Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

A fair wind, a rising tide, and four broken promises….

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Ffolkes,

“When you win, nothing hurts.”

~~ Joe Namath ~~

11-24-15 leelu 004

Miss Leelu the Giantess, A.A.L.I.H.O.M.*, Posing on her Tower


Hajime…. Oh, right. A.A.L.I.H.O.M.* = Already A Legend In Her Own Mind…. Wait ’till I figure out how post videos of her; you’ll either all be sick of her in no time, or she’ll become an internet sensation, make us both rich, and take us out of reach of the worst aspects of reality. Hey, who knows? It could happen, right? Sure.

Well, perhaps, until then, we’ll find something else to discuss. It might be tricky finding it in THIS brain, as I’m quite sure all the ones wobbling around in there just now are suspect, in some fashion or another. But, then, if not this brain, whose, may I ask? Why, nobody’s of course, or, in our case, everybody’s. Ooh, that’s subtle, isn’t it? I should be more careful; I could hurt myself with something that sharp so early in the process. I hate blood on the keyboard.

Why, golly…. I seem to be completely unable to find any sort of rhythm, direction, style, or mode that will get us anywhere. Everything so far has gotten us nowhere, if you don’t count further down the page. Even that is minuscule, in relation to, well, just about anything bigger than a doll’s severed head. Gotta be careful with those, too; they’ll talk to ya, try to fool ya into doing weird stuff. Better than leaving the head in place, though. You don’t want to know.

I’m certain now I don’t want to know anymore, either. In fact, if pressed, I’ll never admit I did, so don’t count on me as a corroborating witness, unless you’re talking about witnessing consistent examples of rampant stupidity, about which I’ll testify at the drop of a cliche. But, for now, you lucked out because I’m sick of this shit. It just won’t gel, and what’s a morning Pearls without a bit of gel, I ask you? So, without even waiting for Luigi to get here, I’m taking us out to the oyster beds myownself. Don’t worry, I’ve completed MOST of the course now; what could happen?

Shall we Pearl?….

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” — Erica Jong

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“After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

~~ Aldous Huxley ~~

jethro tull

Jethro Tull

Image from http://www.last.fm via Google Images


Jethro Tull was another iconic rock band from the 1960’s & early 70’s, famous for hard, driving, rambunctious shows led by their charismatic lead singer and legendary flutist,  Ian Anderson. I hope you enjoy another trip down my memory lane; never got to see them live, but, never missed a broadcast of their concerts on fm radio…. A rocking good time, ffolkes…. As we said then, dig it….

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Jethro Tull

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We the People...

    Oddly enough, I got a little sleep last night, near dawn. But, I still don’t have the wherewithal to produce anything particularly cogent, so, I’m sublimating with something from the archives. It’s a long one, but, worth another read, if only because the same shit, but a different day, is still going on; only the dates have changed…..

From 10/17/2013, entitled  “Forlorn moments of epistemological apprehension….”:


First, a word from the Founding Fathers….

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” — Thomas Jefferson

Now, a bit of insanity, on the identical subject, from a more modern source….

“By all accounts, though, an end seems near for the impasse that has once again exposed a government so divided that it sometimes borders on dysfunction. Though the House failed to muster sufficient support for a conservatives-only bill in the GOP-majority chamber on Tuesday, enough Republicans there seem likely to join House Democrats to approve a bipartisan version if it can be approved by the Senate and sent to them. ”

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Senators-closing-in-on-deal-to-reopen-government-4895884.php

I was reading the news last night, online, and the latest reports from the capitol say that a deal will get done prior to today’s deadline…. as it always does…. The difference in the deals that get done and those that don’t get done are relatively insignificant, in terms of real life; they only make a difference to those involved in whatever struggle is current. Nobody really understands any of it anyway… not the politicians who spout all the platitudes and figures, not the experts who supply the detailed analysis of those figures, and certainly not the public, who don’t even WANT to understand the complexities…. which is something the pundits know well, and, in fact, depend on to assist them in their endeavors…

“Morality is a private and costly luxury.” — Smart Bee

Sadly, this statement, though found without attribution, was made by an observer who knows human nature well, one who has obviously observed our history closely, drawing from those observations the only possible conclusion…. Society, as exemplified by its leaders, in both the secular and clerical arenas, loudly and boldly tout the twin concepts of morality and ethics, laying claim to them as if they were a coat left lying about. The noise they make in making these claims is generally quite noisome, to my ears, but, serves to cover their asses when later accused of impropriety; they can point to their strident statements as being proof of sincerity, though, logically, sincerity and morality have no real connection.

However, sad as the statement is, it is accurate, and never more so when looking at the budget crisis that we are witnessing today. The assholes who inhabit Congress, especially the conservatives in the House of Representatives, ( an oxymoron, if I’ve ever heard one…. ), DO NOT represent the people who elected them, not even close…. They lie to them, they steal from them, they follow their own agendas, but, they DON’T represent them…

How can they? They are not even in the same economic class as most of them, and never have been…. and, please, DON’T try to tell me you don’t think we have economic classes in this society…. Sorry, ffolkes, but American society is NOT classless, and never has been…. It has ALWAYS been separated into classes, based primarily on economic factors, with those who have more money having more influence and, more importantly, more rights, than those with less money…. The most cursory examination of history, of the world, and of this country, will show this as a fact of little possibility of dispute.

The average US income (which doesn’t give a completely accurate picture, but is useful to make the point….) is somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars ($10, 001 to $99,999, somewhere between the two….). This translates into a basic demographic breakdown of being a very few people making more than they need to survive, as contrasted by a very large number of people who are struggling to even eat on a daily basis…. This accounts for 99% of the population, and about 1% of the actual money available to that 99%….

On the other side of that coin, we have a few thousand people, the remaining 1%, who have 99% of the money, all making more than a million dollars a year, on average…. Of this small percentage, we find that ALL of the Senators, about half of the House members, and the President, of course, are all part of that 1% of the population, a part that has never had to worry about where their next meal came from…. I wish that this were not true, but, these are facts, with the supporting evidence available to anyone with a library card, so they can go there to look up the numbers….

Of course, the fact that they are “more successful” in economic terms is only proof, in their minds, of their inherent right to make the decisions for everyone else in the country, even though they have no real grasp of the needs of those people. The fact of their disconnection from reality cannot penetrate their sense of entitlement, and they fully BELIEVE in their own mandate…. “Somehow, it never hurts to step back occasionally and ask yourself “Am I contributing to the solution of the problem or aiding in making a bigger problem?”…. this is a process, and a question, that never occurs to them…

This is why I call them delusional, and can honestly claim that I believe them to be clinically insane; a person so disconnected to what is real cannot be considered sane…. except, perhaps, in an insane society. Making assumptions about having the right to decide about the wants and needs of others is a sure sign that one has an unreasonable belief in their own importance to the universe, an assumption that can only be termed as a delusion. This kind of behavior is one society cannot afford to allow, because, if nothing else, these types of delusions are dangerous to the rest of us.  Allowing these “crazies”, for wont of a more accurate term, to act out their fantasies in the real world tends to lead to trouble for more than just themselves…..

“Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he. But we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry IV — Act v, Sc. 4

I’m down, and out of breath, from shouting into the wind, at the mountain… A futile task, at best, I know, but, what else can one do at 5 AM? Mountain moving is my specialty, after all…. The truth of the matter is, after two hours by Shrewsbury clock, I’m tired of shouting at the mountain; it’s hard work, to little effect. I suppose it’s all I can do, and that is why I do it…. It’s cheaper, and, in the long run, less troublesome to my spirit and karma, than going out, buying a gun, and making a list of targets…. Less chance of getting shot back at, too…

There comes a time, however, when even I must admit to the futility of this particular task, and grow a bit discouraged…. I’m just not the kind of person who can give up completely, though, so, I’ll be back to rant on this subject another time…. “They” are always out there doing something on which I can comment. For the time being, I’ll leave you with this final lament…

“The world has taken on a thickness of vulgarity that raises a spiritual man’s contempt to the violence of a passion.” — Charles Baudelaire

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Comedy_Tragedy

Made from broken bricks and spit….

I could dodge a bullet train, easy,
if I could find one to dodge.
They aren’t so easy to find, you know
in so unloaded a station as this.

