Tag Archives: Tao Teh Ching

Save that elbow grease for the widow Jones; she uses it for baking…..

Posted on by
3

Ffolkes,

If today’s post gets done at all, ’twill be a miracle of some proportion…. The cat slept late, my back and hips are killing me, Time wobbled, while Space stood and watched…and I haven’t the slightest clue, about anything…. It has taken me 26 miserable minutes to dress, (sans shoes, or brushing of hair, as I didn’t want to bend over, or move around quite so much yet, until the topical pain killer I spread on my lower back takes effect) (it’s quick, good stuff…. new from the MJ Pharmacy I go to….)…. I then  booted up, poured a cup of coffee laced with some Elixir of Indica, and proceeded to write a TERRIBLE title for today’s Pearl, which will no doubt go through several incarnations before I settle on one sufficiently weird to pass my filters…..

Finally, when I sit down to try to write this, duty calls me to the throne for the morning worship session….. SIGH…. Nobody bothered to tell me to gird my grid for a big one today, but it looks as if the full set of hip, shoulder, and neck restraints should be fastened before we set out, for sure…. I think, maybe, we’ll even issue helmets today….

Just in case I forget to tell you later, today’s Pearl will be….. what? Shit…. I completely spaced on what I intended to write there, & I have the feeling it was important…. Damn this fog in my head! I can’t seem to pull a coherent thought out of my ass, much less my head…. If this keeps up, we’re going to have to resort to one of our emergency tools to get us out of this morass of mindlessness, that seems to have formed in front of me this morning, necessitating either complete retreat, or a long detour to find ANY rational thought, one that could conceivably be used to create a Pearl….

This new hazard on our trail, in spite of its extreme effect on my mind, will NOT be allowed to affect the Pearl itself, other than the absolute mess it has made of this intro thus far. I swear this upon the name of my father, and y’all KNOW what that means…. Now, there is NOTHING in this world will keep me from completing my duty in this….

NOTHING, caps obviously deliberate, for emphasis. There is no force on this planet that could cause me to swerve from a duty I’ve chosen to assume; the man who taught me about duty wouldn’t have it any other way, thus, my choice is the same, and by evoking his name, I seal the deal so there is no backing out. If I say I’ll do it, then, it will be done; the only possible reason for it not to be done would be my own death.  Nothing else is a valid reason to abrogate duty.

That being said, it’s probably best to go immediately into Emergency Closing #4, which is the quickest way out of this conundrum, and on into today’s offering…. Sometimes, with #4, I don’t even have the time to finish whatever it is I’m in the middle of typ…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.” — Johann von Goethe
_____________________________

Johann is right in his assertion; in fact, he’s one of our favorites, simply because he consistently sees the world clearly, and describes it, as he did this time, as he sees it, with elegance, charm, and wit….. Plus, this idea COULD be considered as bearing a very strong resemblance to what we do here in ECR, when we create the pearls that stimulate the Gentle Readers to think, to cogitate, to exercise the muscles of the mind, until they’re strong enough to stand up to Reality, and laugh in its face…. Well, maybe not the last part….. Reality doesn’t like to be laughed at, unless it’s funny…. Any whom, before my lack of coherency causes a complete loss of speech from frustration, let’s go for a dive, and see what Smart Bee has for us today….

“Insanity is fun if you do it right.” — Smart Bee (All I can say is, “Whee!”….)

“A brute kills for pleasure.  A fool kills from hate.” — Lazarus Long

“…I probably shouldn’t point at the word ‘reptiles’ when I say ‘businessmen.'” — Rajeev Pandey

“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it… Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.  But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings — that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” — Buddha

“Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is boring without it.” — Pearl S. Buck

“We have art that we do not die of the truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

He not busy being born
Is busy dying.

— Bob Dylan

Now, there are those who would say this is somewhat esoteric, as well as exotically eclectic, if they were ever given the chance….they’d be correct in that, too…. S’okay, we’re used to it around here…. In fact, all it really does is give us an appetite for a poem…. Shall we move on to section two? Good…. After you….
_____________________________

I’ve been using the poems I’ve been getting in the email lately, because some are classics, and others were from authors I’d never before used, or seen, for that matter…. Today, we’ll go with a classic, because, in the state my mind is in today, I NEED a classic, to help me find some sort of balance, or even just a moment or two of grace and elegance, to set me back on the right path to a more sane, satisfying day….. A lot to expect from a poem, eh?…. Ah well, I’ve always been more optimistic than was good for me…. I particularly enjoy this one, for its whimsical use of his sister’s name to furnish the first letter of each line…. now THAT is talent…. with discipline….

Acrostic : Georgiana Augusta Keats

Give me your patience, sister, while I frame
Exact in capitals your golden name;
Or sue the fair Apollo and he will
Rouse from his heavy slumber and instill
Great love in me for thee and Poesy.
Imagine not that greatest mastery
And kingdom over all the Realms of verse,
Nears more to heaven in aught, than when we nurse
And surety give to love and Brotherhood.

Anthropophagi in Othello’s mood;
Ulysses storm’d and his enchanted belt
Glow with the Muse, but they are never felt
Unbosom’d so and so eternal made,
Such tender incense in their laurel shade
To all the regent sisters of the Nine
As this poor offering to you, sister mine.

Kind sister! aye, this third name says you are;
Enchanted has it been the Lord knows where;
And may it taste to you like good old wine,
Take you to real happiness and give
Sons, daughters and a home like honied hive.

~~ John Keats ~~

_____________________________

Below this paragraph, you will find a rant…. I wrote it about a month ago, when the article it discusses first hit the news…. I happened to have a reason to go over it again, and saw that, not only is it a good rant, it is on a subject that shouldn’t be dismissed, or ignored, or put on a back burner, just because the people involved aren’t actively talking about it…. In fact, that is all the more reason to keep it in the public eye, as it is information they don’t WANT us to be thinking about, or paying any attention to whatsoever….

This administration has proven, by its very silence, which it has maintained ever since these statements were released by the head manipulator and his lackeys (The potUS, the senator, and the congressman, Barry, Di, and Mikey-boy…., the last being a Republican,Tea Party idiot, er, goon,  er, stooge, who is on record as believing global warming to be a matter of debate… In this instance, he is playing a natural straight man to the president’s (almost) comically untruthful outburst, adding his own fabrications in support of his colleague’s blindly obedient lies…), because, hey, they’d rather the public just forget all about this issue….

Hence, we are subjected to this series of charades in front of the press, which is them doing their best to make that happen, followed by complete and utter silence on the subject….. It’s an old technique, long in use by spies to weaken foreign governments…. All it takes is to  make outrageous statements, no matter how egregiously false, then shut up entirely, leaving the public only the memory of the lies to chew on, until they begin to believe the planted seeds….

One of the interpretations of the material in the ancient book by Sun Tzu, The Art of War, includes this concept as a viable and much used strategy in war, giving numerous historical examples wherein it was employed successfully…. Think about that for a moment, about what it implies about how the people we elect view us, and about the depths to which they’re willing to sink, in their quest to keep us under their control….

So, to piss them off, and keep my own angst fresh, I’m going to keep throwing this up in their faces, once a month or so, just to keep my hand in…. In the process, hopefully,  I can ensure sure my other Readers are made aware, if they’re not already clued in, of how egregiously they are being manipulated by the BRC and their minions….

From January 21, 2014:

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

If you would please read this article, the arguments that follow will make a lot more sense; if you don’t, it may take you a bit longer to figure out the gist of it….    😉     Plus, you’ll know, for sure, I’m not making this stuff up, just so I have something to write about….

http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-help-from-russians-193641893.html

In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase “Ipse dixit” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Pythagoras, xxv

Ipse Dixit. [Latin, “He himself said it.”]  An unsupported statement whose veracity rests solely on the authority of the individual who makes it.

And so it begins….. All of a sudden, many months AFTER the fact, several high-ranking officials from the administration all come out with the same story-line, IMPLYING that Eric Snowden was influenced and/or helped by Russian spies to do what he did…. This statement by Mikey-boy Rogers, U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman, R-Mich., Senator Feinstein’s cohort (she’s his counterpart in the Senate, who put out her office’s lies about this issue yesterday….), is the newest step in the ongoing attempt by the administration to paint Mr. Snowden’s actions with the brush of treason, when, in fact, they KNOW he is not a traitor, but, rather, a patriotic American, caught in the web of intrigue THEY created with their clandestine, illegal activities….

As soon as I saw this headline today, my highly-trained, delicately-honed, automatic political crap detector SCREAMED at me….. “LIES, LIES, MADE UP LIES!!”, it said, without much doubt implied (accuracy factor of the detection meter said it was 99.9% likely to be lies…. which makes it pretty certain, as I’ve programmed it to never say that it is completely sure; it defaults to that number when it is…)….. This is SO obviously a campaign to smear Snowden, it positively REEKS! They are introducing doubt of his character into the dialogue, which, come to think of it, is only a monologue, because, hey, he’s not here to defend himself, is he?

This, of course, is typical political posturing, reminiscent of any other campaign, such as an election run, when they need to direct the public’s attention toward certain areas, away from others, so they can control the conversation…. In his speech, Obama admitted to responding to a public dialogue called for by the leak of information, while never admitting any wrongdoing for having committed the spying initially. Yet, this conversation, this debate, has only shown them to be more secretive than we knew, and they are pulling out all the stops to stop any further investigation into, or outcry about what is REALLY going on…. Naturally, since they are politicians, they will approach this as a campaign to be won; the first step in any campaign is to decrease the viability, the believability of the opposition…. Hence, unproved, unfounded, and untrue accusations, out of nowhere, to try to demonize Eric Snowden….

They say first, it’s beyond his abilities to have done this…. Well, hell, even the most thick-headed fool can see this is a total fabrication…. If this is true, would it mean that the NSA made a habit of hiring programmers that couldn’t understand what they were being tasked to do? Doesn’t make any sense to me…. This man was part of the program, a programmer, and KNOWS how to read data, as well as write the programs that would do so…. Hell, I’m only a high powered user, and I understand what is being done, and what WAS done…. This statement is an obvious lie, an attempt to demean Snowden, so he looks more like a villain, or, at best, the dupe of master spies….

The second thing to note about this claim, is that it is introduced by a politician, who obviously is NOT capable of judging what a programmer is capable of doing with a computer…. Mikey-boy probably has to ask his admin how to use his smart-phone, which is, arguably, smarter than he is, technically speaking… Yet, this idiot, in his power suit and tie, makes this claim unequivocally, thereby implying that one of the most competent programmers alive (look who hired him to begin with!….) isn’t capable of doing something he was trained to do, but, had to be helped by a foreign power…. A pretty far-fetched stretch, to my way of looking at it….

The one professional spy they quoted, from the CIA, it should be noted, said, in his statement, right off, so he couldn’t be accused later of any prevarications…. “I don’t have any particular evidence”, but, then goes on to agree with the outrageous claims made by a politician, one with NO FUCKING CLUE about the glaringly obvious untruth of what he proposes, or, indeed, of how much truth any of what he said might have contain…. Rogers’ job, which he performed perfectly, was, simply, to put in the minds of the public a single idea, one small but important lie, that Snowden was made to do what he did, by coercion, by trickery, or by duplicity; they don’t say which, nor do they have to…. They merely imply, without directly accusing, so that the lies they intend to bring out later, as seeds for further doubt, will find fertile soil in the simple minds of the public….

None of the truth, or any actual connection to reality of the claims he was making concerned him; he was strictly a talking head, on a major TV show; his mission was to plant in the public awareness the idea that Eric Snowden didn’t act alone, and that the very act of his doing what he did, regardless of ANY evidence to the contrary, should be viewed as proof of his having had help from another country…. The fact that this isn’t remotely true was not an issue; the message was delivered, and supported by the other actors in the play…. Throw in the claim about him being technically unable to do what he did, and you’ve got some juice to keep the story going, even though all of it is a complete fabrication….

