There are shades of culpability at play….

Posted on August 19, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.” — Spanish proverb

There are moments when I feel that this whole process of creating the Daily Pearls of Virtual Wisdom is well defined by this little aphorism…. This isn’t to say that I consider what I’ve done to be ‘nothing’, but, the end result is the same, is it not? Whether what I write is brilliant and compelling, or just plain silly (that seems to cover the gamut of material I see here…. Joke….), nothing in the realm of reality is changed, for better or for worse…. Nothing I can see, that is, other than in the minds of a few die-hards who show up regularly, and, apparently, like what I’ve written, but, I don’t know exactly what they think, other than they keep showing up (for which I am eternally grateful….)…. I’m glad that what I write appeals to someone out there, even though that isn’t the expressed, or actual, purpose behind my literary efforts….

Saving my sanity was the original purpose, but, it has grown beyond that initial motivation, to include more elements of egotism; it would be foolish to deny that it requires a certain amount of ego to continue to post the kind of material I do. But, that has never been an issue for me, as my ego is plenty strong, and plenty big enough to not give a rat’s beauteous butt if people disagree with my opinions; as well, I’m always willing to enter into dialogue over my thoughts, and give folks a chance to shoot down my logic and/or reasoning, and to consider other, new information in relation to the subject at hand. My ego is even strong enough to admit it when I’m wrong, if the proof thereof is compelling and clear….

I think what has happened is that writing has become necessary for me to feel complete; when I don’t get a Pearl done in good time, I find myself experiencing a sense of diffuse anxiety, that nibbles at the edge of my consciousness, keeping me on edge, until I get it done, or make a final decision to abort for the day (that usually only happens when technical issues are present….). Once it is done, though, I feel like the above proverb, rested, and ready to face the day’s tasks with a clear head. In retrospect, looking at what I’ve just come to realize, it is a routine, a set of habitual behaviors, that I have developed, one that is very closely entwined with my persona in such a way as to affect all the other stuff I do and feel…..

In other words, I’m addicted to this, and HAVE to make a Pearl each morning, or I start exhibiting, and feeling, symptoms of withdrawal, complete with dyskinesia, unspecified malaise, and inability to concentrate. Between this process, and coffee, I am a slave to my inner needs, just like the rest of humanity, I would guess…. I just talk about it more, and admit that I’m an addict more readily…. Or, maybe, that’s just ego talking, and all of this is just another exercise in futility, disguised as an intelligent opening section of today’s Pearl…. Since the evidence is weighty in both directions, I think we get to choose, so I pick the futility…..

In other words, I’ve done nothing, once again, and now I’ll go rest….. Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

“There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying.” — Josh Billings

In the past few weeks, I’ve mentioned how the BRC (Beloved Ruling Class) has a nasty habit of lying to the public. When I do this, I am deliberately singling them out, in spite of the simple fact that this behavior, lying, is one that all of us, to some degree, are subject to displaying, in scientific terms, alla damn time! (That’s an Italian measurement, “alla damn”, taken from the Latin “compos mentos” — “he is insane”…..) It’s true, we all lie (and if that isn’t a strange and beautiful sentence, I am hallucinating again…. not….) Let me say it again, just so you get it…. It’s true, we all lie…..

Of course, those of us with an evolved sense of integrity and/or honor try to confine our lies to what we tell ourselves, to maintain our illusions about our own worth, and our own ability to cope… without which all of us are much less capable…. (Hmm… what does THAT say about our nature? Not sure I want to know….). But, in reality, many people don’t limit their lies to themselves, but use them freely to attain their own ends. I’m not sure how they rationalize this behavior to themselves, or if they even bother, but, it is clear that they do lie, and they do it without any compunction, or reservations about its relative morality….

Any who, I didn’t intend to rant here, so much as provide an explanation for the following pearl… It isn’t comprised of quotes that will inspire or stimulate cogitation, but, actual headlines, once again ripped from the real news, as listed on SFGATE, an outlet of the SF Chronicle, which used to be just a newspaper…. If you look at each of these, you will note a theme in them that otherwise may have been missed…. Look at each with this in mind; in this situation as described, how many lies have been told? Lies to protect a reputation, or prevent a lawsuit. Lies to the public. Lies about the public. Lies from the administration. Lies from corporate spokes bots, and from union fat cats. Lies from criminals taking advantage of the ignorant. Lies about sex, lies about money…. It’s all there, in seven little headlines, a simple part of our Reality, ffolkes…

SF Fire Chief bans helmet cams in wake of crash

Britain detains partner of reporter tied to NSA leaks

Scammers prey on confusion about health care overhaul

AC Transit union rejects contract offer

San Diego mayor set to return amid recall drive

BART managers, like unions, among best compensated

Markets drift as investors await Fed details

Ain’t Life © (copyright pending) grand?! Makes you want to just go out and start a petition, or something, eh?…. Yeah, I know, me, too….
_____________________________

Last night, during a tangential search for something or other, I went through some old Pearls from the site archives, and stepped in a large pile of serendipity, which I didn’t mind getting all over my shoes, at all…. I found three poems that I wrote last August, that I had completely forgotten about, all three of which are pretty damn good, if I do say so…. It was very strange, actually, as I must have literally opened a vein to create these; my conscious mind has no recollection whatsoever of any of them, or of writing them…. But, there they were, big as life, and obviously mine, staring me in the face… So, I saved them, and will submit them for your perusal over the next few days…. Some of y’all may remember them, as I saw some of the regular site-goers had been there…. Here is the first…

Dreaming, I wait….

In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.

Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.

Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.

Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.

Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.

When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.

Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night
aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart
Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,
tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art….

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Like it or not, I have to hurry now, to get this done…. I’ve a lot to do this week, in preparation for another move…. packing boxes, changing addresses with banks and agencies, renewing passport with new information, etc., just piddly stuff that all needs done so I can stop thinking about it. Hence, the following old-school, random harlequin pearl, subject as yet unknown…. Let’s see what SB can do for me on such short notice….

Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.

— William Cowper (1731-1800) — The Task, Book vi, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 85

“Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it doesn’t.” — Sir Arthur Eddington

“Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, mankind should be thinking about getting more use out of the weapons we already have.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, _lib. II., De Clem._, and C. Stantatus, _De Temperamente_) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

“Hail, holy Ass!” the quiring angels sing;
“Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!”
Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”
G.J.
— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Take naps and stretch before rising.” — Things We Can Learn From Dogs

Sorry, can’t blame this one on me; it was all Smart Bee…. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it….
_____________________________

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

— William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

I’m in a weird mood today; let’s hope it doesn’t translate into the real world in a way that I will come to regret….. Ah well, I’ve been weird before, and shall be again, so… that should do it for one day….. Like it or not, I guess I’m done, save the shouting, and the lawsuits….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

We were hoping for more of a gestalt version….

Posted on August 18, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shall we Pearl?…..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dragon of Grindly Grun

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

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

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

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

_____________________________

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

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

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

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

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

Invictus

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

— Henley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Acres of discount bishops, reduced cardinals, and one used pope…..

Posted on July 16, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“I have many CHARTS and DIAGRAMS!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I don’t, but, in spite of that lack, I’m pretty sure I can make it through the day. Not that I’m saying that they wouldn’t be useful, for something or other, but, for our purposes here, which are, happily, much more mundane activities, not requiring the use of scientific paraphernalia, I don’t think we need to get that precise in our calculations. In fact, taking the time to fill them out, or in, could conceivably cause problems, and work to our disadvantage.

This, I think, is the primary reason that more ffolkes don’t use them on a regular basis, and why the market for them is often depressed. I’m sure it makes life difficult for those poor people who manufacture them for society’s use, but, it can’t be helped…. Perhaps it would be in their best interests to find a new line of work, one that isn’t quite so dependent on the current whims of society…. but, then, I’m not sure just when the market for charts and diagrams is going to get better…. Maybe they could start making lullabies, or perhaps, yogurt?…..

Don’t know why I woke up silly….. And if you try to tell me that the above wasn’t silly, I’ll slap you until you cry for your mama…. Well, okay, it could have been sillier, but I don’t see how, really, unless we dressed Zippy up in a clown costume…. Oh, wait, he already wears a clown costume….

Okay, well, that proves it, right? Silly is as silly does, and clown costumes define the parameters, I should think. If not, they should, especially when they are covered in polka dots, like his often are… Surely, there’s nothing sillier than a gangly, pasty-white, pointy-headed dude, in need of a shave, fetchingly clad in a polka-dot clown suit, unless it’s imagining his mother and father, and how THEY might be dressed…..

Now that I’ve spoiled any appetite for breakfast you might have had, it must be time to get on with the day’s business, such as it is. I realize it isn’t of much importance to y’all, other than as a means of wasting more time before you start your own day, but, it keeps me off the streets, at least for a few hours, and the public authorities are always appreciative of that, given the extra officers they feel they have to have on patrol when I’m out and about…. I don’t know why, though; I haven’t eaten anyone in years….. They get SO nervous and worked up, just because of a few youthful indiscretions….

Be sure, however, that period of my life is in the past, to stay; my diet these days is much more exotic, as I now stick to political pundits and religious dogmatists for the greater part my nourishment; they’re much less of a loss to society than your average man on the street, and, with generous amounts of mustard and cheese, can be quite tasty…. yum! Almost as good as a corporate elitist, or one of those savory military-industrialists, glazed with sugar and cinnamon….. Throw in the occasional sautéed police commander, and I’m a happy gourmand….