It isn’t like I don’t appreciate the effort;
 it isn’t much of a goal anyway.
I only made it up that way to see
if anyone was listening to me.

I never know, you see,
behind all these electrons.
I can only wish for magic to exist;
it’s the only wish I have left.

Wishes make me think of horses.
Funny, huh?
Maybe by the end of this stanza
I’ll find a poem.

Nah.
But I don’t care anymore.
If I did,
it would sing
like the moon in November

Mightier than the sword
I take up my pen.
Oops.
Sword bought a gun.

Try NOT to laugh.

~~ gigoid ~~


Kinda strange, huh?…. Well, you would be too, in my state…. Fuck it; I like it…. Does that make me perverse? So be it.

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pearls_3

    I like this one, and not just because it came together fairly easily (SB seems to be in a good space lately ~~ Yay!). No, it’s because it seems to be about the beautiful humor and sad irony that epitomizes so much in the average Life at Large of most human beings. As with any assessment, necessarily a generalization to some extent, this one probably has exceptions. But, I will point out that only helps to validate the connection there is to Truth in what I suggest. In any case, each one is worth the reading, so, that’s enough for me…..

   This cowboy looked at me and said
   With a sort of a smile,
   A sorry hand is in the way all the time,
     A good one just once in awhile.

~~- Cowgirl poet Georgie Sicking ~~

“Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least.” — Edward Abbey

“If you turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.” — Sir Walter Scott

“A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.” — Jean Rostand

“In a fight you don’t stop to choose your cudgels.” — Skilled Bee

“Word is a shadow of deed.” — Democritus (400 BC)

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe

“If you can’t solve it, it’s not a problem — it’s a reality that needs to be faced.” — Barbara Coloroso

“Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”

~~ Hermann Hesse ~~


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Not bad at all, if one may consider all things, especially given my current mental state. Fragile is probably the kindest way to describe it, and, for the purpose of keeping to our purpose here, I won’t go into that any further. After all, this IS the ending, right? No time to start up new shit. I can say, though, I will be back again, because, in spite of how good this one may or may not be, it sure ain’t perfect yet…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes; plenty of folks have tried to stop me, and all have died….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch


À bientôt, mon cherí….


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
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Ffolkes,




“I understand life and the universe. Cats are beyond me.”


~~ Smart Bee, echoing gigoid ~~


Ollie Owl


Ollie Owl




Good morning, ffolkes…..


Shall we Pearl?


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


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ray-charles-2-copy




Image from rocktownhall.com via Google free images




Is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard of this artist? If so, you’re in for a treat…. ear candy, as it were. Enjoy, ffolkes…. this is another one of humanity’s cultural heritage treasures….







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Ray Charles



















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Dont keep calm




    Apparently, on one of the Friday the 13th days during 2012, I had a good day in my head…. Here are some thoughts from that day, that still have relevance in today’s world…..


From 1/13/2012:


“It has been said that there are two theories of history: conspiracy and blunder. If there is some truth to that, it is surely equally true that blunder seldom receives all the credit due it as an explanation of complex events.” — Michael Scully


I would say that this is probably pretty accurate; after all, it is the winners who get to tell the story, and why would they make themselves look any worse than they already are? I believe that much of mankind’s progress up to now is, in fact, a result of blundering about, breaking the china and scaring the horses, until something serendipitous falls into someone’s lap.


The example most often given regarding inspiration that brings progress is that of Isaac Newton and the apple, which, according to history, fell upon his head unexpectedly, causing him to fall down and begin writing the 3 Laws of Motion. I think it more likely that he was trying to climb up to get the apple, and took a good fall onto his head; he just blamed it on the apple, and since he was the only witness, who can gainsay him?


This points out one of the less attractive, and most problematic of the characteristics of humans, and that is our inability to get beyond our childish feelings of insecurity. The older we get, the less able we become to handle the embarrassment or ridicule that follows a mistake, and the more contortions we will assume to keep others from seeing our Bozoid Tendencies. You see, like the Firesign Theater said, “I think we’re all Bozo’s on this bus!”; we all have the unfortunate ability to perform ridiculously stupid acts at times.


Most folks, though, don’t like to be thought of this way, and will go through almost anything to prevent themselves from looking inept in front of other folks. Me, I wish they’d just learn to laugh at themselves, and everyone else; maybe then they could grow up enough to be able to look directly at the things in society that we need to change, instead of childishly refusing to even look at the situation. Emotional maturity means dealing with whatever happens, without letting emotions control one’s actions, or reactions, and most of mankind doesn’t exhibit anything close to that sort of maturity……


Also from 1/13/2012:


“Thinking, understanding, reasoning, willing, call not these Soul! They are its actions, but they are not its essence.” — Akhenaton? (c. B.C. 1375)


When? Oh, four thousand four hundred eighty-seven years ago…..is that all? I’ve got acne scars older than that! Well, perhaps not. But I am continually amazed at some of the things I find that were written this long ago. It gives credence to the idea that mankind’s first steps toward modern culture were the result of how our minds work, and our penchant for using our imagination to understand the universe around us. It has been said that the first science was Astronomy, which makes a lot of sense. But, simultaneously, we used Philosophy, and the principles of logic and reason, to apply meaning to what we observed.


Forty-four hundred years is a long time to be working on the same issues, and it seems to me we should be getting somewhere a bit faster than we are. But then I realize that there is another side to human nature, one that is not so moral and ethical as our scientific bent, a side of us in constant competition with our virtues, battling to assume control of society. (You know… that old good vs. evil deal….) That other side is winning, too, mostly because those who disavow virtue have no compunctions against cheating, or lying, or manipulating events to suit their own purposes. Moreover, they don’t hesitate to resort to violence to do so, when they cannot find any simpler method….


I think, as a species, we’ve been at this long enough; let’s make a concerted effort to nullify the negative effects of deliberate ignorance and fear. Perhaps we can even find a way to survive our own nature….. The Universe will get the impression we’re slow learners, if we don’t start to show a bit more progress toward growing out of infancy….


Note from 2015: I’m not sure why, but, the following five star pearl insisted on being included at the end of this section…. I am pretty sure it’s just my reaction to what I said above…..




“Is truth not truth for all?”


~~ Natira ~~ 


~~ “For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky” ~~


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“How do you make sense of such madness? The answer is, you can’t.”


~~ Pablo Guzman ~~


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“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving till the right actions arises by itself?”


~~ Lao Tzu ~~


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An ancient buddha said, Mountains are mountains; waters are waters. 

These words do not mean mountains are mountains; 

they mean mountains are mountains.


~~ Dogen ~~


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“How can I lose faith in the justice of life, 

when the dreams of those

who sleep upon feathers 

are not more beautiful 

than the dreams of those

who sleep upon the earth?”


~~ Kahlil Gibran ~~




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Comedy_Tragedy


Accentuated Lessons


Bold statements of calculated intent

Become common rule of the malcontent.

Avarice assumes such attractive wear

Beguiling deception, illusory and fair.


Grasping and pulling with ghostly hands

Legally proper in all the signatory lands.

Seeking and finding each vulnerable soul

Anguish as payment for exacting the toll.


Wraiths of commerce’s invisible dead guards

Still haunt the dreams left in sad empty yards.

While absentee nobles sit in stiffly elegant splendor

Served by sad-faced detainees in abject surrender.


Escape from reality is illusory at best

Often we falter and fail its daily test.

Only when focused on inner strength

Does peace stay with us for any length.


Peace lies within, always…..


~~ gigoid ~~




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socrates




Dubiousity, Redux




In the virtual world, I call myself gigoid, the dubious, for specific reasons…. Rather than use my own words to delineate/describe those reasons, here are some of them, in the form of pearls, (naturally….), as collected by Smart Bee, just as an exercise…. It turned out to be a nice, eleven-star pearl, all centered around the concept of doubt as a function of wisdom…. It seems I’m not the only person in history to put my faith in doubt, rather than the other way around, so to speak…. There are a lot of big names here, and, I only went through the first half of the collection….


Pay particular heed today, ffolkes; these little bits of shiny stuff are more subtly important, to you, than you may realize…. Oh, and, ALL of this will be on your final Quiz…. Don’t blame me, I didn’t make it up….




