We’re wondering if that CEO caught fire yet….

Posted on July 29, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I am indeed one of the world’s great Bozos….. I just realized, as I lay in bed this morning, thinking about the upcoming day, that for almost three years now, I’ve been approaching this whole process with a flawed perspective….. Now, for many, such an epiphany would constitute a great crisis, and cause a huge outcry, as the futility and sense of lost time would create a huge batch of disappointment, to say the very least. For me, it’s pretty much a normal thing to discover, as I can recall numerous occasions in my life when my nose became large, red, and noisy over the manifestation of one or another kind of stupidity, so it no longer embarrasses me quite so much, when I find myself guilty, again, of some measure of dumbness….

For all this time I’ve been blogging, I have been getting up and cudgeling my brain into submission, forcing it to think, and create, first thing in the morning…. I realized just now that this is NOT a good way to start the day, and I might find more to write about if I let my brain wake up at its own pace. I can’t be certain about it without some testing, but I have a feeling that it might be to my advantage to do so, if only for the simple reason that I would end up getting more sleep…..which may not sound like much, but, in my world, sleep is at a premium, and getting more of it, by any means necessary, is always high on my list of wants….

As it is, I’ve always used the Army method, which says to sleep whenever one has a free moment, as one never knows when the next opportunity to do so will come. I was raised that way, sort of, and have always regarded it as the lot of the common man, as we men tend to treat our lives as a stint in the military, if given half a chance…. It is a natural rhythm for us to adopt, so we naturally fall into it, unless forced into some other mode of existence, such as that of a night-shift morgue attendant, or some such exotic functionary, who necessarily changes their pattern of sleep and work.

The Army method is fine, for what it is, but, now that I’m retired, it isn’t so imperative for me to be up early, or up late, like when I was a Dad, making sure my family was tucked in each night….. Today, for some reason, I slept like a log for most of the night, (unusual in itself….), and kept falling back asleep at those times I would normally have arisen, until, now, it is after 0700, and I just got up…. a good hour, to an hour and a half, later than usual…. I feel energized, and clear headed, both of which are uncommon at this hour, and these four paragraphs have pretty much poured out, in just a few minutes time, all fairly clear, with no typos or misspellings, first time out….

Ah well, it’s all probably just an illusion that Murphy has prepared for me, to lull me into thinking that I can think this early….. It has been proven already that I’m human, and the years-long search for a template for this intro has shown me that early morning cogitation is not in my best interests, at least from an intellectual viewpoint…. I can sometimes come up with funny, or weird, or even, sometimes, beautiful prose when I first sit to write, but, I’m fairly certain I only do so due to serendipity, not intentional volition…. In other words, it’s mostly an accident, which explains why I keep a first-aid kit under the table where I keep my computer; it has come in too handy in the past to keep it anywhere else….

Still, accidental or not, I’m no longer certain that getting up to write in the morning is the best way to go about this….. But, since I don’t have a clue what I would do otherwise, I’m not going to worry about changing a thing…. I don’t get paid for this, nor do I do it for any other kind of compensation, beyond the friendship of good people, and a certain level of sanity that writing helps me to maintain… So, there isn’t any reason, really, to change anything, unless, of course, someone offers to pay me to do so…. I’m still holding out for the daily column in a major news network, which I doubt seriously will happen, so, I’ll just keep on keepin’ on, and produce the finest bits of virtual wisdom I can….

Shall we Pearl?….
_____________________________

“Banish Evil from the world? Nonsense! Encourage it, foster it, sponsor it. The world owes Evil a debt beyond imagination. Think! Without greed ambition falters. Without vanity art becomes idle musing. Without cruelty benevolence lapses to passivity. Superstition has shamed man into self-reliance and, without stupidity, where would be the savor of superior understanding?” — Magnus Ridolf

😆 I find this to be an extremely amusing little Analect, very bold and different than the twaddle that a lot of philosophy often resembles. It is, of course, a ridiculous set of assertions, but, it’s good exercise for the mind to look at things from a different perspective occasionally, as long as one knows they are wrong, based as they are on a flippant, egocentric point of view, one that categorizes according to self-set standards, not by any that are natural to the real world….. Who gets to decide? That, to me, is the sticking point when adopting a pose of intellectual superiority…. who decides?…. If it is the person who makes the utterance, then the viewpoint is inherently flawed, due to a severe lack of perspective….

I’m not sure why I chose this as a rant-stimulator, other than its cheekiness. It is true what is implied herein about contrast, and how the differences between good and evil are made clearer by their own natures, but, other than that, it fails to go far enough, logically speaking, leaving us stranded in a place where we have little or no control over what the universe does to us…. I, for one, refuse to go there, and will always feel compelled to point it out when I come across this kind of thinking, as it is a dangerous pattern to allow one’s mind to follow for long….. In fact, I am going to make an executive decision here, and turn this section 180 degrees around, into an old-school format, rather than a rant…. I think the point I’m trying to get to will be much easier to see than trying to show y’all what I mean with prose and logic…. Let’s see what Smart Bee can do for us….

“Man is ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.” — Paul Eldridge

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” — Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

“It is an important and popular fact that things are not always as they seem.” — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

19. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. — One of 21 Thoughts to Get You Through Almost Any Crisis

“The logic of writing is simply logic; it is not some system of arbitrary conventions interesting only to those who write a lot. All logical thought goes on in the form of statements and statements about statements. We can make those statements only in language, even if that language be a different symbol system like mathematics. If we cannot make those statements and statements about statements logically, clearly, and coherently, then we cannot think and make knowledge. People who cannot put strings of sentences together in good order cannot think. An educational system that does not teach the technology of writing is preventing thought.” — Richard Mitchell _Less Than Words Can Say_ P.45-6

Hah! See, I told you it would be a lot clearer this way…. and, if not, well, there’s always tomorrow, right?….
_____________________________

Some poems need no introduction, or comment; this is one of them…

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley ~~

_____________________________

“The reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed… Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition know no bounds; the land is fertile and rich, the inhabitants simple, forbearing and submissive. The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for these people, treating them (and I speak from first-hand experience, having been there from the outset) not as brute animals – indeed, I would to God they had done and had shown them the consideration they afford their animals – so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road.
They have had as little concern for their souls as for their bodies, all the millions that perished having gone to their deaths with no knowledge of God and without the benefit of the Sacraments. One fact in all this is widely known and beyond dispute, for even the tyrannical murderers themselves acknowledge the truth of it: the indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm whatever; on the contrary, they believed them to have descended from the heavens, at least until they or their fellow citizens had tasted, at the hands of these oppressors, a diet of robbery, murder, violence, and all other manner of trials and tribulations.” — Bartolome de Las Casas, — A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, 1542

On most occasions, the discovery of such a wonderful indictment would be celebrated here with a rant of huge proportions…. However, on this occasion, I’m going to let go of my ego, and just present this by itself, in acknowledgment of its very real provenance…. This man, Señor de Las Casas, was there! He saw exactly what the invaders of the new world did, and who did it, and had the guts to write it down. At the time this was written, even the act of naming the perpetrators would have been dangerous, as those self-same Christians held strong sway in society then, and were not afraid to punish what they considered to be slanderous writings with severe penalties…. Blasphemous writings were even more dangerous; this one merely points out the very human nature of those who spearheaded the drive to conquer the Indians, but would have nonetheless been poorly received by Church authorities….

Any who, I intended to rant about this, but, it’s just so perfect by itself, I’m letting it stand alone, to teach the lesson to be learned here… It doesn’t really need my help to do so, so I’ll just step back out of the way…. Well, since I AM obsessive, a little bit, about being clear, I’ll add a couple of short pearls to help drive the point home, but, beyond that, you’re on your own today…. I know you’re capable, so be encouraged….

“Difference of opinion is helpful in religion.” — Thomas Jefferson

Q: Does a cow have Buddha-nature ? A: Mu — Smart Bee

Again, clarity strikes serendipitously from above!…. This one will definitely be on the Quiz, so I hope y’all were payin’ attention…..
_____________________________

There are times when this process is a bit frightening to behold, from the inside…. It can be kind of like the fastest, twistiest roller coaster you’ve ever had the misfortune to board….. It has also been described as being like that instant of stark fear in a car wreck when you know it’s going to hurt…. Then, other times, it all comes out like a welcome session in the throne room, with a big sigh of relief, and a new attitude….

Before I get to the point of too much information, or even clarity, I’d best check out what I’ve done today; I suspect it of being, shall we say, NOT usual…. Yep, I was correct, it isn’t…. usual, that is. And, since unusual is one of the things I shoot for, we’ll call it a win, and mark it down as such, without even an asterisk….. I’m outta here, before anyone thinks to call the authorities… Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Hip-deep in tuning forks….

Posted on July 23, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Almost very morning, for the last two or so years, I have arisen from my bed relatively early in the day, anywhere from 4 AM to 6 or 7 AM, and set myself to write. Every time I do, without fail, I suffer a pang of fear, that what I have to say will come out badly, or be boring, or most often, I”m afraid I won’t be able to think of anything worthwhile to write about. This morning, that fear has reached major proportions, because a) not only have I once again broken routine by staying up late, and arising late, so, I’m feeling rushed, and, b) not only can I not think of anything about which I feel like writing, but, worst of all, c) I don’t feel like writing at all….

Now, THAT is a huge change! I’ve depended on this process for quite a while now to maintain my sanity, and NOT having any urge to produce is a completely new feeling for me…. This process has all become habitual, often running by itself, without any conscious direction from me. I haven’t even bothered to consider whether or not I wanted to write; I just wrote. This morning I’m suffering from a lack of motivation as much as my usual lack of palatable, or at least acceptable, material, and I don’t know how to deal with it….

In at least one sense, this feeling, or lack of feeling, is a positive note in my existence, as it implies that those things in my life that cause me to feel depressed are either not presently active, or, are not bad enough to trigger any of my more destructive symptoms, such as labile emotionalism, angst, diffuse anxiety, and unreasoned fear. This leads me to feel competent, able to deal with any other difficulties with a higher degree of success, which, happily, leads to a further reduction of overall stress….

In addition, I seem to be getting the hang of living with my back and hips in this condition, (that is to say, weak, and constantly threatening a higher pain level), by not making mistakes about physical activities that cause me to tweak it, sending me into crescendos of spasms and severe pain; I haven’t had that problem in some time… My use of meds is not necessarily reduced, as I still get breakthrough pain at times, but it seems much more consistent in the average number per day….