Ffolkes, if you can’t see that this is true, that you were deliberately lied to, and manipulated in an attempt to make you think what the government wants you to think, well, I guess I should just use THEIR justification and tell you…. You, too, are an idiot, and the fact is, if you believe any of what this man says about this subject, that, in itself, can be considered as PROOF of your idiocy….. incontrovertible, undeniable PROOF. (After all, that’s the same method of proof they’re offering for THEIR assertions…..) If the timing, and the words themselves, don’t make your crap-detector go off like it was on fire, then I’m afraid there isn’t much hope for you in the real world….

These statements were merely the latest tactic to be applied by the White House political strategists, all without having to bring out their big gun, the president, with his down-home, I’m-so-sincere, boyish face, and, the now-famous, good-ol-boy, aw-shucks grin, both of which are political tools of great value to him, but only if not over-used….. Right now, they’ve got a few of the sidekicks out in the limelight, after his speech over the weekend, making up stuff and carrying on with all the talking points and deliberate manipulations, all orchestrated in Mr. Snowden’s absence….. one I hope he continues to maintain, as it is the ONLY hope he has of surviving the future (….Ironically enough, in a case of Life imitating Life, this is a problem ALL OF US are going to have in the very near future…. that of running out of any hope of surviving the future, when the very air we breathe will be toxic to us….)

After seeing this story, and taking into account the other stories in response to the president’s speech about the nonexistent changes he claims he wants to make to the NSA mission (I mean, look closely at what he said…. He isn’t changing ANYTHING of any significance…..), I think it would be safe to predict that in the next few days and weeks, we will hear more fabrications and implications, with or without any actual evidence, about Mr. Snowden, as the administration continues to distract and defuse, hoping that if they stall long enough, something else will come up to take the public’s awareness from their spying, and put it back in the closet, or sweep it under the rug, where they keep all the other stuff they don’t want us to see or know, about what they are REALLY doing behind our backs….

(Note from February…. I personally think they’re hoping for another idiot to steal a gun and shoot up a mall, or a school somewhere, which always takes all the public’s attention and focuses it on their unreasonable fears for a couple of weeks….But, then, I’m pretty convinced of their complete lack of any human compassion, anyway, so, my concerns reflect my belief in their human nature, and their lack of any sort of virtue that would make them tell the truth, or espouse an agenda that benefits anyone but themselves….)

You can bet on that, ffolkes, for sure…. They’re not going to stop lying, just because they’ve been caught at it…. They’ll only get more bold with it…. It’s the way they’re built, they can’t, and won’t, help it…. There’s no profit in it for them to give up, is there? And, profit is what they are all about, when it comes down to the bottom line…. Profit for their self-interests, which are, to them, more important than the whole rest of the human race…..

As Lily Tomlin’s character, Edith Ann, used to say, when she was done making her brilliantly simple observations of people’s foibles…., “And that’s the Truth! THPPPPT!”

“Plausibility is the morality of fiction.” — Edith Mirrilees

Monthly update: The administration’s silence on the NSA spying issues continues to this date…. I’ve seen only one article in the past month on the subject, and it was merely a rehash of this information, with no real new developments reported…. They’re letting it go as long as they can without bringing any of it up themselves, so as to give the public, which has a notoriously SHORT attention span, a chance to forget all about it….. Naturally, the media is allowing this to continue without comment….  Good luck on having that stay the same, dudes…. Not if I have anything to say about it…..

😉

I’ll be here, and I’ll be reprinting this, or a fresher version, either in a month, or, before that, if and/or when new statements are forthcoming from the potUS, or one of his myrmidons….. (Unless, of course, they decide to stop me…. That would be the ONLY reason I wouldn’t be posting a month from now…. in which case, you’d no doubt read about all the dead feds in the news, if they can count that high…. I don’t intend to go, shall we say, quietly? We shall say it..
_____________________________

Well, I cheated, I guess, but, if you were here at the beginning, you’ll understand why, and be in perfect agreement that it was the right thing to do, at least for today….. If you weren’t here for the beginning, you certainly aren’t here at the end, so who the hell am I talking to? Hell, I don’t know, nor do I care at this point….. It’s done, again, and I’ve got no more excuses to keep from finishing the process now…. So, see ya….  I love you all…..

(No, I don’t know why that came out just then, but, it’s true…. and I just realized it is the underlying reason I rant about politics and global warming….That may sound pompous, but, hey, y’know what?  So I am, pompous, that is, and it’s as true as the first statement, so, we’ll let it all stay….)

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid the dubious

dozer3

Bump the aardvarks to the second seating….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

So much for planning…. It seems that I will have to wage war with my HMO to be able to live with any dignity; so be it. They’re the ones who are refusing to be flexible, or to make honest decisions based on rational reasons. So, I’ll take them to the court of public opinion over the next few months, and see how THEY like being raked over the coals of societal anger….. If I can get society on my side against them, it might work…. That being said, just as obscurely as I could, we can go on to bigger and better things….

Epiphany is, I find, an experience I’m finding hard to pin down to actual codification. No worries, though, as they don’t disappear, even if not immediately acted upon, as they usually insist upon; they come complete with enthusiasm, and their own sort of energy, created by the sheer exuberance of the manifestation experience. The one I had the other night, when conversing with my old friends, is shifting in outline the more I examine it, with the only clear issue coming to light being what I’m going to call The Search for Innovation….

Normally, I’d start ranting right there, detailing the idea I’m presenting, and taking a few well-earned shots at the Asininnies I hold as responsible for our plight today. Since, however, I’m not normal, I’m going to put that particular piece aside for a time, and let it percolate, because it doesn’t feel as if it’s quite done yet…. needs a few days more to cook in there.

Not only is it unwise to use food before it is well cooked, it is also unwise to use ideas before they are fully developed, lest they turn on us, and become toxic in themselves, just like a slab of meat we leave out too long…. No, I’m going to allow this epiphany to bake at the correct temperature, for a sufficient time to allow it to get done, all the way to the center….. Nobody likes a gooey center, do they?…. Not in a robust, world-saving concept they don’t…. They want it done all the way to the middle…

Now that I’ve completely mixed all the metaphors I could find, just to tell you we’re NOT ranting first off, and NOT yet detailing the inner workings of my recent ideas, but, rather, trundling along with no real direction or purpose, I am authorized to tell you we are nearing the end of today’s intro section, oddly enough, and will be heading off into the wilds of ECR in just a few moments….

Any hopes, dreams, or obsessive desires you may have acquired upon this short journey are completely your responsibility, and the management can not be held liable for any that are not fulfilled. Please leave the 3D glasses in the seat back in front of you, and exit to the rear when we come to a complete stop…. We hope you’ve enjoyed this small detour through the lobby, and hope you enjoy the rest of your day with us….

Shall we pearl?….

“…only here did the human soul in a higher sense acquire depth and become evil – and these are the two basic respects in which man has hitherto been  superior to other beasts!” — Friedrich Nietzsche
_____________________________

Unbeknownst to you, or me before I began today, my work space is operating with a handicap. The overhead light has burnt out, and, since I have worn out over half of the keys on my keyboard, to the point where the letters are no longer visible, it’s getting really hard to see which letter I’m hitting…. Now, of course, if I were a typist of classical excellence, it wouldn’t matter, because my hands would always be in the correct position to strike the appropriate keys…. but, I’m not, in the ultimate sense… I do type well, and classically, most of the time, but, when composing, it’s a different matter, as there are pauses to think, or edit, or fix typos, which can break up the smooth flow of the words onto the screen…

So, here we are, a large paragraph later, a hundred words or more, simply to tell you that I’m not going to rant in this section, but will instead fill this one up with an old-school pearl, of unknown, and heretofore unseen, parameters…. Enjoy!….

— Bother! said Pooh, as he kicked Piglet’s ass. — Smart Bee

“Not only is life a bitch, it has puppies.” — Adrienne E. Gusoff

“Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.” — Hermann Hesse

The Eternal is empty (like a bowl),
It may be used but its capacity is never exhausted.
It is bottomless, perhaps the ancestor of all things.
It unties its tangles,
It softens its light.
It becomes one with the dusty world.
Deep and still, it appears to exist forever.
I do not know whose son it is.
It seems to have existed before the Lord.

— Lao-Tzu (fl. B.C. 600)

Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage,
But wise through time, and narrative with age,
In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice,–
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Iliad of Homer, Book iii, Line 199

“Whatever you would make habitual, practice it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practice it, but habituate yourself to something else.”  — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — How the Semblances of Things are to be combated, — Discourses, Book ii, Chap. xviii

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.” — Gaiman and Pratchett, Good Omens
_____________________________

I’m in an odd frame of mind today, all things considered…. There is only one poet to whom I turn, on days such as this….

Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain,–
More fair, because impossible
That any gain.

The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little,–
And that’s the skies!
 
~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

Below the line under this short paragraph, you will find a relatively ancient Pearl…. from October of 2011, it is in the format I used at the time, which consisted of an introduction section, where any comments, or ranting, I had on tap were placed, followed by a group of pearls forming another pearl, with a short closing…. This structure, in this exact form, is how the Daily Pearls looked back then….. Today, it is saving me the effort of searching out another old-school pearl, since, hey, here’s one right here…. Enjoy!….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 10/7/11:

Ffolkes,

The nature of Reality is a fascinating subject, due in part, I believe, to that part of its nature that is amorphous, ever-changing and unpredictable. It is also hard, uncompromisingly immutable, and always the same. In these two facets, it is much like us, coexisting on the edge of light/dark, sharp/dull, sweet/sour, pleasure/pain. As we feel, so our view of what is real changes to suit those feelings. But though our view of it will alter to fit our whim, reality itself is immune to such manipulation. Its nature is to provide the truth that our illusions keep us from seeing, not to change at our direction. But it too will change, for entropy is the rule for which exceptions exist (see below), and entropy cannot be denied.

Thus even though our nature is but a mirror of Reality, it is not Reality itself, wish as hard as we might that it would be so. We are left with only our reasoning mind to cope with the dichotomy. And that is fine, for we are also dichotomous by nature; all of our senses obtain their information from the universe by registering presence/absence of substance (touch), molecules (smell), air waves (hearing), more molecules (taste), and photons (sight). So dichotomy is something with which our minds are comfortable.

But, though we can be comfortable with perceiving Reality, we still must be cautious, because danger, by its nature, is duplicitous, and can hide right out in the seemingly open. Our perceptions require us to review their veracity on a regular basis, lest surprises occur. Surprises, while nice coming from one’s boy- or girl-friend, can be rather unwelcome coming from Reality.

Especially those little conundrums that Life always seems to hand us that have their roots in the past; old debts, old friends, old enemies, all have a tendency to show up in our lives just when they are least welcome. Goes to show, I guess, that the old saw about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure makes a lot of sense when considered in that respect. Leading us back to another old saw…..be alert! The world needs more lerts. And so do we…..

“I went in search of my art, often in danger of my life. I have not been ashamed to learn those things which to me have seemed useful — even from vagabonds, barbers, and executioners. For we know how a lover will go a long way to meet the woman that he loves. How much the more, then, will the lover of wisdom be tempted to go in search of his divine mistress!” — Paracelsus

“The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” — John Vance Cheney

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.” — Stephen Hawking

A mighty pain to love it is,
And ‘t is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.

 — Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) — From Anacreon, vii, Gold

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;  supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” — Sun Tzu (fl. c. BC 500)

“If for every rule there is an exception, then we have established that there is an exception to every rule. If we accept “For every rule there is an exception” as a rule, then we must concede that there may not be an exception after all, since the rule states that there is always the possibility of exception, and if we follow it to its logical end we must agree that there can be an exception to the rule that for every rule there is an exception.” — Bill Boquist

Well! I don’t know about y’all, but I feel MUCH better!…… y’all take care out there…..
_____________________________

I’d say, more or less, this Pearl is pretty much typical for the breed…. Why I’d say that, I don’t know for sure, but, it FEELS true, so, we’ll go with it, and pretend it is, even if it isn’t…. Isn’t it amazing, how I can pull so many words out of an insane, completely useless piece of introspective nonsense?…. Well, I think so….