Hmm…. okay, you tell me…. Did that cross the line of good taste? It’s hard to tell, in the case of those assholes I consider responsible for the mess the world is in…. I mean, they have no compunctions about screwing over the rest of us, just so they can think of themselves as one of the elite, to whom the rules don’t apply. Why should I worry about offending them?

Essentially, I don’t, and I don’t care much what they, or anyone else, for that matter, thinks about it…. As long as they are out there, actively making decisions that affect the entire world based on their own perverted sense of entitlement, then I’ll feel no qualms about taking the odd shot or two at them, whenever I feel like it…. Fuck ’em, if they can’t take a joke….

On that note, shall we Pearl?…..

“If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.” — Billy Wilder

(Okay, NOW I’m officially worried…..)
_____________________________

The quote above is what I call a ‘settlefer’, because that is what I did…. settled fer it. It does fit, though, so it can stay…. Below you will find…. well, I don’t know, yet, what you’ll find, as I have yet to pick them out…. Let’s just say that I think you’ll like it, and leave it at that…. Nothing I seem to come up with to say about these harlequin style pearls ever seems to quite make the grade, accuracy-wise, so I’ll just trust to fate, and the inherent integrity of Smart Bee, to make it worthwhile…. it usually works…. Let’s see what we can find….

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” — Plutarch

“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” — Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“I figure that if God actually does exist, He’s big enough to understand an honest difference of opinion.” – Isaac Asimov

“In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.” — Epicurus

“Take away the right to say ‘fuck’ and you take away the right to say ‘fuck the government.'” — Lenny Bruce

Hmm… not too shabby at all….. I should leave it there, as it is quite perfect as it is, but, I’m an incurable meddler, when it comes to pearls, anyway…. Two more ought to round it out nicely, I think….

“Why did Nature create man? Was it to show that she is big enough to make mistakes, or was it pure ignorance?” — Holbrook Jackson

“In heaven all the interesting people are missing.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Alright, now you can slap me…. I’ll even hold your coat…. Sorry, couldn’t resist, but, at least it’s done for the day, eh? (Practicing my Canadian dialect…. or would that be the Canadian Dialectic?…. Eh?….)
_____________________________

The poem I have percolating is still doing just that, so, once more, I turn to one of the masters, with a poem that appeals to me, if for no other reason than the title…. as previously noted, I am easily entertained….

Another Song Of A Fool

This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look;
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.

Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet.
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

_____________________________

I’m not feeling lazy, but, I AM feeling lazy, so I’m dipping into the past to come up with today’s third section…. It has been some time since I posted this, which I try to do at least once a year, to keep new ffolkes apprised of my history, and provide some background for the stuff I write here…. some of the back story, as it were…. So, here is my philosophy of Life, and some of the rationalizations that prompted its creation….. Though Peruaosophy originally was composed in the 1980’s, this article was posted on the site, GoodBlogs.com, sometime in early 2011, prior to starting this blog on WordPress….

Birds Do It, Bees Do It
So Do I…

In the dim, dark past, when I was, sort of, attending college at UC Berkeley, (1968-70) discussing philosophy was standard in many of the BS sessions in which I participated. In order to not be thought of as someone who was ignorant in the field, I naturally read the classic tomes by such philosophers as Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kirkegaard, Plato, Socrates, Epicurius, Solon, and Jung, as well as more modern folks, such as Bucky Fuller, Sartre, and John Lennon (yes, him too…his philosophy tends to lean way to the left…).

One day later on, sometime in the 80’s, I was involved in learning to raise kids, deal with a wife, and in general going quietly crazy trying to balance all the balls one must keep in the air to get by in today’s world. As I sat this particular day, it struck me how long it had been since I stretched my mind. It seemed as if I’d been buried in mundane details forever, and upon examination & reflection I decided I wanted to expand my consciousness, using the flight of imagination to lift me above the everyday cares and woes to which I had fallen prey. And I found, as well, that I had been unconsciously acting according to many of the precepts that I had learned in those halcyon days of my youth.

Encouraged by this revelation, I went one step further, and made the decision to codify my own personal philosophy, to put down in writing those things that I consider to be essential to becoming a well-grounded, well-rounded, productive and contented member of society. The process went more quickly than I had imagined, and I came up with seven basic concepts, all of which I hold to be an integral part of what I believe. Axiom #4 was added later as a necessary part of the whole, overlooked in the initial version, bringing the total number of axioms to eight.

The word I coined to describe this philosophy is Greek; “perua” means “pearl”, and of course, “osophy” is “the study of”. Thus I give you Peruaosophy, the study of pearls of wisdom. Each axiom stands alone, and together they describe fairly well how I approach Life…..

Peruaosophy

The wisdom of pearls…
(The world is my oyster; which way to the pearls?)

Axioms

1) I think I am; that’s close enough.

2) The nature of the Universe is Change. Unpredictable, innovative
transformation of Reality is the Norm. If you have a problem with this, you’re in for a rough ride in Life.

3) Thou art God, you know. Let’s do lunch.

4) Excellence is its own reward.

5) Girls think differently. So do boys. Don’t fight it.

6) Axiom #2 X axiom #5 = And God so loved the world, He said,
“Quit whining!”

7) Do your Duty. Respect Life. Honor the Truth. Share your Love.

8) Go back. Everything you need to know is in the first seven axioms.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Well, don’t I feel like an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters?!….. Well, at least it isn’t Shakespeare….. Let’s see how it holds up to scrutiny of the relatively easy sort….. All I can honestly say is that it’s a good thing I like my standards down where they are, and they’re getting used to the smell, so…. we’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

Plotting with obscene barristers …..

Posted on July 11, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

Insofar as we ever have them around this blog, a typical day starts off with my staring at the screen of my computer, desperately searching through my brain for something coherent to say…. it seems today is a typical day, despite having a brain chock full of recent memories from which to choose. So full, I suppose, it makes the choosing of one over another difficult, as they are all quite appropriate and/or immediate, and equally enjoyable for me to recall. Luckily, today is not the only day I have to make the choice, merely the one we are caught in, destined to remain until the next one comes along….

Well, I see my time away hasn’t altered my pomposity a whit, nor has it dulled my skill at saying absolutely nothing with far too many words…. SIGH….. There are moments in this writing business when I begin to understand a little better the motivation those people who used to (and, I guess, still do….) flagellate themselves, whipping themselves with sticks, or reeds, or farm implements of one sort or another, until their backs are bowed and bloody…. They do it, I believe, to punish themselves for their sinful natures, or some such convoluted reason some preacher told them, while I only consider it as a sort of behavioral tool, kind of like one uses with a recalcitrant donkey, otherwise known as an ass….. Either way, I don’t suppose it’s the most intelligent procedure mankind has come up with, so I always pass on adopting it for personal use.

Something must be done, though…. I’m tired of spending so much mental energy trying to figure this out in the mornings, and need to find a way to shorten the process of introducing each Pearl for daily consumption, or whatever it is one does with one’s Pearl…. I’ve always left that up to the Gentle Reader, and have never inquired…. My life in the Big Blue Room is becoming a bit more complicated, now that I have a partner; I need to be able to complete this in a timely fashion, so I can go deal with reality while it is open for business, from 9 to 5, generally…..

I have to laugh at this point…. which I just did….. I’m sitting here, blithely typing away, when it occurs to me that this sort of babble is the most common result of my morning expostulations, and may just be the answer I seek…. Hmmm… new possibilities are coming into view, and I’ll need to look at them closely…. but, later. For now, I’ve noticed that this pile of drivel has grown to the point where I can call it sufficient unto the day’s need…. for which you may be eternally grateful, as am I…..

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.” — Alan Watts
_____________________________

At first, when the following pearl began to formulate itself, I was quite pleased… It got away from me a bit, but then, with the final line, brought it all into perfect focus, if no less esoterically obscure in concept. In other words, it is a random pearl, with a message all its own…. I like it, anyway, so here you go….

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” — Leonardo da Vinci

“Besides learning to see, there is another act to be learned — not to see what is not.” — Maria Mitchell

“Don’t follow in my footsteps. I think I stepped in something.” — Smart Bee, speaking for gigoid

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.” — Cicero

“The universe is _intensely_ beautiful.” — Smart Bee

Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoilt his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.

— Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”

“What do they call a comedian who doesn’t get any laughs? A philosopher.” — Phil Proctor
_____________________________

Hell is the place of those who have denied;
They find there what they planted and what dug,
A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing,
And wander there and drift, and never cease
Wailing for substance.

— William Butler Yeats, Responsibilities and Other Poems (1916).The Hour-Glass

My own urge to poem is still dormant, and it is something I daren’t push, lest it disappear altogether again for another 25 years….. I’m not sure I have that long to wait, though I certainly hope so…. To sublimate my own urge, I’ll go to the classics, always a favorite….

Church And State

HERE is fresh matter, poet,
Matter for old age meet;
Might of the Church and the State,
Their mobs put under their feet.
O but heart’s wine shall run pure,
Mind’s bread grow sweet.
That were a cowardly song,
Wander in dreams no more;
What if the Church and the State
Are the mob that howls at the door!
Wine shall run thick to the end,
Bread taste sour.

~~ William Butler Yeats ~~

_____________________________

Icy Point Strait is a new stop on the cruise ship itineraries, with no real docking facilities, so the ship anchors a few hundred yards offshore, ferrying visitors to land with tenders, holding about 100 folks of all ages and sizes at a time. It is very sparsely developed as yet, with only about forty-eleven gift shops, a native theater, and two food outlets, all housed in a couple of brand new looking buildings clustered near the small wharf where the passengers unload the tenders to come ashore.