Shadow and sunlight are the same;

The vanished gods to me appear;

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.


~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Brahma ~~




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


“A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up, listening no doubt to the sounding of the spheres. And what a dandy fellow! the right toss of a chin for you and swirl of a tail! If men were as much men as lizards are lizards they’d be worth looking at.” — D. H. Lawrence (1928)


“Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.” — Robert Lindner


“Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.” — Voltaire




Modest doubt is call’d

The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches

To the bottom of the worst.


~~ William Shakespeare ~~


~~ Troilus and Cressida — Act ii, Sc. 2 ~~




Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom. — Smart Bee


“Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.” — Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense (1946)


“If you understand, or if you don’t. If you believe, or if you doubt. There is a universal justice and the eyes of truth are always watching.” — Enigma


“Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.” — H. L. Mencken




My guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect

 deceived me into thinking I had something to protect.

 Good and bad I defined these terms, quite clear, no doubt, somehow

 Ah, but I was so much older then;

 I’m younger than that now.


~~ Bob Dylan ~~




Ah, yes, indeed…. I AM younger than that now….. so, there will be more on this subject later…. Ta, then….


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Y’all, just like me, are going to say goodbye now…( Goodbye!…), until tomorrow; we will do so with no further inquiry into how this got done…. In fact, y’all may as well just go into complete denial now; it will help later in the day….. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, provided nobody says the wrong thing….If only we knew what that was….




Y’all take care out there, 

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….


Sometimes I sits and thinks,

   and sometimes,

I just sits.


gigoid, the dubious


PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.


“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch








Kowabunga!




À bientôt, mon cherí….





		
	
					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Arguing the salient points is thirsty work….

			
						

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Ffolkes,




“There aren’t many times in your life when your body has absolutely nothing wrong with it.”


~~ Smart Bee ~~


thats some cold shit


     The quote, a rather poignant, yet perfectly accurate comment, which you see sitting right above my picture of The Tracy Arm Fjord/Glacier (Damn! That’s a LOT of COLD-looking water, ain’t it?…. Yet, this was taken from the deck of a ship, in July!….), struck me very hard, right between the eyes…. It seems so perfectly apt, when applied to my current physical condition, I couldn’t leave it be….


You see, the statement speaks the truth, from an overall view taken from this end of life…. However, for much of my earlier life, until the age of forty, I was perfectly healthy, in every respect, never suffering much from having some part of my body not feel good, beyond the minor pains involved in activities of a sporting nature…. 


It was only in the underlying habits I pursued during all those years, of extreme physical activity, (sports, martial arts, work of a physical nature…), combined with the average American’s poor eating habits, foisted upon all of us from a young age, along with the use of information, (supplied by society, which, as it turned out, was completely false)…. these factors led to the way I feel most days in the present…


Without going into a long, detailed examination of WHY the above statement is true, I’ll just summarize, by saying, if I’d known back then what I know now, I’d have done some things differently, for sure…. But, as we all know, we don’t have that ability, to change the past, even if we don’t always act like it…. Therefore, it does me no good whatsoever to complain, even less to worry about it… The effects of the past’s miscues still must be endured, and dealt with to the best of my knowledge and experience… In other words…. So Be It….


Normally, I wouldn’t comment on this, in this particular way, but, it hit me so strongly, I had to react, if only to verbalize the insight I came to perceive, which stated most simply, is this…. I miss my old body, and the way I could depend on it to do anything I asked of it, no matter how difficult…. But, going back to that is not going to happen, realistically, so, learning how to avoid, and/or overcome, days such as yesterday becomes more of a direct challenge.


Yesterday, you see, (the day I started this originally…. it’s been a work in progress since then….), was Christmas, and I felt so much pain, from stuff that just won’t go away, I was reduced to taking massive quantities of drugs, of every description, to knock myself relatively unconscious…. This, of course, meant losing most of an entire day…. I could go for the cheap laugh, & say, “what a pain in the ass”, but, what I felt was, by no means, confined simply to my ass; such a mild epithet wouldn’t be accurate, nor convey the proper degree of irrational anger that accompanies such experiences….


Nor would it suit the pompous style this intro has fallen into… damn it! Just when I was hoping for a break-out of weird nonsense, too…. I really wanted some nonsense, but NOOOO, my mind comes up with pompous, instead…. I swear, some days, all I get is shit for breakfast, and from myself, to boot…. Whattyagonnado, eh? I know what WE’RE going to do, and, since we’re going to do it NOW, I’d hang on, if I were you…..


Shall we Pearl?


“Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.” — Smart Bee


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Yesterday, I posted a video of the Sally Field version of Gidget…. Here is another beach movie from the same era, with a different cast of characters, but, based on the same basic plot…. Of course, it’s the same plot used in every movie in the genre…. It was movies like this that determined my hair style for several years….




Muscle Beach Party (1964) full movie



































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“Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words.” — Kirk, “The Omega Glory,” stardate unknown.


It has long been my opinion, since before going to college, that nobody with a degree in law, or political science, or criminology, or any other professional governance subject should ever be allowed to participate in any way in government, or police, or any sort of position of authority over others in society…. Once that happens, we end up with a mess like we have today, where those with the authority to make, and break the laws are NOT interested, or invested, in doing ANYTHING to improve the lot of the common man….


The concept isn’t new with me; Arthur C. Clarke once wrote a novel about the 500th anniversary of the United States, i.e., it takes place in the year 2276, being the story of one representative’s trip, from a moon of Saturn, to Earth, to attend the celebration for the Fourth of July 2276. One of the government officials he is to meet during the trip is the current President of the United States, elected in 2276, by the, then, usual method of being picked by a computer as the most qualified citizen in the country. The primary quality looked for by the computer was a person who did NOT want to be President; they had to be dragged, kicking and complaining, to do the job at all, and, could only be persuaded to do so if promised they were to be allowed to leave in four years, if they did a good job….


This, of course, ensured that anyone in government had the best interests of the PUBLIC in the front of their minds, not their own self-interest, as is the case with, no doubt, over 90% of the current crop of elected bozos…. The 455 mostly white millionaires who run this country’s government demonstrate consistently how little little they care about the public, other than as a source of income for them, and their corporate cronies/masters…. When was the last time you heard about a Congressman being threatened with having their gas shut off for not paying their bill? Or any of the myriad of other problems common to all of us in the lower branches of society? That would be never, I should think….


But, to be honest, I really don’t feel like ranting, (any more than I already have, anyway…), so, we’ll leave it to an old-school variety of pearl to bring the point home, or, somewhere close enough to find…. Said point, it may be noted, is a direct pirated version of the real point, which was first noted by Fred, the Bird, when he said so aptly…. “Politics is poopadoodle.”….. Please note: in this pearl only, the initial pearl consists of the first TWO statements, indicated by a short dividing line from the other six stars…


“If we are to survive, this nation must end its love affair with guns.” — U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.