As long as nobody shoots me, or hauls me away to some dingy, freezing, rat-infested back room in some fleabag hotel, to beat me with a rubber hose, in a vain, forlorn attempt to force me to retract my strong words, against the BRC and the churches, bless their little black hearts and souls, well, I’ll be back tomorrow…. Okay, so, MAYBE I’ll get struck by an attack of common sense, or perhaps extreme embarrassment, but, otherwise…. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Tiny, torn pieces of once proud menu items….

Posted on by
3

Ffolkes,

With a last, silent slide down the slippery sky, the nearly-full moon fell behind the mountain to the west, filling the valley below with darkness complete….. Instantly, twelve silent shadows moved as one, filing through the forest, to pass the edge of the clearing where they had lain hidden, near the darker line of trees, swiftly making their way to where the moon was last seen. No curious animals stirred in the now Stygian night, as the line of warriors, weapons in hand, passed through, below the silent nests of sleeping birds; no rasp of scraping leather, or clack of loosely packed arrows escaped the troop, no wheezing breath betrayed their position….. The twelve warriors moved like ghosts through the forest night, making their way to their destined fate.

As they made their silent way toward the mountain, their destination loomed, a darker mass against the bulk of trees…. Massive, with small twinkling lights at the highest corners of the crenelated walls, the castle spread itself higher and higher up the mountain, to where sentries could just be made out, marching past the lights as they worked their way around the castle’s outer walls. At a hand-signal, the troop stopped, looking to the front of the line to where the leader, gazing up at the walls, stood at the edge of trees leading up to the castle’s moat, and bridge gate…. Discipline had them standing silent, waiting for the next step to be ordered…. Before this night was over, the world would change; many innocents would die, and a new world would greet the surviving few….

Fortunately for us, we won’t be around when they get into the castle…. It’s been quite a while since I  began a daily Pearl with a fictional story opening… It felt pretty good, actually, and, from the look of it, might be one I should put away to work on later, as it could conceivably work itself into a nice little tale…. So far, I’ve never finished one, but, hey, ya never know, do ya? Even I sometimes manage to do something right, so, hey, why not? In the meantime, here we are, already a good, solid two and bit of paragraphs into this, and it’s all good, and all fresh…. Bonus!

Of course, now we come to the conundrum of this type of opening section…. To wit: Now what? I suppose I could just jump in and start the dive, but, would that satisfy all the legal issues? Don’t know, & don’t want to pay the fines to find out…. Hmm, I could….. no, better not. Last time I tried that, it didn’t work out so well, and took me three days to recover my chutzpah…. Well, we could always…. wait, no, the automatic blender we’d need for that is broken…. Damn, well, shoot, what ARE we going to do? I can’t recall ever being precisely in this particular position before, but, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been here… I mean, even MY excellent memory has a few gaps in it….

Well, I guess there’s no other option; we’ll have to go back to method #4, which, in spite of its stark, ugly nature, remains the most effective choice to get this process unstuck at times like this…. I suppose if Reality weren’t quite so exquisitely diverse, there wouldn’t be as many choices, and making the right one would be easier…. Since it isn’t like that, we’ll have to go on with this, and hope for the best…..

Shall we Pearl?

“Being normal isn’t one of my strengths.” — gigoid
_____________________________

Other than the intro section, whose level of creativity needed for production has never been calculated (thankfully…), most of today’s Pearl is from 2012…. so, I’m creating a fresh pearl here, just so we can say it isn’t ALL old and possibly stale…. I’m not sure exactly what the parameters for this may end up as, so, I’d keep my safety harness hooked, at least loosely, if it were me….

“The farther you go, the less you know.” — Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching”

“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. . . . the human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

“Antiphanes said merrily, that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter were articulated next summer.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Man’s Progress in Virtue

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” — The Wizard Of Oz

“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book ii, Chap. xii, Apology for Raimond Sebond

“On with the dance, let joy be unconfined” is my motto, whether there’s any dance to dance or joy to unconfine.” — Mark Twain

“Being about to pitch his camp in a likely place, and hearing there was no hay to be had for the cattle, “What a life,” said he, “is ours, since we must live according to the convenience of asses!” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Philip

This, if you haven’t noticed, is quite possibly a perfect pearl, seven star random style, with a good set of ideas that add up to a pretty formidable lesson, if one has the wit to find it…. If not, it’s all still good advice, or, good thoughts with which to live life, so…. Any who, such perfection requires a finishing quote, one that reflects the useful nature of pearls, while still offering some actually useful information…. In those respects, this is as iterated…. perfect….

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total oblivion. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me and turn my inner eye to follow its path. When the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — The Litany Against Fear (Frank Herbert, -Dune-, 1965)
_____________________________

To avoid any potential lawsuits, here is one of my own poems, from some time in 2012….

Seeing is Conducive to Belief

Folly sits so comfortably upon my fevered brow
one would easily believe that I would know how
to look at Life with a jaded, weary eye
seeing enough, and more, to know Why.

Such seems the case, as I will it to be,
an open book of a face, it looks so like me;
what’s known to be so, needs no close attention
familiar sights require no minding, nor mention.

The eye is drawn at once to the stark and new,
and sent back to sleep by successful review.
Once we find evidence we feel we understand,
curiosity languishes, dismissed at command.

Ancient sages knew the insidious value of illusion,
preachers and pundits know the power of confusion.
Each pair of eyes contains its own point of reference,
each mind sets its own standards of preference.

Seeing is believing, for those who live in thrall,
accepting what is perceived is all they ever recall.
Unknown to them, reality follows another set of rules,
Deeper, more dangerous, and no place for fools.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Below this line you will find one of my most well-put together, and well-written pieces of work…. It’s a long rant, covering several issues, from way back in 2012 sometime…. I’m impressed, and so will you be…. I’m also lazy, and there’s just no cure for that…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. long as it is, it’s a pretty good read, I think….

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

It’s not every day I’m compelled to write about religion, politics, philosophy, and the Unified Field Theory, unless in separate pearls…. Taking them all on together might seem a bit egocentric of me, but I’ve never been one to dismiss a challenge, unless it was one that didn’t interest me…. This one definitely hits all the high points of my particular bent, or bents, so, what the hell, let’s see what happens…..

“Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.” — George Santayana

This idea is one that makes it possible for me to get through a lot of days without becoming homicidal toward a lot of people who bandy their religious beliefs about as if I were at all interested in them. I am aware that there have been a lot of good people throughout history, including current times, who are devout believers in one religion or another; they are sincere in their beliefs, and in their efforts to live their lives according to the precepts of their religions.

Some of them are even preachers, or priests of one sort or another, but the percentage in those categories of sincere belief is most certainly smaller than in the general public…. Let’s face it, most of those who go into the business do it because they aren’t any good at anything else, and the work is pretty easy…. Being a preacher is only hard if it gets taken seriously enough to try to help other folks, but most of the ones I’ve met are more concerned with convincing everyone of their piety than they are with actually helping…. and to most of them, the process of proving their own piety is accomplished by challenging everyone else’s beliefs, and sticking their noses into other people’s business….

One of the most insidious attractions of religion to many people, sad to say, is that it provides such a convenient vehicle for going through life without ever having to come up with an original thought or feeling. Every system of religious dogma, from no matter what cult, or division, or schism, or whatever it maybe called, is designed to give people answers to their questions about life and all the things that happen that they don’t understand, thus creating a sense of dependency. This is very convenient for political pundits, who manage to take advantage every time the preachers pull another scam on the public….

Unfortunately, those answers, comforting as they may be, seldom reflect reality very well, but are based rather on how that particular sect views the issue at hand…. and you can rest assured that those answers are designed to benefit the sect, and the preacher, in rather more ways than they will benefit the person with the questions…. But, I’m sure it is very comforting to know that if you just go along with what they say, you are somehow guaranteed something…. I never could understand that part very well, as there was nobody who could tell me just what was being promised…. other than I’d have to wait until I was dead in order to see it…. (The politicians like this one as well, because it gets people used to being told something,  i.e. campaign promises, then having those promises unfulfilled…. )

“There are so many ways that we sabotage our own divinity, our own possibilities. and the mythologies of race and gender may well head the list.” — Callan Williams

Ah yes, the mythologies of race and gender…. Consider this…. each of us who are of the genus homo sapiens is a unique individual, no matter what color our skin, or whether we are male or female. Unique in our own right, beginning with the pattern of DNA that dictates and defines the characteristics of the organism that is each one of us. Unique. This is indisputable scientific fact.

And yet, there are still people who choose to believe that there are characteristics shared by certain groups of homo sapiens that make them somehow superior or inferior to another group. Which of those characteristics they claim as exclusive is always based on articles of faith, and never on any physical evidence. The basis for these articles of faith are outlined in the myths, myths that ignorance breeds, born out of fear of the unknown….

These fears are pretty formless, as the people who have them don’t like to think about them. First, because then they feel uncomfortable, and being comfortable is preferable to thinking, no matter how much it may alleviate the fear.  Second, it is also hard to clearly define something that one rejects all evidence of knowing about; the fear is a known factor, and knowledge is not.

These behaviors are a very childish reaction to serious adult issues, but then, a large number of people never learn to deal with life after a certain age; the techniques of denial and avoidance that children rely on are hard for some to give up, especially in matters of emotional or psychological import.

“The ability to accept responsibility is the measure of the man.”  — Roy L. Smith

This is very true, and actually would be claimed as their own by many folks who make a habit of refusing to even consider being responsible for anything outside their own little world. The flaw in their world-view is their intractable belief that what THEY perceive is the only true way that the world CAN be perceived; they seem to be constitutionally unable to entertain any idea to the contrary.

This makes compromise with them somewhat of a difficult proposition, as their unfounded, but unshakeable belief in their own rightness gives them a feeling of entitlement, of believing that they can lie to and cheat others without consequence, because the “others” are, as unbelievers, not worthy of honorable treatment. (Hmm, I can’t decide if this sounds more like a fundamentalist Christian, a ruthless business man, or a politician…. since it fits all three, I guess it fits Romney like a second skin….)

“It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.” — George Santayana

This second quote from Mssr. Santayana points out another flaw in the philosophy held by those who follow many religions, under their own interpretations of the scriptures that are used by them. This flaw is obviously based on the relatively inarguable fact that all of them are faith-based philosophies…. grand, well considered, beautifully constructed philosophies, whose basic premise is an entity whose existence cannot be evidenced in the physical world.

There are innumerable thoughtful and elegant “proofs” of the existence of these entities, all of which, again, are constructed entirely of words and ideas. Some use logic, some history, some use hope, some use delusion, and some use an amorphous idea that cannot be pinned down…. none of them have actual pieces of physical evidence that incontrovertibly points to the existence of such an entity. If anyone knows of one, or two, or more, please let me know of it/them; I would be very interested in the information, and its provenance, to be sure….

I have wandered far afield today, indeed, into the most distant realms of human thought, and I’ll bet you thought I’d forget about the Unified Field Theory…. For those unfamiliar with the phrase, let me explain as succinctly as I can; this has gone on a long time, and I’m sure we all have better stuff to do, but, hey, I’m here, you’re here, so….

Any who, the Unified Field theory is a mathematical model of the universe that, in essence of its yet-to-exist-theory, explains and describes all the different types of energy that we know to exist in the Universe; Gravitational energy, Magnetic energy, Electric energy, Electromagnetic energy, Kinetic energy, Biochemical energy, life energy…. All are known to us; we can identify and measure them all, but we do not understand, even minimally, how they interact, or how they are all inter-related as part of the Universe at large…. hence the need for a unified theory, to connect our understanding of them all. It hasn’t been written yet; it is still just a concept for the future of scientific endeavor, though Stephen Hawking is said to be working on coming up with one before he dies…. if anyone can, then, he is certainly the most promising candidate.