All this means I don’t fear for my sanity as much as previously… This is, no doubt, probably not a wise course of action, as sanity can be a pretty slippery slope, and Murphy is always lurking around somewhere, just waiting to fuck with me for no good reason. But, it also means a period of time when it will be a struggle to find the motivation to write, perhaps even a bigger struggle than the daily one I have now in looking for something to write about…. Motivation is much harder to create than prose, I’ve found, especially within ourselves. I find it uplifting, and easier, to help others find motivation than I do finding it for myself; that’s probably very human of me, but, hey, you can’t pick your parents, or your species….

I do seem to be getting pretty good at this intro business, from an output standpoint, anyway. I can’t speak to the quality of what comes after, but I’d say the intro is fairly consistent these days, starting each day’s post with a four-to-six-or-seven-paragraph discussion of pretty much nothing at all, confusingly, but, firmly, leading the Gentle Reader deeper into the morass, until they have to go on to the end just to find their way back to reality…..

Hopefully, the poetry, and some of the virtual wisdom that is presented, makes the trip worthwhile… because, now, it’s no longer all about keeping me sane, which implies that I will spend less time in that state… or, not, which may or may nt completely destroy all my creative urges, and I’ll just fade away into blog limbo, never to be heard from again…. Sadly, I am unable to judge whether or not that is a comforting thought, or a scary one…. and I don’t think I want y’all to decide, either…. which means I’d best get on with this….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

Since my own level of creativity is in the dumps, I’ll be depending on Smart Bee heavily today…. Let’s see what it has for us today…. What happens now is as much of a surprise for me as it is for you, as this is my favorite kind of old-school pearl, one that I have started my search by typing in “star dot star”, or *.*, a search parameter that tells the search engine to look for anything, everywhere, which means one never knows what will be found…..

“How’s the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism?” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Since my cat learned to type, there is no guarantee whose thoughts these are…” — Smart Bee

“One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.” — Frank Zappa, 1979

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.” — Alden Nowlan

“Fools! they know not how much half exceeds the whole.” — Hesiod (c. 700 BC) — Works and Days, Line 40

Hmm… okay, I admit, it’s a bit obscure…. Let’s see if two more will fix it….

“Think of doubt as an invitation to think.” — Smart Bee

“One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty in finding someone to blame your troubles on. And when you do find someone, it’s remarkable how often their picture turns up on your driver’s license.” — P. J. O’Rourke

Yep, perfect…. Enjoy!…..
_____________________________

“Emily Dickinson didn’t even publish books, she just wrote these demented little poems with a quill pen and hid them in her desk, but they still fought their way into the world, and lasted on and on and on. It’s damned hard to get rid of Emily Dickinson, she hangs on like a tick in a dog’s ear. And everybody who writes from then on in some sense has to measure up to this woman. In the art of book-writing the classics are still living competition, they tend to elevate the entire art-form by their persistent presence.” — Bruce Sterling

This is quite true, but, it’s like that hive of bees…. Eventually, you just have to say to yourself, “Well, yes, having this urge to write poems IS much like having a hive of bees live in my head….. But, there they are!” Acceptance is hard, but in Emily’s case, not quite as hard for me as for some folks, as I KNOW I’ll never reach her level of genius when it comes to poetic expression, so I don’t bother to fret over it…. Here is an example of what I mean….

Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadences, —
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

As I iterated above, and shall now reiterate, I’m lacking in inspiration, and motivation, which means I’m lazy, and I don’t care…. Not so lazy as to go to the archives, but, lazy enough to go with another old-school pearl in place of a rant, which, though I believe there is one in there, just primed to come out to play, it’s not quite the right moment for it…. Another rationalization, but, then, rationalization has always been one of my better skills. It’s particularly handy when trying to decide whether to indulge my own whims, such as this one, to pearl….. The first four of these presented themselves as a group when I was searching for the material in section one of today’s post, and seemed to have something to say…. Who am I to keep words from expressing themselves?….

“When an idea is wanting a word can always be found to take its place.” — J.W. von Goethe

“Let’s not be too tough on our own ignorance. It’s the thing that makes America great. If America weren’t incomparably ignorant, how could we have tolerated the last eight years?” — Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989

“…this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.” — John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816

“I sometimes think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“Pardon him, Theodotus, he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.” — George Bernard Shaw

“A bare assertion is not necessarily the naked truth.” — George Prentice

“He may look like an idiot and talk like and idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.” — Groucho Marx

See, even when I’m being lazy, I can still take shots at pundits…. Gotta keep in practice, y’know?…..
_____________________________

3.141592653589793238462643383279502883197116939937.. I forget the rest….

A friend is one who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

Both of the above quotes came from Smart Bee, which is often the only one who knows where it originated… They are both there just because I like them, and they seem to be appropriate for both the mood of today’s Pearl, and for my own mood…. I would say I just like them, but, since I did that already, I’ll just get on with the proofing…. It shouldn’t take long, as there isn’t that much that I composed fresh, which cuts down on editing…. Didn’t seem to cut down much today… that took almost as long as the intro…. But, it’s done, you’ll be thankful to know, and we can all get on with the rest of the day….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Brains for breakfast….

Posted on July 20, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

I been yuckified! Well, not really, but, it was all I could come up with on short notice…. In any case, it gave me a chance to use the word, ‘yuckified’, a word of my own creation, (I think it’s mine, and, in truth, sincerely hope it is ….. ), meaning exactly what it sounds like…. Having thus gotten a quantity of both awkward adolescent humor, and, barely comedic, left-over silliness from childhood, out of my system, right off the bat, I can, presumably, proceed to a somewhat more adult, certainly more adroit, use of the written word to communicate, whatever it is I’m trying to get out of my head today….

The title of these missives very seldom has anything concrete to do with what I write each day; the two processes, of picking the title, and of picking a subject for the day’s effort, are completely separate, in time and intent. I boot up, type in the password, and, once all is ready, bring up the programs I use to compose with, with the picking of the title the last step in that process…. I then do other stuff until I’m ready to write (drink coffee, take pills, yawn, stretch, scratch, worship, etc….). Today, however, I must have had a precognitive episode, when the given title swam into my conscious mind, apparently looking ahead to what would follow…. brains for breakfast.

Now, as a former chef, the word brains implies a different thing than to what may come into the mind’s eye for the average, non-food industry, citizen; I see the dish I’ve only seen prepared, (no, I didn’t have the courage to actually taste it….), brains de veau aux buerre blanc, (sorry, forgot the French word for ‘brains’) whereas most other folks would probably get a replay of a zombie movie running through their head. I’m not sure who would be considered the less fortunate….

Therefore, and whereas, if you catch my drift, we’ll go on, to bigger and better things…. Sorry if I seem stuck in cliche-land, but, my use of such is actually a form of self-therapy, suggested to me by my doctor, as a ready-made form of rebellion that causes no harm, beyond the normal loss of brain cells caused by hearing anything of so ancient and mundane… without even giving a moment’s notice to the very subtle, yet destructive, attitude-shaping that is implied by the use of such simple phrases….

Take the phrase “bigger and better things”… this is presented in such a way as to imply that bigger and better is always a good thing, whereas we know the opposite is more often true in reality, or, at the very least, half the time, an assertion which is implied, and verified, by the inherently balanced, symmetrical nature of that reality…. To assume that making anything bigger is to make it better is to deny half of reality, and such attitudes have a way of coming back to haunt us…. Reality has a very powerful tendency to assert itself, especially if our attitudes are in opposition to its nature….

Some folks seem to like getting slapped by reality, though, and who am I to keep people from having fun? Besides, I’ve got other fish to fry, as I now have to turn my mind to putting together something coherent, and a bit more practical, in terms of literature, or I’ll never get done with this today…. Though I hear the muttering in the back of the audience, about “so, what’s wrong with that?”, I’ll ignore it, long enough to bring this mess to a close, and get on with today’s dive into the ocean of knowledge, searching for those gems that point the way to virtual wisdom, which, some days, is all we can hope for….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

Okay, well, that came out okay…. let’s see what kind of damage I can do here…. I think the operative word I’ll use today is one that came to me as I began this section, one I used above to describe how I’d like what I write to be, to wit: coherent. For me, it’s quite a stretch sometimes, to maintain any sort of connection to that word, given the complexity of both what I write about, and the complexity of the way I write, and express myself…. Both of these, one might say with accuracy, assume TOO much complexity in my hands, but, it’s my blog, and I don’t HAVE to be simple if I don’t want to… Call me a curmudgeon, if you wish…. actually, PLEASE call me a curmudgeon, it’s one of my life’s ambition to be seen as one….

Okay, I’m now officially babbling, having once again gotten too involved in the writing, and forgetting what I was writing about… Coherence, that is, which I’ve obviously lost all chance at achieving in this particular section….. Probably all for the best, as it’s a tough one for me at any time, much less on demand…. Fortunately, I have a way out of this conundrum…. it’s called dropping back five yards and punting the ball, or as we call it around here, “Let’s feed it to Mikey!”…. In other words, we’ll see if Smart Bee has any aphorisms to contribute, that might point the way to finding at least a modicum of coherent thought, and if not, well, at least it will be amusing, for a short time…. we can always hope, can’t we?…..

“Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 31

“A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Windsor Forest, Line 61

“Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD)
— Of Hearing, 6

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

— Emily Dickinson

“How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity, that his intentions were good.” — Mark Twain

“What happens to the wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality breaks and the glass begins to fly?” — Stephen King

Hush little bright line, don’t you cry
You’ll be a cliche by and by.

— Fred Allen

Sometimes, it works better than others…. this is one of those times….. This is a great pearl, so I hope you were paying attention, ffolkes….
_____________________________

It’s really okay if you didn’t pay attention…. though it’s a pretty coherent thought. At any rate, I feel like a bit more of Emily, just to keep things from becoming too normal…. Even if it’s a bit obscure, even for her, it’s a soothing poem, to my mind, and well worth the immersion…..

The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.

The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.