The shops are filled with all the usual tourist items; t-shirts, caps, scarves, etc. with logos of the local attractions; native crafts, art, and artifacts; jewelry; one counter style restaurant serves reindeer chili and lots of salmon dishes, smoked or otherwise, and there is a bar and grill restaurant at the end of the zip-line, which runs from a small mountaintop nearby, about a quarter mile, down to the shore. A shuttle to nearby Hoonah, an “authentic Alaskan village”, runs every few minutes, to allow the visitors to experience the local amenities, such as the charming “unpaved roads and no stoplights” (direct quote from the shipboard information sheet)….

Shore excursions to go ziplining, searching for bears to photograph, or catch & barbecue salmon were popular for some (it is salmon spawning season, so the rivers are full of big, hungry fish), while others got on another boat to go watch whales in a nearby area where they tend to congregate. As a foodie, chef, and plain and simple glutton, I was compelled, naturally, to put myself through the ordeal of wading through the crowds, so as to be able to say I had tried the reindeer chili. Thus, milady and I bundled up (the weather was a bit overcast, though it only showered for a few minutes, and, as always up there, a bit cold when caught out in the wind…..), braved the crowds on the little boats for the five minute ride to land, and went to see what there was to see….

An hour and a half later, we had seen EVERYTHING, except the zipline, bears, and whales…. We even saw the salmon, as they were jumping out of the water near the cruise ship all day, on their way to the spawning streams…. It is a beautiful place, for sure, and some day will probably be home to resorts and winter sports venues galore, but currently, about the biggest thrill available is strapping onto a metal chair to slide a quarter of a mile down the side of a small mountain at about a hundred miles an hour on a zip line….. not my kind of activity….. Aside from having vertigo, which would make it very hard to even get me up there in the first place, I think I’d prefer to partake of that particular variety of fun a bit closer to a medical facility, in case of, well, zlip ups (sorry, couldn’t resist….).

Below are pictures of Icy Point, a fairly accurate account of what we saw, in the order we saw it, minus the shops and stuff…. Hope I was able to capture at least some of the beauty of the landscape…. it is indeed a gorgeous environment in which to live, if one likes snow, and the frontier life….

You may have noted that I didn’t say anything further about the chili, which was the ostensible reason for going ashore…. Final verdict: it was tasty, but, not exceptionally so, and wouldn’t constitute a compelling reason for going back there, just for that….
_____________________________

Well, that was harder than I had thought it would be, but, once again, I lived through it, and so will you, I believe…. Hopefully, today’s outburst isn’t too onerous of a read for y’all…. After this long around here, you should be tough enough for almost anything, right? Any who, let’s see how it looks….. Okay, okay, it’ll do…. I think…. Well, it will have to do, because I need to get it posted and get on with the day….. I hope y’all enjoyed today’s little catastrophe….. 🙂 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

Susceptible to diverse therapeutic models….

Posted on June 23, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Oh, hello there…. come on in, but mind your head on the doorway there…. We’re doing a bit of remodeling, made necessary by an incident that took place late last night. There I was, sleeping peacefully, until about 3 AM, when all of a sudden, every piece of loose paper in the apartment burst into flame, WHOOSH, and I found myself frantically spraying water from the sink all over the place, alternated with beating out licks of flame on every surface…. A real nightmare, for sure, but without the benefit of being asleep….. It’s a real mess, but, I managed to get all the flames out before any of the walls or anything else got involved, so, I’m forced to assume the attitude of “it could be worse”. Which, of course, it very easily could have been, had it actually occurred…

No, that’s right, you heard me correctly…. I’m lying again, or, as we authors like to call it, being creative….. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything to start with today; the only thing I could come up with was this little bit of prevarication, which I justified as being acceptable only with the greatest reluctance…. I don’t really enjoy lying, as it challenges all I was taught as a boy by my father, but, how else can one make fiction, if not by a form of lying about reality? Any new story, or any idea that hasn’t been already used, is, from one viewpoint, a lie, because it doesn’t exist in reality. Even though I know this, it doesn’t help to keep quiet those voices we have in our heads, put there by our parents in our infancy. I don’t know about y’all, but the voices in my head can be quite insistent, and annoying….

I know, I know, there are medications for that, but, these voices aren’t psychotic in nature; I actually heard them, utilized by my parental units, stating whatever advice or warning they were trying to convey, at one point or another in my youth, so the medicines wouldn’t prevent them from making themselves known. Of course, most of what they say is a repeat of stuff we already know, so it’s not hard to just let it go by without getting worked up, or feeling any guilt, which, when dealing with stuff our parents gave us, is an occupational hazard…. I am SOOO glad I got rid of guilt in my life; I can’t tell you what a difference it has made….

Well, all of that is certainly….. well, it’s done. It’s words in a row, all of which are relatively connected to the ones nearby, which makes for a more pleasant appearance, as well as helping it to make whatever sense it may possess…. In this case, not a lot…. In fact, practically ALL of this intro section, thus far today, could be considered as sheer drivel, were it not for the need to keep some dignity on board. In looking back over what I’ve written so far, I can only hope that I haven’t gotten any of it on any new clothing items, and that nobody takes it seriously…. Even for me, this one is pretty loose, so, please, be careful handling it… it might not have a lot of sharp edges, but it WILL leave a stain….

“One cannot make up stories; one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard.” — Carolyn Heilbrun

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

— Bother! said Pooh, as time unraveled around him.

Boy, don’t you just hate when that happens? I know I do…. and, these days, I feel like time is definitely becoming looser, and less likely to stay in its proper form. This may have to do with how close we are approaching our demise as a species, or with the constant barrage of insanity that continues to be displayed every day in the news…..

Some days it is impossible to keep up with all the stupidly insane, absolutely bonkers stuff that pours out of the mouths of pundits and politicos, preachers and police spokepersons (silly damn word….). It seems to me that government, as we know it, could do with a sense of humor…. Currently, there just isn’t anything funny about what they’re doing, in almost every arena, and I, for one, could do with a break from their implacable stupidity…..

I had intended to rant here, and to some extent, that will hold true…. I suppose the above paragraph could be counted as rantlike, but it needs some direction before it will come close to drawing any blood; I try to make sure it will at least cause a wound that will scar up, or what’s the point? However, at this point, there is just too much to choose from among the issues that are in the public eye right now…..

The Supremes are taking up the question of gaiety, and whatever they say will certainly cause consternation in one camp or another; the Feds are proving their complete lack of a sense of humor, by bringing charges (a euphemism for ‘persecuting’….) against the whistle blower who is hiding in Hong Kong, who had the audacity to tell the truth in public without their permission; civil wars are happening in the middle east again, and even the players can’t tell who’s who; another public circus is being played out in a Floridian court of justice (is that an oxymoron?…), where a paranoid racist murderer is being protected by the system….. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an article about penguins today, just to counterbalance all the disturbing shit being broadcast everywhere….

I can’t keep up with all of it; it’s getting crazy out there, ffolkes, and getting there faster all the time…. Any who… Since I can’t keep up, and can’t decide on what subject I should rant, we’ll try some cosmic Judo, and use my own weight against me…. We’ll go old school, and see what happens… These quotes are…. well, they are what they are, and they say whatever it is they’re going to say…. Deal with it, and enjoy….

“If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” — Abraham Lincoln

“Be patriotic – question authority.” — Bumper Sticker

“An ethical man is a Christian holding four aces.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910)

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

— William Butler Yeats, “The Stolen Child”

“I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.” — Jules Renard

That’s it, I give up…. Smart Bee is being a butthead today; this pearl took an inordinate amount of time to put together, for so little result…. but, it works, so we’ll get on with the rest of today’s effort, and consider it all a wash up to now….
_____________________________

Between what I see and what I say
Between what I say and what I keep silent
Between what I keep silent and what I dream
Between what I dream and what I forget:
Poetry.

— Octavio Paz (1914-1998)

Honorable Request

Days, filled to a brim with fluff and time, pass
dimly into memory, bit by combative bit,
ever mournful, yet loud with life and sass,
only in dream do we meet, and dance, and flit.

Souls, spinning ’round in gleeful wonder, comply
as they must, never given a reason,
somberly proper, yet limber and quite spry,
dancing on to greet each bright new season.

Storms, angered by apathetic care, rage
proceeding into ministerial glare, unknown,
clothed in colors, purified solely with sage,
past an infinite future, already flown.

Life, plumbed to its depths and secrets, keeps
flowing with currents, strong and fairly found,
love stands, asking release, as it slowly weeps,
seeking refuge unasked, to stay honor bound.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

Section one today turned out to be a bit strange, which, while not unexpected, did screw the format up a trifle. I don’t have a rant left in me, beyond what I’ve already done, and SB is being wonky about giving me what I need… So, I’m resorting to the archives, where I found this little religirant, not too long, and quite fitting, given what has gone before…. Plus, it’s done, and I don’t have to worry about being more creative (not that I lost a lot of sleep over that….)…. Any who, here is a pearl from mid-2012 sometime…..

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

I don’t have an attitude problem–it’s supposed to be like this. — Smart Bee

I like this. It’s what I’ve said to any number of folks who have challenged me regarding my intransigence in the face of ignorant behavior. I am always tempted to add, “I am an American citizen, and it is not only my right, but my duty to challenge authority,” mainly because I believe it to be absolutely true, thought not an attitude currently favored by most of society, more’s the pity…. We’d be a lot better off if more folks took their duties as citizens more seriously….

