’t quote me.” — Randy Glasbergen, “The Saturday Evening Post
__________________________________

The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt

Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Me!
Me who?
That’s right!
What’s right?
Meehoo!
That’s what I want to know!
What’s what you want to know?
Me, who?
Yes, exactly!
Exactly what?
Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain!
Exactly what on a chain?
Yes!
Yes what?
No, Exactlywatt!
That’s what I want to know!
I told you – Exactlywatt!
Exactly what?
Yes!
Yes what?
Yes, it’s with me!
What’s with you?
Exactlywatt – that’s what’s with me.
Me who?
Yes!
Go away!
Knock knock…

~~ Shel Silverstein — from the book “A Light in the Attic” (1981)
__________________________________

Having spent most of my severe angst in section one, I’m not even going to try to start another rant, but will instead move right to an old school pearl…. Gotta save a little of that negative energy in case some store clerk gets uppity….    🙂

This one is truly random, with just a hint of order hidden amongst the entropy and chaos, kind of like a hidden treasure, y’know? Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. If not, well, it’s all good stuff to think about, and will get us through to the end….. or close enough for our purposes here today…. Someday, I’m going to have to figure out just what that is…..

“The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: “Of course it is none of my business, but –” is to place a period after the word “but.” Don’t use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

“When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.” — R. Pirsig

“I know th’MAMBO!!  I have a TWO-TONE CHEMISTRY SET!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
(You’ve got to love Zippy’s ability to put his finger on what’s REALLY important!….)

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

— Emily Dickinson

“Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman–a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spake Zarathustra”

— Bother! said Pooh, as he talked Kanga and Roo into a threesome.
(Oh, that Pooh!…. such a naughty bear…..)

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have kindled this inner light.” — Albert Schweitzer

Well, there you go…. If y’all can’t figure out a moral, or a hint of one, from that seven, well, I’m failing in my task…. But, if you can’t, no worries, as it’s my fault for being too obscure, and not leaving enough sign posts to the clues…. We don’t grade in this class anyway, it’s not even pass/fail, and doesn’t count toward graduation…. In fact, the only way to take this course is to audit it unofficially…. Ah well, as I said, they will all stand alone, anyway, so…. if nothing else, enjoy!….
__________________________________

I don’t like to judge these Pearls as they go out, other than from the basic standards I apply to everything I do in life, so I’m not going to say anything about this one except I’m satisfied with it, and it’s done…. Those last three words alone make it all worthwhile, given the effort it took to get there…. So be it…. there’s another three appropriate words for today….    🙂

Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

dozer3