In short, we are trying to discover and codify the one theory that explain how it all works, how everything fits into the larger picture…. There are many, including Mr. Hawking, who believe that knowing this can possibly lead us to a closer idea of the answer to the Why it all works the way it does…. by design, or by chance? Did God lose a bet, or win one? Or is there some as yet unknown reason beyond our current ability to understand? Being able to SEE and KNOW how it all works can only give us clues about the origins of it all.  Even if it doesn’t give us all the answers we seek, we will have a better understanding of the Universe, and ourselves, and thus, perhaps, a better idea of our true place in all of what we see….

Whew! If you made it to here, you are indeed worthy…. as well as, most likely, tired, confused, and a bit troubled, with doubts as to my sanity….  It’s okay, I understand…. and I don’t blame you. I should have handed out warning notices at the beginning…. Ah well, ’twas fun for me, and that will do…. Stop me, please, I can’t seem to shut up…. wait, don’t pull that pl….
_____________________________

I’m pretty certain that this one will NOT make it to the Pulitzer short list, but, it’s done, and around here, that’s what we’re shooting for, first of all…. Any issues of quality should be taken up with the literary committee, which meets on alternate leap years in the main library conference room downtown…. Feel free to join them at their next meeting, in January of 2016, I believe…. For the nonce, you’re on your own….. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

One final set of twins to discombobulate….

Posted on by
1

Ffolkes,

I’ve still to come to terms with Reality today;  this is a particularly trying issue just now, as it hits right at a very critical function…. Our argument began the moment my eyes opened, at about 0430 or so…. It seems Murphy, or some other iconic force of nature with similar asshole tendencies, wanted me to arise earlier, but, in my blissful ignorance, so blessedly bestowed upon me last night by the gods of sleep, with the aid of some beaudacious drugs, I completely blew him off, from about 3:15 until I finally arose….

He was pissed, (a minor piece of enjoyment for me….) but I was only mildly amused by that, since he didn’t fire off any of his usual fireworks upon my upheaval…. (I think that’s a good word to describe my process of getting out of bed these days…. between the stiff hips, back, generally painful movement, and the usual degree of morning lethargy, the act of arising can turn into quite a little ordeal these days…)

Any who, having gone to ground early last night, with some major pain from a minor back tweak, I wouldn’t have minded too much, but, damn, it sure felt good….. Not only to get to sleep easily, but to be able to turn over and go BACK to sleep as I wished…. The latter is a particularly nice bonus, as that is the worst part of being old and in pain, the not being able to sleep comfortably, or consistently, part….. Not sleeping well, or easily, or often, only adds to all the other difficulties involved in aging, sort of like how synergy flows, and builds up with resonant feedback…. Oh, damn!  What’s the word I’m looking for? Aha! Heterodyne!…. That’s it…. not sleeping causes a heterodyne effect in other problematic issues, making them bigger, and harder to deal with….

Okay, then!…. Now that the morning medical issues chat is out of the way, and I’m thoroughly embarrassed by my own inadvertent release of TMI, I suppose I should look for some other, less revealing way to get on with today’s business… It is, after all, my purpose in being here at all…. I hadn’t actually thought about how to open up today at all, and this diving right in, though it seems to have produced a sufficient amount of material, also seems a bit too much like the usual method of getting the intro done, i.e., mindless rambling around the back hallways in my head, until we find our way out into the light of the day….. Not that those intro sections aren’t legal, but, they’re still not what I’d prefer to see here every day…. Until I can figure out some sort of feasible method, though, it’ll have to do….

Oh, goodie…. Look! It’s happened again! Four to five completely worthless paragraphs, chock full of stuff that doesn’t mean anything to anybody…. Well, it could POSSIBLY mean something to me, but, I don’t wouldn’t have it with a warranty…. Any who, it’s street legal, obviously, so we’re going to bail on this whole intro thing, and get on with today’s dive and/or rant…. It can’t be any more difficult than this has proven to be, to be sure….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” — Terry Pratchett.
_____________________________

Today, the order of events has undergone some alterations, and the old-school pearl will be in this section…. No particular reason, other than I pasted the necessary rantable material in the other section without looking first, and I’m too lazy to move it now….. Here, then, for your delectation and elucidation, a harlequin, randomly chosen pearl of lustrous quality, complete with burgeoning hints of wisdom…. Enjoy!….

Better stop short than fill to the brim.
Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.
Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.
Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow.
Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven.

— Tao Te Ching

“Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability.” — Horace

“After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. “Your advice,” said Cicero, “were good if we were to fight jackdaws.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Cicero

“You take the lies out of him, and he’ll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he’ll disappear.” — Mark Twain

“With the neutron bomb, which destroys life but not property, capitalism has found the weapon of its dreams.” — Edward Abbey

“A lot of people voting for Pat Buchanan say they are doing so to send a message. Apparently that message is, Hey, look at me, I’m an idiot.” — Dennis Miller

“While the gentleman cherishes benign rule, the small man cherishes his native land.  While the gentleman cherishes a respect for the law, the small man cherishes generous treatment.” — Confucius, Analects, IV.11

Wow…. I guess today’s theme got into Smart Bee’s head, and turned that pearl in a direction that causes it to fit right in with today’s rant, below in section three…. If it isn’t clear, when reading the above pearls, think Beloved Ruling Class, and the antidote for society’s ills, to wit: Reason….
_____________________________

I love it when serendipity becomes subject to the influence of a good plan… I received this poem via email, from a poetry web site… Though I’ve read quite a few of this man’s poems, this is one I’d missed, or not gotten to yet….  My jaw dropped, and I was struck momentarily dumb as a statue, at the sheer, unadulterated power of metaphor (Metaphorse?) displayed, in this poem, and by the author…. one of a long line of crazy Irishmen…

A Coat

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

_____________________________

So, below here, you’ll find a bit of art, which I fell would help to show the point I’m going to attempt to make today…. The first photo goes hand in hand with the first link, which is an article that gives us the patina of lies from Senator Feinstein’s office, a statement that fully supports the mealy-mouthed lies and distortions put out by the President yesterday, in his oh-so-highly-anticipated, and oh-so-disappointingly-asinine speech regarding the leak of information by Eric Snowden that exposed the spying being done by the NSA….

The speech itself was a masterful litany of garbage, from all I can tell, a political masterpiece for its obscurity and ability to ignore completely any real sense of being in the wrong…. He never once admitted any wrongdoing, either by the agency, or his administration, and made no concessions toward any clemency for the whistleblower who began the debate, by making this information so distressingly (distressing for the administration, for having been caught, both in the spying, and in the lies they told about it….) public.

The constraints the president (no capital on purpose; remember, he’s got to EARN it….) recommends do not even go as far as his own self-appointed committee recommended, and, in reality, do absolutely NOTHING to put any REAL restraints on the spying that the NSA is doing, nor on what they PLAN on doing, which is to gain access to every computer on the planet…. Mrs. Feinstein (who happens to be the wealthiest Senator on record, with a net worth of about a half a BILLION dollars….), who is the co-chairman (with the other stone-faced pundit in the photo below…) of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, in her own speech, managed to blow off every bit of public opinion her constituency has shown her, and backed the president right down the line…..

Here, read the articles for yourself…..
di and her ilk(Suggested caption: ” Dianne, I’m a power-crazed psychopath – I don’t WANT inner peace!!!!” )

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/01/17/dianne-feinstein-praises-prez-on-nsa/

The photo below is one of the congressional members who sat to listen to the president’s speech yesterday…. Have you ever seen a group of more self-satisfied, sleekly rapacious, avaricious political pundits anywhere? Not to mention how well it points out how the majority of the Beloved Ruling Class is made up of older RICH, MISOGYNISTIC WHITE MALES, who are, by far, the largest demographic represented in Washington, D.C., even though this country no longer reflects that demographic in any way….

What amazes me about the article below, in some ways, is the media’s straight-faced reporting of this speech, as if it really had any meaning…. The title of the article itself implies that some sort of restraints are to be applied, but, if one really looks at what he has proposed, there really aren’t any changes being made…. Oh, they’re making it LOOK as if there are, but, the system in place is not going to be shut down, or altered in any way from its current format…. they’re only making what appears to be a cosmetic change in the way the paperwork gets done, with no mention at all of any of the real concerns the public has, in spite of anything Feinstein, or anyone else said….

They all look pretty happy about all this, don’t they? That’s because they all know that they’re exempt, (as far as they know….) from being treated like one of the public…. These men, and a few misguided, broken women who join them in the BRC, believe they’re different than the public, and are not being spied upon as we are….. HAH! Let them think so…. Do they really believe that these agencies will stop at spying on just the public?….. If so, they’re even stupider than they look….
a room full of...(Suggested caption: ” Dianne, I’m a power-crazed psychopath – I don’t WANT inner peace!!!!” )

(P.S. Both captions are the same, deliberately…. think about it….)

(Both photos are from the SFGATE website….)

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Obama-tightens-reins-on-surveillance-programs-5151532.php

Once again, as I have at almost every turn for the last six years, I am disappointed in the president’s response to this issue. Every time I build up some hope that just once, someone in the political arena will show some real intelligence, instead of continuing to maintain the standard government policies of entitlement in their attitudes toward the public, ignorance and denial of the actual wishes of the public, and prevarication as their method for communicating with that public…. In essence, I wish the public would WAKE THE FUCK UP, and get on with the business of throwing these idiots back into the gene pool….

Sorry, didn’t mean to shout at y’all…. I get pretty frustrated at times, looking out at the world, and watching it slowly, inexorably exploding…. A study recently showed that those films of buildings that are demolished by explosions are one of mankind’s most fascinating visions, harder to pull away from watching than pornography…. I guess there’s a reason for that, as watching that complete destruction probably gives our unconscious minds the feeling of observing one’s own future….

The asininnies you see in the picture above have already placed the dynamite in all of the points required to bring down the building in which we all live, ffolkes….. you can bet your bottom dollar that is true. Oh, they have no clue as to what they’ve done, or continue to do…. Evil doesn’t think of itself as evil…. They just refuse to listen to, or look at, any sort of evidence that what they think may not be true…. One can only learn when one admits to not knowing, and they’ll never admit they’re wrong at all…

But, their ignorance and denial doesn’t alter the FACT of global warming…. Of the people you see in that picture, most of whom are involved in running this country, approximately half don’t believe it is real; that belief, or lack of belief, still doesn’t alter the FACT that the temperature of the planet continues to rise, and that the planet’s entire supply of permafrost, a naturally occurring substance that lies in the Arctic, and Antarctic, in conjunction with the ice, and under the oceans, on the sea beds, which contains the most lethal gas we know, is rapidly melting, releasing that methane gas into the air at a rate that will kill them, and us, in a shorter time than any of us want to believe….

I’m tired…. This subject is one I’ve been ranting about for what seems like ages, but, in actuality, is only a couple of years, at least, in print…. I’ve been talking about this for many years, to mostly deaf ears…. Nobody WANTS to hear such bad tidings, so, their solution is denial, and/or avoidance…. Well, so be it…. I hate to say it, ffolkes, but, if that particularly human habit, of hiding from reality when it gets unpalatable, continues, well, then, we are all going to die much sooner than anyone thinks…. plain and simple…..

Whereas: Since our primary source of cultural advice and supposedly wise actions is seen by most people to reside in the churches and religions of     the world…., and,

Whereas: no church or religion will admit to global warming, or evolution, or any other scientific FACT that questions dogma…., and

Whereas: almost everyone believes the churches….

Whereas: the churches tell people to respect the government’s authority…., and

Whereas: as explained above, governments are worse than the churches when it comes to ignorance, denial, and prevarication…., then

Conclusion: You may as well just bend over, and kiss your sorry ass goodbye…..