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” — Thomas Paine

All of our founding fathers were convinced that only an educated populace had a chance of maintaining the freedoms they secured for us. They knew firsthand how unscrupulous churches and governments, working hand in hand, had oppressed and subjugated the people for centuries, and they were determined that it should NOT happen here. So they engineered a system whereby each citizen has the opportunity, and the right, to a complete grounding in basic knowledge, in order that they could make informed decisions regarding the laws with which they would be living….

“The Church hates a thinker like a criminal hates the police.” — Smart Bee (So do politicians…)

For over 200 years now, the beloved ruling class and their hidden supporters, the prelates of the churches and synagogues, have been repeatedly and subtly attempting to undermine the purpose behind educating people, trying to limit the amount spent on education, or luring people into believing the nonsensical alternatives that religion offers in lieu of independence of thought, thus minimizing the effects of the education received outside their influence. They (the politicians and priests/preachers….) continuously bombard the public with lie after lie, until the lies are accepted as truth, just because there is nothing else offered. They then use those lies to further confuse the public as to what is really happening, and go about their business of stealing and grabbing power wherever they find the opportunity….

“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” — George Carlin

So, my attitude is not the problem…. the problem is that not enough of us have this attitude, and the PTB have virtually no competition in their fight for our attention; there is nobody allowed on the political stage who is singing a different song than the one approved for public consumption by those who control such matters…. Hell, we’ll know we’re making progress if even one such person ever gets the chance to even speak…. meantime, all we can do is to have those of us who know our duty keep plugging away, calling them out for their lies, and making as much noise as we can, to try to draw some attention to those places where it isn’t appreciated, but needs it the most…..

“Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast and you ask me what you shall put in its place?” — Voltaire
_____________________________

I’m exhausted…. That was the toughest Pearl in quite a while… I hope it reads well enough to pass muster; I’d hate to have to go back and start over….. Well, it will do, I suppose… It may not be Ibsen, but it’s at least Art, or Frank, or Earnest…. especially the last. Plus, it contains no misspelled words, at least according to SpellChecker, and we all know how infallible that is….. Ah well, I have no pride left, so…. 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

27 Days will make a difference….

Posted on April 11, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Wonderful visions often invade my mind, seemingly from outer space, as I don’t usually feel they are coming from my own creative well. They probably are mine, but are just torturing me with their beauty, knowing I am incapable of writing them…. yet. Sometimes, I begin to think I’m getting somewhere with what I’m creating here, but, mostly, I just write, and take the consequences of what I’ve written, elegant or not.

I would like to think that my style and skills have improved over the last two years, but I’m afraid that the most progress has been shown in the area of how fast I type; I’m much faster, in at least one respect, if not all of those having to do with speed and accuracy…. Bound to happen given how much I write, so that isn’t unexpected….

Certainly, nothing about this intro section is improved by my superior skills in typing; it’s still a rambling, unpredictable mess of ideas and styles, sometimes fictional, then switching to reality mode, sometimes, like today, remaining in real time…. Whatever it is, it baffles me how I do it every day without shooting myself, for getting it done, most days, seems like an ordeal of major proportions, and leaves me bloody and bowed in defeat…. That’s how it feels, anyway…. Is it worth it? I guess it must be, because I keep doing it…. go figure….

Chatty….. there’s a word. It’s a word that I hope never to have applied to me, by anyone, especially myself; if I thought I was getting anywhere in the vicinity of ‘chatty’, I would immediately run in front of a bus to eliminate the possibility of it happening more than once.

Or, gossipy, there’s another one I will not engage in, not in my world…. I hate gossip, having lived in a small town for much of my youth; I got my fill of the musings of all the Mrs. Grundy’s in the world, who have nothing better to do in their lives but watch for other people to do something of which they disapprove, so they can spread their malicious rumors to all and sundry who will listen…..

So, if I ever start sounding like either one of the above, please, just shoot me, and be done with it, for I wouldn’t want to live like that, and that’s for sure and for certain. I’m not sure I want to live this way, either, having to come up with something new and exciting every morning to put into this section, to get ffolkes to read on….

Given my now essential, vital need to write, as much as I need to breathe, though, I’ll have to live with it, at least until I can figure out the proper template to use to fulfill my requirements for this part of the Pearl…. SIGH…. Just more proof, I suppose, that my bozoid tendencies are much more powerful than my desire for true excellence…. when the nose grows, you have to let it show….

On THAT singular note, I will now proceed to the rest of today’s nonsense, and hope that it goes more smoothly than this has done…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“He who conceals a useful truth is equally guilty with the propagator of an injurious falsehood.” — Augustine

If ever there was a perfect lead in to a rant about the Beloved Ruling Class, or our/their Corporate Masters, or about the Priestly Hierarchies, those fawning sycophants who support those two entities in their chicanery, well, I don’t know what it would be, if not this. It’s perfectly positioned to attack any, or all of these groups, all of whom make the described action, to wit: bare-faced lying, a habitual choice in their daily interactions with others. They do this with full knowledge of the harm they may cause, but are not concerned with that, other than as it pertains to the maintenance of their own image; they want us to see them as people who care about those over whom they hold sway. In short, they live a complete lie, they know it, and they like it….

Whether we speak of the political leaders of our nations, the corporate leaders of the banking crowd, or the Pope, Ayatollah, and other figures held as religious icons, they speak “with forked tongue”, in the vernacular of Tonto, our favorite TV Indian stereotype. Not only do they lie to the public almost every time the open their mouths, they know they are lying; with many of them, you can see it in their eyes, as they speak….

Some of them (perhaps even most….) are very good at concealing their cupidity from most people; it’s part of why they are successful. But, to anyone with even a hint of street smarts, or even moderate intelligence, and the patience to observe with impartiality, their lies are obvious…. Hell, it’s been said, with some reason, that you can tell a politician is lying, because his mouth is open….

“If I can’t misquote it, I don’t want it.” — Rush Limbaugh

This statement, whether he actually said it or not, explains quite accurately why he is so popular among the conservatives and ignorant fundamentalists in this country…. I would guesstimate the majority of elected officials in this country use this principle on a daily basis, as one of the standards by which they formulate their public policies, and one of their bywords when speaking in a public venue.

Nothing is accepted so readily by the uneducated listener as a quote, or a statistic, that sounds elegant, and real, and comforting, even though it is an absolute untruth, or a mistake, or even a misquotation…. None of that matters to those in power, because they know that their success hinges on their ability to lie successfully to the public….. It’s a time honored tradition in our government, one every politician knows in his bones…

“It’s not that simple, no matter how you wish it so. You made public statements from a position of false authority; now you’re having them shoved down your throat. Welcome to netnews. — Smart Bee

The advent of the internet has made it possible to detail these lies as never before in history. As always, however, the information is only accessible if one reads, and is competent enough to be able to use the internet to its full capability for gathering data. So, the lies continue, though they are much more visible now than in previous periods of history. They will continue as long as people are too lazy, or too brainwashed to think for themselves, and to question what they hear from those who hold power over them.

I don’t think it is reasonable to ever expect those who are in power to stop what they are doing, do a complete reversal of attitude, and start using their positions to advocate for the people, instead of their corporate masters; it isn’t going to happen, as they LIKE being able to raid the public treasury at will. There is no benefit for them, in their eyes, for them to stop lying, so they won’t….

No, if we want things to change, it will have to begin in that part of society that does not answer to the moneychangers, or to the call of avarice, to wit: with you, and me…. Otherwise, we may as well just bend over, and kiss our asses goodbye, because ultimately, the way things are going, we are all headed down the universal toilet, where all of Mother Nature’s failed experiments get flushed…..

I can rant on this subject without limit, I think, as there is no lack of material to work with; the news is all over the net every day with more evidence of the lies the BRC wants us to believe. Hell, one can take almost any large newspaper, look on the front page, and find at least two examples of issues that arise out of corruption in government, or some environmental disaster that is a warning of our impending doom….

In any of these, you will find at least one government official making a statement that is just plain wrong, or false in some way, intended to spin the information to benefit the administration, or to denigrate it, depending on which side is speaking…. It’s a circus maximus, for sure, and provides us curmudgeons with all the rantable material we could wish for, gratis (well, for the price of a computer, and internet access, anyway….).

“God said it, I believe it and that’s all there is to it.” — Smart Bee

I had to put Smart Bee as the attribution here, probably because nobody in their right mind would ever claim credit for having said it…. But, as I, in my lifetime, have actually heard several people say this, (realio trulio, I swear…. three times I’ve heard it, in person, come out of a real live idiot’s mouth….), I can only credit it as being a common feeling among a certain percentage of people. Be that as it may, as long as there is ANYONE who thinks this way, we are all going to be held back from being all our species could be, as well as being in danger of facing extinction because of the intransigence of their ignorance…..

“Misanthropology: the study of why people are so stupid and why most of them should die, SOON!” — Smart Bee

I don’t know the exact figures, but I would say that at least 50% of all the elected officials in this country hold this attitude, if not as gospel or dogma for all issues, at least as true for most issues. Our government has been taken over, insidiously, over time, by religious fanatics, who are working frantically to cement their hold over everyone else by enacting their own morality as law…. As history has proven, time after time, legislating morality is ALWAYS doomed to failure, but, as this group believes implicitly in the rightness of their articles of faith, they will listen to no evidence to the contrary….

“Religion is the highest vanity.” — Friedrich Hebbel

Ah well, I guess all I can say at this point is I think we’re all going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, and I, for one, would just as soon not be involved in this particular picnic…. Nope, not me…. Sadly, there isn’t anywhere else to go, where I can get away from these fools, as they have infested almost every corner of this sad old globe, and are busy destroying the chances for any of us to survive their ignorance…. Unless I, and all those like me, change our nature, and become like the ones who are in power, willing to kill our brethren over these issues, there is little to be done, for they will never give up until they kill us all….