“If we are to survive, this nation must end its love affair with big brother government and individuals must relearn what it means to be free.” — Jeff Chan, chan@shell.portal.com


~~~~


“The majority is never right.” — L. Long  (1912-)


“George Bush shot JFK.” — Liberal history revision, but, only held to be true in Texas…. and, patently, in metaphor….


“I think grown-ups just act like they know what they’re doing.” — Calvin & Hobbes


“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” — Goethe


“Since when is “public safety” the root password to the Constitution?” — C. D. Tavares


“Being good at being stupid doesn’t count.” — Smart Bee


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


The following poem is another of those I lost for a time…. Back in 2012, in September, I wrote several poems, during the first breakout of poetry I had written in over 40 years…. This one was one of the first couple I wrote, which I found in the archives just a few days ago…. Enjoy, ffolkes… This one, I believe, describes the process, as well as some of the aftermath, of how PTSD feels…. from the inside…. That makes it a particularly appropriate poem for today’s post….






Visible life


Forty-two days of pressure and internal rain,

leave marks of salvation, often in pain.

Such sharp reminders of yesterday’s remorse

fight heavily to keep a straight course.

Rash moments, bright, and routinely immense

Give us pleasure, bereft of common sense.


Still the night comes soft and eternally dear

to bring out wishful dreams so vitally clear.

Life’s myrmidons give freely in protest

lifting with skill, soul pieces first to infest,

Loudly brash, with no such voices to remain

Sealed in infamy, branded ugliness all too plain.


Now come brave signs of chapter and verse

Shielded by ignorance, irritable and terse.

Gravid portions of in-between retaliation

leave only pale marks of initial gestation

With hope even pallid warriors grow brave

Leading all humanity, to a warm, stale grave.


Hope never falters, nor leaves any trace

Yet lingers forever in a welcoming space.

Cheerful faces yet shine out of time

for tricking and fumbling sweet melody sublime.

Fill in the spaces with a long, strong retort

life is ever visible, if only as last resort.


~~ gigoid ~~




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


This is what I’d call a classic pearl; clear, directed, and useful, as long as one allows such activities in their head…. It’s pretty fresh, too, considering none of them were picked out before yesterday…. and, all were examined and formatted this morning, to assure freshness, in packaging, if not content… Here is a pretty decent remark, once all the dross is trimmed away from the essence, about one of our favorite subjects, to wit: Life at Large…. The final pearl is one of the finest gems I’ve ever come across, especially as the perfect closing line in this venue….




To each is given a bag of tools,

A shapeless mass and a book of rules,

And each must make, ere life is flown,

A stumbling-block or a stepping stone.


~~ R. L. Sharpe, Stumbling Block or Stepping Stone ~~




“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), All’s Well that Ends Well — Act iii, Sc. 5


“Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.” — Aristotle


“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.” — G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908


“By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 3


“There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.” — James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) — Democracy and Other Addresses




The fastest draw is when the sword never leaves the scabbard.

The strongest way to block is never to provoke a blow.

And the cleanest cut is the one withheld.


~~ “Kensho”, by Dennis Schmidt ~~




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


Easiest Pearl ever, no doubt…. Of course, most of it was done yesterday, put together during moments of peace between bouts of either joint pain, or emotional pain, both of which have been my constant companion for a couple of days now…. This is not good, but, it will, hopefully, pass off soon…. In the meantime, if y’all don’t see a post here tomorrow, well, you’ll know why…. See ya, ffolkes, maybe even tomorrow…. but, maybe not, too…. Right now, I couldn’t make a firm commitment to either one….




Y’all take care out there, 

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….


Sometimes I sits and thinks,

   and sometimes,

I just sits.


gigoid, the dubious


PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.


Kowabunga!






À bientôt, mon cherí….



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
No job for a gentleman….

			
						

				Posted on   by  			

			
						

				4			

					


				

			
Ffolkes,




“I count religion but a childish toy … there is no sin but ignorance.”


~~ Machiavel, from The Jew of Malta ~~


~~ Christopher Marlowe ~~


OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA



    Mei stumbled under the load she carried, as she climbed the path to her parent’s cottage, set upon a small hill just outside the town where they lived…. The town sat on the road leading to the great city of Peking, where the Emperor held court with the great nobles and beautiful ladies Mei saw each day, passing by on the Great Road leading into the city from the south. Mei liked to watch them pass by, seated in their swaying palanquins, distant and aloof, as they stared indolently out at the gaping crowds along the roads, wishing she could see the court, where the bright clothes and sparking jewels of the courtesans were said to outshine the sun…. She just knew it would be the most beautiful sight she would ever see….


Bah, humbug…. I’m already bored with little Mei; I’m pretty sure she’ll end up as another fashion maven, or courtesan, doomed to a short life full of the misery so common to the lower classes in ancient China…. or, at least, if the Emperors back then were of the same ilk as today’s ruling classes, it would be so. I don’t think human nature has undergone any particularly startling changes over the last couple thousand years…. No, the depths of human stupidity are boundless, and I don’t think there are enough of us who can see what is happening to be able to change the direction we’ve taken, one sure to lead us to places we do NOT want to end up….


But, sadly, the Asininnies who run the planet are no smarter than the rest of us….. They refuse to see beyond the needs of their own avarice and lust for power, blithely assuming their invulnerability…. So, I rant, and make my peace with karma, so as to remain ready for the imminent extinction I see as the only remaining outcome to our current state of affairs…. I hate to be pessimistic, as humans do have the potential to make the necessary changes; I just haven’t seen any evidence that would show there are enough ffolkes willing to make those changes, compared to those who prefer to ignore any and all warnings from reality that their actions are not merely unproductive, but, frankly suicidal….


There I go again…. Damn, I sure wish that wouldn’t happen, but, I suppose if it didn’t, this blog wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has…. There is something to be said for stubbornness…. I’m not certain just what that may be, but, hey, I don’t know everything….. That has been made perfectly clear in the past three-plus years, hasn’t it? I do however, have a small degree of control over this vessel, so, I can utilize whatever exit strategies we may need to get us where we need to go…. Well, I’m authorized to do so, even if it isn’t always physically possible…. we do try, though, honest.


Not only do we make a concerted effort to maintain control, we don’t charge any extra fees for doing it, so, I guess that makes us a bunch of bloody altruists, now, doesn’t it? Not a bad reputation for one old, fat fart with flat feet, and a tendency for his nose to grow red and round…. In fact, I think I’ll take this opportunity to rest firmly upon my laurels, insofar as it applies to the task at hand, which, of course, may be seen to be of the category “not at all”….. In point of further fact, I’m now fully in the process of cheating, which hopefully will take us out of this mess, one rapidly losing all hope of ever being rescued…..


In fact, I’m so officially and completely lost, we’re leaving…. NOW….


Shall we Pearl?




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” ~~




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


After such a strangely apt opening, I think a bit of music to soothe our now-troubled minds would be in order….




Music for reading – Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Debussy, Lizst, Schumann








































 


 




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


“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” — From The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, by Robert A. Heinlein


Cognitive Synthesis of Perception. Precognitive Forecasting. Looking At The Big Picture. Multi-tiered thought. There are many phrases/words used to try to describe the process of prognostication of future events in human culture, a pastime obviously fraught with the danger of being wrong more often than not. The future has a past history of surprising us with its unpredictability, almost without fail, as we are not as smart as we would like to believe, IN RELATION TO THE BIG PICTURE.


That last part, you see, is a fatal flaw in all of us; by using our intellect, by removing our minds and thoughts from the plane on which we exist with everything else, spending time in our imagination, we tend to lose the connection we have to what is REAL, thereby failing to account for that source of information/perceptions, and/or its influence on what may come to pass.


In short, we forget to calculate OUR OWN effect on events, which, as is patently obvious, is completely predictable, in its insistence on sticking to a pattern of deliberate stupidity in the face of reality. We humans, as a matter of course, will use all our will to deny reality if it doesn’t fit in with our preconceived notions of what we would LIKE reality to be….


Most of the time, our unwillingness to think puts us, according to those who would have us believe without examination, under the control of supernatural being, who will forever relieve us of any responsibility for our actions, and will never, ever make us try to think for ourselves again, once they have surrendered our will to this delusional entity…. This delusion is particularly powerful in its reliance on “ipse dixit” reasoning, which allows the proponents of the blindness the permission to completely ignore any and all contradictory evidence they may be presented with, whether real, or reasoned…. Nothing will penetrate, because they won’t allow it….