“I’m RELIGIOUS!!  I love a man with a HAIRPIECE!! Equip me with MISSILES!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

Well, ffolkes, this one’s got a bit of it all! Links, art, research, rant, old-school, classic poetry, innuendo, nonsense, and, for a kicker, some down and dirty depression….. What more could one ask for, I ask you? Oh, really…. hmm…. Well, I’ll think about that, and let you know…. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Moments of intentional rapture, guaranteed….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

Whether we speak metaphorically, or realistically, I’m screwed. Well, maybe not all the way screwed, but well-pinched, as it were, by the nearness of the approaching deadlines….. Yep, deadlines, those horrible self-drawn handcuffs of steel we voluntarily apply to ourselves, to play hell with our heads and hearts during the already busy holidays.

For me, it means the deadline of my son’s birthday, which falls ahead of Christmas by a week, but shall forever remain separate, by decree, and justifiably so. No, no worries here about the actual date, I’ve always known that’s coming…. it’s not knowing what to get this time that is causing the issue….

My son is no longer a boy, so the latest toys aren’t going to cut it; I know he doesn’t have much time for Xbox or other games right now, not with two or three jobs to get to, and a boy to raise, and I don’t know what his current reading habits are like, so I don’t know if he’ll like a book, if I get one…. I’ve never had this trouble for him, before, but, then, I’ve been totally unable to buy gifts at this time of year, for several years, so actually having to think about it is sort of new, too…

Oh well, I know I’ll end up using my same old method, of going to a store with a variety of stuff, and wandering around until I see the right thing….It always seems to work, and they always like what I find, so, I’ll go with that, and hope for the best…. As I believe I said, and if not, am now saying, it’s nice to be able to think about buying a gift without a feeling of panic or depression, which was the case for three or four years running….

It’s funny, too, how my income, now, at retirement, is set at a level well above where it was for much of my working career… That isn’t a complaint, for sure, as I need it now more than ever, what with the medical expenses that I can expect to climb steadily over time….. it’s merely a surprise, to see that I planned better than I knew…. No telling how well off I might have been, had someone actually TOLD me about this getting old business… but, hey, none of us got that memo, and who among us would have paid attention to it, anyway?….. I know for a fact that, until I turned 35 or so, I was completely invulnerable…. or, so I thought…

As I am well aware, now, I’m not anything of the sort, the proof of which I live with on a daily basis…. and life goes on, as it does for all of us…. Since I’ve already meandered and blathered for a sufficient amount of time and space, we’ll be nice, and go on to other events, which will probably be a lot more entertaining than this pile of dross…. I can’t even bring myself to call it drivel, as it doesn’t quite make it there, either….

Oh well, I should have known all this sleep would have some kind of effect on things… I just thought that effect MIGHT be positive…. Hope springs eternal, I suppose, only to be crushed again…. SIGH…. Damn that Murphy, anyway…. Since going back to bed is out of the question, I may as well go for a dive….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.” — Herodotus

Sometimes, we know it quite well….
_____________________________

Creating Pearls of Virtual Wisdom is not as easy as it may appear from the outside… This, though a truism, is not something I can explain to y’all, not by using words…. To really understand the process, it must be experienced…. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can tell you enough to get it to work for you, and I don’t know if just having you tag along as I do it is going to quite give the correct information, either…. It’s quite the conundrum, and we are thankful to God for giving it to us to solve….

As you may know, if you spend time hanging around here much, the last statement was NOT serious, as we don’t waste a lot of time around here giving thanks to imaginary figures; we find that to be less productive than the regular application of rational thought…. No, it was a just a joke, only there to see if y’all were paying attention this morning…. Since you were, mostly, I can get on with this….

This one, as I was getting around to saying above, before I decided to go wonky on you with the test mode, will be an odd pearl, gathered at different periods of time over a couple of days, looking for just the right ones to make the point at which I’m pointing… Let’s see how it came out, after all my work…

“The artist’s job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live….” — Edward Abbey

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

“If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture – that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.” — Edward Abbey

“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” — P.J. O’Rourke

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.

— John Dryden (1631-1700) — Aurengzebe, Act iv, Sc. 1

“Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.” — Publius Syrus

“For some Reason, reality is an illusion.” — Smart Bee

Hmm… I have the feeling I could have just used my index finger, and been done with it…. Oh, well, onward….
_____________________________

Sometimes, poetry hides itself inside another piece of literature…. Here is a poem, stuck inside a chant from an Indian tribe; without Googling, I’ll assume it came from the either the eighteenth, or the nineteenth century, during the time when Europeans and New World Indians were first meeting, culture to culture…. The poem I see in this describes a world view that indicates a people whose moral and ethical degree of advancement was obviously much greater than the European culture against which it came into conflict…..

The poor white devils couldn’t begin to understand, much less appreciate,  the finer sentiments of these children of nature…. so they had to destroy them…. For several hundred years now, this has been the typical reaction of most Caucasian cultures to societies different than their own…. The saddest part is that the Makah Indians, if they were as gentle as their words would indicate, probably forgave them… which I cannot do….

Do not stand by my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am a diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush.
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand by my grave and cry.
I am not there… I did not die.

 — Song of the Makah Indians


Smart Bee had originally listed this as a ‘prayer’ of the Indians, but, I don’t believe it was meant as such, as much as it was a song, one that their children sang, to learn about what their people believed, not to indoctrinate them with dogma, or with the useless memorization of lists of sins…..
_____________________________

Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse.  Software said: “You are the Yin and I am the Yang.  If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money.”  And so the pair set forth together, thinking to conquer the world.

Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick.  Firmware said to them: “The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang.  It is silent and still as a pool of water.  It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence.  It does not seeks fortune, for it is complete within itself.  It exists beyond space and time.”

Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.  — Geoffrey James, “The Tao of Programming”

This koan reminds me of the tale of how the guard at the city gate prevented Lao Tzu from leaving the city until he had written down the 88 verses of the Tao Teh Ching…. It also reminds me that too much is too much, and I should just let the story teach the lesson, without any comment… So, I will… Just read the above, ffolkes, and think on it a while… You’re bound to get something good from doing so, even if it’s only a few moments of quiet contemplation….

“The truth is always the strongest argument.” — Sophocles (496-406 BC) — Phaedra, Frag. 737
_____________________________

As I awoke this morning, I thought I was hallucinating; the clock read 0619, a time I have not seen from bed for a very long time. I even felt some mild anxiety at getting a Pearl done in good time, but, I should know by now they’ll get done when they’re done, and not before…. no matter how late I sleep. It seems, also, that I’m right, because, hey, here we are at the end, and I think it’s done…. Let me see just how done it is….

I’d say that’s done, and done fairly well, for all its assumed gravity, and in direct contrast to the rather pathetic plea for understanding that underlies the entire set of assertions and tentative conclusions…. In short, I think it will do, as long as I don’t think about it too much…. I’m going with that, anyway, even if it IS the wrong decision…. I’ve been wrong before, haven’t I?….. I know I have…. See ya…..

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Honest, mister, I read the manual….

Posted on by
2

Ffolkes,

Before beginning to write today, I took a few moments playing solitaire, to calm my nerves, and to help me in beating back the urge to rant, here in the intro section. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with ranting; it’s just not the best place for it, in terms of structure and format. I prefer to wait, at least until section one, before jumping in with both feet, and haven’t been very adept of late at keeping myself from that form of premature ejaculation, an issue which hasn’t been a problem since, oh, before my marriage ended…. at least, not in a verbal sense…. The physical aspects of that descriptive phrase haven’t been a problem for some years, but one must be cautious, lest such things spread to one’s peripheral activities….

Now, I’m sure that, while you probably can appreciate my delicacy in discussing this matter with some discretion, it’s probably somewhat confusing, trying to figure out whether I’m talking about talking, writing, or making love (as opposed to ‘having sex’, a much less enjoyable sport….). In fact, I’m a bit confused myself, but, in this case, that may be an advantage. There are times when a certain degree of “plausible deniability” comes in handy…. just ask any President, or Presidential candidate about that…. Of course, they probably won’t discuss it, at least not on record, but, you can always say you asked; that has to count for something….

Oops, almost got caught up there…. I’ve got to remember to be careful, not to even MENTION a politician, or a preacher-type (even though, as Popes go, this one’s got a lot of class the others never showed….), or I start in on them with a vengeance…. I just don’t think I need to spend that much energy here in the beginning… I need to learn to pace myself, saving the best part for later on in the Pearl, where it will be highlighted by the brilliance of the material that surrounds and supports it…. Ah, yes, dreams..

We all have our dreams, don’t we? Me, I thought, hey, if I call Congress, maybe I can talk to Feinstein, or Pelosi, or one of my actual representatives in the House of Representatives…. They’ve got a lot of representatives there; maybe I can even find the one that is supposed to be representing ME, to ask him/her (I suppose I ought to know which it is, shouldn’t I?….) some of these pertinent questions I have, about the latest news coming down the pike…. I’d love to ask some of them the kind of questions that cause a deep silence on the other end of the phone, you know? The kind that tells me I’ve stumped them, or caught them without a prepared lie…

Whoa, hold on there…. almost went there again…. Oh well, I suppose I’ve blathered enough, and wandered around the edges of coherency without really saying anything, for what is most probably enough material to be able to call it an intro… If not, well, too bloody bad, ffolkes, because I’m done with it now, and no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to make me start over…. Not that I expect you’d be that silly, but, we’ve had some weird stuff happen, so, I try to cover all the bases in my preparations…. In the meantime….

Shall we Pearl?…..

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

(If this is still true, we’re all in deep shit…. Just thought you should know…. )
_____________________________

Well, I waited until now to begin ranting, which is probably a good thing. Perhaps this will be a bit more effective as a call to action than in the usual position, or wherever it’s been of late that has kept it from at least making me feel a bit better for having ranted…. What a mouthful! And so on topic, too! Gotta love us amateurs, eh?….

At any rate, I found this article yesterday, buried back a few pages, probably because everyone is so tired of hearing of yet ANOTHER outrageous instance of the NSA breaking the law, by once again going far beyond the scope of their legal mandate, in the ever-widening quest by our own government to become the true Evil Empire…. I know, that’s some pretty high-powered language to use to in discussing an agency of our own government, but, as always, I believe in calling a spade a damn shovel, not an indigenous individual digging device, type 2…. and you may as well get used to it….

These assholes over at the NSA have gone completely bonkers; they assumed that because they got practically all they wanted in the way of legal coverage by the administration, they may as well just go ahead and do whatever else they wanted, believing that the people who set them loose on the trail of ostensible terrorists would protect them from any critical attention and/or interference by something as mundane as the law, or the will of the people….. and, for a long time, they were justified in that belief…. But, now that their clandestine activities are being brought to light by that national hero, Eric Snowden, the rats are deserting their ship, and leaving them to their fate without any real support….

Talk around Washington is that the President is going to, belatedly, stop spying on the leaders of our allies, and will move to put limits on what the agencies are allowed to access in the data that is generated by the general public. This is a complete reversal, and I can only hope it is in response to the pressure put on them by the public’s obvious displeasure, and not as a temporary measure to appease while they figure out a diversion in some other area of the public venue, where they can cause some problem that will draw our attention away from this issue, allowing them to continue their illegal, but, in their eyes, oh so necessary theft of the people’s identities….

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Report-NSA-broke-into-Yahoo-Google-data-centers-4939585.php

In the article, the most significant part of what is there, to my way of thinking, is that the companies involved say had no idea that they were being compromised, even though their own security measures are considered to be nearly impenetrable… Well, they SAY they had no idea; one must remember they ARE a corporation, and, thus, are very familiar with telling the public what they wish to hear….