~~ gigoid has spoken….

“Buy a rifle, encrypt your data, and wait for the Revolution!” — .sig of Travis J.I. Corcoran (TJIC@icd.teradyne.com)

“Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.” — Slovenian Proverb
__________________________________

Well, there is no poem ready for today, so once again, I’ll have to dive into the past…. This works out well for me, though, as I have one poem that may go well with the above rant…. I hope so, anyway….. As every day this month, this is for the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ (I still don’t know if I’m doing this right, but, oh well….)

Geezer to Congress, with Love

Politicos don’t care much ’bout seniors and their ilk,
except for their money, I thinks;
Though they talk as if they’d cozen them in silk,
what they actually do, it stinks.

“The banks are failing, we can’t allow that!”,
steal from the aged, that’s their plan.
“Their life’s ending, that’s plainly where they’re at,”
lie shamelessly, because they can.Maybe just once, if we all act together,
it couldn’t miss.
Right on their shoes, no matter the weather,
take careful aim, and piss.

Why the hell not?
It’s worth a shot!

~~ gigoid

__________________________________

Having ranted today once, I’ll not subject y’all to another…. though there’s more in there to rant about, for sure…. I just don’t want to make y’all think I’m insensitive, or have become overly personal, or judgmental (read: boring….). So, we’ll fall back into default position, and put together a fresh pearl, with some kind of point, yet to be determined by my subconscious mind…. I just let that happen as it happens, as you know…. If you get the point today, be aware it’s worth extra points, and this one WILL be on the Quiz…..

we can never be born enough.
We are human beings;
for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,
the mystery of growing:
the mystery that happens only and whenever
we are faithful to ourselves.

— e. e. cummings.

“The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination — but the combination is locked up in the safe.” — Peter DeVries

“One day with life and heart is more than time enough to find a world.” — James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) — Columbus

I see my life go drifting like a river
From change to change; I have been many things –
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir tree on a hill,
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
A king sitting upon a chair of gold –
And all these things were wonderful and great;
But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.
Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
Lay hidden in that small slate-coloured thing!

— William Butler Yeats, “Fergus and the Druid”

” Never eat anything bigger than your head.” — Kliban’s First Law of Dining

“I may not understand what you say, but I’ll defend to your death my right to deny it.” — Albert Alligator, in Pogo, 26 September 1951

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” — Bhagavad-Gita (and Robert Oppenheimer)

Well, there you go…. If that isn’t obvious, I’m doing something wrong…. it’s not your fault, so don’t hurt your brain trying to figure it out. My insurance company refuses to cover self-inflicted mis-comprehension…. I do have some nice tea, though, if that will help…..
__________________________________

Hmm…. I’m a bit suspicious. This went a little too smoothly for me to be comfortable…. Murphy has been known to do this right before I save my work, then gift me with a power surge that eliminates all three hours worth of typing…. Gotta get me an autosave function for this program, for sure…. Well, let’s see how it came out, and get on with it…..

Well, not too bad, all in all, and well worth a yippee for being done…. It may not win any Pulitzers, but who cares? Social Security would just take the prize money out of my benefit checks, probably forever…. can’t have that; I worked too hard to get them awarded, broken as I am, so it’s just as well…. 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 desperate scenario, indeed, oberfuehrer….

Posted on March 5, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
“Freeze!” I stopped my stealthy movement toward the connecting door, and slowly straightened, with my hands out at my sides. Turning to face my captor, I saw a young Felsian soldier, no more than a boy, but holding a very adult-looking automatic weapon pointed at my chest. His wide, frightened eyes were fixed on my face, and his large, oddly pretty hands were gripping the weapon as if he were afraid to let go, lest he fall. “How…. how’d you get in here?”, he stammered. I gazed calmly into his eyes, and said, in a soothing tone, “Easy, son, don’t get twitchy…. why don’t you lower your weapon, and I’ll show you my authorization papers….”

I moved my left hand toward my pocket to draw his eyes, and, as soon as they moved to follow, I allowed the small tube to fall into my right hand. As he reached for the papers I held out to him with my left hand, I smoothly raised the right hand, and pricked his wrist with the needle attached to the tube. He fell instantly to the floor, sleeping like a baby. Letting out a breath of gratitude that I hadn’t been forced to kill the poor lad, I dragged his unconscious body behind an armoire, where he could safely sleep until found, or, until he woke up in about 8 hours, with a raging headache, trying to remember why he wanted to be a soldier….. I moved on, further into the palace, now intent on my original goal…. the Thousand Precious Jewels of Nanoska, Crown Treasure of the Kings of Fels….

Well, there you have it, another in a long line of interrupted stories, pure invention to start my day. SIGH…. one of these days the story will grab me, and I’ll have to keep writing until it’s done…. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though, if I were you….. No, I consider most of these intro paragraphs as throwaways, just words strung together in practice for the real writing I do, about reality and life…. Fiction writing is fun, but, my mind needs the sense of release, and healing, that ranting, reading and writing poetry, and discussing ethics, morality, and the joy and pain of living gives me, through the process of putting down my thoughts and feelings. It helps me to keep it all straight in my head, and gets the stuff out of it that would otherwise sit there and rot, or stir up trouble with my emotional state…..

Maybe I could, and should, figure out another method of creating intros, but, I’m too stubborn to give in to any impulse that uses the word ‘should’ to get me to do anything. I regard that word as one that we only use when we are playing our “tapes” in our head, and I try very hard not to let any of those old tapes affect what I do at all, as most of them, provided to me by parents of other kids, priests/preachers, ignorant teachers, and busybodies of all kinds, are standards of behavior and attitude that were designed to benefit someone else, i.e., our early-childhood brainwashing….

You know, all that stuff you were told before you had any reasons not to believe the adults were telling the truth…. or, more aptly, before you found out that most of it wasn’t true, and that adults lie all the time…. It is a sad, but powerful experience when we realize that most of the people in the world aren’t telling us the truth, but are modifying it at will, to achieve their own ends. Most of the people who lie to us are doing so because they believe what they are saying to be true; that is what makes it hard to tell. But, what they are saying, most of the time, is stuff THEY were taught when they were children, and they have never examined it for its veracity, or ever considered that they were told lies from the very beginning…..

“Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Damn! There I go again, ranting away, and I’m not even done with the intro…. See? I’ve got to figure something out, and soon, before I drive myself crazier than I already am!…. SIGH…. (That’s a long, drawn out Clare County sigh…. and, a short drive….) I’m feeling a desperate man, I am, so it’s probably best if I get on with my dive, before I implode….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“The thinking that we are doing has brought us to where we have already been. In order to go somewhere else, we must think in a different way.” — Albert Einstein

One can always trust Albert to state profound ideas in the simplest way…. you gotta love that. Here, his insight has pinpointed the root problem with which our species has to contend if we are to survive to the next millennium, and illuminates the necessary element in solving the issue, all in two short, simple statements. We humans have made a real mess of things, to put it mildly, and now are faced with a dilemma never faced in all our history as a species…. that we know of…. Perhaps Atlantis fell for exhibiting the self-same lack of ethics and moral advancement as our society has done, and Mother Nature stepped in previously, as she is close to doing now…. There is no way to know for sure…. What is certain is that our own time is nearing an end, unless we make an unlikely change in our attitudes and habits….

This is the root of the problem we face, that the necessary changes need to be made in the human psyche, our souls, as it were, and it just isn’t going to happen unless each and every person alive makes the change. The assumption that we have the right to use the resources of the planet for our own benefit ONLY, to strip the physical world of all the materials we want to use for our own purposes, no matter what effect it has on the rest of what exists here has only one outcome possible, and that is our own self-destruction, taking many innocent species with us… The plants, the other animals, the immense beauty of the physical world in which we live are all being wasted by mankind’s insane rush to obtain and hoard anything considered useful to themselves, at the expense of all else…..

This attitude indicates an inferior spirit, one whose moral and ethical advancement is arrested, and even reversed, until all that is left is pure, unadulterated avarice and greed, and complete dispassion for other life-forms. If you have ever seen an open wound, an ulcer, then you know just what the spirit of such a person is like… and the pain they cause for everyone else…. Unfortunately, this ulcer cannot be treated with ointments, and a clean bandage…

To my mind, the necessary changes that can save us are obviously spiritual in nature, and will require some kind of spiritual awakening in ALL humans on the planet, a realization that we are part of a larger scheme of things than merely our own concerns, and that our participation in that larger view of reality is necessary for us to survive. If we continue to deny the reality of this, then our selfish destructiveness will be brought to an end by our own actions. Unless we can get those who care not for anything but themselves to alter that state of mind, we are all going to die, because there won’t be any breathable air, or any non-toxic water, or any food that will sustain us… We will have fouled our own nest unto extinction….

“Our humanity were a poor thing were it not for the divinity which stirs within us.” — Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Francis doesn’t get much air time on this blog, since most of what he says is crap; he tends to hide a nimble mind behind a screen of religious fervor that colors most of his thinking. In this particular phrase, he is close to a truth, but where he uses the words “divinity which stirs within us”, I would say, “the divinity of which we are part.” Robert Heinlein’s character, Valentine Michael Smith, in Stranger In A Strange Land, perhaps said it best when he said used the phrase, “Thou Art God”…..

Only when we come to understand that we are part and parcel of everything else that exists, no more, no less than any other part, can we reach the understanding, and the compassion, that will be needed to overcome the problems we have created through our specie’s deliberate ignorance and avarice….. We must accept the responsibility that comes with divinity, to cherish and protect all the different parts of reality that make up the whole of our being, instead of using whatever we see to increase our own creature comforts, at the expense of the rest of reality.