If you think I’m exaggerating, then I offer the following as a relatively strong set of proof, of an ilk even the most ignorant could conceivably find acceptable, in that it’s all direct reporting by other humans, all of whom suffer from the same core set of delusions…. even those who seem to be reporting contradictory evidence…. Very few of them actually express any awareness of THEIR OWN prejudices…. but, one must read SOMETHING in order to find ANY kind of thought stimulus….


Below are a large number of links to articles I read on the Net yesterday…. Most express outrage at the bozoid activities they describe, so, at least those authors have some clue as to what is going on, so, what they report assumes a slightly more acceptable level of what might be held as truth…. My point can be found not by reading and studying each and every article, end to end, (as I MOSTLY did…. sigh, I’m tired, too…), but, rather, by looking at the total picture, the gestalt, as it were, that is suggested by considering them ALL as single pieces of evidence of the problem that exists in humanity’s nature…. Some seem to be good news, some are obviously NOT so encouraging, but, all point to the same conclusion, my friends, using any sort of reasoning method you may choose to apply…


In short, looking at the Big Picture will convince you that THE ENTIRE WORLD HAS GONE INSANE, AND THERE IS NO CURE!


Sorry, ffolkes, but, as far as I can see, all the evidence available points to that conclusion, and I do try to be realistic, if somewhat optimistic at times…. Okay, hell, busted; I’m a cynical old curmudgeon…. Nevertheless, I still don’t see much that convinces me people are going to change, not enough to make enough difference against the inertia created by the mass of STUPIDITY and DELIBERATE IGNORANCE I see surrounding me on this planet…. Meanwhile, well, here I am, stuck on this sorry old ball of mud without my space ship, and no other way to get away before it all goes south….. No hills to head out for, so to speak….


Here, read as many as you like…. There are lots more where these came from, and each one is rant-worthy by itself….. Afterwards, I’ll include a few pearls to  help illustrate the point….


http://observer.com/2014/11/breaking-doj-moves-to-disqualify-all-defense-attorneys-who-know-of-govt-misconduct/


http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/19/3593628/how-did-this-unarmed-schizophrenic-woman-get-killed-by-cleveland-police/


http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/18/3593645/house-epa-science-advisory-board-bill/


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/18/1345795/-Gov-Mike-Pence-says-not-giving-food-to-the-unemployed-will-ennoble-them?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29



http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/11/18/3593389/congress-postal-service/


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/18/1345753/-About-these-pundits-and-their-fetish-for-bipartisanship-Can-t-they-just-find-a-toe-to-suck-instead?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/18/1345751/-McConnell-Boehner-struggle-to-find-a-way-around-another-government-shutdown?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29



http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/19/hillsborough-inquest-police-story-forced-gate-liverpool-supporters


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/19/nsa-reform-surveillance-usa-freedom-act-section-215



http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/nov/19/man-allegedly-tortured-us-ulk-troops-wins-right-sue-damages


http://time.com/3594482/holiday-shopping-black-friday-thanksgiving-christmas-gifts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29


I would like to point out the sheer avarice our culture encourages as implied by the last article, as well as to have you note that this is an article about buying ‘stuff’ for Christmas, in November, while we are still over a week away from Thanksgiving…. SIGH….


“I never could see why people were so happy about Dickens’ `A Christmas Carol’ because I never had any confidence that Scrooge was going to be any different the next day.” — Dr. Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist (1893-1990), — on the transience of the Christmas spirit.


“There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat and grows old.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry IV — Act ii, Sc. 4


“We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.” — Dwight D Eisenhower


“The distinction between Freedom and Liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have been unable to find a living specimen of either.” — Ambrose Bierce “The Devil’s Dictionary”


“Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.” — Robert Louis Stevenson


“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations


“I think as long as you suffer for your sins, they don’t count.” — Calvin


“I don’t think we should punish the criminal [a rapist] by killing his child.” — Dr. John Wilke, President, National Right to Life Committee, — Search for Common Ground, taped for television 4/89, as quoted in — The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves, a Planned Parenthood pamphlet


To summarize, once more, with feeling, loud enough for those in the rear of the hall to hear…. say it with me now!…..


“Stupidity is much the same all the world over.” — John Stuart Mill


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


Today’s ending quote in the intro section was a bit of a tease, so, here is another bit of doggerel from our old friend, Willie B…..






When You Are Old


When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


~~ William Butler Yeats ~~




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


In an attempt to counter-balance the large load of deliberate mendacity described in section two above, here is an old school pearl with advice, comments, and observations about some of humanity’s more sterling qualities, few as they may be….




Know then this truth (enough for man to know),–


“Virtue alone is happiness below.”


~~ Alexander Pope (1688-1744) ~~


~~ Essay on Man, Epistle iv, Line 309 ~~




“My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable…. We should be reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not we grapple with it. But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, slow march of intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities.” — James A Michener


“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson




And it’s just a box of rain

I don’t know who put it there

Believe it if you need it

Or leave it if you dare

And it’s just a box of rain

Or a ribbon for your hair

Such a long, long time to be gone

And a short time to be there


~~ Box of Rain by Lesh, Hunter ~~




“Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look at what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, “Is it reasonable?” — Richard Feyman’s father


“Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, Necessity and Freewill.” — Carlyle (1795-1881)




The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into habit;

And habit hardens into character.

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let it spring from love

Born out of concern for all beings.


~~ The Buddha ~~


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


Today’s Pearl came together rather quickly, given the fact the ranting section was completed yesterday as I perused the news…. There were so many egregious examples of just how crazy the world has gone, it put itself together…. So, here I am, at 0545, mostly done, and no idea what to do next…. The rest of the world won’t be up for a couple hours, mostly, so, I may as well just go back to bed…. I could, I suppose, try to find something constructive to do, but, what fun would THAT be, eh? I think I’ll go find a bureaucrat to torment, if I can find one out of bed this early…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….




Y’all take care out there, 

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….


Sometimes I sits and thinks,

   and sometimes,

I just sits.


gigoid, the dubious


PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.


Kowabunga!






À bientôt, mon cherí….





					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Saved… by the Belle of the Ball….

			
						

				Posted on   by  			

			
						

				1			

					


				

			
Ffolkes,




“It’s like brother Nietzsche said–being human is a complicated gig, 


so give that dark night of the soul a hug and howl the eternal yes.” 


— Chris in the Morning — 


DJ on the TV show, Northern Exposure


ghetto beauty


 


     “Hut! Two, three, four; hut! two, three, four…” The cadence rang out from the grizzled old sergeant, while alongside his ramrod-straight, hard-striding form, marched a column of grim-faced warriors, all tall, rangy specimens with bristling weapons strapped at various places, each one bearing scars from a hundred battles, brave circlets of gold circling arms, brows, and belts, to signify survival. Each somber face held the same eyes, a piercing blue that sharply contrasted the black hair all wore, in long braids tied down for convenience.


From the small knives worn on the belt and calf, to the laser-sword at the belt, to the long-range blasters, mortars, bazookas, and grenades, strapped to the belts worn crossed over the chest, this troop of warriors exemplified the best of the best, trained enforcers of the emperor’s will, the most dangerous soldiers in the galaxy…. Spoken only in a hushed whisper, their name, chosen to bring fear to all, implies the terror of….. the Emperor’s Arm….


We’ll leave the Arm to ready itself for its next battle, while we give a hug to the dark night, and howl with brother Nietzsche, an eternal YES! That sounds marginally better than trying to continue to come up with words I gave up, as part & parcel of my own life, a long time ago…. I have, in my life, had much more than my share of violence to deal with, in spite of having cleverly avoided getting caught up in the illegal warfare this country has been engaging in since before the day I was born…


In fact, the US was involved in its first, though certainly not last, incidence of this country going to a warlike state, but, without having any wars declared by Congress in which to engage, ON the day I was born, in 1950; we’d been in Korea with the UN for months by then…. Then, in 1954, our imperialist corporate masters were having a hard time keeping control of the heroin trade in Southeast Asia, so, we sent Air America, and a bunch of “advisers” to Cambodia, South Vietnam, and Thailand, to protect those corporate interests there…. Ten years later, in 1964, the covers got pulled, so Johnson, Nixon, and the crew sent over a few hundred thousand of our finest young citizens, to die for their corporate masters in the jungles of the Asian continent.


That, of course, kept us busy for a long time, only coming to a halt in 1975, when we finally had to admit defeat, for perhaps the first time in our history…. Well, of course, for our hawks, that certainly wouldn’t do, so, we started to see where in the world we could interfere with the locals, in order to keep our arms dealers happy, and making a steady profit, selling us bombs, and tanks, and all that nice weaponry and vehicles…. which, now that a bunch of it is out of date, is being sent to the police forces in America, to arm them beyond all reason or need….