However, it appears that the American and British spies went in, got their data, and left, without ever notifying Google, or Yahoo, of what they were taking, though such activities are still illegal, according to the laws in place…. (Not to mention rude… ) The spying mandate they have doesn’t extend to what they stole, theoretically…. Of course, they can say they didn’t KNOW that, but, then, lying is their entire purpose, and the single most critical part of their entire modus vivendi, is it not?…. Even in the Art of War, Sun Tzu acknowledged the importance of the spy in warfare, calling them the most powerful of all the various types of warriors…

Of course it is, just as lying and cheating come naturally to anyone in a nationally elected office; it’s part of their job description these days, even if it is written in invisible ink….. Since Google, and Yahoo, and the other agencies that were hacked, are all corporations, and have pretty much the same characteristics as shown by the BRC pundits, (i.e., a tendency to lie at the drop of a cliche…), it’s a bit hard to tell who is more guilty here….

Is it Google and/or Yahoo, who are gathering all sorts of data about its users without their knowledge or permission (I don’t regard those passive advertisements that one can “control” what data is gathered by adjusting their “preferences” as real permission…. they take whatever data they want, and tell you about it later, if at all….)….? Or, is it the government spy agencies, who are stealing that same stolen data from the corporations, that fit the bill as the villain?

It should make for an interesting contest, to see how this fake argument plays out….. I mean, I can’t really believe that the BRC, who is controlled and supported by the corporations (go ahead, disprove that!….), will continue to try to take data from them without their knowledge. It’s more likely they are playing out this faux-dispute in the public venue in order to confuse the public about who is on their side in this issue…

It seems to be working, as always, as the public is pretty much ignoring these latest revelations, and looking around for almost anything to take their minds elsewhere for a while… I’m almost interested, in a resigned, doubtful sort of way, to see just what they come up with next to draw the public’s attention off this issue…. Probably more to do with the recent roll-out of health care reform laws, which seems to be a hot button for a lot of people….

For me, all of it is dross and spittle…. I believe, absolutely, that if there is an official statement made by anyone in the government printed in the news, it needs to be examined in the light of what it is NOT saying, to ascertain about what it is lying, or what it is trying to hide by distraction, not merely for what it says…. Their motivation in making ANY public statement is manipulation of public attitudes; they’re not trying to make anything better.

They lie outright, they leave stuff out, they point us in all kinds of useless directions, but they almost NEVER tell us what is actually going on, unless we’ve already caught them at it… In those cases, we see all sorts of backing and filling, as they come up with all sorts of “plausible deniability” in order to convince the public that their lies are really the truth…

What a crock! If it wasn’t so damn sad and depressing, it would be amusing…. SIGH… Enough is enough…. Stay alert, ffolkes, because they’re lying to you every day, and doing all they can to improve THEIR lot in life, not yours…. Let them know you’re on to them, at every opportunity…. If nothing else, it will make them nervous, which they deserve….

“You can fool all of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time; and that should be sufficient for most purposes.” — Smart Bee, quoting from the true bible, used by both politicians and preachers…..

“The ideal robot, after all, is simply a properly processed human being.” — Edward Abbey
_____________________________

“But groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having.” — EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow, “Cynthia Horner’s Eulogy”, Apr. 1994

Unsolicited Gratitude

Fear becomes familiar when reality bodes us ill
pain assumes first position, no matter our will.
Powerless, we founder, no strength to prevail
anguished and afraid, against unwanted Fate we rail.

Still, a grain of hope deep inside, hidden well against need
gives us reason to survive, our starving souls to feed.
Failure of courage burdens time, of being bested,
until our souls, in submission, become foully infested.

Bitter tears wash through us each day, with little care,
no thought, no feeling, no wish, or need to be fair.
Rendered clueless, confusion falls upon us, as prey,
we surrender a piece of our soul, little as we may.

Yet, always, a bright beam of hope is seen from afar,
no matter how dreary, or dark, it may seem where we are.
None knows, nor would consent to tell, it seems
from whence it hails, or why it so brightly gleams.

Saving our sanity, absolving our unwanted fears,
dispelling the myths and lies that come with the years.
Each man has known the precious gift that hope may give
And gives glad thanks, as long as he may live.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Arguably, I could get away with not having a short introductory paragraph here, but, I hate stuff that isn’t either symmetric, or traditionally asymmetric. I’m funny that way, among others….. Nonetheless, it will help today if you just sort of skew your eyes off in another direction for a moment, while I just….. there. You didn’t see that, did you? I hope not, I’d have to kill you if you had….. But, now, we can get on with the rest of this pearl, and finish off this Pearl, thanks to the absence of the government agent I just offed and buried out back….

(For those of you reading this in a cubicle at the NSA, or at any of our fine nation’s other domestic or foreign spy agencies, such as the FBI, the CIA, or any of them…… that’s we we writers call a “joke”, and it has no connection with reality, other than the tenuous resemblance to one that exists only in your own tiny little mind…. in other words, PSYCHE!…. Hah!…. bloody assholes , who have nothing better to do than go around spying on regular folks, they get what they deserve….)

Since I have decided to NOT go without an intro here, well, this is what you get…. Sorry, but, it’s what I could come up with, and y’all will just have to deal with it… I think, though, the power of the following pearl will mitigate any possible discomfort, or discombobulation of any sort, that you may experience today, as it is turning out to be extremely cogent, as well as powerfully poignant…. I should know, I’m a sensitive guy….

“The Master doesn’t talk, he acts, when his work is done, the people say, “Amazing: We did it all by ourselves!”” — Tao Te Ching

“In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.” — Edward Abbey

“The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man.” — G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, 2-10-06

“A people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never will, and never can, be.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. ” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“It is odd, is it not, that a person’s worth to society by is measured by their wealth, when instead their wealth should be measured by their worth to  society.” — A. Cygni

“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.” — Lily Tomlin
_____________________________

One never knows, do one? This may have turned out better than I’d realized, or even hoped…. let’s see what happened here…. Whatever that was, it seems to have worked fairly well…. Well enough that I’m calling it a done deal, and making my escape, stage left, right about…. now….. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

North flew East, East turned West; South became irrelevant….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

Normally, my travelogues feature more artwork, in the sense that I generally post pictures that I’ve taken myself, of the places and people I’ve seen in my ramblings for the day. Since it will be eight or so hours until I actually embark on the ship, which then sets sail at about 4 PM, I am as yet without my camera, which is packed away for the ordeal of getting through the security checkpoint….

I suppose I could have taken a few pix of me and my lady, or my son, who will be driving us today in his limo, but, none of us particularly care for fame, or photos of ourselves, (in my case, there is the danger to the camera itself; my visage has been known to freeze digital cameras instantly….), and who wants to see pix of a street corner, with no people in it?…. So, y’all will have to wait until tomorrow, when I’ll have some shots from the first night on board….

In past travelogues, I concentrated a lot on pictures of where I was visiting, and neglected to show off the ships I’ve been on, which are part of the attraction for me in traveling. It makes perfect sense to my hedonistic side to travel in luxury if possible; I’ve traveled the cheap way, staying in hostels or cheap motels, eating out of the markets and fast food joints, and taking trains and buses to where I wished to go. Often, before I was married, I’d even resort to hitchhiking for my travel mode…. cheap, and you meet some great ffolkes, but it can be a bit inconsistent if traffic is slow, and can take a LONG time to get anywhere…

That sort of travel is great fun, but requires a lot of energy and physical stamina that I no longer possess, so, having a place to take a nap when I get tired, in a five star hotel, with three gourmet meals a day (or more….), along with staff eager to provide service, is a better choice for someone of my age and condition…. Plus, on those voyages on which my luck holds, the casino can help reduce the overall cost of the trip….. I came out about $500 ahead of the game on my Alaska cruise, with my winnings exceeding my bar bills by about that much…. Of course, I went a bit crazy on souvenirs for everyone, but, hey, I tried….

This trip, I’ll try to remember to take more shots on board, to let y’all see what it’s like to cruise with a crazy old long-haired, long-winded blogger…. or, at least to give you a better idea of what it looks like on board…. Plus, it keeps me from having to think too hard about what to include in the Pearls, which will give me more time to just screw around and do nothing…. which is, after all, the whole point of cruising, to have all the time one wishes to just do nothing….

Doing nothing, in our culture, tends to be looked down upon severely, especially by those who suffer from Christian guilt, and the whole concept of “the near-occasion of sin”, wherein the church assumes that everyone WILL give in to temptation, and everyone WILL act on their worst impulses to (GASP!….) sit around and do nothing, thus becoming undisciplined, immoral, and worst-case for the dogmatists, reduce their guilt, making them less amenable, and more resistive, to behavioral control…. They HATE that!….

So, I encourage hedonism at every turn, as should every other person of a like mind; it’s the best method I’ve found for providing almost immediate relief from the constipated, bloated feeling of constriction that goes along with allowing the dogmatists to draw the patterns of your life. A good, meal, with just a little too much wine and conviviality, is the perfect antidote to the most stringent attitudes…. Why, a prime rib, and a bottle of good Cabernet, has been known to destroy six years of Catholic denial in one sitting, given the proper company, and perhaps some after dinner brandy…. And, even if it doesn’t completely eradicate ALL one’s prior conditioning, the process of removing it, meal by wonderful meal, is one that appeals to even the most hardened ascetic…

Hmm…. I seem to have strayed a bit afield from the concept of an intro…. not unusual, I suppose, and possibly much better than the typical rant I’ve been saddling y’all with of late. I can see that, no matter what I’ve been babbling about, it’s certainly long enough to meet the legal standards for which we shoot, so, I’m opting to go with my usual technique, to just go with it, without worrying at all about what the hell it means, or what it may or may not do in terms of stimulation of cogitation…. That, of course, is, ultimately, the personal responsibility of each gentle reader, at least for the cogitation part…. I’ll try to supply the stimulation, but, no promises, eh?…..

Shall we Pearl?…..

“If any man asks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.” — Horace Mann
_____________________________

“Anger is a tool, not a master. Anger is meant to be tapped into and drawn upon. Used properly, anger is useful. Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy. Anger is not. Anger is our friend. Not a nice friend, not a gentle friend, but a very loyal friend.  It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests. Anger is not the action itself. It is action’s invitation.” — Julia Cameron  “The Artist’s Way”

“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.” — Confucius

Lao Tzu sez    I had originally intended to write a piece to accompany these three statements, the latter of which are from two of the most revered philosophers in history…. but, there really isn’t any need to expand on this idea…. It’s pretty perfect, as wisdom goes, so, I’m going to do the unusual, for me, and leave it alone, to allow you the space to consider the concept in your own way, and in your own time….

Just know this…. if there is a single key to being happy in life, this is it…. This is the key to ALL wisdom, ffolkes, so just let it become part of your inner self, and you’ll find your life has fallen into a pattern of serenity, and an inner peace that you have never known….. Oh, didn’t I say what that key is? Hmm, imagine that…. I guess I forgot…. Well, it’s probably best if you articulate it yourself; it seems to work better that way…. Okay, if you insist, one last hint….

“A person never so beautifully shows his own strength, as when he respects another’s weakness.” — Smart Bee

If that doesn’t do it, well, then, we’ll just have to try again another time, won’t we?….   😆
_____________________________

“I have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better when they got well.” — Mark Twain

Hmm…. I’m not sure, but, perhaps Mark was feeling a bit curmudgeonly toward poets that day…. If not, well, we all know his fondness for sardonicism, don’t we?…. Here’s one I think you’ll enjoy, from a poet I’ve only recently begun to explore….

Song

A rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens

~~ Seamus Heaney ~~

_____________________________

As might be guessed from what has gone before, I’m a bit anxious to be on the road… It will take all of my patience and fortitude to wait until 1 PM, when we leave for the embarkation pier in SF….. especially as leaving dead bodies behind me could conceivably cause problems upon my return…. SIGH…. People get SO upset when I do that!….

