That’s my secret, you see…. I actually was there, but I survived with mind and memory intact, and no lingering states of confusion due to drugs….. Oh, I won’t bother to tell you I didn’t use them, but I never got so far into it that it became an issue with daily living or cognitive deficits…. So far, as all the evidence clearly indicates, my cognitive powers are completely intact…. They may be ALL I have intact, for that matter, as my body continues to give out at an alarming rate, which has more to do with being too athletic than with overdoing recreational drugs. My doctor tells me NOW that if I’d been less active when younger, I wouldn’t be paying the price I am now….. NOW they tell me…..

C’est la vie, I suppose…. There isn’t a lot I can do about it now, in any case, so I just live with the pain, and try to get on…. and in that spirit, I think we should get on with today’s Pearl…. after this bit of housekeeping…..

Correction, maybe…. Yesterday, I attributed a piece of poetry to Thomas Cowper… I am currently unsure, but that may have been in error. I have evidence that suggests it may have been William Cowper. I will research, and let y’all know…. Silly Smart Bee listed it merely as Cowper, and I filled in the Thomas out of memory…. which I now find may have been wrong…. alas, I am human, damn it!…

“That was Zen, this is Tao.” — Peter da Silva, April 24, 1993

Shall we Pearl?…..
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I’ve been very lucky with my latest incarnation of Smart Bee…. it seems to be giving me a higher percentage of usable quotes than it did before I had trouble with it. In fact, so many quotes are worth saving that I’m starting to group them into subject lots…. Here are a significant number of intriguing and/or interestingly accurate observations on modern life in America, land of the marginally civilized….

Homosexuality is *not* a sickness.  Bigotry is. — Smart Bee

“Whether you have an abortion, what you put in your own body, with whom you have sex – these are not the affairs of the state.  A government does not exist to control the citizens.  When it does, it is a tyranny, and must be fought.  The tree of liberty, Jefferson warned us, must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” — Gore Vidal

I swear to the Lord
I still can’t see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.

— (Langston Hughes) The Black Man Speaks

“Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We’re working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we’ve fallen easy prey to charlatans, quacks, and hustlers.” — Dr. Walter Williams

“The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.” — Joseph Conrad

“Democracy is government by the people with open discussion and free speech. This allows those with no ideas to unload their thinking in the most tedious and lengthy manner. After this, a vote is taken, and the least informed will oppose the most confused. The result, inevitably, will be known as model legislation. In time, it will proliferate, and eventually a commission will be formed to review what has been done and why it isn’t working and it will recommend reforms of the previous efforts. All of this will be published in various government journals and cause great debate. There will be a veritable waterfall of newspaper editorials and Johnny Carson will use the whole thing as a part of his monologue. In the end, the reforms will be defeated. –Smart Bee

“Christianity:  Please help find the cure.” — Smart Bee

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist…. A few days ago, as I sat in a shady spot outside on a beautiful California day, I began to think, for some misbegotten reason, about Christianity in this country, and I wondered about exactly how many different definitions of the word “Christian” there would be. There are so many different interpretations of the Bible, and so many different definitions of what is “Christ-like”, that I can see no hope of any consensus answer to this question. A conservative guess would be about 5,000 different churches, and varying interpretations of scripture; it’s more likely that Los Angeles and New York City alone contain that many, and the number nation-wide is probably closer to a hundred thousand….. None, I repeat, NONE, of the people who embrace the dogma associated with each of these various cults {yes, cults, by definition…look it up….} are at all willing to even consider any truth in any of the others, and they ostensibly are all worshiping the same dude…. It’s a bit pathetic, when one stops to look at the broader picture…. SIGH… ah well, back to general culture, and the caricaturization thereof…..)

— You may be redneck… if you refer to Mason jars as “the good glasses.” — Smart Bee

“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

On that note, we will go ever onward, seeking approbation, or at least hoping for poor aim….
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First I thought, “Keats, or Yeats, or Pope” for this morning, as I don’t have a poem ready for bleeding…. Then I had the irreverent but accurate thought, “Long time no Pope….”, so, here is a selection from one of my favorite poets, whom I also consider to be possibly the best ever, from a technical and creative standpoint…. He wrote A LOT, and almost all of it is wonderful…. He definitely makes the star of humanity shine brighter in the heavens….. enjoy!

Chorus of Youths and Virgins

Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn’d, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent’ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen’rous breast?

Chorus.
Love’s purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bent to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia’s eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand’ring, self-consuming fire,
But Hymen’s kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.

Semichorus.
Oh source of ev’ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse’s fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev’rence, hope, and love.

Chorus.
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine
Purest love’s unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.

Alexander Pope
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“Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.” — Bhagavad Gita (c. B.C. 400)

I first read the Bhagavad Gita sometime in my twenties, or possibly just before, while studying at UC Berkeley. I remember my sense of wonder at the depth of the insight into human nature, and my feeling of awe that the words I was reading were written well over two thousand years ago. Here was knowledge that, if commonly understood, could change the very face of human civilization. In my naivete, I couldn’t believe that this wasn’t the basis for everything that society believed, or that any of what I had read was not commonly held by everyone who ever went to school, or had read or heard the words spoken by Krishna to Arjuna……

The words in this little treasure-trove of wisdom had changed the world, when first written, I’m sure, with lasting effects on the culture of India at the time, effects that have carried over into modern times. Unfortunately, these effects have survived in altered state, changed to suit the priests and preachers with the same kinds of twists and perversions as happened to the teachings of a later sage, Jesus of Nazareth. The insight contained in the lessons of both Krishna and Jesus were used to benefit the only the institutions created by the icons, instead of being used to benefit all of mankind, as they were intended…..

The statement quoted above out of the ancient text, regardless of the degradations enabled by the avaricious, remains as true today as when first written. And, as proof of these assertions, I offer the following piece of BRILLIANCE….. pay close attention, it’s subtle….

I took Brad Templeton out to lunch one day, and afterwards, we stopped by a bakery to bring eleven doughnuts back to the office.  The baker offered a free sticky bun to pad our order to an even dozen, and Brad refused the bun.  After we left, I asked why.  He said that he never selects buns, especially pad buns. — Smart Bee

Sorry, I’m incorrigible. Don’t incorrige me…..  🙂    Just a little fun…. any who, if one looks closely enough, the truth is hidden in what has been said here…. hidden right in plain sight, in fact…. Like any such magical gem, it is visible to those who can see…..
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