Since leaving Asia, we’ve mainly been using our armed might to “fight terrorism”, a convenient ghost to chase, distracting the public from how much is being spent on the OTHER undeclared wars we’ve had in the last twenty-five years…. Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, now Syria…. It makes no sense, except to the arms dealers…. Since WWII, this country has been at war, pretty much constantly, for the entire time period from then to now…. and, I would wager serious money that we’ve spent over 100 trillion dollars, on just arms and ammunition, (planes and bombs add up quickly, at $75 million/day….), WITHOUT EVER DECLARING OURSELVES TO BE AT WAR!….


SIGH…. I really hadn’t planned to rant in the intro today…. that’s why I started with a fictional opening…. But, my talent for finding yet another piece of the crap with we are inundated each day by those assholes in charge of the world is greater than my ability to distract myself, apparently, and it just sort of happens…. Oh well, it got us down to here, & that’s the purpose, anyway, so, I’ll take it…. In fact, I’m going to be ruthless, an unusual state for me…. I’m usually pretty phlegmatic. But, since we’re right here, we’ll let it take us away, just as if we meant to do that….


Shall we Pearl?…..


“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” — Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)


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


Back on 9/18/14, four days ago, I posted a Pearl, the first section of which was comprised of an excerpted rant from a post dated 12/21/2012…. at the end of the part posted, it seemed confusing, having spoken of another part of the rant, which I know now was missing…. It should have been included, at the point where it became confusing… if it had been, there wouldn’t have been any confusion…. To try to alleviate that, or at least soothe my feeling of guilt for having fallen prey to my own bozoid tendencies, I’m reprinting it now, right below this line…. This is the second half of what you should have seen back then….


——————————————–


Here’s a good rant from the archives; it’s a summary rant, with a lot of issues to address…. I would say “enjoy”, but, it would be inappropriate, not to mention, in this instance, more than a little tacky….


From 12/22/2013:


Over the last three years, I’ve been ranting, off and on, about three, or four, groups of people in society whose actions have been causing the rest of us a hard time, continuing to do so, in spite of our best efforts to ‘persuade’ them to cease and desist….. These groups, which I’ve labeled with various derogatory names, just to keep them straight in my mind, and yours, are that part of our species that regards the rest of us as prey….


To these assholes, other people are on this planet merely to see they are supplied with all they wish to have, no matter how those others may feel about that….. Now, I could go into a lot of psychiatric, and/or psychological reasons for all of that, but the plain and simple truth is that they are assholes…. They were born that way, and have never been anything else, society having encouraged them to be so all their lives…. Why they are that way, still, is another matter altogether….


Normally, the universe, in the guise of parents, will supply people with good reasons NOT to be assholes… Sadly, many people never get exposed to those reasons, because their own parents don’t believe in them, having, instead, an enormous, false sense of entitlement, which, in their minds, despite its actual invalidity in reality, gives them the right to walk all over other people to get what they want…. This entitlement arises from one or more of several ideological sources, each of which, though based on completely delusional material, is so compelling, and so attractive to the mind that embraces cheating and immorality, that it has been solidly in control of the society in which we exist for the entire history we have endured….


The shadowy corporate masters who control society, who have done so for millennia, are VERY adept at concealing their presence from all but a few, of whom they have complete control, and nothing to fear…… In this way they have manipulated society for all that time, holding the majority of resources and money under their control, thus giving them very real control over the rest of us, as we all have to eat…. it’s that simple…. That, combined with their willingness to use violence, without any compunctions, or compassion, to achieve their ends, has provided them with the means to maintain their control, as well as the means to keep the rest of mankind in ignorance….


Now, however, their own ignorance, stupidity, and lack of foresight is going to kill them, and there is NOTHING AT ALL they can do about it….. Read this, please, and take heed of what it implies; note especially what it says between the lines of the statistical facts presented…. In other words, read it critically, so you will understand that to which I’m referring…..



http://www.thenation.com/article/177614/coming-instant-planetary-emergency#


This is it, ffolkes…. I’ve been predicting this moment for a long time, though I’d hoped to be wrong for the entire time…. But, it cannot be denied any longer, not now that we have the concrete evidence of our own imminent demise…. I’ve spoken often of a date when a certain flash point will have been reached…. That point has to do with how fast the temperature of the planet is rising, and the changes this will cause to the atmosphere THAT WE ALL BREATHE….


It is my incredibly sad duty to announce, that flash point has been reached…. The new evidence quoted in this article, regarding how fast the permafrost is melting in the Arctic environments, is not merely scary, it is downright terrifying…. It is clear evidence of that flash point I was referring to, and tells us, without doubt, that our time has come….


Do you know what this means, ffolkes? We are talking about an atmosphere that WITHIN FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW, WILL BE DEADLY FOR US TO BREATHE….. That estimate, of MAYBE fifty years, is now ensured of becoming reality….. That’s all, fifty years….. At that point, we all die, ffolkes, and there is no respite, no relief to be found, because, Hey, IT’S TOO FUCKING LATE!…. That’s correct, ffolkes, it’s already too late….


The flash point has come, and gone, and the chemical imbalances that our species has created on this planet will now proceed to kill us all within the next 100 years… Once the process of change reaches the point of parabolic increase, it is IRREVERSIBLE; it cannot be stopped….. And, yes, that figure is right….. I said a hundred years….. That’s if we’re lucky, and scientists DO find some way to slow the process down, once enough people have panicked enough to start trying to fix what we’ve done…


It can’t be done, though….it’s too late, and there is nothing in our technological bag that will fix what we have broken…. For many years, I held out the hope that, no matter how bad it got, we would find a way, through the magic of science, to fix things…. Sadly, that hope was never realized, things just went from bad to worse, and, now, have progressed to the worst-case scenario…. I’d hoped that this little aphorism below would be true…..


“If the Catholic church couldn’t stop Galileo, then governments won’t be able to stop things now.” — Carlo de Benedetti of Olivetti on the folly — of trying to regulate information technology


But, it wasn’t true, because, without us knowing it, it was already too late, by the time we got the computers….. It’s a sad thing, one that threatens to make me pretty angry…. So angry, in,fact, that I may even consider breaking some of my own personal commandments, and spending some of my remaining years hunting…. Since I’m sure you won’t misunderstand me about that, and, to also make sure I’m not jumping the gun, so to speak, let me say this…. I am pretty pissed off about this…. None of what is happening was NECESSARY, or even likely, not without deliberate ignorance of the assholes who put themselves in charge of everyone else, trying to grab all they could for themselves…. If those assholes had learned to share, like everyone else, we wouldn’t be having these issues at all….


But, nooooo, because the fucking Christians feel entitled, or better than anyone else…. or because the richest assholes on the planet can’t share…. or because the whites  hate the blacks and browns, who hate the yellows, all of whom are afraid of the greens, we have been doomed, sentenced to a gasping, unpleasant death at the hands of our own planet, and our own people….. It’s enough to make a strong man want to give up, and start blasting away…. an event that may very well occur before too long….


I’ll be ranting about this again, ffolkes, and may not stop until I get enough ammo to start my hunting…. Now, don’t get me wrong… I know my hunting won’t fix anything, other than soothing a few of my own feelings about all of this…. But, maybe, just maybe, the game I bring down just MIGHT slow things down, even just a little, and that won’t be a bad thing….


Of course, we’re all going to have to come to terms with the fact of our own demise, and sooner than we had thought…. THAT should be an interesting show, to be sure…… Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to the time when all those asses realize what they’ve done to themselves…. I hope I’m around long enough to see some of them get their comeuppance…..


“This ain’t no technological breakdown. This is the road to hell.” — Smart Bee


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


Here is the second half of the Royal Albert Hall reunion concert by Cream, in 2005, to finish the concert begun in day before yesterday’s post….


Enjoy!….. Hell, this is good enough to drive the depression from the preceding rant out of your head….. Ginger Baker’s drum solo is about 2/3 of the way in…. forgot to note down the exact time, but, hey, getting there is half the fun….




Part 2, Cream: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, 2005








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I’ve been following the work of this poet for three years now, since first finding her blog on WordPress….. She is one of those poets whose attraction I can’t explain; her poetry is very randomly structured, seldom rhymes, and is heavily influenced by her feelings, obviously….. But, it is so powerful, I find it is impossible not to read, and feel…. and, I find, almost impossible to describe….


Sometimes, you just know, without being able to say why, or how you know…. Mari’s poetry does that to me consistently…. A link to her site is listed after the poem, if you wish to see more of her work…. I can recommend it highly….. Oh, and, read the About section; she is a very interesting woman, who has lived an interesting life…..






I SWEAR I DID


Lived too long in the dark woods


The gallantry of a mouth

My teeth, crouching,  clenching