Our species MUST undergo a spiritual awakening, or we will surely be condemned to an ignoble end, much like the thousands of species our kind has already added to the list of those who have disappeared from this plane of existence. I wish I could say that all I’ve said here is speculation, but, there is too much hard evidence that supports what I’m saying to ignore. The time we have to awaken our brothers and sisters who have been brainwashed into disbelieving their own power is growing very short, I’m afraid…. I’m also afraid that it isn’t going to happen, and that would indeed be a great waste……

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai E. Stevenson “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

After writing the above, I’m a bit depressed, as can be imagined….. When I’m down, I turn to classical poetry, and always find something to take my mind away, especially with the romantic poets, and always with Yeats…. I’ve used this before, possibly more than once, but, I don’t much care, as it’s one of my favorites, and worthy of inclusion any time… Enjoy! I did….

A Faery Song

{Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania, in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.}

We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:
Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told.

William Butler Yeats
__________________________________

Ah, me…. I always feel better after some Yeats… I guess I should memorize some of it, so I can recite it to myself at will…. Any who, another rant would arguably be a poor idea, and, as I have no wish to lose anyone to boredom or fatigue, we’ll do our usual dance of avoidance, and go for an old-school pearl. I’ve had some good luck recently using the harlequin method, so we’ll go with that…. Here, then, you will find a group of pearls, randomly picked for random reasons by my unconscious mind, which I allow free rein in such matters….. Let’s see what comes up, shall we?…..

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, _lib. II., De Clem._, and C. Stantatus, _De Temperamente_) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivaling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

“America … just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.” — Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”

“Any time that is not spent on love is wasted.” — Tasso

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) — Maud Muller, st. 53

“Among mankind money is far more persuasive than logical argument.” — Euripides

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” — Thomas Paine

Well, there you go…. makes sense to me…. Bonus points if you can identify the quote that exemplifies today’s post most closely…. 🙂
__________________________________

Well, THAT was an adventure, to be sure….. Let’s see how it hangs together…. Patently, it won’t win a Pulitzer, but arguably, it ain’t bad…. to paraphrase Andrew Greeley. As such, I feel no qualms whatsoever in declaring it done….. Consider it declared. Since I can’t think of anything else to say or do that wouldn’t cost my karma at least a few hit points, I’ll let it all go at that…. 🙂 Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Some lessons are more painful than others….

Posted on February 21, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
As much as I enjoy these morning interludes with the blogging world, there is still a certain degree of fear that goes along with publishing one’s own writing for others to read. One is, after all, exposing the inner self to the world, which, historically, has a habit of treating inner selves rather shabbily, or even cruelly, especially when they are shown for the first time, and often thereafter. It’s perhaps the biggest risk we take by deciding to share our thoughts with the world at large, a risk that is very real, and anyone with less than military grade armor protecting their ego is in serious jeopardy….

My own fear is no match for my ego, though, never has been, so it’s never been an issue for me…. I couldn’t wait to start blogging, as I’ve had stuff to say about life and society for many years, with no outlet for my outrage, or my angst, or my decidedly odd sense of humor. Once I was retired, and discovered that I had all the time I wanted to write, I jumped in without any discernible hesitation, taking to it like a duck takes to water….. but, happily, without the water all over my butt….. 🙂

Then, of course, Murphy came to live with me, as he found his perfect target in my attempted routines, my attempted regular posts, my attempted sleep, and all the other parts of life that he found he could so easily distort and pervert, such that I never know where the next conundrum will surface. I seem to be a fertile field for his machinations, and ever since, oh, a week or so into this time period, since I began blogging, he has made it his life’s work to find a new way to fuck with me, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY!!! If it weren’t such a pain in the ass, I might feel special (cue Gilda Radner’s Church Lady voice for that last word….).

I didn’t mind so much, until the wearisome events surrounding living in poverty began to mount up into a mass that even my well-buried depression couldn’t keep hidden, and my PTSD became a daily issue, with the advent of unpredictable emotional storms, causing me to burst into tears at the slightest stress, or the thought of any stressful concept…… Concepts of a stressful nature….. yeah….

Such as when I found out yesterday that my older brother has been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, and has decided not to take the treatments that might extend his life, to save his family from financial ruin…. It’s a decision that isn’t surprising; our father made the same one.

But, the butthead might have informed his brother(s) of it, so he(they) didn’t have to find out when he called to wish a happy birthday….. (Actually, I don’t know if he told my “little” brother…. if he did, and he didn’t call me, either of them, I’m afraid we are going to have to exchange a few words…. They may need to be reminded of who they are dealing with, and the proper protocols needed to keep from getting their sorry asses kicked…. I may be old, and getting feeble, but, I am still their brother, and I can still be dangerous when aroused….)

As you might guess, this little revelation has thrown me for a bit of a loop, and I don’t really even know how I feel, other than tearfully sad, fearfully mad, and a hundred other powerful emotions I can’t even name. So tearful, a break is needed, to get rid of some annoying fluid build-up that is common when I cry….. I’ll be back…. Okay, well, that didn’t work out so well….

I’m going to have to resort to more emergency procedures today, in order to get this Pearl done. I don’t know why, exactly, but it seems important to do so today. So, in sections one and three, where there would normally be a rant or two, I’m going old school, because that’s all I can do for now. I’ll do my best to make them potent pearls, even though they won’t be as floridly original, or as clear, I’m sure. At this point, enough emotion is swirling around inside me that a poem may just break out in section two, but, if not, I’ll find something sufficiently compelling in a more classical selection, if I can hold it together that long…..

I’m going to go for a dive now, and see if I can drown a bit of this sorrow in knowledge…. I have hopes, because aphorisms have always been a source of comfort to me in times of need…. So, I’ll stop torturing y’all now, and get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?….

“When you get older you have to be careful about always saying, “Things aren’t as good as they used to be.” But it’s hard not to.” — Andy Rooney
(I don’t much like Andy Rooney, but even a blind dog can find a bone some days….)

— Bother! said Pooh, on his deathbed.
__________________________________

I was a bit nervous as to how this might turn out, given my state of mind, or lack thereof, but, Smart Bee seems to be in a compassionate mood, for a software program, anyway, so maybe it will all be okay….. Here are five pearls, each with their own message for the world to consider….. I particularly like the first one, and the last, and they DO help the pearl make its point…. That point’s a bit subtle, even for me, but, it’s there, if you wish to look for it, and it’s not bad….

“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time–a tremendous whack.” — Sir Winston Churchill

“A time to be born; a time to die.” — Ecclesiastes 3:2

“Allow your children to face the consequences of their actions.” — Brown

“If you ever feel like you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown, just follow these simple rules: First, calm down; second, come over and wash my car; third, shine all my shoes. There, isn’t that better?” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

“If possible, try to find a way to come downstairs that doesn’t involve going bump, bump, bump, on the back of your head. -” — Pooh in Winnie the Pooh A.A. Milne, English author (1882-1956)

See? As I’ve been known to say previously, it’s all in the wrist….
__________________________________

What I said above about Smart Bee’s apparent empathy today seems to be accurate…. When considering poetry to fill this space today, after determining there is no poem of my own ready to come out, it showed me an excerpt from a Yeats poem, which prompted me to go find these two gems, both of which fit my mood today, as well as the apparent theme, obviously chosen by Reality…. Enjoy!…

A Friend’s Illness

SICKNESS brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?

William Butler Yeats

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

A Dream Of Death

I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
{She was more beautiful than thy first love,}
{But now lies under boards.}

William Butler Yeats
__________________________________

Here is a seven star pearl for your perusal, as a finish to today’s effortful outpouring of confusion…. Smart Bee was again very cooperative, giving up this group in less than forty clicks, an astounding rate of success, especially given how it has performed already today. One could get the impression that it was AI software, and was reacting with compassion to my pained mental static….. Lest that be untrue, or, in case it is, I’ll not suggest otherwise…

Meantime, here are seven pearls, that just fall together into an attractive shape, no matter which way you jumble them up…. enjoy! Should it be necessary, there are cleaning solutions and tools in the cabinet by the pantry, including items to clean your clothing, in the event of spills or splashes…. We’re big on safety here, but, Life can be dangerous, especially when dealing with ideas…. unpredictable little buggers…. Why, I’ve seen them jump right out of a frying pan, into a fire…. imagine that!….

“What UNIVERSE is this, please??” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Two wrongs are only the beginning.” — Kohn’s Corollary to Murphy’s Law

“To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe. That’s why I think it’s important to get high. I’m not talking about unconscious or zonked out. I’m talking about being fully conscious.” — Jerry Garcia

One ship drives east and the other drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Winds of Fate

“The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.” — Alfred North Whitehead

“Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.” — W. H. Auden, _Shorts_

Lastly, a perfect find for today…. The counter-curse to the one I received long ago, when the ancient Chinese gentleman said to me, “May you have an interesting life.”….. Now all I have to do is find a competent, ~~relatively cheap,~~ er, inexpensive necromancer to say it to me….

“May you live in uninteresting times.” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

I can’t speak to how today’s effort has been for y’all, but, it has helped me a lot, to regain enough composure to get the rest of the way through the day. The process of creating a Pearl has always been therapeutic, (a big part of why I started in the first place….), and today has served to solidify that characteristic for me…. My only remaining hope is that I haven’t bored anyone to their own tears, or offended anyone enough to lose them in the process, but, that’s always a gamble in this universe, so….