A vastness, as a neighbor, came,–
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,–
And so the night became.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

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

The framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing when they tried to build in safeguards in the system of government they chose after the revolution against England. They structured it with checks to the balance of power in each section, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, and reserving several rights to the people that had historically been reserved for the governments themselves, including the right to bear arms, one that every government in history has tried to restrict for its own use. The right to bear arms, the right to vote, the right to gather to protest, to speak freely, all these have, at one time or another through the last four or five millennia, been restricted, until men like Jefferson, Mason, and Washington took those rights for themselves, and offered the same opportunity to their descendants.

In fact, I regard it as proof of this assertion to find that the government, not only of this country, but all of them, is STILL trying to restrict the rights of the populace to bear arms. To my way of thinking, the most recent attempts by the government to curtail the public’s ability to obtain the means to protect themselves adequately merely serve to point out how accurate are statements such as the above, showing how little human nature has evolved, or advanced in the intervening years…. I’d be hard pressed to call the changes we’ve seen anything other than a retreat from achieving a more civilized society, as the populace continues to live in fear, most of which is manufactured by that very same government, to distract them from what is going on behind the scenes; for example, observe the data mining and illegal surveillance being carried on by Saint Obama and the current administration….

Sorry to apply the sarcastic epithet to the POTUS, but, his recent actions have revealed a lot of stuff that indicates that, yes, he IS a politician, and, as such, has been lying to the public on a regular basis since entering office, a habit much practiced by all those who enter those hallowed doors, as it turns out.

Historically, it seems, ever since I’ve been alive, for the last 62 years, each and every man who has been in the White House, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, has lied to the public on a regular basis, without qualms, and without apology…. This isn’t news, or new news, at all…. just go back over the headlines and op-ed pages over that period, and the evidence of what I have asserted is plain to see….

That is why I won’t ever consider any alterations to the second Amendment, or the First, or to any of them…. I still regard them as law, and see any attempts to restrict them as being acts of treason against the principles by which they were conceived and enacted. I DON’T trust ANY politician, not one who spends millions to get elected, even if, or especially if, the money isn’t theirs… The mere act of WANTING to be an elected official implies insanity to me, either of a sociopathic nature, or an evangelical one, either of which is dangerous to allow into any position of authority over others, as they will ALWAYS act to serve their own self-interests first….

’nuff said…. gigoid has spoken, and has no more to say on this subject, except…. Leave my Bill of Rights alone, or pay the consequences….

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde
_____________________________

Well, that’s a mellow little rant, quite polite in tone and length…. not sure what prompted it, other than what is obvious in the quote, but it’s apparently been in there a while, as it flowed out quite smoothly, for a change…. Let’s see how the whole thing holds up….. Well, it’s definitely a Pearl of Virtual Wisdom… so, off it goes, and so be it…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

A prodigal child no more…

Posted on July 10, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

There are possibly a number of y’all out there who might be wondering just what the hell happened to me. The last post on this blog was put up 10 full days ago, along with a glib promise, to post again the next day, that I was not able to meet…… And, if you’ll stop yelling out questions all at once, I will explain…. Thank you…. The day after penning and posting that blog, on July 1st, our second full day aboard ship, I arose early, as usual, to begin the day’s effort, when I tried to log on to the network provided on board…. Long story short, it took over two minutes for the ship’s name server to log me in, whereupon I tried to access my blog page, to see how many ffolkes had stopped in to read the first post….

Five minutes later, I was still waiting for the page to load…. and it got worse…. After attempting to go to other pages on the net, I gave up, as each time it was slower than my first dial up connection, loading pages as if still running Windows 3.1…. Unacceptable! Apparently, if more than 10 or 11 users attempt to use the network on the ship, it affects the speed, as they just don’t have anywhere near enough bandwidth to handle the traffic…. This, for a price almost 100 times the going rate for internet service anywhere !! For a minimum use plan, paying for each minute used as you go, the price was $1.00/minute; for a 200 minute plan, it went all the way down to $.79/minute, their best bargain….

I had budgeted enough money for contingencies, I’d hoped, but this was out of reasonable bounds, and would have been frustrating to use every time I logged on… So, rather than annoy myself, and my companion, I just quit for the time being, and hoped my gentle readers would understand…. If it is any consolation, I did get a lot of pictures, and had a great time, which I will attempt to share over the next few days….. We stopped in four ports of call, as well as a day cruising in a glacier fed fjord, and I’ll take them in the order we approached them from on board, to wit: Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, Tracy Arm Fjord and Glacier, and Victoria, B.C., our final stop….. well, until San Francisco, where we disembarked to go home….. Look for those pix and comments in section three of the next few posts, ‘kay?

Murphy greeted me this morning with an old, but classic, shot to the head, to welcome me home, I suppose…. The half-and-half milady Pat was kind enough to get for me at the store yesterday, so I’d have it this morning with my coffee, broke into a million clumps when it hit the coffee, first thing, turning it into brown cottage cheese, and totally spoiling my welcome-home cuppa… not to mention having to get dressed, walk to the store in the bright sunlight, and go through the rigmarole to replace it….. I managed that without hurting anyone unnecessarily (the one guy who spoke to me won’t wake up for hours, and should recover fully….), but it just goes to show….. well, nothing, really, except I HATE MURPHY, THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!

Shall we Pearl?……
_____________________________

After deciding not to partake of those delights provided by using the internet while on board the Grand Princess (which, in some respects, failed to live up to its sobriquet…. The trip, as a whole, and for the most part, was fantastic, but a few things about the ship itself left something to be desired….), I decided also to completely ignore the world outside the ship, and the places we visited. I listened to no news, on TV or radio, or on the net….. I checked my phone for messages only once, while in Ketchikan, but, otherwise, left it out of the equation, turned off and sitting in the safe. For ten peaceful days, all I thought about, or mostly, was what to eat next, or what movie to watch, or what comedian to go see in the theater on board, or how much more I needed to take out of the casino to make up for the shore excursions we got gouged for (the subject of an upcoming rant….)…

I did manage to come out pretty well in that category; I beat their blackjack dealers, over the course of the trip, for about three or four hundred bucks, which makes up for a lot…. Any who…. Since I have absolutely no idea what’s been going on out there in the world, I’ll ease my way back in with a random pearl, on the subject of human nature, intelligence, and the nearly uncountable facets of interrelated effects that has on people, and on reality at large…..

“Belief is the death of intelligence.” — Robert Anton Wilson

“Of course the US Constitution isn’t perfect; but it’s a lot better than what we have now.” — Eric Sheppard

“If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind of Gresham’s Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future.” — Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, — Vol. 12, Fall 87

“Curiouser and curiouser!” — Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

“The moment a person forms a theory his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.” — Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Charles Thompson, September 20, 1787

As Meander says, “For our mind is God;” and as Heraclitus, “Man’s genius is a deity.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Platonic Questions, i

‘T is education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent the tree ‘s inclined.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Moral Essays, Epistle i, Line 149
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Since I was on the water for so long, and I feel like absorbing some obscure genius, this is the perfect fulfillment of both urges….. Enjoy!

Aquatic Nocturne

deep in liquid
turquoise slivers
of dilute light

quiver in thin streaks
of bright tinfoil
on mobile jet:

pale flounder
waver by
tilting silver:

in the shallows
agile minnows
flicker gilt:

grapeblue mussels
dilate lithe and
pliant valves:

dull lunar globes
of bulbous jellyfish
glow milkgreen:

eels twirl
in wily spirals
on elusive tails:

adroir lobsters
amble darkly olive
on shrewd claws:

down where sound
comes blunt and wan
like the bronze tone
of a sunken gong.

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

_____________________________

After two days at sea to start the voyage to Alaska, covering about 1200 nautical miles, the Grand Princess docked in Ketchikan, Alaska, at a dock right across from the town’s main downtown streets, with a panoply of still snow-capped mountains providing a beautiful and dramatic backdrop to a scene from 150 years ago. The buildings, all wooden, and built in the style of the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, were fronted with wooden sidewalks, even though they housed shops and boutiques from modern times, filled with all the local treasures, such as smoked salmon and Tlingit curios, as well as the touristy usuals such as T-shirts, magnets, and stuffed bears and wolves of all sizes…..

I must confess, I went a bit crazy in the shops we went into, stocking up on souvenirs for the folks back home, and found a new hat for myself, as well. We had a very good pizza for lunch at the Fish Pirate’s Restaurant and Bar, to the accompaniment of live music by Sitka Tex, who played some great western swing, in a very smooth baritone, with some pretty hot guitar licks….

We picked up his CD, and then went on our tour, called the Duck Tour, in an amphibious vehicle that carried us around the town for local history, then drove right into the harbor at the marina, for a tour along the waterfront, where we were able to see a number of eagles fishing the waters off a rock where they like to congregate…. The tour driver and narrator were very personable and funny, using every old duck joke there is to punctuate their presentations (What happens to a duck who flies upside down? He quacks up!….). Funny, for the first six jokes, then it got a bit old, even with the liberal use of a duck-bill shaped quacking toy…. but, fun nonetheless…

Below, you will find the best pictures I got from our day in Ketchikan, or in the case of our email readers, a link to the blog site where I’ve posted the pix….. I hope you enjoy them, because I really enjoyed the opportunity to take them….
_____________________________

All in all, I wish I was still on board, but, hey, it’s also nice to sleep in my own bed….. Plus, once I got some half-and-half, it was the best coffee I’ve had in too long a time…. This Pearl went fairly smoothly, given the issues I found upon arising, may Murphy’s ass burn in hell….. It’s done, anyway, so let’s see how it reads….. Not too shabby, all in all, so we’ll go with it…. Naturally, there is a lot to catch up on around here, so, I’ll see y’all tomorrow….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Entirely too much fun for one penguin….

Posted on June 30, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
We made it, and now are happily sailing along the coast of the great Northwest, somewhere near Oregon or Washington, perhaps, headed for the Inside Passage. Not much scenery as yet, we’re a bit far from shore, and from the sea, one can see the effects of pollution, as most of the coastline we are passing is covered in a light to heavy haze, and it isn’t fog….. But, the water is calm, the sky is blue, and the food is plentiful…. Score!

This promises to be a wonderful trip, though I may not be as able to post as much as I did from Europe…. I’ve already realized that this time, I’m not alone, and my time isn’t as flexible as when I am…. I have to say, I am much happier with Patricia here with me than I was traveling alone, and not just because I love her, but because it means I can share all the good times….

That’s really all I have right now…. I’ve gotten my internet hookup done, and shouldn’t have a problem there, but, I’m not yet sure about the email version of the Pearls. This new computer is balking at installing Thunderbird, the email browser I normally use, so I may have to access it all online, which I am not sure will work for posting… I can access my yahoo mail, though, so contact is possible, just reduced…. Ah well, travel makes it all a bit more complicated, but, is well worth it…..

That’s all I really have to say today… I don’t have a rant, and I’m having too much fun to break away to write just now, so, I’m afraid y’all will have to wait for fresh material until tomorrow…. For today, I’ll merely dip into the archives for a couple of old school pearls, and find a nice, tasty poem…. Shall we Pearl?….
_________________________

Rather than an old-school pearl, I found this rant, from election day in 2012…. it’s a good one….

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” — James Madison

I found this yesterday; I’d seen it before, and it seemed serendipitous that it showed up just in time for the event today (psst!…. go vote!….). In my mind, a good standard for figuring out if a person is a true patriot is to get their take on the Second Amendment, and the idea of gun control by the government. As I’ve stated before, I believe the risk of letting the government restrict our rights in this regard, IN ANY WAY, can only lead to the eventual loss of the right altogether, and that is an event that is completely unacceptable to me. Yes, it means that the world will be a dangerous place, but, guess what, ffolkes, that is something that happened a long time before guns. Taking them away from the general populace is not going to stop mass killings, or unjust, insane use of guns against innocent people. That occurs on a daily basis, anyway, but with the guns in the hands of police officers; that is a fact….. So, don’t tell me that the government is more qualified to use guns than I am, because that is just stupid….

Now that I’ve insulted many of you, we’ll try to go on to the election…. didn’t mean to get off into a rant on that, but, wanted to get it out of the way, so that the discussion may go on to other ways that the government is, quite simply, fucking us left and right…. George Carlin had a lot of good points about the corporate masters and their lackeys, the beloved ruling classes, and the priestly hierarchies. He often pointed out that the world has turned into a massive corporate conglomerate, with all the world governments at the mercy of those few individuals who actually control all the resources, and money. Those are people you never hear about, or see in the news, unless it is by intent…. they don’t allow accidents like that to happen…. But rest assured, they exist, and are perfectly content to let the world believe whatever it wants, as long as their profits, their power, and their control over others continues to grow….

“The rifle and handgun are “equalizers”–the weapons of a democracy. Tanks and bombers represent dictatorship.” — Edward Abbey

But, the invisible rulers don’t like the Second Amendment…. it leaves too much chance for independence in the hands of the people, and in case the people ever find out what they have been up to, they want to be able to know where all the guns are that might threaten them….. Having the general populace of this country continue to have access to any significant firepower is not in their best interests, so they work behind the scenes to get people to believe the nonsense about gun control, and how keeping guns from the hands of the citizenry will make life safer…. which is just so much bullshit… plain and simple. Ultimately, the only real effect of making guns illegal will be to make a large percentage of the American people outlaws, because I don’t think any of us will give them up without resistance, whether overt, or covert…..

“The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.” — A. E. Van Vogt, The Weapon Shops, — in Astounding Science Fiction, December 1942

How, you may ask, does this relate to the election? Well, it doesn’t, directly…. it’s just a pet peeve of mine, and an example of another of our basic rights that are being eroded by politicians, preachers, and those who ignorantly buy into their lies. I don’t trust the Democrats any more than I do the Republicans; perhaps even less, because the Republicans seem to be far more open about their lack of concern with the rights of the people. In that sense, they are easier to spot, and to resist. The Dems are being more subtle, but that doesn’t make them trustworthy; they do, after all, seek that power over others as well. There just seem to be more of them who are motivated to do so out of some community feeling, and concern for others, and those are trying to encompass reforms that are sorely needed.

“A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation.” — James Clarke

The difference between the two parties that have the only chance at the seats of power is extreme in this election; very seldom has the choice that needs to be made been clearer. One can choose to move forward into a future of change, or one can try to return society to the middle ages, with all of its injustice, and misery. It is that simple, and anyone who wishes to argue with that is welcome to present their views…. I’ll knock them down easily, with headlines from the daily news that, although not exactly unbiased or always true, are nonetheless balanced out by the outrageousness of each side’s contributions.

“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.” — H.L. Mencken

The facts are all our there to see, and they clearly show one candidate whose only interest is in increasing his own power and wealth, and protecting his cronies on Wall Street, his cultish church, and the ruling class; he cares noting about the common man, and makes his disdain obvious. The other is, well, definitely the lesser of two evils…. on the apparent surface he is a dedicated, honest man, seeking reform and change, but, there are indications of less than stellar activity in his administration, too. But, he obviously cares about the common man much more than his opponent, and since the common man is the one who will be affected the most by what happens this time, the choice is clear. If you don’t want to have to take up regular use of Vaseline and Preparation H, then vote the incumbent…. If you really want to get a good screwing in the nether regions, then vote the opposition…. it is that simple ffolkes…..

“There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From this element spring all governments. “For a nation to be free, it is only necessary that she wills it.” For a nation to be slave, it is only necessary that she wills it.” — John Adams (1735-1826), Letter to John Taylor, 1814
_________________________

I Must Have Wanton Poets

MUST have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant king which way I please:
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I’ll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay;
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian’s shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive-tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actæon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transform’d,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pull’d down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty.

~~ Christopher Marlowe ~~

_________________________

Here is another good one from a day or two after the above rant was posted…..

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” — George Bernard Shaw

Now, THAT is a good attitude toward living! Carpe diem, and all that, don’t y’know? I like to think that I approach life in much this same manner, even though I have my moments spent in depression and despair; those moments I consider to be anomalous, and not fully representative of my take on life in general. Many people may not feel this way, and I cannot disparage them for that, as living often requires more of our attention that can be spared to make sure we are positively motivated; it’s not easy to get by in this world, and maintaining a positive outlook can become secondary to just having the wherewithal to do anything at all. But, George points out a pretty good way to think about it, even if one hasn’t the time or resources to fully appreciate, or apply, the principle as given….. As such, it joins a number of other viewpoints of famous historical figures, all of whom had advice to give to people about how to live well…. below you will find several of these suggestions for living life as well as one is able to live….

“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

“Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.” — Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

“Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.” — Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
— Tao Te Ching

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

Well, there you go…. now, all you have to do is put all of this into practice…. sounds like fun, eh?….
_________________________

Okay, it’s long, but it’s done…. and being old pearls, I don’t have to proof them, having done so already, last time they were used…. I’m calling it a done deal, and going to go spend more time having fun…. See you tomorrow…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Such splendid toast deserves marmalade….

Posted on June 22, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
‘Tis a sad commentary to note one’s entire life boils down to one moment, and in that moment, one realizes that the greatest skill one has developed is the ability to dither, or blather, or, as they used to say, to speak piffle….. Disheartening, to say the least; I had hoped for something a bit more dignified, or at least more useful. Piffle, as it was called in the previous century, is only useful to those who speak it, and to those who understand and appreciate it…. Most of the rest of society views piffle somewhat askance, as they have no idea either what is said, or what it may mean…. which, ultimately, is their loss…..

Of course, I can’t claim to be anywhere near as good at it as, say, Lord Peter Wimsey, from Dorothy L. Sayers’ novels; her books tend to intimidate as much as educate, as I believe she wrote with the Oxford Dictionary at close hand. Every page she wrote was filled with demonstration of a writer who loved the English language, one who seemed to use ALL of it in her writing. In my most egotistic dreams, I write only half as well as she did, for I don’t ever expect to be able to match her expertise, or her originality. Only someone with such a strong love for, and full understanding of, the language of their birth, could use it in such a way as to make it both ironically humorous, and at the same time, pointedly insulting, or laughingly charming, or quietly inspirational.

SIGH…. To my everlasting regret, I can’t do that, not as well as I’d like. It is a constant disappointment to me that I cannot; it’s one of the few skills in my life that I can say truthfully that I have been unable to master, once I tried. Perhaps, before I pass on to the next dimension, or whatever happens after we die, I’ll get closer to writing better piffle; I hope so. If not, well, I can always go back and read more of Ms. Sayers’ work, though I believe I’ve already consumed all of her Lord Peter stories…. They are the kind of books one can read over and over, finding something new every time….

All of the above is what could be called a distraction. I wrote it as a sublimation of the desire to whine about the intro again, hoping to distract both y’all and myself from the fact that this section once again is filled with material that has no real connection to anything, other than as a means to pass the time until my brain kicks into gear sufficiently to start writing something more nourishing to the mind. There may be those among you who would point out the lack of ANY material here that meets that standard, but, I don’t expect them to speak up; they’ve been threatened about doing so, and have assured us of their silence in this matter….

Of course, I can’t expect that threat to hold them off forever, so it’s probably better to just get on with the business of the day…. According to the stats I’ve seen recently, very few readers will see this anyway…. My number of followers keeps growing, but the number of Likes per day continues to drop…. I’ve averaged about four Likes per day for over a week now, though stats indicate my following is up to 270….

I don’t much care if ffolkes don’t always Like what I write, but, it’s a bit disheartening to think that no one at all cares to read it…. But, it doesn’t really matter, since I don’t much care one way or the other about fame, or money…. only about sanity (my own…), and sanity is the reason I write…. Not that what you see here is particularly sane by normal standards, but those aren’t valid here without permits anyway…..

Shall we Pearl?….
_____________________________

“The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.” — Eugene V. Debs, US labor leader.

(Note: Debs received one million votes in 1920 as candidate for US President, while serving a 10-year jail sentence for having said in June 1918: “Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder…the master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.”) — Smart Bee

This has been sitting around for a couple of days, since I found it in SB. It’s the perfect beginning for a politirant, and the news of late has provided a number of interesting side notes to this idea, so I find myself in the position of being compelled to rant, which is the best attitude to start with….

The recent news has shown a number of items concerned with the revelations just released a few weeks ago, when a former NSA contractor spilled the beans about how the US government has been spying on its own people, collecting personal data from phone records, mercantile records, and from review of emails and other data mined from the internet… The revelations, of course, are in the process of being denied and/or devalued by that government, who are trying to convince the public that the spying is “transparent”, and that the information is NOT being collected to investigate American citizens…. This, of course, is a bald faced lie, and anyone who believes it deserves anything that happens to them….

The government of this country is in the hands of people who are controlled by the corporate masters of society, sometimes willfully, most times without their complete knowledge. They (the corporate masters…) don’t give a SHIT about the rights of anyone else, so the above statement that got Mr. Debs in trouble is shown to be perfectly true. The people who control society don’t believe in the sacred nature of rights, for anyone who isn’t them, so it can be said that the rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million, because to the 1% (a number that is actually far larger than the number of real masters of society…. that’s probably closer to .001%…..), neither one is sacred at all….

What disturbs me a lot of the time is that there are still a lot of people who believe that, of the choices available in the political spectrum, one side or another is better, and showing support for one of them will direct matters to a more favorable (for the people) resolution…. The fact is, neither the Republicans, nor the Democrats, nor any of the Independents who are in office, or trying to get into office, have any interest at all in doing anything other than establishing their own agenda as the one used by society. Those agendas have nothing to do with helping the general public; they are designed to benefit only those who ascribe to the correct philosophy. No matter which political party or entity you choose, you’re going to get screwed, in the final analysis.

“The art of government is the organization of idolatry.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

If you still think that Barack Obama is going to help the common man, well, I suggest you listen to the crap he is putting out right now about this surveillance. Remember, too, that he signed the law that killed the Bill of Rights, on New Year’s Eve of 2012, the infamous National Defense Authorization Act, which makes it legal for the government to arrest citizens without a warrant, to hold them in an unknown place, without any oversight or review of rights, and try them in a secret court, without legal representation. It authorized the use of drones in a domestic fashion (which they continue to lie about, and say they aren’t using them…. when reports from all over the country provide relatively incontrovertible PROOF that they ARE using them….), and, most assuredly, authorized the illegal wiretapping and internet data mining that is currently going on, even though it has been exposed.

We may as well begin referring to the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution as the Bill of Former Rights, because, face it, ffolkes, you don’t have them anymore. I’ve heard it said that they are not rights, anyway, as a right is something nobody can take away from you…. More accurately, you have no rights that you are unable to defend…. and the government has slyly convinced most people that they don’t want those rights anyway…. Look how many formerly intelligent people are jumping on the bandwagon about gun control, forgetting all that our forefathers cautioned us about, when they warned about the possible encroachment of big business and the churches into the workings of government…. Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Mason, Franklin, all of them mistrusted the corporate interests and the preachers, having suffered much at their hands, and they tried to warn us against listening to them….

But, what happened to Eugene Debs back in 1919, when he was sent to prison (in direct violation of the right to free speech….) was not the first indicator that things had regressed, and the trend toward government takeover of the rights of US citizenry has continued right up to today. The recent revelations about spying, you will see, will be quashed, and ignored by those in power, as there is now nothing we can do to stop them from doing whatever they want…. According to the laws we let them slip by us, it’s all legal ffolkes…. We are screwed, and the only good thing I can see about it, is that, due to global warming, climate change, and the imminent destruction of the human species by our own pollution, we won’t have long to put up with it….

Books are burning
In the main square, and I saw there
The fire eating the text.
Books are burning
In the still air
And you know where they burn books
People are next.

— “Books Are Burning”, XTC
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The above rant, you may note, was cut short, due to my rising blood pressure; I came very close to losing it due to outrage there near the end. I’m so PISSED at our government, and the crap they’re pulling, it’s hard to keep it from spilling out into other areas…. Poetry will often soothe this kind of angst, and Emily does it quite well… This is a plaintive poem, and not particularly soothing…. It does, however, engage the mind in something other than the shenanigans I can’t stop, even if that which it brings for us to engage is no less serious, just more personal…. Any who, enjoy…. I did….

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings, are.

None may teach it anything,
‘T is the seal, despair, —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

_____________________________

Old school, old school…. I’ve ranted, and have Emily in place, so it must be time for an old school pearl, to finish off the day’s effort with a flourish…. I’m not even going to try to figure out any point, though I’m sure there will be one… This one is dedicated to the concept of fun, which I often forget to promote when in ranting mode…. So, I should probably warn you not to put too much effort into figuring this one out; it could cause severe brain function loss, and I’m not going to pay for the nursing bills during the recovery stage….. Otherwise, have fun with it….

Euripides says,–
Who knows but that this life is really death,
And whether death is not what men call life?

— Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Pyrrho, viii

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” — Carl Sagan

“Nothing unreal exists.” — Kiri-Kin-Tha’s Law of Metaphysics

“The common folk have many sayings, all about it being darkest before the dawn and clouds with silver linings and suchlike. We in the magical trade like to express our opinions of these matters somewhat differently. A lifetime of experience will have taught the average sorcerer that no matter how hopeless the situation seems, no matter how painful and fraught with danger his options may be, no matter how close he may be to an indescribably hideous death and perhaps even eternal damnation, still, the good wizard knows, it can always get worse.” — The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. XLVI (General Introduction)

“If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” — Albert Einstein

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.” — Lin Yutang

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle iv, Line 193
_____________________________

Today’s Pearl will possibly come to be known as an example of an average Pearl, if such can be defined. An intro, a rant, a poem, and an old-school pearl; all perfectly fresh (but for the poem, which stands on its own merit…), and none of it possessed of anything resembling normalcy. It isn’t genius, I’d guess, nor is it an example of any overt cognitive deficits, necessarily…. Given all that, let’s see how it reads….. Hmm, it seems I was right, and wrong, too… It’s actually pretty good, and may even lead to further ranting in the not so distant future, provided the news doesn’t let me down (and when has THAT ever happened?….). After some tweaking, I can pronounce it “done, and done well”, with no shame or trepidation…. Well, it COULD use a bit more humor, but, hey, I try, and funny can be a tough row to hoe at this time of the day…. and now I’m blathering again…. I’ll go now…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Put the stray curator in the parlor for now….

Posted on June 15, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Rational thought, being skittish, and reluctant to come out to play at this time of the morning, has easily escaped my feeble effort to pin it down, in spite of the reservation I made. While the foregone conclusion may well be obvious, that doesn’t alleviate the frustration. Having, however, given a solemn promise, this won’t stop me, but may, due to circumstances completely within my control, adversely affect the quality of the content of today’s Pearl. I’ve a pile of stuff to take care of today out in the BBR, so this missive must needs be done smartly; I only hope I can do so with some style…..

Legal requirements for blog intro material require me to notify any potential readers of the above, little as it has to do with anything at all. Regulations are like that, especially when they only exist in my imagination, but, I prefer to cover all the bases, having experienced the wrath of bureaucrats previously. Not that imaginary bureaucrats have anywhere near the power as actual, live zombies, but, one must do what one believes to be correct, even if not entirely sure of what that may be…. In spite of what you might have heard, the Universe does give points for effort; you just can’t use those points for any of the prizes….

Right…. now that we have conjured up a sufficient quantity of absolute twaddle, it is imperative we not lose momentum, lest we lose track of what has been done, and what remains to do. Of course, I can’t honestly say that I ever actually KEEP track of any of that, but, it sounds good, and does fill in more space. Moreover, we have honorably adhered to my determination to avoid anything resembling cheese, thereby keeping under control one’s consumption of cheese’s favorite beverage companion, dry, white whine…. Hey, it can’t be any other color; I’m Caucasian, and haven’t been out in the sun without a shirt for years…..

Now that I have completely gone ’round the bend, we’ll get on with today’s conflagration (I don’t know what else to call it at this point…..). I will point out that, despite any such rumors to the contrary, none of what is included in this blog has any nutritional value…. intrinsic philosophical value, yes, but, don’t bother trying to live on it, as you’ll end up with a severe case of scurvy to go along with the hair loss….

“It is human nature to think wisely & act foolishly.” — Anatole France
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As mentioned above, I have a lot to do today out in the real world, so fresh material will have to wait until tomorrow…. Here is a relatively short rant, sort of a combined political and religious rant, from the first day of the year we are currently surviving…. It came out pretty good, and is still quite valid today, so…. enjoy!….
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“If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.” — Thomas Jefferson

Oh well, so much for THAT hope! From all I can see in today’s society, what Tom J was afraid of has come to pass. If one takes almost any of the articles in the news that talk about the activities of government, religion, or society at large, it is obvious that bigotry and priestcraft have corrupted every level of those entities, and influence just about every human interaction that we see. Common sense is nowhere present, in any of those same activities under discussion. Of course, he forgot, in this instance, to include the bankers, but perhaps that is where the bigotry comes in…..

By its precise meaning, bigotry doesn’t include the idea of cheating, lying, and stealing from whomever one encounters; those activities, for a bigot, are only appropriate when done to those outside the personal group, to “foreigners, niggers, and chinks,” or some likely other group they’ve chosen to bless with their ignorance…… But, in a sense, bankers can be said to be universally bigoted, for they have no qualms about lying, cheating, or stealing from anyone, in any group, even their own. I guess that would qualify them as Ultimate Bigots…..

“As an ox goeth to the slaughter.” — Old Testament — Proverbs vii, 22; Jeremiah xi, 19

I would imagine this is how the bankers and preachers (either of which is capable of turning into a politician, at the drop of a hint….) view the masses of humanity who do not subscribe to their venality. In this view, they may be at least partially justified, by the apparent willingness of those masses to submit to whatever is done to them. Why should the politicians stop lying, when their lies secure for them the keys to the treasury? Why should the preachers not spread their delusions, when the masses are so willing to accept them, because it saves them the effort of either thinking about morality, or even better, saving them from having to BE moral….. The bankers, of course, need no excuses to carry on their despicable acts of calumny upon the remainder of society; their sole motivation is based on profit for them, and nothing else concerns them at all…

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson

Back to Tom…. He was a bit over the top sometimes, in the force of his expression, but never, to my mind, in his sincere commitment to Truth, and his sincere love for Mankind. I would like to think I join him in this sentiment, especially today, when we are so besieged by attempts to tyrannize our minds by our own beloved ruling classes. The war against immorality continues unabated, and too many folks in the world have withdrawn from the battle, accepting the lies and delusions that are foisted upon them.

It is important, in my opinion, that the rest of us, who can see the depredations assaulting the common man every day, keep on shouting from the rooftops to the rest of our compatriots, if only to save our own sanity….. and, before the strain of the conflict brings us to our knees, and we enter Zippy’s domain, doomed to extinction…..

“I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

Here is another piece from the archives, to save time, our most precious commodity, after the contents of our bag o’love….
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It has been awhile since I read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, and a small piece of it in Smart Bee gave me a hankering to run through it again. It’s a long piece, though, and can take a while to get through. In addition, it takes up a lot of space…. so, to avoid both those problems, today I’m providing a simple link to the poem, on PoemHunter.com, where I find a lot of what goes into this section…. A very large amount of the world’s best poetry and poets are to be found there, and I enjoy the simplicity of their interface… Any who, here, for your reading pleasure….

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/

Enjoy!…..
__________________________________

Well, I’ve gone and done it…. I’m going for the hat trick today, with all three sections pulled from the archives…. I decided that, if there are over a million words of material in the archives, why should I not utilize a bit of it to my own advantage? It IS my own material, after all…. Any who, here is another rant, this one fairly straightforward, again taking aim at organized religion, which I consider to bear a large degree of responsibility for the state of society….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.” — Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in “Time”, 1981

Well, Vladimir certainly nailed it in one! This fits right in with what I believe, which, though it has little if anything in common with popular religious views of the afterlife, is nonetheless just as optimistic in outlook as any of those rather exceedingly ornate, highly unlikely scenarios. In my world view, the mind, and consciousness, whatever it may be, is equivalent to energy in our universe, and as such, should logically have the same characteristic as all other forms of energy we have thus far discovered, to wit: it cannot be destroyed, only changed in form.

Each of the world’s religions has their own version of what happens after we die, and all of them are made with the assumption of the presence of their idea of God as the underlying reason for all that occurs. This, while logical, to a small degree (one has to accept some rather specious assumptions in order to follow a logical path to the concept of a God….), mostly reminds me of a small boy walking past a graveyard, whistling loudly to scare off his own fears…. It’s mostly wishful thinking, as far as I can see, according to all the physical evidence available. The proponents of these religious philosophies all make the same basic error in their logical constructs, one that is so basic, they can’t even see it….

That error lies in assuming that Man, or a man, being a mortal being, limited in perception and understanding by their own physical envelope, is capable of either understanding, or describing, what is a God. If one assumes that an entity is capable of creating an entire universe, I don’t think it is logical to assume that we, as part of that creation, would have the capability of comprehending either the process involved, or the being that carried it out. The mere fact that, in order to try to comprehend God at all, we need to try to give him first, a sex, then a visual identity, is the first and most telling clue that we are wrong, right from the start…..

The next clue as to our inability to know God is the behaviors that Man ascribes to Him. In just about every religious book I’ve read, the actions of most of the Gods therein reminded me more of a surly, selfish teenager than of a God. I don’t know, it just seems a bit illogical to have the creator of the entire universe behave worse than a cranky two year old that needs a nap, if He doesn’t get the fawning worship he so desperately needs. It sounds more like Benito Mussolini, or Madonna, to me, than it does like God….

This doesn’t mean, though, that there is no hope of redemption (though I’m not sure from what I’m being redeemed… the idea of original sin is pretty much a hoax, you know, put in the Christian dogma to help manipulate and control people….), or of life after death. The universe is actually a quite beautiful place without the concept of God hanging about, getting in the way…. And this viewpoint allows one to appreciate life much more fully, knowing that we bear sole responsibility for making our lives worth living…

Everybody dies, and everyone lives after death, as far as I can see from a logical standpoint. I think that what Vladimir says is a good way to look at things, as it acknowledges that responsibility for our own happiness, and does so without implying the existence of a need to do so in hope of a reward for good behavior, as is the case in those religious institutions who wish to control people here in this life, using the threat of punishment or reward in the next. We can assume control of our own lives, including our own happiness, or, we can allow others to think for us, and accept the chains and limitations of living according to someone else’s ideas of what is real….

The saddest part of all this? Most folks never even realize they have a choice in the matter. From infancy, they’ve been brainwashed to believe what they’re told, and all-too-few of us manage to escape the bonds of slavery that are placed on our minds early in life. Most folks just accept what they are told by anyone in authority, and get very comfortable in their chains, since they don’t have to think for themselves at all….. They never realize just how large and beautiful the universe really is, because they’ve accepted the blinders they wear, and refuse to even acknowledge that they wear them at all….

It sure makes me glad for whatever happened to keep me from falling for that whole scam; I can’t say exactly what first clued me in to the facts, but, I’m very, very happy that it did. I can’t see going through my life filled with fear of what might happen afterward; it’s too much fun enjoying all the beauty and grandeur that exists on our planet to spend more than a second considering such nonsense…… 🙂 Thank God for small favors, eh? 🙂 Sorry, couldn’t resist….

‘Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 50
__________________________________

Mission accomplished, and with some style, by all appearances…. Let’s take a look…. Well, it all worked once, why not again? Plus, all of it remains valid, so, it works for me….. As a bonus, I’m still on schedule for the day’s activities, so I’ll take it, and run….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Mooning over pugilistic dreams….

Posted on June 11, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Salacious, grinning demons haunt the edges of my dreams, claws dripping in the blood of innocence. Hideous screams echo through the dark halls in my mind, as the torturous maze leads me ever deeper into the nightmare of my own mind. No soothing touch is felt on skin numb to all feeling, no mellifluous voice penetrates the foul cacophony ringing in my unwelcoming ears. Time stops, and pain becomes eternal, the focus of all perception, until I awake, groaning in fear, to find myself alive, and whole, shaking, soaked in sweat, and vowing never to sleep again….

Gee, look…. it’s already 0700 in the morning, and I’m just now getting started…. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe I had finally overcome the time distortion suffered when I went to a different time zone for over two weeks…. I knew about jet-lag, but didn’t realize just how powerfully it can affect someone unused to it (or maybe, someone so old…..). It has taken me until this week to feel relatively normal (though, if one is to judge by the first paragraph, normal has a very flexible meaning around here…); I suppose it is only logical, looking at it from the outside, to expect the recovery to take as long as the original change, but it certainly has been enlightening to experience the process from the inside.

I apologize if the first paragraph was too graphic, or negative, for anyone; it just seemed to flow out, as a reaction of some kind to the lack of sleep I’ve known for the past weeks, since leaving for Europe. Due to the absence of normally available substances to assist in getting to sleep, and staying there, during the time I was traveling, my sleep, for the entire time while away, was rather broken up…. Since returning on May 27th, it has taken this long to resume any kind of routine, as my body seemed to resist all attempts to change back to this time zone…. Ah well, persistence has saved the day, and I think from now on, I’ll be able to get back to a more acceptable level of rest at night…. If it keeps me from writing any more horror blurbs, I’ll be happy…. It’s just not my kind of thing, y’know?….

I distinctly remember, at age four, being taken to the movies by my older sister and brother, to see the opening of the (then) new movie, The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Needless to say, at that age, the monster scared the crap out of me, and I spent most of the last hour of the movie in the lobby, waiting for it to end…. While waiting, I remember vowing to myself to never, ever again spend my own money to go see anything that scared me;it seemed to me, even at that tender age, that spending my money on that was silly, or stupid, take your pick, and I wanted nothing more to do with it…. I lived up to that vow, too, and have avoided horror movies ever since….

At about age 25 or 26, some lady talked me into going to see “Jaws” with her, and since she offered to pay, I went along with it, despite my reservations… It was pretty scary, too, right up until that chicken-wire contraption jumped into the boat, coming after the stupid, asshole boat captain…. Since the chicken-wire was fully visible in the movie, when the camera looked straight into the shark’s mouth, in the scene where it grabs the boat captain, it lost a bit of its scariness…. but, it was bad enough that it reinforced my reluctance to watch any other horror flicks…. So, I don’t, which suits me just fine… Life is scary enough; I see no need to pay money to get scared, for any reason….

Now that we’ve taken a trip down memory lane, to no real purpose, it must be time to quit blathering, and get on with the day’s business, such as it is….. I’m really, really late getting started, thanks to Morpheus’ kind attentions, so I may have to dip into the archives for something appropriate, in order to get done, and get on with the rest of today’s planned activities…. So, Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.” — Thomas Jefferson

This pearl is a perfect one for a discussion (rant, if you will…) of religion… a religirant, as we call them around here…. Or, it would be, if I had the mental wherewithal to create one today…. Oh, the angst, and the knowledge I need, is all in there, organized to be presented logically…. unfortunately, I don’t have the energy, for some reason. Though I slept well, for me, I’m still tired; probably has to do with smoking, and not getting enough oxygen, or something like that… Regardless of why, I don’t quite have it in me to rant today, so I’m going to sublimate that urge by going with an old school pearl from the archives, which, fortunately for me, is on the same subject, so the above aphorism from TJ fits right in…. Enjoy!….

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

I’m feeling curmudgeonly this morning, but also quite lazy. Therefore, old school pearl…. Here is another one that jabs a pointed stick in the eye of religion, as is fairly common ’round these parts….. All of these historical figures, and modern authors, had something to say on the subject, but all in a slightly different way…. which is what makes life interesting, right? Right…. Enjoy, and pay heed, because otherwise those preachers, they’ll getcha…. and they won’t let go…..

“Human, do you know how interesting it is, this thing you describe? Avata does not have a god. How is it that you have a god? Avata has Self, has the universe. But you have a god. Where did you find this god?” — Frank Herbert

“Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane — like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell — mouths mercy and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!” — Mark Twain, _The Mysterious Stranger_

“In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.” — Pliny the Elder

“History records no more gallant struggle than that of humanity against the truth.” — whoever Google says it was, if not Smart Bee… (sounds like H. L. Mencken, or Voltaire..) (Huh…. Google attributes this to Ashleigh Brilliant….)

“I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science…This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.” — Max Born

(As perfect proof of this particular assertion, I offer the following unattributed piece of nonsense, that nevertheless is probably one of the most revered items of dogma in many Christian cults…..)

God didn’t call them the 10 suggestions! — Unknown fundie

(If you can’t see how WRONG this statement is, in so many different ways, I have a great deal of pity for you…. Reality is going to really work you over…..)

Under Alabama law, the wearer of a false mustache in church who causes unseemly laughter is subject to arrest.– Smart Bee

Well, there you go…. It all will make sense….. maybe if you just play it backwards….
__________________________________

For some poetry, no introduction is needed…..

Ancient Air

I climb up high and look on the four seas,
Heaven and earth spreading out so far.
Frost blankets all the stuff of autumn,
The wind blows with the great desert’s cold.
The eastward-flowing water is immense,
All the ten thousand things billow.
The white sun’s passing brightness fades,
Floating clouds seem to have no end.
Swallows and sparrows nest in the wutong tree,
Yuan and luan birds perch among jujube thorns.
Now it’s time to head on back again,
I flick my sword and sing Taking the Hard Road.

Li Po.

__________________________________

Here is a another pearl from the archives, first presented in November of 2012….

I first read a Robert Heinlein novel when I was about 10 years old. Then, when about 11, I read his masterpiece work, Stranger In a Strange Land, and my mind was forever changed. His characters were real to me, and the words they spoke were filled with Meaning and Truth, capitalization required. Over time, he has continued to be my favorite author, and I was saddened beyond measure when he passed on, as was the entire Science Fiction world of readers and authors (I’m sure his editors and publishers were also saddened, but for different reasons, the ghouls…). He was considered, by all of SF fandom, and by all the other SF writers, to be the Grand Master of the genre, deserving every bit of praise he garnered in his lifetime.

His character, Lazarus Long, continues to be my favorite of all his protagonists, though it is a close race with Miss Friday…. Lazarus’ character is one that gave Mr. Heinlein unlimited scope for the wisdom he wished to impart to his readers. At the beginning of the book, Time Enough For Love, Lazarus has just reached the age of approximately 2600 years, having been born in 1912, with that age somewhat skewed by some travel through hyperspace, which does funny stuff to Time.

But, as near as he can remember, Lazarus has survived through all those centuries, and, in the course of the book’s plot, agrees to share some of the wisdom he has collected over the years, in the form of his “Notebooks of Lazarus Long”, a short chapter in the larger book, Time Enough for Love. Here are a few of the most cogent aphorisms in the Notebooks; all of them are used by me on a daily basis, if not more often, and one can do no better than to keep them in the forefront of their mind, to ward off the insanity the world can foist upon us with no notice…..

“Beware of the “Black Swan” fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you – with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the “Gigo Law”, i.e. “garbage in, garbage out”. Inductive logic is MUCH more difficult – but can produce new truths.” — Lazarus Long

“Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

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

“One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.” — Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love

“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” ~~ from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.”~~ from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“Bromidic though it may sound, some questions don’t have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.” — Katharine Graham
(Okay, not Lazarus, but, it’s one he might have said, perhaps in the character of Lorelei, or Lapis Lazuli, Lazarus’ cloned twin sisters, had he/she/they thought about it…. )

“Always store beer in a dark place.” ~~ from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ~~ from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

That’s enough for one day; Heinlein’s ideas are not as simple as they may appear at first read, and should be absorbed only after considerable rumination over their meaning…. like any chocolate for the soul, it needs to be thoroughly mixed into the milk…. 🙂
__________________________________

Such as it may be, here it is, complete…. Let’s see how it floats….. Okay, I have to admit it… It’s all a cheat, but it ain’t too bad…. and it’s going out the way it is, so there…. I seem to detect a bit of friction building up in my attitudes… I’d best take a break from this now, or suffer the consequences; that would be totally unfair to y’all, as you’d probably get splashed, or dragged down with me…. Instead, I’ll just say this….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

No worries, there’s plenty of time to…..

Posted on May 8, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Fellatio….. Now, if a word like that doesn’t draw the eye, I don’t know what will. Not that I really need any tricks this morning, with plenty to write about. Of course, none of what I have to write is relevant, but, who cares? Tomorrow, I leave for Europe…. Murphy has done what he can to spoil it, of course, by making me fall for the lady down the hall…. I’ll be going, but the one person I want to have with me isn’t able to come along this trip, so, I’ll end up doing everything by myself…. It will take a bit of the excitement out of seeing all those things I want to see, because I’d rather have her with me to share….

It won’t mean I won’t have a good time; that, I think, would be quite impossible. But, when I’m having that good time, I’ll be a bit sad at having it alone. But, then I’ll think about how nice it will be to have someone there to greet me when I get home, and it will be okay. Besides, in today’s modern world, we have Skype…. so, we’ll be able to talk, and even video chat, while I’m gone, and that will help to reduce the sorrow at not having her here. No substitute, for sure, but better than nothing at all. Plus, I’ve already booked another cruise for the two of us…. 🙂 No flies on me….

She’s always wanted to go on an Alaska cruise, so we’ll take one of the new cruises out of San Francisco in late June, which also returns to SF, eliminating a lot of the cost of the trip…. No airplanes or port hotels needed, just a car to the proper wharf in SF, get on the boat, and have fun….. I’m starting to feel just a little bit decadent, and I think I like it…. The old hippie in me is a little miffed, because I’m consorting with the fascist lackeys and enjoying the fruits of my capitalist labors, but the even older hedonist in me is purring, loud and strong….

This will be the last Pearl until I’m in Europe, so there may be a gap until the next one…. I will be flying overnight, going east, which will put me a day ahead…. I’ll arrive in London Friday morning, and won’t post until later in the day, when I can catch my breath from the flight over the pond…. This means there won’t be a Pearl tomorrow, Thursday, unless I can get up really early to put up a quick one…. I’ll try, but that means leaving the computer to be the last item packed, and I may not want to do that… we’ll see…. So, just be aware, there MAY not be a Pearl on Thursday, but will surely be one on Friday, late…..

All of this also means today’s Pearl will be comprised of what I’ll call QuickCheats, to wit: material mostly out of the archives, or what can be found and put together quickly, and a poem from someone else, as nothing is leaking out just now (I do feel a couple of them circling around in there, but apparently, they’re not ready to come out….). Hopefully, none of it will look so familiar it puts anyone to sleep…. but, if it does, there are blankets and small pillows in the overhead compartments….

I think I’ve rambled enough for one morning, and still managed to get the housekeeping done… I even have time for a quick break, but will forgo telling you what I’ll be up to…. And, now, it’s time for the main show…. Shall we Pearl?….
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This may be cheating, but, it’s a good sort of cheat….. This was a rant on gun control that I wrote last year, after one of the spate of incidents in which a bunch of innocent folks got blasted by some crazy man…. Since that particular question is still in the public eye, this is worth a re-run…. (Hmm… I realized my statement may seem a bit calloused… but, that’s merely my attempt to keep emotional distance from the feelings that such events can produce, of sadness and outrage, neither of which will help reach a solution to the problem…) Any who…. abondanza!

“Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the _real_ object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” — Patrick Henry

Here is a subject that is always worth a few words…. I’m a firm believer in the right to bear arms. I do feel that it is probably unnecessary for a private citizen to own, or feel they need, an automatic weapon such as a machine gun, or even an M-16 assault rifle. I can’t think of a lot of everyday situations where one might be called for, but, I wouldn’t want that to be a factor in whether or not I would be allowed to have one, because what Mr. Henry asks above remains valid today….”in whose can they be trusted.. with equal safety… as in our own hands.”

That simple question is one that MUST be answered to even CONSIDER the idea of disallowing citizens the ownership of firearms. It is a certain conclusion, with more than ample evidence, that the police, military, and government agencies and people that I know of, are NOT to be trusted to have the monopoly on guns. Nope, no way will those who seek entitlement and power over others in society ever be trusted fully by the likes of me….

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks.” — Thomas Jefferson — Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed. reissued 1967)

Tom may have gone a bit overboard in his enthusiasm for his personal artillery, but, it does reflect the environment in which he lived, and the culture of the time. In today’s world, of course, physical health needn’t depend on the environment, per se, to provide the exercise our bodies enjoy, and need, to stay healthy and strong. Now we have a fitness center, a faux gym, every third block in major cities, open all night for those insomniacs who want to obsess over their abs. We don’t need to go tramping through the woods with our forty pound musket, trying to spot something appropriate for dinner.

But, even without the need for the exercise involved, if one is going to have a gun, it needs to be used in order to retain its functionality, and one needs to practice occasionally, in order to maintain the skills needed to actually hit whatever at which one is aiming. Society, because of the average person’s fear of guns, and of violence in the whole, has made that more difficult for citizens as time has passed, as those who don’t want to have to deal with violence at all in their lives add the power of the common man’s fears to the effort by the beloved ruling class to take away our guns, which they’ve been trying to do regularly since the inception of this nation.

Our country is still one of the very few in the world where the government actually still has to keep in mind the fact that the citizens are well armed, and able to defend themselves…. Very few governing groups will allow that, and those in power in this country are still trying to get us to give ours up, too. It has been obvious since 1782, when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights came into effect, that those in power would prefer that the populace give up their weapons…. just check Congressional records to see how often a bill is introduced to that effect. To now, all of those attempts have been thwarted, until the latter half of the 20th century, when some limitations were placed on what kinds of weapons would be legal for citizens to own.

But, the effort by the beloved ruling class to disarm the populace continues, and every year I hear talk about new legislation designed to limit the citizen’s access to guns, and place that power monopoly in the hands of the government. I won’t have it, I tell you, and there are a LOT of people in this country who feel the same way…. I have not seen ANYTHING that convinces me at all that the people who run the government are to be trusted with that kind of power. I have seen many, many pieces of evidence to the contrary, especially in the actions of about half of the police forces in the country, who are filled with power hungry sociopaths, who believe they are above the law, and should be allowed to interpret the law to their advantage, and to the advantage of the people who buy them, er…. pay them……

Nope…. none of what I see in society is any evidence of the trustworthiness of the government, and until there is no question of their integrity, (like THAT will ever happen), you won’t be convincing me that they are worthy of my trust…. ESPECIALLY regarding guns…..

“So live that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell.” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

It seems that fate has guided my hand, or perhaps just my eye…. The following is an excerpt from the same old Pearl as the above rant… The Pearls from that time had already evolved into the format we now know and love so well, so it just fits right in, just as if it was meant to do so…. which it was….
—————————————-

As a matter of course, I don’t usually make dedications, but this one just fits so right…. I have a friend on WP, whose site is dedicated to all things beautiful, and everything she posts meets every standard I know of in justification of that. In short, it is a small island in the huge ocean of the WWW where one can go to find a short respite from all the ugliness of modern life, and the vagaries of the human experience…. so here’s one for Carol Welsh, whose site you can find here: http://carolwelsh.wordpress.com/

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkn’d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

~~John Keats ~~

__________________________________

This last pearl for today will be fresh, or as fresh as I can make it from old, unused pearls, that have been lounging around in my stash for some years now…. It should be okay, it’s all straight out of Smart Bee, back when I could trust it to run…. The point of today’s old-school effort will be as obvious as I can make it, but, I’m not giving that a lot of credence, and neither should you…. I would suggest you take notes, as it could be to your advantage later on…..

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.” — Oscar Wilde

“One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns he must die and accepts his sentence undismayed. ” — Robert Heinlein

“Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.” — Mark Twain

40. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck. — Instructions for life

“Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Marcus Cato

All things good to know are difficult to learn. — Greek Proverb

“Was mir nicht umbringt macht mir streng!”
{What does not kill me, makes me strong!”} — Friederich Nietzsche
__________________________________

And there you have it… a record breaking Pearl, in re: production time of 75 minutes, so far…. Let’s see if it passes muster…. Oh, it does, it does, at least as well as a number of recent efforts, so we’ll have to let it go, or be accused of discrimination, and I don’t have the time to deal with that…. I apologize for any inconvenience, and please remember to pick up all of your personal items before exiting the vehicle… thanks…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

We’ll have to spit-ball the hinges…..

Posted on April 21, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
We’ve got Trouble, right here in River City, ffolkes….. Don’t worry, I won’t go all Robert Preston on you, and burst into song, or anything like that. I’m merely referring to the empty space here on the page, which, sadly, matches the empty space in my head, the space that SHOULD be composing an intro for today’s Pearl…. Extremely empty space, too…. So empty, I’m sitting here, writing about how empty it is, instead of looking around in the odd corners and niches in there, to find SOMETHING that would work to draw y’all in for the ride today…. but, I’m screwed, and the pooch knows it…. whatever that means….

Forgotten, old and grey, the ancient dogs march along the dusty street, searching for the possibility of food…. Scraggly weeds filled the cracks in the street; abandoned, stripped vehicles litter the sidewalks and alleys, many of them burned out, blackened and stark against the pale concrete of the buildings. Nothing moved, save the slowly searching pack of canines, not even rats, or any of the vermin usually seen in cities. No people walked the empty streets, and the silence bore down on everything in sight, oppressive, adding the weight of time to the heaviness of the air…..

No, I have no idea where that came from…. but it took up the space of a whole paragraph, so it stays…. I suppose apocalyptic scenes such as this one will become common in the future, if what I fear comes to pass….. When the Earth decides it has had enough of the depredations that mankind has perpetrated on this planet, our species will disappear, the same as the T-Rex, the dodo, and the auk, and Mother Nature will spend a few thousand years cleaning off the surface, which we scratched, dented, and broke apart so callously in our paroxysms of destruction, as we looked for sources of fuel for our machines…. and we won’t be missed at all…. Well, the dogs might miss us at first, but, they’ll get over it….

Okay, so now I have to balance the negativism with something lighter, so we don’t fall down into a pit of depression….. Hmm, I know….

“PUNK ROCK!! DISCO DUCK!! BIRTH CONTROL!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

There, that should balance things out…. Of course, Zippy has just mentioned three of the reasons that we will no longer be around…. Any species that comes up with Disco, AND Punk Rock, in the same century, deserves to become extinct, in my humble opinion…. But, then, I really, really HATE Disco…. and punks aren’t far behind in my estimation…. But, it did change the direction most satisfactorily, so, we’ll just sort of ignore the passions that may be present, and get on with the rest of today’s Pearl…. Which, I see, is coming right along, as we now have a sufficient number of paragraphs, and certainly a large enough quantity of BS, to qualify as an intro…. I’d better dive right away, before Murphy notices…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers gathered around to hear what had passed. At this time, said Nasrudin, I only want to say that the King spoke to me. All the villagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The remaining villager asked, What did the King say to you? What he said — and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear — was ‘Get out of my way!’ The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.” — Smart Bee

When I first read this, a long, complex, and wonderful rant took form in my mind, on the subject of the gullibility of the public…. Unfortunately, somewhere in the process of getting this moved over and formatted, the rant broke apart, like smoke from a fire, dissipating into the ether without a sound, and leaving me sitting here, with a wonderful pearl, and nothing in my head to write about it…. “Well, shit,” he said, with feeling…..

Smart Bee, or Murphy, or Nasrudin, whichever is responsible for this, thinks they have me trapped, and are probably sitting there, maybe even together, laughing, and waiting for me to explode…. Hah! They’re destined to be disappointment, I’m afraid, because I’ll just switch gears, and make this an old-school pearl, using the anecdote on Nasrudin to point the way for the rest of the group…. So, here you go, a five-star pearl, the point of which is now moot….

“It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.” — Carlos Casteneda

“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” — Oscar Wilde

“A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.” — Nicolas Bolleau-Despreaux

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book ii, Chap. xxxvi, Of the most Excellent Men
__________________________________

Wishes aren’t horses, and neither do I….. which, decoded, simply means I don’t have a new, fresh poem today. I did create a Haiku, which is below…. But, for today’s poem, another treat from the archives is called for, as I just can’t create a poem whenever I wish, much as I’d like to be able to do so…. Nevertheless, I AM making a new haiku each day, so that has to count for something, right?…. Any who….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XExplore reality,
my mama said with a smile;
it will teach you truth.

~~ gigoid ~~

Momentary Terror

Absently casual, memories pester endlessly
leaving only bleeding remnants, amiable and loving.
Coming awake, I cry to still the pain, shamelessly.

Elsewhen, time gives surcease, if only to live,
shoring broken pilings, worn and gray.
Passing on, I laugh at the pain, accept all it will give.

Time will build a shelter, warm and ever safe
save for Fate’s busy hands.
Enduring, I follow the pain, knowing it will chafe.

Fixed against a darkened sky of starry black
such beauty brings us to our knees.
Entranced, I welcome the pain, ’tis all I lack…..

~~ gigoid ~~

__________________________________

“A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ah, yes, it does indeed….. This is the principle of human nature I exploit when I rant…. Well, I try, anyway…. It seems as if Ralph Waldo had the inclination to rant strike him on occasion, and, competent observer that he was, he examined how it made him feel, and act when he was in ranting mode. When in full flight, ranting makes one feel ten feet tall, able to leap arguments with a single quote, impervious to sarcasm or belittling remarks, and capable of chewing up the toughest pundit and spitting him out, before breakfast….. Whether or not one could actually do so doesn’t matter in the slightest, for it is what we THINK we can do that determines what we CAN do…. Like the dragons of Pern, who could lift any weight when flying, as long as they thought they could….

“Whenever you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, however unpalatable, must be food.” — Smart Bee

Now, this is a truism; much as it seems like levity, it is quite serious, being a disguised version of a truth uttered by Sherlock Holmes, about Truth, to wit: “As I have previously stated, Watson, when one has eliminated the impossible, what remains, however unlikely, must be the truth.” (God, I hope I quoted it right… I’m lazy, and used the version in my head, rather than googling it to make sure…. but, I’m 100% positive that my paraphrase, if it be such, is completely accurate, in terms of meaning…..) Ranting is an area where this principle is key; it really doesn’t make sense to rant about something that isn’t true, unless the falsity is the actual subject of the rant…. as the following aphorism implies….

“It is a substantial advantage for any philosophy to be based on the truth.” — George Santayana

Of course, this doesn’t mean that being right will make reality conform to how we wish it to be. Much of the world, if not all, is controlled by a group of people who lie, constantly, without shame, completely indifferent to how it affects others, as long as their own needs are met first. But, they only do so because most of the public believes their lies, for the simple reason that it is too hard to believe otherwise. If they begin to see the truth of how they are controlled, they become frightened, often to the point of violence, because they don’t want to know the truth…. unless it comes from a suit on TV…..

“Given a sufficient number of people and an adequate amount of time, you can create insurmountable opposition to the most inconsequential idea.” — Devyver’s law

This is truth, too, sad as it may seem…. The general public will believe just about anything they are told, usually without any sort of critical thought applied to testing its veracity, if it is presented in a manner to which they are accustomed to being told what to do…. If the guy on the six o’clock news says it will rain money, most folks in this country would start looking for a barrel to catch it in, and wonder if it would rain in bills, or in coins… I kid you not…..

This may seem as if I have a poor opinion of the average intelligence of the average American, and in that estimation you would be absolutely correct…. I can say this with complete confidence, as it is a proven fact that the average American’s IQ is below the average for the human race at large….. fact, ffolkes, not supposition…. Of course, I could be lying, but, if so, you can just chalk it up to their bad influence…. If they can use untrue ‘facts’ to prove their assertions, I can, too….

Besides, I can show you almost 50 MILLION pieces of proof of my assertion, without having to look further than the Presidential election last year…. In that election, almost fifty million people voted for Mitt Romney, proof positive that they would believe ANYTHING…. How else could they decide to vote for a man who was PROVEN to have lied during the campaign (independent fact checking organizations showed that he lied just about 50% of the time, or, put more simply, every other time he spoke, he lied...), and indicated, on tape, his complete disdain for over half the people in the country?

It is such an incredibly huge number, it just isn’t possible to understand how gullible people can be, when one sees this statistic, (50 million votes for an asshole….). It is equally hard to believe that so many of our peers are this incredibly dumb, but, truth will out, as it always does….. It also speaks to the number of truly bigoted, racist people that are still in this country, hiding behind their cowardice, and their misguided, ignorant patriotism…. but, that’s a subject for another rant….. (All stupid people aren’t bigots and racists, but ALL bigots and racists are stupid people…..)

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” — Lazarus Long

You won’t get a better, more clear warning than that; on that note, I proclaim this rant, such as it was, to be complete…..
__________________________________

All in all, not too bad…. No fresh poem yet, but a decent rant, and all the rest if fresh…. Now, let’s see if it hangs together well enough to publish…. Well, we have another vote for ‘all in all, not too bad’….. So, it’s good to go, and we’re gone…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

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

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Thomas Jefferson

We’re wondering if that CEO caught fire yet….

Hip-deep in tuning forks….

Brains for breakfast….

A prodigal child no more…

Entirely too much fun for one penguin….

Such splendid toast deserves marmalade….

Put the stray curator in the parlor for now….

Mooning over pugilistic dreams….

No worries, there’s plenty of time to…..

We’ll have to spit-ball the hinges…..

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