It is you, your incomparability

At least that is what I tell my soul


Your essential morn

Banishing these little birds


From flying just a bit higher


A dazzlemenent,  my imagination


~~ Mari Sanchez Cayuso ~~


http://starsrainsunmoon.com/2014/09/20/i-swear-i-did/#comment-11461




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


Ffolkes…. THIS is a pearl….. I worked hard on this one, to make certain it all was correctly arranged…. I may not be the most objective judge in this case, but, I think this is a grand pearl or virtual wisdom…. Y’all are welcome to think whatever pleases you….. you see, the first line allows that sort of thing for us….


“A gentleman can disagree without being disagreeable.” — Rules of a Gentlemen, addendum 1.1


“Where pain predominates, agony can be a valued teacher.” — Frank Herbert


“Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it…. Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, ix, 29


“Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.” — Graham Greene, The Human Factor (1978)


“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” — E. M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy




How lov’d, how honour’d once avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee:

‘T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!


~~ Alexander Pope ~~


 — To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 71 —




“To leave this keen encounter of our wits.’ — William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Richard III — Act i, Sc. 2


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


Having worked on this ahead of time, I find myself in a position to be done in a very timely fashion, while still having time to edit thoroughly for mistakes…. which means, no doubt, you will find them everywhere you look today….. It’s just the way it works for me…. In fact, I’m going to go against my principles today, and NOT edit or proof…. It’s going out “as is”, and y’all will just have to take it that way…. I’m sure you can do it; you’ve had a lot of practice, even if you’ve only been here once or twice…. And, on that note, I shall take my leave…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes…. stay alert, & don’t let the Asininnies getcha…..




Y’all take care out there, 

and May the Metaphorse be with you;

Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…

and everyone else, too…


When I works, I works hard.

When I sits, I sits loose.

When I thinks, I falls asleep.


Which is Why….


Sometimes I sits and thinks,

   and sometimes,

I just sits.


gigoid, the dubious


“The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.”


Kowabunga!




 À bientôt, mon cherí.




 

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Captain Kangaroo, Spiderman, and Tricky Dicky walk into a bar…..

			
						

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Ffolkes,

What was that? Just spent 10 minutes composing three lines of absolute crap. It was so bad, and was getting so nowhere quickly, that I just deleted the whole damn thing. So, we will start anew….good morning. It is now just past 4 AM, and I am up, fully awake, anxiously awaiting the two little beeps from the coffee machine that it is ready. Yes! And there they are….I’ll be back….


I’ll say it again….the first sip of coffee in the morning may be my favorite moment of any day. There is just something so bracing, so uplifting, about how everything in one’s system responds positively to the first sip. The next few sips approach the same parameter, but never get there. And, of course, the whole rest of the day is then a downhill run, unless I come up with some new and astounding kind of entertainment or pleasure producing activity, like writing a good poem, or getting an award from another blogger who likes my work, or you know, like an orgasm, which these days are few and far between.


Well, that covers that, probably more thoroughly than it required, or wanted. But that is how I get sometimes when I wake up early. That part of my mind that acts as a governor, attempting to keep my thoughts in a channel that can be focused, probably refuses to get up this early, so the more undisciplined, and prolific, side of my angst-ridden soul takes over and goes amok, until the governor wakes up in disgust and starts putting on the brakes. Sounds as if he’s up now so we’ll dive into the deep end of the pool……

___________________________________


“I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self.  Why was that so very difficult?” — Hermann Hesse


Robert Heinlein has, in fact, answered this question quite directly, in a number of his novels, wherein the main character or narrative voice talks about the Pink Monkey Effect. This is the theorem (actually, more like an axiom, as it has been demonstrated in real life many, many times), that states that in a group of Brown Monkeys, the order of prominence will put a monkey who is Pink, or merely not-Brown, at the bottom of the social scale, every time. Thus it can be surmised that discrimination according to the color of skin is bestial in nature, and is not a valid characteristic of a creature who reasons. 




How does that relate to humans? Simple. In society, most people live by the rules they are taught as children, and never behave very far outside the parameters set forth by their parents. These people have a difficult time dealing with change, or anything that falls outside their experience, and this includes how people act when they are acting in accord with their true nature. It is well outside their experience when others use reason, rather than rote, to determine how to act. Thus, anyone in society who challenges the norm becomes a Pink Monkey, and is discriminated against by the Brown Monkeys, and all because the Browns don’t want to grow up and be human; they would rather act like apes…..and never even realize it…….

___________________________________


“Nature, whose sweet rains fall on just and unjust alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undetected. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) — “De Profundis”


It is hard not to love Oscar Wilde, and this particular passage gives an inkling of why. He had such a beautiful command of language that so catches the imagination of the reader, that one becomes almost lost in wonder, at the sheer melody of the words and how they are placed together. The first sentence is possibly one of the most beautiful, and deepest, passages ever written. What imagery and emotion is packed into that one sentence.  “……..secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undetected.” “…..whose sweet rains fall on just and just alike”. 


I can only hope that someday I will be able to write a passage such as this; in a way, a passage like this one acts as a goad, or a stimulus to my imagination and creativity. I have come close a few times, but have a far piece to go before I can claim anything close to the beauty of this paragraph by Oscar. It makes me wonder sometimes how Oscar would describe today’s world; I’d be willing to give a lot (say, a finger, or a toe, or even cash money) to hear what he could say on that subject……

___________________________________


If God had meant for us to take life seriously, He wouldn’t have given us a sense of humor.


I would say this is true, as far as it goes. I would feel compelled to add that, to listen to some of the folks who consider themselves tight with God, they don’t figure He has one; at least they won’t cop to it. They live and act as if they never did anything bozoid, or made a mistake, or for goodness sake, looked at a platypus. If that creature isn’t proof that God has a sense of humor, I couldn’t say what is.


Since I don’t honestly believe in the tenets put forth by any of the organized religions I’ve studied (damn near all of them now), I would have to say that our sense of humor is a survival characteristic, a buffer for our minds, to protect it from all the crap and nonsense that floats free in the universe, especially in what we see and hear from our cohabitants on this little mudball we call home. 


Such a device is essential to retaining one’s sanity in the face of the kind of complicated, emotionally charged, irrational, and illogical BS we constantly have to deal with when trying to deal with the great unwashed masses. It certainly has aided me in my campaign to bring some light to the dark-headed among us (I refer here to the old saw: the lights are on, but nobody’s home), both by acting as a favored method of teaching for me, and a favored method of learning for them. So, for me, it is a two-edged sword, giving me both protection from the assaults on my mind from the ignorant, and allowing me to share some helpful information in people who can’t learn any other way.


And in the final analysis, it’s always good to remember that humor is best applied in looking at ourselves. I can’t tell you how often I break out in sheer delight over something stupid I’ve done, something I have told myself time and again to not do, but that I end up doing anyway. Just goes to show that even us smart guys are not immune to bozoid tendencies…..thank God….. 🙂

___________________________________


“I have a feeling that at any time about three million Americans can be had for any militant reaction against law, decency, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, compassion and the rule of reason.” — John Kenneth Galbraith


Mr. Galbraith makes a valid point here, but I think his estimate is low, considering there are over 310 million of us now. I’d wager it’s closer to 30 million, of which 95% would be fundamentalist Christians and/or Mormons. The entrance qualifications for acceptance into one of those organizations are pretty low, and since the principal characteristic of all of them is sheer mental laziness (they refuse to think for themselves, instead of blindly accepting what their leaders, or their interpretation of their scriptures, tell them), and the ranks of the great unwashed masses have swollen in the last decade. If you need proof, look at the Tea Party, which I consider one of the more apt descriptions for that entity. I would, however, prefer to add some words to it, to wit: the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.


For the sake of argument, let us look at just one subject, say evolution vs. creationism. As recently as November of last year, several of the Republican candidates for the nomination to run for President expressed their doubts about evolution, trying no doubt to appeal to that 30 or more million folks who believe in creationism. Below, you will find just one argument on the subject; there are literally millions more scientists who would say the same…..


“Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun.  At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact.  That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology.  Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates.”– Martin Gardner, “Irving Kristol & the Facts of Life”– The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131


In reality, I am aware that I’m preaching to the choir here; most of the folks I know don’t much hold with nonsense. But, a lot of other folks may eventually read this, and if I can offend them enough, maybe I can get them to think for a moment or two, much as it pains them to do so……if not, well, it’s fun for me, and leaves them feeling confused, so that’s all good…..

___________________________________


William Shakespeare doesn’t need my approval, but he has it nonetheless. Though I don’t consider him to be as good as he is touted to be, he is still one of the most prolific of writers, and obviously had a firm grasp of human nature and how to write about it. Where other folks go past my preferences are those passages that become too complex and wordy; to me, this makes it less entertaining, and I’m not impressed merely by verbiage. I myself can write some pretty impenetrable stuff, so I realize that much of what he wrote was written that way to impress the yokels, who were his main source of income.


But, though I’m not his hugest fan, I still can acknowledge that there are very few at all who can compare to the beauty and depth of some of his work. Below I have included three of his best, in my opinion. These passages show skill, emotion, human nature, and humor, all with great style and wit. It doesn’t get much better than this…….


“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” — William Shakespeare, As You Like It — Act v, Sc. 1


And often did beguile her of her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke

That my youth suffer’d. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;

She swore, in faith, ‘t was strange, ‘t was passing strange,

‘T was pitiful, ‘t was wondrous pitiful;

She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d

That Heaven had made her such a man; she thank’d me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have used.

— William Shakespeare, Othello — Act i, Sc. 3


“What! canst thou say all this and never blush?” — William Shakespeare

___________________________________


I probably should have known that getting up so early would be problematic. Here I am, finished with this, and now I have to wait about three hours for the rest of the world to arise and get moving, before I can accomplish anything worthwhile, since today’s schedule has to do with interactions outside home. 


Oh wait, company coming today….okay, that’s cool. No worries….. sorry, got distracted inside my head. I guess this is enough for one day (and no remarks about it being too much for any day), so maybe I’ll go take a long shower & go back to bed….. I sure like being retired, and making up my own schedule, without any outside influence; it’s a very powerful feeling. Any who, y’all take care out there….




—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.


gigoid


Dozer
Kowabunga!



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
The Infamous Coupe De Ville Siege…..

			
						

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Ffolkes,

Whatever possessed me to have me up at this hour is bogus, dudes and dudettes, but I guess we’ll just go with the flow….probably not a good idea to start before I have some coffee, though. I’ll be back….. Okay, I’m back…..let’s dive in….

___________________________________


“A map of the world without Utopia is not worth glancing at.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900


A lot of people will tell you that there is no such thing as perfection, that it only exists as a concept, but has no physical reality. They will challenge you to point out something that is perfect, and delight in pointing out the flaws of anything you might come up with. But there is an answer that will shut them up, and it’s always available for pointing. Just lift your hand, put a smile on your face, and point right at their heart…..and say to them, “There you are. A perfect example of imperfection…..”  Then duck, and run quickly out of weapon range, because the reaction can be somewhat explosive. People who are acting superior don’t much like it when you make them look and feel ridiculous…. but it’s their own fault, for exhibiting their stupidity in public, eh?


There is a Utopia. There is perfection. It exists. If it doesn’t, where did the concept come from? We don’t just make up words for stuff that doesn’t concern us; the words we use have a meaning. The meaning may change over time, but the concept it describes does not cease to exist because the meaning changes a bit to reflect the passage of time. And the word ‘perfect’ has a meaning that is clear in everyone’s mind; I can’t think of anyone over the age of oh, five or six, who couldn’t supply an accurate, or at least adequate, definition of perfection when asked. So if they know what it is, how can it not exist? Don’t worry, it does…..there’s just a lot of folks who don’t like to use their brain long enough to realize that. It won’t hurt them, it just keeps them from growing, and is mildly annoying to the rest of us…….who are busy trying to find our own version of Perfection…..

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“Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.” — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg


This is merely a paraphrase of the old saw, “Ignorance is bliss”; it is not an idea original to this gentleman. Of course, I can only assume he is a gentleman, though there are some indications he may not be entitled to lay claim to that label. I’ve always been suspicious of  people who spell or pronounce their names oddly, and this guy, or his parents, definitely entered the ‘odd’ category when they stopped writing his first two names before they finished. Now, instead of (phonetically) Jorj Kristofer, we have Gayorg Kreestoff. But then, I suppose the latter does trip off the tongue with a bit more panache, and does fit better with the surname. The whole thing is pretty silly, if you want my opinion (and what else are you here for?).


At any rate, dressing up this statement in fancier words doesn’t add anything to the concept, or make it more palatable, or easy to understand. It is not a tremendously complicated idea, and the simplistic version has more chance of being understood by those whose minds move at a different pace, and swim in shallower waters. Here are a couple other thoughts on this subject; ask yourself if you agree, or feel otherwise. Feel free to write back and let me know. It might be nice to have some dialogue…..and will save some of my monologue for other occasions….


Ignorance is not always Bliss!

(More accurately, ignorance is only blissful for the ignorant themselves; it drives the rest of us batty!)


Ignorance is bliss, but it will NEVER replace sex.

___________________________________


“Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that (one should) never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.” — George Adams


This is something that any competent parent of small children can verify, as it is one of the strongest teaching tools we have for helping our young charges to grow up to become independent, competent individuals. The good feeling we get is our own reward for right action; it’s more proof that our nature as humans is best expressed, and is most powerful, when we are serving others. 


Of course it feels good; it’s a act that the entire universe silently applauds, because it flows gently along with the universal current, taking nothing away, only  adding to the supply of communal harmony. And it is the kind of act that replicates itself; when the one who was encouraged observes someone else struggling, they will give to that person what they received from you. Thus we see that good deeds never actually stop happening; they create ripples, that begin other ripples, that carry the good feelings that are created right along with them, becoming stronger with each repetition. It’s what we philosophers like to call a win-win proposition…..when we are allowed out of our cages to speak, that is…..

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Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Romeo and Juliet — Act ii, Sc. 2


First, let me say that I’m not Willie’s biggest fan. Oh, I give him his props; he is arguably the best author of his, or any other age, as well as one of the most prolific. But, being somewhat lacking in the area of Middle English slang, reading his work takes on a different perspective, and I get bogged down trying to struggle through the admittedly beautiful, but hardly transparent language he used. I have a hard time reading it, as I have to stop frequently to puzzle out his meaning before I can go on with the story. But he was indeed incredibly talented at painting wonderful pictures of his time’s culture, using an incredibly extravagant number of words, strung together with great beauty. And he did it a lot….


I’ve included this couplet from Romeo and Juliet, mostly because it is what I consider to be a ‘perfect’ example of the art of poetry. (see above) Perfect rhyme, perfect cadence, perfect illumination. “Sweet sorrow”. What a wonderful pair of words to have found each other in his play! Everyone alive has felt just that, no explanation necessary. These are words of such power that they still carry the same sense of rightness today, the same emotional content, as they did when they were written. He wrote these lines so well, that the couplet has been preserved through over four hundred years by word of mouth, not by being transcribed to paper; even people who are completely illiterate have heard these lines; even as non-readers, they know who wrote them, and most even know the play it is from. Now THAT is  is some powerful poetry……

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“It is a misconception that spirituality brings everlasting happiness. There is no such thing. Sadness still comes to the wise, but, unlike most people, their clarity of mind allows them to see beyond the temporal emotionalism of the moment. They are farseeing, and so happiness and sorrow become the same to them.” — Deng Ming-Dao


I like this one from Master Deng because of it’s apparent simplicity. I say apparent because there is much more to it than just the surface meaning of the words. But the words themselves form a powerful lesson, one that can affect one’s entire outlook. Maintaining clarity of mind in the midst of chaos or emotional storm is a valuable tool. As expressed above, it allows one to see further, to be open to more possibilities. And when doing so, maintaining self-control becomes another valuable tool, aiding us in avoiding apathy, helping us to refrain from investing emotional energy into our response to whatever situation we encounter. 


All things change in time, sorrow becomes joy, joy becomes sorrow; this knowledge gives one the security of not falling into an emotional morass when the world sends trouble our way. And you may rest assured that it will……

___________________________________


That’ll do, I believe…..another day to play with, one more day to grow…. y’all take care out there…..




—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes

I just sits.


gigoid


Dozer
Kowabunga!