In looking back over this, I have to say, it came out pretty well, all things considered…. Now comes the tough part…. Reality awaits me, outside the door, and I can’t ignore its call this time…. Ah well, such is life…. it goes on, with or without our approval or cooperation, so I may as well try to enjoy the ride while it lasts, for, as the Scots say, I’ll be a long time dead…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Muttered curses followed the abbot out the door….

Posted on February 17, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
I’m here. I’m up. I don’t want to be, but here I am. Why am I forcing myself to do this? No frigging idea…. I could be in bed, warm and comfy, trying to get a bit more sleep. I could be, but, I’m not, thanks to….. karma. I know, I know, you’re saying, “what?!” It’s too early for dealing with karma, mostly, but, that’s all it could be. The only thing I can figure is that over time, several small things must have snagged on a curve in the pipes, and built up into a major event that needs accounting.

(Note the clever use of metaphor, karma being equated to raw sewage, sans graphic illustration…. Not too bad, pre-coffee….)

Typical bookkeeping on the part of the universe, to hit me with the bill for this all at once, at 0530 in the morning…. I don’t see why it couldn’t have waited an hour or two, or submitted separate bills for each transgression… But, no, that would be too easy for me…. the karma droids have apparently been taking lessons from Murphy, the asshole….

Not that karma has no resources of its own to exact payment for our foolishness. No, indeed, it does just fine finding ways to allow the universe to fall on us, in a way that not only hurts, but humiliates as much as possible. I suppose if one had to do that kind of work, such little perks would be an important part of the compensation, though I can’t see myself doing it for long without some sort of side bonus that would add to the enjoyment. But, then, that’s me, and I’m special….

That’s it…. I can’t take this any more…. I’m wandering around here, trying to find a way to open this Pearl with some style, and this is the best I can come up with…. Pathetic! Coffee’s ready, so I’m outta here for a minute or three…. I’ll be back when I’ve regained my senses….

I’m back, but I’m not certain I’ve regained much in the way of creativity. I’m still stuck here in this pathetic pastiche of minimally related ideas and words, desperate to discover a path back to some kind of literary credibility, and hoping for even a smidgen of inspiration…. Diversionary tactics and distracting trips down the path to nowhere aren’t going to get the job done, no matter how badly I want it to…. No big surprise there, though…. SIGH…. What is it about mornings that brings out the fatalist in us?

Okay, I’ve got it! I’ve just had a flash, an idea of such importance I’m not sure if I can even describe how big it is…. I just realized that Murphy, as much of an asshole as he is, still has to have a boss, right? Somebody has to sign his check on payday, I bet, just like the rest of us…. All we need to do is find that guy, and remove him from reality, or take away all his pens, or something ….

Murphy isn’t going to keep doing what he does without getting paid; he’s too big of an ass to work for free (I think, to do his job, one would HAVE to be free of any kind of altruistic impulse, or any sense of compassion….), so if we keep him from getting paid, maybe we could get, if nothing else, a little break from his attentions, at least until they find a new patsy, er, force of nature….

What do you think? Will it work? No? I was afraid of that…. Oh, well, you can’t blame a guy for trying…. and, if nothing else, it got me the rest of the way to the end of this intro section…. Sorry about the obvious use of the distraction, but I really thought I had an idea there for a minute…. Just goes to show one should never, uh… well, one should always… No, wait…. Okay, people shouldn’t ever…. Oh, never mind, this is all screwed up anyway, so let’s just get on with it, okay?…. Shall we Pearl?
__________________________________

“Any body of men who believe in hell will persecute whenever they have the power.” — Joseph M. McCabe (1867-1957)

This statement is made as an assertion, without any supporting evidence, other than the author’s confidence in making it. While it happens to be relatively accurate, it points out the danger of making any such assertions when applied to human nature. One may never predict, with any expected degree of accuracy, just how a human being will act in a given situation; that is part of what makes us human.

But, observation over time can give us a pretty clear indication of some of the more likely reactions, as people tend not to hide even their basest impulses in situations involving power over others…. In fact, one might accurately say that, very often, the opportunity to have power over others will prompt those base impulses to manifest themselves in action, giving rise to such aphorisms as “power corrupts….etc.”….

In beginning this pearl, my initial thought was to explore and rant, but, I’m more curious about a part of this issue that seldom is examined, to wit: What is it in human nature that causes us to more often choose the path of weakness over that of virtue? By this I mean that, if one assumes the truth of what Mr. McCabe has said, then what is it in men that makes it so?

Why is it human nature to choose to ignore evil, giving our tacit approval by our silence, rather than showing the courage to speak out? Why do people make the decision to put aside their compassion and empathy, and live life without any regard for what effect their actions have on those around them? In short, what is it in mankind that makes us such assholes?…..

I don’t think that is an unreasonable question, vulgarity aside, and given the evidence of history, I don’t think it is an unreasonable conclusion to draw from the available facts. People, given half a chance, will choose to fuck over somebody else rather than give up a single thing they consider their right to have, or to do; I don’t think there is anyone who can deny that this is an unfortunate truth about people, as a group, and as individuals. Too many people refuse to use the mind they are born with, and spend their entire lives living with blinders, and blundering around reality, breaking china and annoying the other customers…..

“All our actions take their hues from the complexion of the heart. As landscapes their variety from light.” — W. T. Bacon

Sure, there are a few of us out there who do use their minds to better purpose, for the most part, and generally try to find, and employ, virtue and morality as best we can. But, it seems that in order to be the kind of person who cares about other people, one must give up that part of their human nature that allows them to take advantage of other people, to deny empathy or compassion, and live according to only one rule, which says, “Me First!”…..

Those are the people who WANT to be elected to office, so they can legally steal, and arrange matters to better suit their own needs and desires; people who care about others don’t want any part of having power over them, and thus are never, or, at best, rarely seen in the public venue….

I don’t know what that part of human nature is, precisely, that makes people choose evil over good, but, it is common in our world, and the people who display that particular characteristic have managed to gain a stranglehold on the rest of us, by their insidious, hidden, obsessive hoarding of resources and power.

It isn’t a situation that is going to respond to normal pressure in order to resolve; drastic, extreme measures are the only method that will have any lasting effect…. Unfortunately, I don’t think any such action is going to take place outside of the realm of speculation, because it is already too late, and nobody is paying attention to how close the final curtain is to coming down…..

Now that I have thoroughly depressed myself, and you, I’ll go on to another pearl, with this admonition… Please think about this fact, that there are a small number of people whose choices of how to live are going to kill all of us, themselves included, unless society makes changes in the way it works on a moral level…. This is not speculation, there is ample evidence to be found, based on scientific fact, and supported by logic and observation. Whether we as a species go out with a bang, or a whimper, is up to us…. as it has always been….

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start my friend, anyone can start from now and make a brand new end.” — Carl Bard
__________________________________

A Faery Song

{Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania, in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.}

WE who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:
Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told.

William Butler Yeats
__________________________________

“Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, viii, 51

Okay, that does it! Now I have two-thousand year-old philosophers making fun of me! Marcus must have somehow entered a time warp, found a laptop with internet access, and read a couple of my intro sections; only if that were true could he have nailed me so well…. Shoot, and I thought I had everyone fooled…. This is embarrassing, to say the least. I’m so upset, I’m going to have to resort to an old-school pearl to calm myself down enough to get done with this missive. Oh, well, at least with an old-school pearl, I don’t have to try to think on a conscious level, so I should be able to avoid any further humiliation at the hands of a dead celebrity…..

This will be an unusual pearl, as the entries have yet to be picked, and will reflect solely what seems apropos at that moment in time…. which COULD end up brilliant, or it could be crap…. let’s go see what Smart Bee has for us today…..

“When will I learn? The answers to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle. THEY’RE ON TV!” — Homer in “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”, from The Simpsons

“It’s amazing how much “mature wisdom” resembles being too tired.” — Lazarus Long

“If you juggle with knives, you’re likely to get cut.” — Kieran Donegal

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on,–
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

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

“I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book iii, Chap ii, Of Repentance

“God: What one human uses to persecute another.” — Smart Bee

Okay, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before…. Here are two pearls, either of which would make a fine closing pearl for this group, though with totally different outcomes…. I’m giving them both, and you can use the one you like better, or both, or neither…. Reader’s Choice, as it were…. here you go….

“I am a traffic light, and Alan Ginsberg kidnapped my laundry in 1927!” — Zippy the Pinhead

or…..

“Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” — Oscar Wilde

Ta da! Cue music, fade lights, and, exit, stage right, or left, or, hell, just go….
__________________________________

For a while there, I thought they were going to win, but I was able to persevere, and emerged the victor in the end…. Now that I have finished sharing my delusions, I can go forth and carpe that old diem…. Well, maybe I’ll have some oatmeal first….. I’m satisfied, if not content, with today’s effort, and, since it is done, so are you…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Happy ever after as a plot device….

Posted on February 5, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
While it is useful for intimidating police, and keeping relatives at an acceptable distance, insanity can be… well, insane, to try to cope with on a regular basis. This characteristic is one of the many that keeps me from just falling into its warm embrace permanently. Once I give in and let meself go, I’m fairly certain I won’t be back, not for many a day, as the song goes….. I’m pretty sure it would be too comfortable…..

In fact, having spent a fair amount of time gracing the company of those who totally give up trying to be normal, those who instead spend their time doing exactly what they are hoping will feel the best, given their already confused state of mind, I KNOW it is more comfortable than anywhere sanity can go.