Any who, I’ll try to not kill anyone today, so I can have a worry free cruise…. In hopes of getting to that point sometime in the near future, I’m going for an old-school, random, harlequin pearl, to finish off this very skimpy Pearl….. Don’t worry, I’ll make up for it with art work tomorrow…. the camera’s all charged up and ready to shoot…. Until then, here are some thoughts from SB to help y’all get through the day…. or not….

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”

(Oh! Oh! So, THAT’S what I’ve been doing all this time!! I love it, and now feel very justified in my work here…. I am just loving the idea of putting the OCI after my name, to signify my identity of a member of the Order of Curmudgeonly Iconoclasts…. My sig. line is starting to look impressive, with all my initials after it…. as in, gigoid, MCA, BS,  OCI…. [which, BTW, is the correct way to write ‘gigoid’, with no capitals…. it’s a user-name, and caps aren’t required, nor, in this case, desired….].  If I’m not careful, all these titles will start to go to my head, or something equally inane… Okay, I’m done fooling around now…. We’ll get on with the rest of this pearl….sorry, got distracted…)

“Make your enemies by choice, not by accident. The same applies to friends.” — Xavier R. Quinton

“When the way comes to an end, then change – having changed, you pass through.” — I Ching

“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson

:interesting: adj.  In hacker parlance, this word has strong connotations of `annoying’, or `difficult’, or both.  Hackers relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out of the ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”.  Oppose {trivial}, {uninteresting}. — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

(Note: This definition of the word “interesting” is the most frequently applied here at ECR, in terms of meaning and connotation, used almost exclusively; just so’s you know….)

“It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.” — Feodor Dostoyevski, “The Possessed”

“The zoo is not an exhibition
I view with much enjoyment,
when I notice beasts in a position
To learn the weaknesses of men.”

— John Brunner
_____________________________

I’ve done it again, I suppose, and I’ll just have to deal with it…. I’ll be back shortly, I hope….

As I suspected, that took a while, but, it’s done now, and I can get on with my day…. which, as might be imagined, promises to be one of greater than usual import, and all around fun… or, as has been intimated, more interesting…. hopefully without the negative connotation that generally applies…. See y’all tomorrow, even if there are technical issues… I’ll figure out a workaround of some kind….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Intent is seven thirteenths of the law….

Posted on by
4

Ffolkes,

Unbeknownst to the remainder of the world, I struggle, here in the dark of the morning, waging war with the always-present, never-sleeping, force of evil, that the world calls Bob, or sometimes, Steve-a-rino….. No matter what name we use, by any other token, they are very, very bad evils, whether in their initial, merely bloody, sharp-sword incarnation, or if they’ve gone into complete chainsaw mode. Either way, somebody is in for a world of hurt….

“What the hell is he babbling about now?”, is probably the foremost question in your mind(s) right now…. (I know, assuming that more than one mind currently reading this is being, perhaps, too hopeful…. My readership has taken a severe dip lately….)…. I’m babbling because, hey, it’s what I’m best at, and nothing else seemed as if it was going to get me down the road toward a real Pearl, so, I just went with it…. It’s not as if y’all had gotten accustomed to a more elegant format around here, now, is it? No, we’ve been stuck in bourgeois mode for quite some time now, with no real change of venue in sight…

Not that there’s anything wrong with being bourgeois; it’s only when we start trying to break into proletariat mode that the trouble begins, as it always does in such cases….. The human animal, though it always seems to fall into some form of hierarchical society, seems to function most efficiently when categories such as bourgeois, proletarian, or any others based on financial worth, are NOT used to determine one’s relative place in society…. The only truly honorable form would be a society where one’s social standing was based solely on how much one gave back to that society…. This, however, is mere speculation, since no human society has ever been structured in such a manner that it could be considered as “honorable”…..

Society has always been structured to favor those with the most resources under their control, which is why we are seeing the issues we now have to deal with, as the effects of entropy over time wear away at the foundations upon which it is built. Money is an artificial concept, not really a part of reality, other than as we humans perceive it to be, and therefore, only has the importance that we place on it. Making it the primary social factor that determines how high up in society one rises in the estimation of peers is destined to become a problem, as human nature tends not to share very well…. in short, people get greedy, and hoard all the resources (money) to themselves, ensuring their own place, and keeping others in a place lesser than their own….

Politicians, bless their black, lying, little hearts, would have us believe we live in a classless society, that everyone is equal, and has equal rights…. Well, ffolkes, guess what?…. That’s just another of their ubiquitous lies, and society isn’t like that at all…. At every level, built in prejudices and misconceptions, guided and kept true by unseen, but iron-clad cliches, color people’s viewpoint with the brush of discrimination, based on how much money a person makes, or what color their skin may be, or where they were born, or whether or not they stand up to pee…

There are a myriad of ways people use to decide that other people aren’t as good as they are, all of which are lies; all of those thousands of prejudices are taught by, enforced by, and continuously enabled by the BRC, our Beloved Ruling Class, who believes their place at the top of society is inherently theirs. Given this long-held delusion, and the fact that it has held sway over the rest of society for over ten thousand years, it seems clear they have no intention  of ever relinquishing that place to anyone else….

Oops, it happened again, didn’t it? I fell right into another opening rant, never realizing what I was up to until I was a thousand words down the pike… I guess it’s okay; I don’t see any casualties, other than my own readership’s numbers, so, apparently nobody was standing close enough to get hit by the flying shrapnel….. The fact that there ARE no casualties is not necessarily a good thing, you know….. a couple of bodies would at least indicate that there is SOMEONE reading this stuff, but, I guess my ego doesn’t really need THAT kind of proof…. It’s all a wash anyhow, as I ran out of lime and sulfuric acid, and I’d have a hard time disposing of the corpses… so, it’s just as well….

On that note, I think I’d best get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?…..

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

“To sit silently,  and look wise, is not to be compared to drinking sake and making a riotous shouting.” — Ono No Tabitu
_____________________________

Fortunately for y’all, I’m tired today, and not really feeling up to a full-fledged rant, intro-section notwithstanding…. This is good news for you, and for me, as it means I can let SB do all the hard work…. Here is a relatively straightforward pearl, with a few pointed sticks jabbed toward the eyes of our Beloved Ruling Class, and society at large…

“Ahhhh, it’s amazing what a cheat can do!!” — Smart Bee

“A mind not to be changed by place or time, the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” — John Milton

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” — G. K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/19/24

PATRIOT, n.  One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole.  The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.– Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

“There is no more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public.  It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.” — William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

“Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce?   No, that’s too grand, too considered a process.  History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.” — Julian Barnes

“Mr. Coolidge is the best Democrat we ever had in the White House. He didn’t do nothin’, but that’s what we wanted done.” — Will Rogers
_____________________________

No introduction needed, nor any comments…. just enjoy!….

A Song About Myself

I.
There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at’s back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the north,
To the north,
And follow’d his nose
To the north.

II.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry-
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm-
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one’s nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one’s nose
To the north!

III.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good-
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller’s thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little baby’s
Little fingers-
O he made
‘Twas his trade
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle-
A kettle
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle!

IV.
There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red,
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder’d,
He wonder’d,
He stood in his
Shoes and he wonder’d.

~~ John Keats ~~

_____________________________

We’re going old-school again for this section, and you can thank me later…. Right now, I’m trying hard to get this done in what may be a new record time…. we’ll see if SB will cooperate long enough to do that….

“Weird enough for all practical purposes.” — Smart Bee, while accepting the award for Strangest Blog O’The Week….

“There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that is behooves all of us not to talk about the rest of us.” — Robert Louis Stevenson, “Good and Bad”

“If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.” — Terence (185-159 BC) — Act i, Sc. 2, 96, (176.)

“I feed my pig apples by holding him in my arms and letting him eat the apples right off the tree. Some people say that takes too much time, but time don’t mean nothing to a pig.” — Grandpa Jones

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” — Francis Bacon

“A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.” — Nikos Kazantzakis

Not bad, all in all, even though it didn’t break through any time barriers…. But, it needs just the right finishing touch to be perfect, for which, less than that, never accept will we, as Yoda would say…. sort of…. If nothing else, this gives me the opportunity to throw in a bit of interactive fun, for at least one of my regular readers (hell, I wouldn’t mind if BOTH of them tried it out….  🙂  )….

I’ll put three aphorisms below, one of which is the perfect ending quote for this pearl… You get to pick, and whichever one you like, well, you just put it right in the comments, and I’ll look at it…. That’s all… I’ll look at it…. No prize (I’ve already spent too much this year on traveling, & have to start watching my expenditures….), no contest, just interactive fun…

Okay, okay, wait, don’t go away!!…. I’ll think of a prize…. First, somebody will have to make a comment, though, because there is little point in my going to the trouble of figuring out a reward, if nobody is going to even participate… If, however, I do get responses to this minor little manipulation (shhh!…), I WILL award a prize, of some sort…. and, since I’m not a politician, by either intent, or accident, you can trust me to tell you the truth… Sure you can, it’s easy…. If you can buy what the average politico is promising y’all, you can trust me not to lie about this…. Besides, there’s no profit in it for me to not tell the truth, so, it also appeals to my self-interest to come up with something worthwhile… so, I will… Now, look at these, and make a choice as to which one fits in the best with the rest….. if any….

“Shave daily with Occam’s razor.” — Smart Bee

“It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.” — Oscar Wilde

“By letting go, it all gets done.” — Tao Te Ching
_____________________________

Having begun the day with an absolutely appropriate word, “unbeknownst”, I feel fortunate, indeed, to have survived thus far, with still enough moxie to complete what has turned out to be somewhat of an epic; for a (technically) rant-less wonder, it’s fairly involved. I’m again a trifle hesitant to proof it, lest it surprise me even more, but, typos make me crazy, so….

Well, that’s a relief! I’m not certain just how it got here, but, it definitely arrived intact; if that isn’t obscure enough for you, well, sorry, I’ll try to do better tomorrow…. In any case, this is, quite obviously, finished, and, possibly, overdone, again…. Since I have no illusions at all that what I’ve just said will cause confusion in at least one person, my duty is complete, and I’m outta here….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Safely ensconced in a new/old cave…..

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

No worries today, not about the intro…. Yesterday, I moved into a house with my lady Patricia…. Only a few blocks away, but, everything had to go, so, we went… Today, I’m exhausted, still, even though I spent the day watching other people do all the lifting and packing; supervision is harder than it looks, especially when you’re paying for it all.

Ultimately, it got done, in relative jig time, as the actual move was finished in 5 hours, total ( IMNSHO, it’s definitely worth the money to hire professionals; they packed two apartments, and moved all of it, in four hours flat, actually, the rest was set-up and breakdown, and paperwork….). Any who, all things said and done, it’s done, but, counting the cable guy who didn’t come until 1800, it took all day, beginning at 0600, and I ended up standing around a LOT…. hence, exhaustion…

But, no extra pain, so all is well; fatigue will pass over time, as I rest, my only effort being to putter around putting stuff away, or figuring out where to put stuff, or, maybe, moving it to the storage space we now have in the garage…. However, it also means this Pearl will have to come from the archives, as I just don’t have the wherewithal to create a fresh one… C’est la vie, mon amis… At least the internet isn’t an issue this time… the cable guy came late, but stayed until it all worked properly, so, we’re good to go in that respect. Gotta love technology…

I hope y’all enjoy whatever I find for reading today… I’ll be back tomorrow, with some stuff I want to say about the situation that is developing again in the Middle East, with Syria’s civil war…. What a clusterfuck that is turning out to be…  Tomorrow…. for now, here are some pearls pulled from various points in the past two years….

“I wish I was on a Cincinnati street corner holding a clean dog!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

The Pearl of Virtual Wisdom posted on 9/27/11:

Ffolkes,

Morgan Templeton watched with some small pleasure, as the sun rose majestically above the western hills, ablaze with the promise of the new day. As the light spread, he pushed away from the tree against which he leaned, and strode purposefully down to his waiting horse. Swinging lightly into the saddle, he urged the horse into a canter, away from the rising sun, toward the towering trees of the forest that lay across the horizon to the west.

Slowing the horse to a walk as he entered the trees, Morgan passed within the vale, following a slight path that wound through oak, madrone, the occasional pine or fir, meandering ever further into the woods. His eyes never stopped moving, side to side, up and down, back again. He knew it was relatively safe in this part of the forest, but long years of living in danger had taught him never to lose track of his surroundings, lest death try to become too familiar. Safety lay in remaining alert; Morgan had good reason to stay alive, very good reason indeed.

So, I was talking to a friend yesterday, and he says to me, “I just got a new computer for my wife.” I told him, “good trade, dude.” A little humor is always a good way to start the day, don’t you think? I know it always helps me to approach the day with a lighter heart.

What’s that? What happened to Morgan in the forest? Hell, your guess is as good as mine; I just write the damn stuff, I don’t pay any attention to it beyond the spell check. It got me this far, didn’t it? Some days that kind of drivel just leaps onto the screen; some days it leads somewhere, some days not so much. So today was a not so much. Remember what you are paying for this, and be content….it’s worth every penny…..

“In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don’t wobble.” — Yun-Men

‘You govern a kingdom by normal rules;
You fight a war by exceptional moves;
But you win the world by letting alone,
How do I know that this is so?
By what is within me!
The more taboo and inhibitions there are in the world,
The poorer the people become.
The sharper the weapons the people posses,
The greater confusion reigns in the realm.
The more clever and crafty the men,
The oftener strange things happen.
The more articulate the laws and ordinances,
The more robbers and thieves arise.’
— Tao Teh Ching #57, Lao Tzu

Be the master of your will and the slave of your conscience. — Hasidic saying

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;
And, born in bed, in bed we die.
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.

— Isaac de Benserade (1612-1691)

“I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep.  Mom said, “Steven, time to  go to sleep.”  I said, “But I don’t know how.”  She said, “It’s real easy.  Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left.”  So I went down to the end of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right.  My mother was there, and she said “I thought I told you to go to sleep.” — Steven Wright

I love this one…”above all, don’t wobble.” Priceless! Perfect advice for leading the good life; don’t wobble. Good stuff…..y’all take care out there…..
_____________________________

This isn’t from an old pearl, though it has been used in one, at one time or another… It is, however, from the person whose poems I turn to whenever I am feeling…. different….

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d advertise — you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

The Pearl of Virtual Wisdom posted on 8/28/11:

Ffolkes,

So many things going around and around in my mind, nothing wants to settle…..it occurred to me this morning that today will be the first day in over 33 years that I have lived alone. For 23 years, up until 2002, I was married and raising our kids; we spent a few days here and there not in each other’s company, but for the most part, we were together, or I was with the kids.

After my wife and I parted ways, and the kids all grown, Noah, my old Aussie heeler mix, stayed with me, and until yesterday, was my constant and faithful companion and friend; dogs never change their minds when they have chosen their object of affection.  This, then, will be a relatively new situation, one that will, I think, require some rather sweeping adjustments on my part. I have no regrets in my life, other than those natural when love chooses not to stay, yet I cannot help but wonder how different life would be had things gone otherwise than they have done.

Well, such is life; we have no choice but to take it as it comes, and do our best to live with dignity and honor. So far, I have managed to live with honor; dignity has been harder to maintain at times, in the face of the harsh light of reality. All I can really say for sure at this point is, I still live. And as long as there is life, there is hope……(thank you Edgar Rice Burroughs)……This morning’s selections were chosen with ‘mind on hold’, but in retrospect, that was probably for the best…….

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.” — Simone de Beauvoir

We are not victims of the world we see, but of the way we see the world.

“Blessed is he who has learned to laugh at himself, for he shall never cease to be entertained.” — John Powell

“Official truths are often powerful illusions.” — John Pilger, _Distant_Voices_, 1992 (In today’s world, “often” can be changed to “virtually always”….)

“These PRESERVES should be FORCE-FED to PENTAGON OFFICIALS!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

— Lord Byron (1788-1824) — Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii, Stanza 113

Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.

I guess all I can say at this point is, it’s all a wash. Not a do-over, but at least a start-over. Life, that is, not the Pearl…. Step by step, walking the path toward the future, eyes ahead and eager for new sights, new sounds. If I wasn’t so bummed, I’d be excited; I suppose that in itself could be considered a small life lesson. Sweet and bitter are two sides of the same bagel, and we all would do well to keep that firmly in mind as we find our way down that long road upon which we have set our feet……y’all take care out there…..
_____________________________

Okay, for a throw-together Pearl, it looks pretty good…. It went fast, anyway, and that was key for today…. As in the intro section, I’ll try to keep from getting crazy, and surprise everyone by just ending it….. 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

Only the most severely impertinent will survive….

Posted on by
Reply

Ffolkes,

“What we have heah, is a failyuh, to cogitate…”  As I sit to write this morning, all I can see in my mind’s eye is the little bald asshole prison warden from the movie, Cool Hand Luke, standing on the levee, chewing on his toothpick, offering his asinine observation in a deep Southern drawl, and spitting. The line, of course, is supposed to be “a failyuh to communicate”, but, in this case, the other word is more accurate…. I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen now for 15 minutes, and this is the best I’ve been able to come up with…. not a good omen….

I must say, though, that I seem to be getting used to this cognitive state; there’s no sense of panic involved in the reaction now, and that is a small blessing. Of course, it doesn’t cut down the frustration to any appreciable degree, but, that’s something I’ve also become accustomed to experiencing regularly, and no longer feel such a degree of impending doom when my mind is blank…. Sadly, this is the result of the building of callouses, which, though it keeps one from the worst of the feelings we can feel in such instances, also limits perception, to some degree, and that can cause problems itself, through lack of understanding, or misunderstanding of details….

None of this is getting me any closer to finding anything to write about; that’s why I’m still circling around, babbling about the process itself, instead of immersing myself into a trance, or some other form of creative stimulus, to find at least something that will titillate, or, at minimum, enchant the few readers who come by each day…. As I’ve said previously, such blather seems to be the best way to fulfill the legal requirements, while still avoiding any real writing…. I’m uncertain, as always, as to how it is received, but, since there haven’t been any major complaints about allergic reactions, or flaming re: idiotic opening comments, I’ve stuck with it, as it works, sort of…

I’m really going to have to try to find a better way to get this section completed; this daily battle with my own head is getting to be redundant, which can often lead to boredom; if there is anything in this universe that I work to keep OUT of my life, it is boredom. To my mind, to be bored means that one is tired of what is going on in one’s own head, and that is something I will NEVER allow. I refuse to be bored, and I have to admit, it does save me a lot of angst and ill feeling…. not to mention never having to watch TV, unless I choose to do so…. Actually, it’s been so long now, I’ve probably forgotten how to program a VCR…. which I didn’t even learn until one of my kids showed me how….

Okay, I’ve managed to complete the legally required number of paragraphs, and can’t think of anything more mundane, or more interesting, to keep this going any longer; it’s already gone on too long, from an ethical standpoint… It’s skating on the edge of being cruel, I know, but, we’re done now, so, it won’t become an issue today…. Maybe tomorrow we’ll let it go completely over the line, and spend the morning explaining the explosions to the local authorities…. I love playing with the heads of public officials…. One never gets bored when fucking with the man….

Shall we Pearl?

Thales said there was no difference between life and death. “Why, then,” said some one to him, “do not you die?” “Because,” said he, “it does make no difference.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Thales, ix
_____________________________

Not only did my mind stay blank this morning, causing the above intro to go into mundane mode, but, I got up late, having had a hard time getting to sleep last night, and making up the lost time on this end…. As a result, I’m going to cheat a bit, and fill in this section with a pearl from 2012… I don’t feel too bad, because it’s a pretty good one….

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human  mind to correlate all its contents.   We live on a placid island of ignorance  in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should  voyage far.  The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little;  but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” — H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

Sometimes, I think we have already arrived at this point in time….. but, if not, then we are not far away…… With this firmly in mind, please find the following, all of which lead one gently to an idea that may, or may not, make you feel better. Which, of course, is NOT the purpose…. nonetheless, the conclusion framed by these quotes is one you NEED to know……

“It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have  been searching for evidence which could support this.” — Bertrand Russell

“Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.” — Dalai Lama

As a man can drink water from any side of a full tank, so the skilled theologian (politician’s too!) can wrest from any scripture that which will serve his purpose. — Bhagavad Gita

“Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you’ve got an audience.” — Diogenes

“Anyone who isn’t confused doesn’t really know what’s going on.” — Edward R. Murrow

“The only real failure in life is the failure to try.” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

Here is the second of the three poems I found day before yesterday; if it isn’t clear, it is a reaction to the election process that took place in 2012….I hope you enjoy it…..

Destiny’s Vote

It was a special day, written on tablets of stone
with fanfare, and crepe paper, a symphony of lies,
played with verve, but discordant, and alone,
never more the grand parade, no more apple pies.

Heated dialog full of prejudice, hate, and fears,
fills up the airwaves, a cacophony of callow untruth,
playing up to ignorance, bringing anguish, and fearful tears,
while Nero’s fiddler sits down, in the only open booth.

Watchful and afraid, I see the coming conflict
clouds of ignorance and intellect, preparing to fight,
one to fight with darkness, and abject fear to depict
opposed at the base, banishing fear with truth, and light.

Seeds of anger and bigotry are planted very deep,
growing best in darkness, hiding in shame and fear,
waiting for moments of trouble, its destiny to keep,
looking for weakness, seeking to draw its victim near.

Sing not yet a funeral dirge for tolerance,
that particular die is not yet cast,
there still remains a good and honest chance,
our common dream of freedom may yet hold fast….

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Having saved a shit-load of time by going to the archives for sections one and two, we’ll use a fresh pearl here in three, plucked this very morning from the virtual oyster beds I keep to cultivate these gems of virtual wisdom…. May they leave you with no unwarranted assumptions, nor supply you with any unwanted epiphany, and, most importantly, may it leave you with no open wounds…. It is, after all, about human nature….

“Either CONFESS now or we go to “PEOPLE’S COURT”!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Live with wolves, and you learn to howl.” — Spanish Proverb

“Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself, and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.”– Peter Mere Latham

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

“The man of superior virtue is not conscious of his virtue, and in this way he really possesses virtue. The man of inferior virtue never loses sight of his virtue, and in this way he loses his virtue.” — Lao-Tzu (fl. B.C. 600)

Now, that’s just about a perfect pearl…. but, not quite there, I think…. two more ought to do it…. remember to consider all seven of them together, and completely ignore this little blurb in the middle….

HUMAN NATURE

Once I shot a bird,
When I was very young.
I watched it fall, and die.
And I thought that it was fun.

— W.C. Mackie

“As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.” — Ursula K. LeGuin
_____________________________

EMERGENCY INFORMATION: How to breathe. 1. Inhale. 2. Exhale…..
(Provided at no charge for your convenience….)

Well, that was fun…. sort of. It was real, anyway, and got the day started with surprising aplomb… Damn, what IS that noise?… Hold on… For three days now, in the mornings, a small beep, three at a time, has been sounding off, very quietly, somewhere in my apartment (a studio), and I can’t locate it to see what little electronic device it is… Before I find it, it stops, after about four or five sets of three beeps….. Maddening…

And, totally off track, sorry…. Let’s see what happened here…. Okay, so instinct must have kicked in to salvage the process, because it ain’t bad, given its total lack of any redeeming features outside its obviously good intentions…. Yes, yes, I know where that can lead us, but, I’m counting on the consensual philosophical stability that I trust my gentle readers to possess to turn us from that path….. Besides, it’s all an illusion, right? One must always hold out hope for the best….. Or, so I’m told….

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