There is no pressure to be right, no pressure to not be wrong, and those are no small things, in a world that places premium importance on them. The insane, by the nature of their condition, and because of what others think they know of it, are possibly the happiest people in the world, as they don’t have to live up to any of the standards the rest of society is so invested in….

Why, you may ask, would anyone wish to be sane, in that case? That is a good question, not one I can answer without ranting, at least a bit, and I promised I wouldn’t do that in the intro any more. Well, it wasn’t a promise, just an intent, but, hey, almost the same, and I’m sure nobody else wants a rant so early in the day, either, so, back off….

Sanity, as practiced by most of those in society, is not a very comfortable, or easy, state in which to be for long, requiring as it does constant alertness, and regular maintenance, to keep it from falling apart under the daily assaults by Reality, and the kind attention of Murphy and his ilk…..

Insanity, on the other hand, has no stress, no pressure, and no responsibility; whatever one decides to do, no matter how outrageous, or out of touch with the real world it may be, is okay, and allowed. No limits are applicable, so the insane are free to let their imagination have free rein, and the results are incredible, to say the least…. Not always comprehensible, or easy to watch, or to deal with, but incredible, for sure… No sane person will ever be able to create art as powerful as a person whose grip on reality is less firm as their own, as they tend to set limits for themselves, as needed to retain that sanity…. thus shutting out that entire realm of imaginative possibility…

So, next time you have to cope with reality, consider how easy it would be to just let go, and not worry about whether what you are doing is the right thing…. It may not keep you from going down that road, but it may help you find a reason to stay on the road to sanity…. and, in the best-case-scenario, maybe, just maybe, you can learn to let that side out now and again, to find out what there may be there, that can be brought into the world, to share the beauty, or the wisdom, or the love that they know, in a universe with no limits… Remember, all the nicest ffolkes in the world are just a little bit tetched, as my father used to say….

But, for now, I think it’s time to draw this intro to a close, before it assumes epic proportions…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Reality can be hazardous to your health.” — Smart Bee

This one is probably not a surprise, nor is it something that is rare, or uncommonly known. Hell, it only takes a couple of years of living on this planet before this knowledge becomes second nature to us, and we know it almost instinctively. This, I think, is part of why it is always a surprise to us how the process of growing older is much more difficult than we imagined…. It is also why we always end up, at one point or another, saying to ourselves, “Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me this?” It may not be a conspiracy, but the end result is the same, because nobody is talking, and if they had any compassion, they would be….

Your guess as to why this is would be as good as mine, and I’m not sure it matters; what matters is that they don’t, and it isn’t included in any of the manuals we receive about Life and How to Live…. Actually, I don’t know about y’all, but my manuals were all lost in the mail, and I never got any of them… We WERE supposed to get them right? I mean, there is a God, by all reports from the rest of society, and according to dogma and stuff, we’re His responsibility, right? So, where’s my manual?…. Where is yours?….

Don’t try to tell me you’re buying into the Bible as the manual? Have you ever read that thing? It is the most inconsistent, poorly written, manipulative, and just plain most erroneous piece of literature I ever tried to plow my way through… Hell, the first chapter is complete science fiction, or more accurately, fantasy, and it goes downhill from there, in terms of what is believable…. I guess, even if all of the hundreds of different authors WERE connected in spirit, and only channeling the Word of God, it still has to all be based on events that have some basis in reality, or it just isn’t going to hold together, logically, or consistently…. There just isn’t any possible way to get a correct answer when the basis of an argument is false… The principle of GIGO trumps delusional assumptions, at least in the real world….

“The Bible is true this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” — Jordan Henderson

Okay, so if there aren’t any manuals, and the only folks out there offering to help are those who are doing so out of their own desire to control other folks, then how do we learn to accept all the hardships that come with growing older? Well, let’s see…. As I sit and consider that question, it keeps growing larger in scope, and the number of potential answers approaches infinity, so, I guess I need to narrow the focus a bit…. Hmm, break time…. gotta cogitate on this one….

“Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.” — C. C. Colton

Okay, that isn’t a bad insight, all in all…. but, it doesn’t quite fill the bill for our discussion, for while it acknowledges the power of aging, it doesn’t offer any solutions, or advice, other than in a passive, negative sense…. More, please….

“Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” — J.K. Rowling, The Beginning, — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000, — spoken by the character Albus Dumbledore

Hmm… a clue, I think, of the direction we are seeking to find…. a bit more fine tuning, I think….

“Bear, do not blame, what cannot be changed.” — Publius Syrus

Another clue…. we must be on the right track….

“Never give an inch!” — Smart Bee

Okay, we’re almost there, cuz the pearls are getting shorter, and deeper, always a good sign….

“I’m not a lawyer, but I play one on the guitar.” — Smart Bee

Well, see, I told you…. the perfect ending to a discussion of Reality, and how we deal with it over time….. In other words, ffolkes, you can’t really win, in the sense for which we are seeking to find a reasonable justification… The game is rigged, and it’s the only one in town…. But, it also implies that we can still walk away a winner, we just have to change the rules in our own minds….

In short, ffolkes, we’re on our own out here in Reality, and aging can either be a burden to bear, or an advantage to take…. It’s all up to us, ultimately, and we not only shouldn’t worry about whether or not there is anyone who can relieve us of this responsibility, but should understand that the act of doing so only makes the issue more difficult….

So, buck up, ffolkes…. Yes, Life gets tough, but, if we are smart, we can get tougher….

“I love ROCK ‘N ROLL! I memorized the all WORDS to “WIPE-OUT” in 1965!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

Since I’m just that kind of guy, and I don’t have one of my own ready to bleed out, here’s a two-fer from Master Yeats, with a prologue…. Enjoy! 🙂

“No poems can please nor live long which are written by water-drinkers.” — Horace (65-8 B.C.)

A Drinking Song

WINE comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

William Butler Yeats

A Drunken Man’s Praise Of Sobriety

COME swish around, my pretty punk,
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.

Sobriety is a jewel
That I do much adore;
And therefore keep me dancing
Though drunkards lie and snore.
O mind your feet, O mind your feet,
Keep dancing like a wave,
And under every dancer
A dead man in his grave.
No ups and downs, my pretty,
A mermaid, not a punk;
A drunkard is a dead man,
And all dead men are drunk.

William Butler Yeats
__________________________________

“In the words of Shankarachaya, “All impossible things can be made possible save the bringing of the fool’s mind to the point of truth.”” — Hazrat Inayat Khan (Sufi writer)

Sufi is a philosophy whose written words are not very familiar to me, as I’ve never made a study of them, beyond a superficial one, to get a gauge of its scope. I like this, though, and it says a lot to me that the author was able to independently come to a conclusion that is common to many other philosophies I admire, to wit: “Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.” It is a sentiment that, in a way, defines humanity, while at the same time, points out the fly in the ointment, so to speak….

Our minds, given the power of imagination, are our strength, our greatest tool in the fight for survival in this universe; they are also our greatest frailty, our Achilles heel, as it were. Imagination can show us how to survive, and live; it can also makes us afraid for no reason, other than our own ignorance. Our intelligence is our greatest ally, and our worst enemy…. and it is this contradiction that keeps us from achieving that serenity in society that is possible on an individual basis…..

You see, there are way too many unscrupulous people who DO know how to use their imaginations, to their OWN advantage, who are in positions of influence in society, and they are able to manipulate the vast numbers of people who choose to allow ignorance to rule their existence, all of whom would rather die than try to think their way out of a problem. These “fools” are controlled very easily, as they actually prefer to not have to use what sits on their shoulders for anything other than passing comestibles to their stomachs, and will believe pretty much anything told to them, as long as it is on TV…..

Here on this blog, I rail at this segment of humanity quite regularly, not that it does much to alter the situation. But, it is all I can do at the moment, so I keep on shouting into the wind, and preaching to the choir, because, naturally, the ffolkes who end up coming here are generally those who are already well-practiced at using their minds, or at least, not giving in to the urge to ignore reality. But, someday, perhaps, if and when I ever get off my ass to go try to find an agent, or a publisher, more folks will hear my plaintive cries for sanity, and it may actually have some kind of positive effect on matters…

What the hell, everybody’s gotta have a dream, right? Right…. well, that’s mine….. If I can bring some truth into the world, and spread it around where it can do some good, well, I can die a happy man, because that’s about all one can expect from this cold, hard universe… and it’s enough….

“Baby, after considerable thought I’ve reached the conclusion that the only conceivable legitimate answer to the Universe as constituted is a peal of hysterical laughter.” — Keith Laumer, _Night of Delusions_
__________________________________

It took some patience, but that final pearl came through just in time, and perfectly closed the third section, with a statement with which I can wholeheartedly agree…. All in all, today’s effort isn’t too shabby, so we’re letting it go as is, sans critical judgment, though proofed and polished as best I may…. which means there is, no doubt, at least one hidden typo, that I won’t notice until it is posted…. Ah well, that’s life in the slow lane, I guess…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

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

View Full Profile →

	katiemiafrederick on Are those Foster Grants to blo…
	katiemiafrederick on Funk-o-matic accessories are o…
	katiemiafrederick on Dodge those taxes with dignity…
	katiemiafrederick on Dodge those taxes with dignity…
	katiemiafrederick on But…. but…. what a…

gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: William Butler Yeats

There are shades of culpability at play….

We were hoping for more of a gestalt version….

Acres of discount bishops, reduced cardinals, and one used pope…..

Plotting with obscene barristers …..

Susceptible to diverse therapeutic models….

27 Days will make a difference….

A desperate scenario, indeed, oberfuehrer….

Some lessons are more painful than others….

Muttered curses followed the abbot out the door….

Happy ever after as a plot device….

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: