Tag Archives: Zippy the Pinhead

Soften the edges with a little innuendo….

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Ffolkes,

Do you feel it? That suffocating sense of burgeoning terror, the shivering fear that steals over us to freeze the blood, that makes us want to run, screaming gibberish at the top of our voice, fleeing as fast as we can, until our lungs want to burst? Is it filling your mind with visions of demons, ripping innocent victims to pieces with ravening claws, eating them while still alive?….. Well, cut it out, because that’s just silly…. It’s just a blog intro, and just because I MIGHT end up filling the next five paragraphs with nonsensical blather isn’t sufficient reason to go all wonky on us….

Of course, that is the way I feel every morning, but, that’s probably TMI, considering the time of day; nobody needs to know my motivation at 0400 in the morning, with only one or two sips of coffee on board so far, to hold back the insanity. No, there’s really no reason to go off like that; besides, it’s more fun, and more amusing for the rest of us, if you would just use the medication provided for you in your safety pack, right there in the pocket on the seat back in front of you…. The calming pills are the purple ones, with the lotus flower on them…. One should be enough to dull the edges of your fear, and two will complete the process of eliminating all your cares and woes, trading them for a much preferable set of euphoric hallucinations….. We aim to please here at ECR….

All silliness aside, how’s things? Wait, that won’t work, either….. There’s no vehicle for interactive chatting, not without resorting to Facebook, or some other social media that offers instant replies to such queries….. Probably not a good idea, anyway, on a site where the material is often incendiary and deliberately provocative; I’d spend my time answering chat comments, and never get the damn thing finished…. Yeah, better to not offer such amenities as interactive chats, or instant messaging on a blog site; leave that to the data crunchers at FB, Google, and/or Twitter…. then we’ll know for sure that the NSA is getting all they need to keep us safe from the big bad terrorists….

Don’t fret, I’m not going to start ranting again here in the intro, even if they deserve it…. We’ll leave that until later down the pike, when I’m fully awake, and SB is in a better mood…. You see, all this has been created, for the simple reason that my oh-so-necessary, but frequently dodgy, database is acting like it’s been listening to Murphy, refusing to give me anything fresh, or particularly valuable to use as an opening platform for comment… I spent about ten straight minutes going through its offerings, without finding a single usable quote with which to start today’s post, and that’s a lot of quotes…. I’m hoping it will get over it by the time I’m done here…. and, gosh almighty!, look here! Four full paragraphs, all chock full of nothing much, just waiting to be recognized as the crap it is, long, silly, and legally over the limit for an intro, again….

Not being the kind of man to look a gift horse in the mouth, without first applying some horsey mouthwash, at the very least, I’m going to take it and run…. far, and fast as I can, too…. It’s the least I can do after subjecting y’all to this kind of blather once more…. Forgive me, I know exactly what I do….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Cleverness is not wisdom.” — Euripides
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Thanks to the new function in WP, that refers one to older posts, I’ve been enjoying some of the stuff that came through my head a couple of years ago…. Here is an old-school pearl, complete with intro and concluding remarks, from a Pearl in August of 2012…..

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

Yesterday, I sat down in the afternoon to do some pearl diving, as my stash was getting low. Out of the first ten pearls offered up for my perusal, the following entries, all but one from Smart Bee itself, popped up one after another, just as if they were meant to be together. Upon rearranging the order slightly, I found them to be correct; together they make a fine little old-school pearl. So, without further ado, follow the bouncing thought bubble to the ending point, where you will find yourself in possession of a valuable piece of virtual wisdom…. or possibly, a great deal of confusion….. your choice, both are free of charge…..

Although everyone is entitled to be stupid, some abuse this privilege. — Smart Bee

Keep the pointy end forward and the dirty side down. — Smart Bee

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad.  It’s dead! — Smart Bee

Tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow creeps in this rutabaga…. — Smart Bee

Ignorance of one’s ignorance is the greatest ignorance.– Smart Bee

“YOW!!  I’m in a very clever and adorable INSANE ASYLUM!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I think the final line from Zippy punctuates the idea very well, ending not only with wisdom, but with two exclamation points to drive it home!!…. Such courteous service, you won’t find just anywhere…. Most bloggers would just abandon you, leaving you to figure stuff out on your own. But, not here at gigoid’s house…. we’re all about customer service…. I hope you enjoyed the ride; you may now go on to the next section….
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Since the rest of today’s Pearl came from old posts, I thought this one would fit right in with the rest….. I first posted this poem in July of 2012, with this introductory statement, just as you see it here…. I hope you enjoy it…. I did, even if it IS mine….

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“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless–of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.’ That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” — John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society

Early Observations

Until I knew there was more,
I wanted to know God.
They said he was a nice guy,
and would let me live forever.

All I had to do, they said,
was live my life for Him,
always living by scripture
cleaving only to his Way.

But, everyone I saw in church,
acted different at home.
Living wild, cussin’ and fussin’,
nobody lived like they said.

Still, I tried to be like Jesus,
he was sort of cool.
He never hurt nobody
and walked on the right path.

‘Course they killed him for that,
they couldn’t stand his example.
Turned him into a martyr,
 hid his real words among their own.

Then I found the Buddha,
and met Lao Tzu at the gate.
They saw things real different,
showed me how to see straight.

Right thought, and right action
replace blind obedience and faith.
Reality becomes manageable,
fear retreats, the universe expands.

Brother John said it pretty well,
“Imagine there’s no heaven,
it’s easy if you try.”
Sounds like he knew why.

Day to day, life is grand,
we walk in eternal beauty.
Open your eyes and hearts,
find yourself already immortal.

~~ gigoid ~~

_____________________________

I’ve been struck by the hammer of laziness, again, but, it’s okay, because I’ve got this huge archive of stuff I can use when that happens…. as demonstrated in section one…. Here, in section three of today’s Pearl, I’m going even further back, to mid-June of 2012, where I found this mini-rant, that is still quite valid today…. I hope you enjoy it, as it’s all true stuff…..

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

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

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

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

Sorry to apply the sarcastic epithet to the POTUS, but, his recent actions have revealed a lot of stuff that indicates that, yes, he IS a politician, and, as such, has been lying to the public on a regular basis since entering office, a habit much practiced by all those who enter those hallowed doors, as it turns out. Historically, it seems, ever since I’ve been alive, for the last 62 years, each and every man who has been in the White House, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, has lied to the public on a regular basis, without qualms, and without apology…. This isn’t news, or new news, at all…. just go back over the headlines and op-ed pages over that period, and the evidence of what I have asserted is plain to see….

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

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

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde
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Having thus avoided any truly creative output, other than the not-so-creative intro section, I find myself already finished, in just under an hour’s time…. completely unprecedented, unless you count the other times….. which we don’t….. Any who, let’s see if it will fly…..

Okay, it flies, if a bit erratically…. I suppose it will eventually wind its way to where it needs to go…. Why, look! It already has! Imagine that….. I’m going to go now, leaving you with no further assaults on your credibility…. You’ve been wonderful, putting up with my idiosyncratic tendencies, and deserve to be left alone now, to lick you wounds in peace…. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Milly, I found the Senator! He’s stinking drunk!….

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Ffolkes,

I’m up, I’m up…. Even if I don’t want to be, I’m up, sitting here, blinking vacuously at the screen and wondering just what the hell I do now…. I’m SUPPOSED to be writing, but, hey, it’s only 0500, and I just got here; I’ve barely had time to sip twice at my salvation-in-a-cup. In my weak moments, I resort to old habits, and thank God for small favors, before realizing the He didn’t have anything to do with it: I’m the one who ground the beans, measured the water, and set the timer…. Besides, I think my coffee maker is so new, He would find it too hard to program, and would give up…..

I know, I know, it’s cheap, going right into blasphemy, first thing in the morning, but, let no one ever say I lack courage, or common sense…. Well, perhaps the latter could be a bit more of use to me…. However, I’m pretty sure none of the major religious leaders is up right now…. Most of them are old, like me, but, not all of us don’t sleep at night, as I don’t….. Well, I do go to bed, and I stay there for quite a while, but, mostly, that is to give my back a break from fighting with gravity….

Sleep itself is not necessarily on the menu, as a general rule, other than as a sort of tossing and turning, let’s try this position sort of way, with the occasional moment or two of actual deep sleep, when I accidentally fall into a more comfortable configuration…. This is usually about when I need to turn over, to relieve one sort of pain or another, which is enough to wake me from any real restful sleep…. It’s not pretty, but, ’tis my own way, and I’m getting used to it, such as it is….

Besides, it’s been a long time since I took any real shots at the religious morons out there…. They generally are less of a worthy target than the politicos, as some of them actually are trying to be good people…. They’re just deluded, and that often isn’t their fault, as most of them were indoctrinated into the church’s dogma before they had any defense against it. Take the Pope…. please….. (Thank you, Henny….)

No, really, take the Pope… Here is a very nice man, by all accounts…. a simple man of Christ, who actually believes the doctrine of Peace that Jesus of Nazareth preached way back when, and tries to apply the principles therein to his own life, with dedication and humility…. At least, he LOOKS that way, and, by all reports, he IS that way, so, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt….

But, he also has to be smart enough to know what a crock his entire church is based on, and how much of mankind’s misery the church has been responsible for over the centuries…. Any historian that will read history with their eyes fully open will agree with that assessment…. The churches, in conjunction with corrupt aristocrats and bankers, throughout the last four millennia, have worked diligently, and to great effect, to oppress and manipulate the common man into an obedient, malleable mass of humanity, controlled by the very delusions that cause their misery….

“L’homme est bien insense. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux a douzaines.” (Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen.) — Montaigne

If you doubt the accuracy of that claim, allow me remind you of one Pope Leo X, one of the papacy’s finest examples of corruption and perversion…. Leo X, who indulged in a number of heinous activities during his reign in the Vatican, including nepotism and the selling of ‘indulgences’, was also infamous for saying, to his cronies, way back in the mid-1500’s, “How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us and our predecessors.” Oops! Did he really say that? According to the reports, yep, he did….
Pope Leo X    These days, most of them are more careful in their language; they confine their corruption to their sexual proclivities, which are obviously bent all out of shape by their life-long celibacy, enforced at first by their own inability to relate to their peer group, thus becoming isolated and twisted from jealousy…. Then, when older, they “answer the call”, which apparently means taking up the standards of pedophilia, rather than the more common abuse of, and/or promiscuity with, women of their own age group, as practiced by the men of that belief group who are NOT in the clergy….

How else to explain the numbers of them that fall into that particular hole, than to assume there is something about celibacy that isn’t good for the human psyche?…. Besides, we ALL know that if we don’t get our pipes cleaned now and again, they clog up…. That’s just common knowledge, something anyone over the age of 15 knows, a fact of life which most of us come to terms with, one way or another, without becoming sexual predators against children…. In the Catholic Church, something seems to push them over the line on a more-than-regular basis…. It could be the sacramental wine, I suppose, a great many indiscretions over the years have been ascribed to its use…

Or, it could just be that they’re all seeing with a blind eye, ignoring any potential negatives altogether, as much as possible, because the entire profession is too profitable a scam to give up…. Since this is the sort of behavior that is most common to all men, I’m betting that it is also the case here…. People choose to believe whatever makes them feel the best; it is really that simple…. Anyone who can tell people, in a convincing manner, that if they believe what they are told, they will feel better all the time, then they will fall right in line, usually without ever looking at whether or not what they hear is at all the truth…. If someone in the pulpit, or on the TV, wearing a suit, tells the general public something, no matter how outrageous or unbelievable, most folks these days will just nod their heads, say “yep”, and fall right in line with whatever they’ve been told…..

Hmm, I seem to have fallen back into my ranting mode, without realizing it for oh, about six or seven paragraphs there…. Felt rather good, actually, and my head feels much lighter now…. I love it when a plan comes together, even if it wasn’t my plan…. Not only have I taken some rather good shots at the religious icons of the day, I’ve also fulfilled the daily intro requirements, in one swell foop…. Can’t ask for more than that, can we?….. Nope….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“It ain’t over until it’s over.” — Casey Stengel
_____________________________

Having sufficiently cleared out most of the dross I found in my head this morning, I’ll not take up the gauntlet to take a run at my other favorite targets of choice, to wit: the Beloved Ruling Class…. Well, at least, not a rant run, anyway, but I will condescend to throw some old-school style pearls at them…. Here is one with the parameters firmly set to pick out some critical comments, that point out how our own leaders tend to be our worst enemies…. Life is tough when you can’t trust those who are ostensibly looking out for your interests, but, for the most part, that’s what we’re stuck with here in the twenty-first century on Earth…… Pay heed, ffolkes, and stay alert…. Knowing the truth is our last best defense…..

“This just in from a Nicholas Notifier up north.  Everyone’s favorite farmer and political commentator off the interstate near Chehalis has just come up with the prize line of his career. “Limit congressmen to two terms.  One in office.  One in jail.” — Jonathan Nicholas’ column in The Oregonian, Friday, March 29, 1991

“From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared or feared rather than loved.  One might perhaps answer that we should wish to be both, but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” — Machiavelli

“I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: ‘The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that’s fair.’ In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.” — Bertrand Russell, Education and the Social Order

“I like the way ONLY their mouths move..  They look like DYING OYSTERS” — Zippy the Pinhead

(Do I really NEED to tell you of whom he speaks?…..)

“What part of “shall not be infringed” don’t you understand?” — Smart Bee

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.” — Alexander Frazer Tyler (1748-1813), — The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic

“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” — Montesquieu, 1742
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Several moons ago, I used the following poem in a post, to reintroduce the poetess to my Gentle Readers, along with myself, as I’d forgotten her work, and her brilliance, for many years before stumbling across this poem. It remains one of my favorites, even though it also remains a mysterious panorama of images and meanings in my mind…. I always find something new in it…. Any who, please enjoy….

Witch Burning

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll’s body.
Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches.
Only the devil can eat the devil out.
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.

It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door,
The cellar’s belly. They’ve blown my sparkler out.
A black-sharded lady keeps me in parrot cage.
What large eyes the dead have!
I am intimate with a hairy spirit.
Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.

If I am a little one, I can do no harm.
If I don’t move about, I’ll knock nothing over. So I said,
Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain.
They are turning the burners up, ring after ring.
We are full of starch, my small white fellows. We grow.
It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth.

Mother of beetles, only unclench your hand:
I’ll fly through the candle’s mouth like a singeless moth.
Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days
I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone.
My ankles brighten. Brightness ascends my thighs.
I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.

~~ Sylvia Plath ~~

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“If you can see a thing whole… it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives…But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful a life is, is to see it from the vantage point of death.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, Dispossessed

Whenever I stumble across this passage from the book, I am astounded, each and every time, at the vision it has the power to create….. It fills the mind with deeper and deeper meaning, revealing more with each passing moment of reflection, vibrating with power, resoundingly shouting out with the certainty of truth. To use it as the beginning of a discussion would only detract from its shine, as well as being a bit selfish, as if I were trying to share some of the glory of its creation….

To make the proper obeisance to dignity, I won’t do that…. What I WILL do is say, with sincerity and conviction, I think this is one of the most powerful, and most beautiful, passages in English literature, ever, and leave it at that…. Oh, and we’ll see what kind of grouping that SB can find to complement the ideas herein, sort of as a frame for its luster, so to speak… Best of luck to us (me and SB….), she’s a tough act to follow….

“The more people I meet, the more I like my cat.” — Smart Bee

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxom foe he sought
Till rested he by the tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

“Though leaves are many, the root is one ; Through all the lying days of my youth, I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun. Now I may wither into the truth.” — W B Yeats

“Before I sink into the big sleep, I want hear the scream of the butterfly.” — (The Doors) When The Music’s Over

“A gentleman reads and reflects.” — Rules of a Gentleman

Hmm…. Smart Bee seems to be unable to come up with a final quote, one that will finish this off with a flourish… I’m going to cheat, big time, and go with what I consider the most basic wisdom of everything I’ve learned in my life…. which is why it is part and parcel of my own philosophy…

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

8) “Go back. Everything you need to know is in the first seven axioms.”– Axioms 7 & 8 of Peruaosophy, the Philosophy of Pearls,  circa 1980, by gigoid
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I have a feeling about this one…. I only wish I knew precisely what feeling it is…. Let’s see what happened here to cause that….. Nope, still not a clue… but, oh, well…. such is life, as the French are wont to say, though, they say it in French, of course…. Any who, it’s done, enough, so, I’m outta here, to go see what’s up in the BBR today…. See ya…..

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

Dozer

Fighting by the Duke’s rules….

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Ffolkes,

I am forced by law, and by custom, at this point, to give fair warning to all who stop in to read today…..  Lack of inspiration, though it is a constant companion to me, troubling my existence every day, has yet to keep me from creating these Pearls, in spite of the fact I’ve yet to discover a logical, or, for that matter, an illogical reason why that should be…. Nonetheless, it won’t keep me from writing today, either, even if it IS the most daunting lack I’ve yet encountered, in the going-on-three-years I’ve been putting myself, and y’all, through this exhausting, yet completely enervating process, each and every morning (minus a handful…).

Such lack has never kept me from producing, (one could even say over-producing), episode after episode of Pearls of Virtual Wisdom, with nary a repeat among them, aside from the occasional trip to the archives that all blogs rely on in times of material shortages, or, perhaps, the sometimes redundant subject matter….. I’ve only had to resort to archive/dumpster-diving a couple of times, usually when I’m physically under the weather, so, I’m happy about that….

My warning is this…. on days like today, when the freshness of what I write is suspect, due to the absence of any kind of creative spark, you may literally see just about anything at all show up here, with or without taco sauce, and certainly without salsa. I mean, I COULD supply the salsa, but, the tomato crop this year was terrible…. I wouldn’t feel too badly about this, if I were you; there’s really no downside to it…. I don’t have to make salsa, or taco sauce, and y’all don’t have to put up with any of my usual boring blather…. Of course, you DO have to put up with THIS boring blather, but, hey, a guy’s got to live, right? Right….

So, with said warning delivered, thus making it no longer implied, but expressed, I could legally go on into the Pearl’s body, and start tattooing for all I’m worth. That is, if I could tattoo at all…. Sadly, the most complex drawing (sketching, painting, whatever, it’s all a mystery to me….) I can do involves a simple tree, from a distance, so there aren’t any particular details to supply, with some mountain shapes in the background, for perspective, as it were….. It’s pretty primitive, believe me; I’ll never get a job as a police artist, drawing faces…. All of my faces look like the smiley face we see everywhere these days…. just a round circle, with two dots for eyes, and a curved line for the nose and mouth. Maybe a couple of half-circles if I want ears, or a crown of squiggly lines for hair….. It looks a lot like Charlie Brown’s head, wearing a bowl of spaghetti, to be honest, but without the detail….

Wait a minute! What if I broke precedent, and started a piece here that is full of dignity, and decorum, with just the right amount of reasoned discourse, all pointing to a logical, beneficial idea that everyone can appreciate and enjoy, using the concepts to improve their lives, and the lives of others?…. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?…. Now, if I could only find some dignity, or decorum, or reasonable ideas, I’d be good to go. Instead, I’m reduced to this, just babbling away, putting down as many useless words as I do words that mean something, just to take up the space needed to call this a legal intro….

Which, you will please note, we have once again done, and done quite well…. I’ve managed to put out five entire paragraphs of inane, chatty, intimate, yet meaningless prose, full of bad jokes and worse analogies, all for the purpose of filling in space. What can I say? It’s a gift….

Shall we Pearl?…. Have no fear, we shall, we shall, indeed, pearl our little hearts out…… In fact, here is an excellent pearl to start the day….

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, Who are you not to be?  You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.  It is not just some of us. It’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  as we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love — (widely mis-attributed to Nelson Mandela’s 1994 inaugural speech)   

All true, but, remember, you are not a child of God…. Thou art God…. It all remains the same….
_____________________________

There are times, such as today, when a pearl will write itself, over all my objections…. When I began to collect this group, I saw right away it would be troublesome, from a logical, reasonable point of view. Then it really went south, but by that time, I could see where it was trying to go, so I let it have its head…. This is the resulting mess, for which I refuse to take full responsibility…. It’s not my fault! The dog ate my homework! The cat puked on my notes! I got married!…. Well, none of that actually happened, but, I’m not sure I want the responsibility for this one anyway…. Oh well, so be it… It’s really not bad, if you keep your eyes screwed up with the correct degree of silliness….

“Alexander [the Great] asked Diogenes if there was anything in the world he wanted. Diogenes, without looking up, replied: `Yes. Get out of my light.'” — Plutarch

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

“A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands — even for beneficial purposes — will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.” — John Stuart Mill (1806 to 1873, English philosopher and reformer)

“Now the trumpet summons us again — not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need — not as a call to battle, though embattled we are — but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation” — a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.” — John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)

“If you can’t fight and you can’t flee…FLOW” — Smart Bee

“Everybody has something to conceal.” — Humphrey Bogart

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave,
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave:
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,–
His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Moral Essays, Epistle i, Line 115

See what I meant? Sheesh, it’s not as if we were TOTALLY obstreperous to the Pope, or to our Vatican chaperons…. and they got a good tip, didn’t they? They did, so you can’t blame me if it all fell apart….. I’m not sure, but, we may be nearing some sort of black hole in time and space…. I’m starting to feel a bit of cosmic twisting….
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Whom to pick, in the face of cosmic upheaval?….. In such times, I enjoy the way this poet points me in the right direction, toward the center….

Alone Looking at the Mountain

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other –
Only the mountain and I.

~~ Li Po ~~

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According to my usual modus operandi, this section would, and may yet be, a rant of some nature. It’s been a while since I took any real shots at the churches, but, then, they are a bit less of a worthy target than are the politicians of the world.

Let us not even begin to think about how the shadowy master class of corporate vampires deserve all the disdain, vituperation, and vicious criticism we can heap upon their nasty little heads; whatever we do will never be enough to pay them back for the damage they’ve done to others, and to our world in general….

No, I’d say I have no real lack of usual targets for my critical regard…. What I have is a lack of angst and/or emotional drama to drive that big ol’ truck…. The one I’d like to flatten them with, as they cross my road to the future….

It would be simple to cruise over to a news site, and pick up a current headline or two to work with; there’s no lack of material there, for sure. Even that doesn’t attract my interest; I guess my birthday gave me a good enough chance to get a lot of that out, and there’s not enough left today to drive any further attempts at ranting….

Too bad, actually, as I did have some rather interesting introspective moments yesterday, as the import of my increasing age grew in my thoughts, taking on a deeper meaning than is usual for me during my day…. I love when that happens, though, even if the contentment and serenity it brings me is such that I don’t want to write about it…. It feels too good to talk about it…. Kind of how a joke is like a frog; if you take either one apart to try to figure it out, they both die….

Since I wouldn’t want anyone with the discrete sensibilities of my Gentle Readers to be confronted with that kind of issue, I’ll just fade back ten yards, and punt…. Here is another old-school pearl for your delectation…. Since I’m not ranting about anything today, I’ll let Smart Bee pick out which pearls it thinks should be included, with, possibly, a few comments of my own, in parentheses to avoid any further confusion….. Remember, ffolkes, this is VIRTUAL wisdom…. don’t try to use it as if it were real….

“If you dig a deep enough hole, someone will want to jump in.” — Smart Bee

(It’s always good to start off strong….)

“My indignation, like th’ imprisoned fire, pent in the troubled breast of Aetna, burnt deep and silent.” — Thomson

(SIGH…. if only it had, we’d have a rant today…..  😦    )   😆

“The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life. Then, at the rim of vision, it gathered itself, and in one sweeping tide, rushed me to sleep.” — Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

(At first I thought this was here just because it’s so bloody brilliant, in both content and style of execution… Astounding imagery, and powerful yet simple language, expressed with such beauty, the heart aches with it….. It also stretches beyond that, into the outer reaches of credibility and connection, to form a tenuous bond with reality, right here in this pearl…. Amazing, isn’t it?….)

“When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.  The minority are right.” — Eugene V. Debs

(Mr. Debs, a political activist and reformer in the early twentieth century, had a lot of interesting things to say, many of them equally as true as this one…. If you have the time, look him up; smart guy…..)

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” — C. G. Jung

(Yep….)

“We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme.  It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent, nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today.  Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby ulcerous little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive.  We are sorry if this impression has come across.” — Monty Python

(Actually, this sums up my opinion of 99% of the politicians I see in public, with incredible accuracy….)

(No apology from me is, or ever will be, tendered for making these assertions, either…. fuck ’em all……)

(When I say, “fuck them all”, I’d like to be clear that I don’t intend that in any positive way at all…. What I mean is, FUCK THEM ALL!!!…. and the white horse they say they rode in on, too…..)

“And never, ever cut a deal with a dragon.” — Smart Bee

(I’m with SB on this one…. The last pearl brings all the rest together perfectly, while at the same time reminding us that we already know the important stuff… I mean, it’s just common sense, right? Any dragon master knows this…..)
_____________________________

What we have here, today, is living proof that age does NOT imply sanity, or vice versa…. Nor does it imply having enough sense to keep one’s mouth shut, once it has begun spewing…. Nevertheless, it’s finished…. let’s see if it’s done….

Boy, is it ever! I wouldn’t touch that with someone else’s hands, even with gloves…. Not toxic, I’d say, but definitely subversive, in its own little way…. Good enough for my loose standards, so, we’ll get on with the rest of the day now, and let this die a natural death…. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Dancing away our cares in muffin colored shoes….

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Ffolkes,

Foul!  Foul! The convicted creatures of the night cried out in fear and hope, bleeding from a thousand wounds… Drifting, without pace, or price, no vector described, filling out the spaces between with animated visions of bright, colorful clouds, all with familiar faces. Barely alive, hovering over the warmth, of five distinct sources of valiant bravery, of arguable finality, those arguments fail in basic logical structure, thereby pinning their hopes on the last bus from town. We don’t know if they’ll have exact change, so the extensively fashionable wiper blades were turned on for a while to compensate. All will be copacetic, as long as no one tries to comprehend…

If you have, well, good luck with the headache you probably have by now…. Hell, I’ve got one, so, you should, too; it’s only fair…. Sorry for that one, folks….. The above paragraph is a leftover bad habit from my teens and early twenties, a form of what I like to call jabberwock, nonsense that makes sense, almost, just like the bandersnatch, a manner of wielding the vorpal blade of intellect and wit with style and elegance. It consists of words, phrases, and concepts in language that tends to confuse rather than illuminate. It is intended to stimulate cogitation of some form, as well as emotional disturbance of some degree, preferably up to the level of aggravation, without spilling over into violent objection of a physical nature (the latter has been threatened a time or two, when we got a little out of hand with it in public….)….

During my college years, a few friends and I would go into late-night diners to have coffee, and begin to talk in jabberwock, improvising as we went along… sort of improvisational philosophy for the mildly insane. We, of course, thought it hilarious that other people, the “normals” who were in the diner, listening to this, would often get up and leave, obviously in a huff, because they didn’t understand what they were hearing, and were too embarrassed, or perhaps too angry, to ask us to stop, or even ask what we were doing….

At our age, we didn’t care, and the more who left, the better…. until the owner objected because of losing customers…. Usually we went to those diners that catered to college kids, and understood the hi-jinx they perpetrate in the throes of their intellectual growth, but, sometimes, the local Denny’s was our targeted spot, to see how many folks we could get to leave quickly, jamming their food down as fast as possible, in order to get away from the crazies in the next booth…. SIGH…. those were the days!…..

There, now, don’t y’all feel better? I’ve managed to introduce today’s Pearl of Virtual Wisdom without resorting to any tricks…. This was pretty straightforward, with a flash of jabberwock to start, with a polite, if specious and of little real value, explanation of the opening, using some rather poignant memories from my youth…. I’d say this one is quite the little foray into normalcy for me, so, I hope you hate it, because it just about drove me crazy, trying to be that way…. Normal, I mean…

Ah hell, you know what I mean…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books.  For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.” — Chinese proverb
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This section has been growing on me, so I’ve decided to leave all previous formats behind, to engage in some sheer mental indulgence…. I’ll stop writing when I see a chance to do so gracefully, how’s that?….. First significant change to note is that this section has a title,  which indicates the precise subject under discussion, to wit:

“A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.” — Aeschylus (525-456 BC) — Frag. 383

Yes, ffolkes, I’ve had time to peruse the news, (Hey, a rhyme! A good sign this early on…), and have seen a bit of what transpired while I was off ignoring the world at large, in favor of the world at hand. At this juncture, I can only say that it’s hard to be right so often…. That’s a joke, by the way…. What I mean is, I expected SOME sort of further evidence of how the Beloved Ruling Class continues to screw the public at every opportunity to present itself, at one point or another while I wasn’t watching…. and, I was right…. Sometime yesterday afternoon, after reading some stuff on the internet, I started this section, collecting the information I’ll discuss…. The collection of that information prompted the following, thanks to SB, and the FIRST beginning of this epic pearl-to-be….

“Just because you’re STUPID ain’t no excuse.” — Smart Bee

“Progress doesn’t enlighten people – it just makes them stupid in new ways.”– Smart Bee

“You’ve little to fear, brave knight…unless the dragon stops purring.” — Smart Bee

I’ve begun this section with a three-star pearl, an obvious set of matching earrings, with a ponderous pendant, which seemed to put just the right tone to the subject we are about to cover… Well, I’ll cover it, and you can read, or not, as suits you…. It’d be cool if y’all stuck around & hung in with it… I worked hard on this one, with research, quotes, extra time in SB, and the whole nine yards, not to mention the ranting that should ensue as a part of it….

I hope y’all enjoy today’s journey into the madness of Reality, as I fight my way back from the illusionary world of luxury travel…. As is obvious, it didn’t take long for me to catch up to what’s been going on while I ignored the rest of the world, so let’s get to it…. For starters, please peruse this article from yesterdays news on SFGATE…. several quotes, from the article will follow, with my comments, surrounded by nothing… ( quotes from the article are surrounded by this indicator: “~~” , two squiggly lines together,, then quotation marks around the text… I chose it because I like to write the word “squiggly”, thus making people think more squiggly, always a good thing….)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/NSA-spying-threatens-to-hamper-US-foreign-policy-4928089.php

~~ “To Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore at George Washington University, damage from the NSA disclosures could “undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it.” ~~

My immediate reaction to this was, “Oh, those poor babies!”…..  😆 To think that a government official would have to go through a day without being able to resort to a lie…. boy, what cruelty!  It amazes me that this line didn’t faze the public’s credibility,  as I haven’t heard of very much backlash about what is essentially old news… By that I refer to the “acting hypocritically” by the government… It’s almost as if the public EXPECTS to be treated that way, and, like a horse that has been beaten too long, no longer flinches at the feel of the whip…

~~ “Madeleine Albright, secretary of state during the Clinton administration, recalled being at the United Nations and having the French ambassador ask her why she said something in a private conversation apparently intercepted by the French.

Albright says Snowden’s disclosures have hurt U.S. policymakers. “A lot of the things that have come out, I think are specifically damaging because they are negotiating positions and a variety of ways that we have to go about business,” Albright said at a conference hosted by the Center for American Progress in Washington. “I think it has made life very difficult for Secretary Kerry. … There has to be a set of private talks that, in fact, precede negotiations and I think it makes it very, very hard. The broad nature of NSA surveillance goes against the Obama administration’s claim that much of U.S. espionage is carried out to combat terrorism, she said.

The administration asserts that the U.S. is amassing intelligence of the type gathered by all nations and that it’s necessary to protect the U.S. and its allies against security threats.” ~~

Again, oh my goodness! These poor, abused diplomats and former pundits! To think that being responsible for their lies makes their job harder is the height of arrogance, for it assumes that the lies are not the issue, but rather, being caught in the lies…. The issue of most primary significance is, and always has been, the simple FACT that they lie to begin with….. They do this because, hey, we were elected, weren’t we?…. Thus, they believe they have the right to do so, no matter what the public may think…. After all, the public doesn’t know what’s good for them, do they?…. That’s why they elected us, isn’t it?…. So, see, nothing to see here, never mind, just go put the whistleblower in jail for the rest of his life for having the bad grace to tell the truth….

“The true, unacknowledged purpose of capital punishment (or life imprisonment for telling the truth — gigoid) is to inspire fear and awe–fear and awe of the State.” — Edward Abbey

~~ “The French government protested revelations this past week that the NSA had collected 70.3 million French-based telephone and electronic message records in a 30-day period.

Germany and France are demanding that the administration agree by year’s end to new rules that could mean an end to reported American eavesdropping on foreign leaders, companies and innocent citizens.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff canceled her official state visit to the White House. She ordered measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security after learning that the NSA intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company’s network and spied on Brazilians.

Brazil says it is working with other countries to draft a U.N. General Assembly resolution that would guarantee people’s privacy in electronic communications.

A European Parliament committee approved rules that would strengthen online privacy and outlaw the kind of data transfers the U.S. is using for its spying program.

European lawmakers have called for the suspension of an agreement that grants U.S. authorities access to bank data needed for terrorism-related investigations.

“We need trust among allies and partners,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose cellphone was allegedly tapped by the NSA. “Such trust now has to be built anew.” ~~

Aha! Somebody says the key word, at last…. Trust…. A simple word, yet one of the most powerful concepts in the human lexicon of ideas that affect reality most strongly. This one is a basic part of ANY and ALL human interactions, with other humans, with animals, with the universe, wherever… As humans, we rely on certain concepts to be true, and when they are not, our ability to retain our honor, and our sanity, are affected strongly…. Whether we are affected in a way that strengthens, or weakens, is immaterial…. It makes each interaction more stressful, because the trust must be there to deal with it efficiently, without precautions, extra effort, or rejection….

I know, that’s a bit esoteric for morning conversation…. But, it all affects what is happening in the world, and the BRC still refuses to acknowledge their own responsibility in making trust a scarce commodity…. They believe the problem is that the secrets were told, when the real problem is that the secrets exist, and are expected to be hidden without consequence…. The government does not EVER question the rightness of their own actions; it is a foregone conclusion, proven throughout our history, that to act on ANY assumption of that nature is a sure path to self-destruction… In this case, that path will not merely lead them, but will pull all of us with them…. Apparently, with our full permission…

Thomas Jefferson, along with others of the Founding Fathers of this country warned future generations to be mindful of corporate special interests, i.e. “bankers”…. Money, and more importantly, the desire for it, and for the power over others it brings, has long been recognized as the root of most of our problems as a society, and as individuals in that society…. It affects human behavior in a personal way, creating avarice, hatred, and mistrust between the best of friends; it also affects human behavior on a societal level, as those same characteristics come to play on the public stage….

The following article, by one of my favorite voices of reason, Jon Carroll, is an excellent discussion, and an excellent indictment of those people among us who act as wolves, viewing others as prey, in the pursuit of their own ambitions….

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/An-upright-salute-to-government-today-4920756.php

As any sage knows, enough is enough…. I may not be a sage, but, I know that…. Besides, if you haven’t gotten the picture by this time, it’s probably not working, anyway, so, ‘twould be best to exit now, with what grace can be summoned…. They’re not good people, ffolkes, though they would have you believe they are…. and, I don’t think I need to explain, at this point, who “they” are…. Take care of each other, as best you can, and try not to harm anyone without good reason…. At this point in the game, that’s about the best we can do….

“To date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man- man himself. He must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him.” — Lazarus Long
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I’ve never been able to completely explain why I enjoy the poetry of this woman…. Though she is acknowledged as one of the most creative and powerful poets in history, her work is an acquired taste…. But, with her, as with little girls and butterflies, no explanation is really needed… I speak, of course, of Miss Emily D….

Perhaps the most significant thing I like about her work is that she left the title of each poem up to the reader…. They may supply one, in their own mind, or not…. She doesn’t seem to care, or perhaps didn’t want to influence them with pre-conceived notions of the meaning of the poem to follow…. I like that, for some perverse reason….

Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With “This was last her fingers did,”
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then ‘t was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,–
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

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Without even having to look, I know this is already nearing the point of the largest Pearl ever created on this blog; I must have buried more material in my brain while I was off cruising than I had imagined, because it’s all spilling out now… Ah well, it’s all been quite cathartic, so I’ll just make a last, quick, old-school group of pearls to make up the last pearl for today…. Enjoy, as we see what comes up on the Wheel of Philosophy, as interpreted by gigoid’s complex set of non-rules….

“No man is happy who does not think himself so.” — Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 584

“Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn – when they do, which isn’t often – on their own, the hard way.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Heisenberg may have slept here.” — Smart Bee

“War loves to seek its victims in the young.” — Sophocles (496-406 BC) — Scyrii, Frag. 507

“Beginnings and endings are, for the most part, artificial constructs. You say you begin when you are born, but what of those months spent growing in the womb? Endings are hazier still, for further things may occur that extend and enlarge the earlier story. And that is my final sentence on the subject. Or perhaps this one is the final sentence. No, most assuredly what I write now is the final word on the matter. But now that I think upon it, perhaps this….” — The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. LVII (Abridged)

20. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. — Instructions for life

“I know things about TROY DONAHUE that can’t even be PRINTED!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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As noted above, this turned into a REAL epic Pearl…. Let’s go see just how epic…. If there ever was a more appropriate time to say, “Whew!”, I can’t imagine when it might occur…. So much so, I’m done, I’m gone, I’m outta here…. Whew!….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

 

Look! It’s a black-frocked bible-thumper, moulting in the road!….

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Ffolkes,

A touch of research will, I hope, lead me to a greater understanding of what it is I am doing here today, or, for that matter, any day….. (Have you noticed the dots? Apparently, the number of them says something about where my head is headed, so to speak…. I just noticed…. That says something, too, I suppose, about my head….) Where did I…?…. Ah, okay… So, it turns out that much, or, even most, of what I do here is under the aegis of Clio. I wasn’t sure which of the nine muses was my own, so I went to look them up, and she is the one who seems to be most closely allied to what I usually end up writing….

She is the muse of History, as opposed to those of Epic Poetry, Love Poetry, Song or Elegiac Poetry, Tragedy (though we do get rather sad at times…. Sometimes, what I write could be construed as such, I suppose…. Or, I reckon the fact that I write at all could be mis-construed as such….), Hymns (none of that here, thank you…), Dance, Astronomy, (Urania, to whom I occasionally appeal), and, my favorite, even though I can’t always find her, Thalia, the muse of Comedy….

None of this can, or should, be considered as essential material; it’s just what occurred to me as I sat down to write today…. In truth, it’s put me rather behind schedule, as I’ve spent a good three-quarters of an hour researching and reading about the muses, when I could have been writing… Oh well, considering what usually falls out of my head when I write first thing, without some kind of mental warm-up, this is probably a good thing, and may even show a positive effect on the Pearl as a whole. It certainly can’t hurt, can it?….

Like all would-be perfectionists, I’m my own harshest critic, inside my head, where nobody can hear me yelling at myself (detracts from the image, don’t y’know, of a calm, composed personality, in harmony with all he sees…. Yep, that’s me alright….. on alternate universe days…. ). Nonetheless for all that, I’m thinking that doing research first thing is a better way to give myself a bit of a warm-up, before jumping right onto the keyboard to start emptying out the detritus laying around my mind after the night’s storms…. If nothing else, it can give me something distracting from my usual train of thought, which, of late, has been hijacked regularly into ranting about the idiots in Washington, before I’m even fully awake….

That, in and of itself, is probably a good thing; my sticks aren’t quite as sharply pointed when I start writing at the same time as I’m consuming my initial hits of coffee. There’s more chance of the target’s survival in that case, which allows me to take more shots at them later….. more fun for me, and better behavioral modification for them, hopefully….. And, if not, well, we can always just shoot them… Oh, wait, that’s THEIR solution to issues, not mine… sorry, forgot…. got confused as to which side of the issue I was on….

Oh, look! Isn’t that an intro? Why, yes, yes, I believe it is…. If not, it’s at least long enough for one, and silly enough for three of them, considering how many different subjects we wandered through before getting here…. I’m astonished that none of it got on our clothing; that particular group of subjects can get splashy, and will leave stains, if not treated instantly. If it ever does, there are soapy wipes in the hidden compartment in the arm of your seat…. Just push the big red button on the window, and the arm of your seat will….

WAIT! DON’T DO THAT! That’s the wrong button; if you push that, the pilot will immediately throw us into a spin, heading for the nearest landing point; THAT button is the cabin-fire button…. I meant to say, pull the little purple and pink ring on the OTHER arm of your seat, to find the arm that goes up, to reveal the soapy wipes…. Whew! Sorry, almost screwed the pooch big time…. Fortunately for all of us, this is all fictional, and no real danger was ever present…. No, really, none….

Shall we Pearl?….

“If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?” — Croll’s Query
_____________________________

“I love the Constitution and government of this land, but I hate the damned rascals that administer the government.” — Brigham Young

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017456.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/020014.php

To this pair of articles, which provide incontrovertible proof of the ignorance rampant among the Republican members of the House of Representatives, (as of some years ago, admittedly, but, pal Joey is still in the House….), I will also add the link below, which, unlike the first two, was ripped from the CURRENT crop of articles online about the government shutdown we are witnessing, courtesy of assholes who think they’re better than everyone else…. This one is about the ostensible leader of those idiots, who also, unfortunately, also happens to be the Speaker of the House, a very dangerous position in which to see a man with no morality, other than his own, and no brain cells that continue to work in tandem with any others that may remain, in the empty shell of his mind….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Boehner-to-Obama-No-debt-hike-without-concessions-4873299.php

“Some Republicans, such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa, dismiss the warnings about a government default as an exaggeration, suggesting U.S. credit won’t collapse and calling the talk “a lot of false demagoguery.” (Of course, the “talk” to which he refers is the straightforward message on the most likely effects of the shutdown that was given by none other than the head of the Department of the Treasury, whom we MIGHT want to consider as a more competent judge of such matters as a lawyer from Iowa (I say lawyer, because, odds are, he is one…. if he’s not, well, no comment, as whatever he is, he ISN’T a financial expert….)

Asked how the standoff might end, Boehner said Sunday on ABC that he was uncertain: “If I knew, I’d tell you.””

“Privately, administration officials say they don’t think Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell want a default as they realize it will be far worse than a shutdown, but the two don’t know how to avoid it or when to try.”

Clearly, the only issues at play here are a selfish, false sense of entitlement, and ruthless paranoia…. but, then, I’m a former psychiatric technician, and I tend to see how behaviors fit into patterns common to certain psychiatric disorders, of which paranoia, and delusional thinking are two primary examples. The behaviors currently being displayed on the national stage for all of us to witness is appalling to me, so much so, I’m going to abandon this mild rant here, in favor of going to an old-school indictment of these idiots….

So, here is what Smart Bee, under the influence of my parameters for today, has to say about what is going on in the political scene, here in America, today, October 7, 2013….

“You are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are.” — Smart Bee

“Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.” — Rene Descartes

“Vote for ME — I’m well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and  TAX-DEFERRED!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is too awful.” — Kurt Vonnegut’s TimeQuake

“Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.” — Alphonse de Lamartine

“I have been Foolish and Deluded, and I am a Bear of No Brain at All.” — Pooh

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.” — Thomas Alva Edison
_____________________________

Today’s choice of poems was, I like to think, destined. I like to think that because I’m a romantic at heart, and an optimist by choice; even if it isn’t true, it’s nice to think so…. I just thought about Oscar, and what he might have had to say in today’s world… So, with a bit of help from Google, and Poemhunter.com, I offer this sublime piece of social commentary from a master of words….

The Doer Of Good

It was night-time and He was alone.

And He saw afar-off the walls of a round city and went towards the
city.

And when He came near He heard within the city the tread of the
feet of joy, and the laughter of the mouth of gladness and the loud
noise of many lutes. And He knocked at the gate and certain of the
gate-keepers opened to Him.

And He beheld a house that was of marble and had fair pillars of
marble before it. The pillars were hung with garlands, and within
and without there were torches of cedar. And He entered the house.

And when He had passed through the hall of chalcedony and the hall
of jasper, and reached the long hall of feasting, He saw lying on a
couch of sea-purple one whose hair was crowned with red roses and
whose lips were red with wine.

And He went behind him and touched him on the shoulder and said to
him, ‘Why do you live like this?’

And the young man turned round and recognised Him, and made answer
and said, ‘But I was a leper once, and you healed me. How else
should I live?’

And He passed out of the house and went again into the street.

And after a little while He saw one whose face and raiment were
painted and whose feet were shod with pearls. And behind her came,
slowly as a hunter, a young man who wore a cloak of two colours.
Now the face of the woman was as the fair face of an idol, and the
eyes of the young man were bright with lust.

And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the young man and
said to him, ‘Why do you look at this woman and in such wise?’

And the young man turned round and recognised Him and said, ‘But I
was blind once, and you gave me sight. At what else should I
look?’

And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment of the woman and
said to her, ‘Is there no other way in which to walk save the way
of sin?’

And the woman turned round and recognised Him, and laughed and
said, ‘But you forgave me my sins, and the way is a pleasant way.’

And He passed out of the city.

And when He had passed out of the city He saw seated by the
roadside a young man who was weeping.

And He went towards him and touched the long locks of his hair and
said to him, ‘Why are you weeping?’

And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer,
‘But I was dead once, and you raised me from the dead. What else
should I do but weep?’

~~ Oscar Wilde ~~

_____________________________

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and ‘consciousness’ cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and ‘will’ cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and ‘doing’ cannot be the result of things which ‘happen.'” — Gurdjieff

This is just SO true! It has particular relevance for me when looking at this budget mess, as the whole situation is another example of how our culture just toddles along with no intelligent direction, no “conscious will” that takes us toward a defined goal…. Instead, the whole issue demonstrates how things just “happen”, not as the result of what anyone “does” but merely because of what is allowed to happen, due to the intransigence and selfishness of the people involved….

It is also typical of Gurdjieff, in that it’s stated in such a thick, unwieldy fashion that most people won’t take the time to fight their way through to the complete idea it expresses…. and, it’s an important idea, even if it DOES make your head hurt to think about it at all… It does mine, and I try to practice the advice given me by Lou, from http://talesfromthelou.wordpress.com/, blogger extraordinaire, when he reminded me how the Red Queen, or maybe it was the King, in “Through The Looking Glass” would think of at least six impossible ideas “before breakfast”, just for the fun of it….

I DO try to keep up, you see, no matter how fast, or how far a thought will take me…. The above idea, from Gurdy, is a good one on which to practice, as it lends itself well to internalization…. Sadly, my impression of humanity at large is that such internalizing, and an attitude toward thinking in such ways, is pretty uncommon amongst the general populace…. I’d wager serious gelt that if you showed this quote to 20 random people, on-the-street, average folks, no more than two of them would make a concerted effort to read the entire quote, much less try to decipher its meaning….. The other eighteen would give up at various points, depending on their own particular reading acuity, and make a joke, or, an excuse, like something in their eye, or in some way, try to distract you from questioning them about it.

SIGH…. Such is life, though, and crying and whining about it doesn’t help…. All I can do is try to stay amused by what happens around me…. Amused is better than abused, and it’s a whole lot better than going through life with blinders on, never using the mind we are given for anything other than sitting on, or finding your way home when drunk…. sort of a biological Garmin, y’know? I prefer to use mine for all I can figure out to do with it, and rejoice at every new, and strange, idea that comes my way…. So, here are some of today’s thoughts, that caught my eye as being erudite, or poignant, or deep, or some other characteristic that strikes my fancy…. Enjoy!….

“Cynicism is safe, optimism takes real intelligence.” –Smart Bee

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.” — H. L. Mencken

“Know, first, who you are; then adorn yourself accordingly.” — Epictetus

“Desire is both a very good servant and a very bad master.” — JoAnn Schwartz (1953 – )

“Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experience.” — George Santayana

“God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man.” — Nanrei Kobori, — late Abbot of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, Kyoto, Japan

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

I’m more than just a little afraid to go back over this one; as I created it, I felt a stirring in the Metaphorse that disturbs my sense of balance, and fear that I may have inadvertently caused some real damage to some part of the space-time continuum… The danger here is that, often, when one goes to look for any such damage, it hides, or slips away, and just gets worse, thanks to mein Herr Heisenberg’s little observation as to the reality of reality…. If I look at it, it changes, and becomes something else, and there is no damn way around it…. Oh well, it’s got to be done, so, we’ll just have to take our chances, as we do each day…

Well, it looks as if the space-time continuum will survive another day, so, I’d best be on my way before anyone catches me…. See ya tomorrow, with a bit of luck….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Patiently waiting for the flood waters to subside….

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Ffolkes,

It’s an odd feeling, for me, to wish NOT to write…. I am facing the screen today, not with the usual trepidation, but, with actual revulsion. I’m apparently just not in the mood to vent, or to rant, or even to go pearling…. all of it seems counter-productive in my current state of mind. Even though I’m up at the usual hour (0500), I’m not filled with my usual desire to dump the core, where my angst resides…. Instead, my mind is turning to methods whereby I can skip the whole deal, and get on with the day, whatever it may bring….

Rather than worry about it overmuch, I’m going to re-post a Pearl from the archives…. This one is appropriate, though I’ve no clue as to its content; I do know it was first posted on April Fool’s Day of this year, so, it should have something worth our time to go back over; All Fool’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year, so I’m sure I put stuff worth reading in whatever I wrote…. If not, well, April Fool!!!!….
_____________________________

4/1/13
Ffolkes,

As he stepped aboard the waiting train, he turned to look back at her, a small, forlorn figure standing in shadows near the exit turnstile. As he turned, she saw him, and raised a hand, as if to wave, but paused, locking eyes with his across the platform. The hiss of the train’s escaping steam mingled with the hum of the crowds boarding, but all faded into the background, unheard, as the two lovers gazed, with searing pain, into each other’s eyes, hers now flowing with shining tears. She again raised her hand, waving once before quickly turning, and rushing away, losing herself in the crowd. With heavy heart, he turned, walked past the conductor, and moved toward his seat, leaving the past behind…..

Now that my own tears are flowing, let’s leave the star-crossed lovers to their fates, and get on with the day’s work, such as it is….. It may be a bit more work than I usually have to do, as I’m supposed to come up with a poem for the April National Poetry Month Writing Challenge, in which I’ve agreed to participate…. I just spent a few minutes, trying to begin a verse, and experienced about that many minutes of sheer terror and exasperation, as I was able to come up with only two lines before the well went dry…. two….. not a grand start, to be sure. I may just have to resort to a haiku for my first effort; I know I can come up with one of those, as I’m pretty confident of my skill with them…. justified or not.

But, that’s for later…. right now, I still need to come up with a bit more of an intro, and I’ve written myself into a nasty little corner here, with no apparent way out….. I might have had a chance, had I gone one more paragraph into the opening story line, but, I didn’t, so here I am once again, stuck for anything intelligent to write…. I don’t know how I do it, but, maybe I could find some fool who would believe me when I tell them I know what I’m doing, and get them to pay me for this…. That will probably happen just about the time the pigs are ready to fly…..

Oh, look! There’s one taking off now! Gosh, it looks so brave, outlined against the morning sky, tiny wings beating to beat the band, weaving back and forth across the brightening sky like a drunken loon…. SIGH…. Such beauty is uncommon, and a joy to behold…. If you can buy into that statement, I have a deal in a bridge you might be interested in…. It’s a good deal, and a great source of income, once the toll booths are put in. I’ll need cash only, though, no checks, and all deals are final….

Now that we’ve entered into the spirit of the day, I think it’s best if I try to steal silently away, into the dark morning light, and get on with today’s dive…. I have a feeling that if I don’t do that now, this entire operation is going to go down in flames, which always annoys the insurance dudes…. I’ll avoid that whole issue, and get on with it, forthwith…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Today’s Pearl is going to resemble the coat of many colors that gave Joseph so much trouble back in Biblical days (I think it was Joseph…. oh well, doesn’t matter, y’all know the story anyway…..)…. It’s just got too much randomness to ever achieve any real coherence, so I’m not even going to try to explain it all…. Below you will find a very rare old-school pearl, a group of seven quotes, freshly chosen for their very randomness, in relation to each other…. As is sometimes the case, the point that emerged is one that defies normal expression, and is actually so intimate, it can only be experienced on a personal level; sharing it would be unwise, if not dangerous to both parties…. So, just enjoy them for what they may bring you, and go on with a bemused smile, and my good wishes….. not that they will help, but, I try…..

“It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

“We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes — we have no wish to find them alike.” — Pascal

“Silence can be the biggest lie of all.  We have a responsibility to speak up; and whenever the occasion calls for it, we have a responsibility to raise bloody hell.” — Herbert Block

“Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d’etre oblige de’en pleurer.
(I make myself laugh at everything, in case I should have to weep.)” — Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais (1732-1799)

“An assertion produces a stronger effect than an argument, at least among the majority of mankind. That is why public speakers seek to hammer home their party’s arguments with assertions.” — F. Nietzsche, _Human, All to Human_

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“..  Should I get locked in the PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE today — or have a VASECTOMY??” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, there you go…. I don’t think I can make that any more obscure than it is, so we’ll go on to further adventures in literary suicide…..
__________________________________

Rhyming is better than lying….

It’s all too, too much, he cried
   I can take no more!
It’s all crazy, my brain is fried,
   battered, bloody, and sore.

Talking heads shout out hatred and fear
   jam for my morning toast.
Pointing fingers far, middle, and near
   enemies everywhere, almost.

Women, gays, and seniors fall prey,
   easy targets, slow and weak.
Convenient fools, wanting only to play,
   used, and abused, even as we speak.

It enough to drive me floridly insane,
   or want to buy a gun.
I may end up in jail, or in massive pain,
   but, oh, it would be fun….

~~ gigoid ~~


April Fool! This, such as it is, is the first poem of the month for me, and the first entry in the National Poetry Writing Challenge for April….. It’s not my best effort ever, but, it’s okay, and it’s almost a rant, in its own little way…. I’ll do better as the month goes on, I promise…. Hell, I’m betting tomorrow’s effort will be better…. Just for the hell of it, here is a haiku, too….

To write a poem,
hard as it seems to be, is
not impossible.

~~ gigoid ~~

__________________________________

I have a bunch of stuff to do today in the Big Blue Room, to finish preparations for my trip tonight to Oregon. So, I’m cheating again, and putting in here an old pearl, from the archives…. I can’t say exactly when this first appeared, as I don’t organize them well enough to do so, but, hey, it really doesn’t matter at all…… From the vantage point of the future, I see that Smart Bee was particularly helpful this day…..  Enjoy!….
—————————————————

A few random thoughts on the meaning of insanity, and by implication, sanity…….all came from one dive. Pearl after pearl on the same subject kept presenting itself for my perusal, so after a few, I just gave up & collected them. So here they are, all with a bit to say about those among us who perceive reality from a whole different place than you or me….. (My comments are in parentheses, like this one…. )

‘What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.’ — Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), Reminiscences

If sanity were dollars I’d be bankrupt. — Smart Bee

“I come from a long line of Southern psychotics and an environment where madness is currency and conversation is blood sport.” — Elizabeth Ashley

According to figures from the Justice Department, the average rapist serves only 5.2 years on jail, and the average murderer serves only 8.6 years. By contrast, the average time served for possession of LSD is 10.1 years, and many Americans are serving mandatory minimum sentences of 20 to 25 years for possession or sale of marijuana. — Smart Bee

(Insanity comes in many guises…… your choice as to which is real, and which is delusion….)

Avoid reality at all costs! — Smart Bee

And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T’ enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin’d with th’ accents that are ours?

— Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) — Musophilus, Stanza 163

(Psychosis is rooted in fear, and fear assumes many masks…..)

I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.

— Thomas Moore (1779-1852) — Oft in the Stilly Night

(An accurate description of the onset of depression…..)

“Why ask me? I’m just visiting reality.” — Smart Bee

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program…..
__________________________________

April Fool! None of the above exists, and we are all an illusion, alleged in our own minds….. Thank goodness! This day, being one of my favorite days of the year, due to its strong connection to the concept of nonsense and bozoid tendencies, is also a new beginning….

Today the future of this blog begins anew, as I will now be writing each day’s post from a different location, beginning tomorrow morning, with a Pearl that will be created on a moving train, as I speed through the Northwest toward Oregon… I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation…. Until then….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..
_____________________________

You have now been returned to real time…. The current date is 10/6/13, the time is approximately 0610, PDT. There will be no further messages today from this quarter…. Thank you for your patience, and your custom…. See you tomorrow….. well, that’s the plan, anyway….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Tarzan is refusing to wear the tuxedo, Jane….

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Ffolkes,

Bugger it…. I’m giving up, sort of…. I’m awake, again, with beau coups energy, safely silly yet potently real subject all picked out, and ample supplies of outrage at hand, all ready to rant…. whereupon I find myself, instead, staring at a blank page, trembling in fear, and wondering how in hell I’m going to pull this one out of the fire. I had a nice, controversial subject all ready to rant on, but, somehow, it broke down about four paragraphs in, and I can’t seem to find my way back to stable enough ground from which to fire my weapons; sarcasm must be accurately aimed, or it is useless…. So, I figure I’ll go start the intro, and what happens? Frozen brain! Stare as I might, nothing pops, and the moment of potentiality stretches into infinity, with me sweating, grunting, pulling my hair, and generally turning into a puddle of angst under my chair….

I had thought I’d outgrown this; it’s been months since I’ve been hampered by this kind of freeze-up, and, needless to say, I’m not happy about it….. I’m so damn frustrated, I’m not sure yet whether to apply an emergency method to get past this, or just have faith, and hope it will straighten itself out (a method of problem solving familiar to any Windows user…) …. Not being terribly adept at that part (having faith without evidence, and hoping for a magic bullet…), I suppose I’ll have to resort to an emergency procedure…. I hate that, as they tend to cause as much damage as they fix, but, if nothing else happens in the next few moments, we’ll find ourselves with no choice in the matter…. There ARE legal standards for safety that must be observed, you know….

Those safety standards are challenged by the procedures that may be employed, however, (that’s why they call them “emergency” procedures….), so, maybe we’ll just wait a few moments here, and see what happens…. I’m going to look away for a couple of seconds, and see what it’s like when I get back, okay?…. Okay….. Hang tight…. ‘Kay, I’m back…. let’s see where we are now….

“Cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.” — Samuel Johnson

You know, sometimes, I’m just not sure how to take Smart Bee…. Times such as this, it seems as if it is laughing at us, at the very least….. Then, I remember, it’s just a software program….. Theoretically, and experientially, it is not sentient; therefore, it cannot laugh at us…. But, dammit, they’re not here, listening, and feeling the sense of shame that having a damn database make fun of them produces, are they?…. No, they’re not, so they should just shut the hell UP!….

Uh oh, I may have tripped over into emergency procedure #2 accidentally….. That’s the one where I just let my frustration take over, turning me into a cursing, offensive caricature of those folks I am currently trashing, hurling insults and deprecations with both hands, and generally making an ass of myself, in order to offer some contrast to the normally serene atmosphere that is generally in place here at ECR…. It’s all in good fun, though, and it should be remembered that none of what may be said here is acceptable in court, as it is all fictional, technically…. Even when we speak of reality, it should be noted that by doing so, we remove ourselves at least two degrees from that reality, and thus have no real claim on its structure, or direction….

Nor, apparently, do we have any further claim to anything beyond the merely insane…. I’m babbling, aren’t I? It’s a shame, I know, but, it’s my gift, and it must be acknowledged, or problems can develop in the space-time continuum that aren’t amenable to the usual types of repair…. In other words, it’s best if we all just back away slowly now, and let this proceed as it will… Any further attempts at directing today’s process will certainly meet with not just resistance, but outright rebellion, so, ffolkes, do us all a favor, and don’t touch anything until the vehicle comes to a complete stop, and I have turned off the seat belt signs…. Thanks….

“My life is a patio of fun!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.” — Laurens Van der Post, The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

Can you think of a better description for the idiots in Congress who, thanks to their asinine insistence on having their own way, have stubbornly carried their conviction of rightness right up to the edge of Stupid, pushed it over, then jumped after it?…. I can’t…. These assholes are becoming more than just a little annoying with their undeserved sense of entitlement, and their completely misplaced elitism. In one way, I’m a bit encouraged, because this all seems like a swan song to me…. these fools have so alienated the majority of people in this country, they have sealed their fate, and I think we can consider this little glitch in things to be their last hurrah as a political force….

So far as I can tell from the news I read, the only people who continue to support these fools is themselves…. Nobody else in society is behind them, all the rest of us having become increasingly tired of the rhetoric and fanfare that accompanies all the issues these fools take up as part of their platform…. They have built their entire program on fear, and lies, producing the only result possible, to wit: more fear, and more lies…. We now see the natural result, as more and more mainstream voters recoil in disgust at the intransigence and intolerance these people have displayed. They just don’t seem to have a clue as to how out of touch with reality they are, and it is becoming increasingly obvious to the rest of society just how much their attitudes are causing trouble for all of us….

So, in that way, I am hopeful, that this entire shutdown of the government will be the straw that breaks the back of the Republican Party, and it can go the way of the Whigs, the Tories, and the dodo bird…. into extinction, where it belongs….  Hopefully, it will do so without dragging the rest of us along with them…. Oh, they’ll try; misery loves company…. But, I think, this time, they’re on their own, and they can sink into oblivion all by themselves, thank you very much….

As I just proved above, in the intro section, today’s effort is liable, at any moment, to turn on us, and become somewhat dangerous to handle without the proper equipment…. For example, this rant is now going to completely reverse direction, 180 degrees, and head off into the realm of intellectual stimulation, rather than the emotional stimulation that is the usual target for such pieces….. I’m too strange today to be logical, or organized, so, we’re going to switch horses in mid-stream, and take our shots with an old-school weapon, i.e., strangely apt sarcasm, instead of the relatively new-fangled bludgeon which comprises a proper rant…. So be it….

“I don’t pick on politicians. They ain’t done nothin’.” — Red Skelton

“The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much merriment.  It is not funny.  Astrological gibberish, which means astrology generally, has no place in a newspaper, let alone government. Unlike comics, which are part of a newspaper’s harmless pleasure and make no truth claims, astrology is a fraud.  The idea that it gets a hearing in government is dismaying.” — George F. Will, Washing Post Writers Group

“The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” — Bertrand Russell

“Why won’t sharks eat lawyers?   Professional courtesy.” — Smart Bee

“You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.” — Aristophanes   c. 450-385 BC, Knights [424 BC] l. 217

“The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe.  But the stupid man will just lie down on some seaweed and roll around until he’s  completely draped in it. Then he’ll stand up and go, “Hey, I’m Vine Man.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

(Remind y’all of anyone? Someone in a blue suit, ruthlessly knotted red tie, with a cross for a tie-pin, a flag pin on the lapel, and a dumb expression?…. Oh come on, ffolkes… This little description could apply to ANY of the Tea Party Retardicans in the House of Representatives, and y’all know it…. Hell, I’ve heard Paul Ryan claim common ancestry with Vine Man, in more than one of his speeches…. )

“The art of leadership. . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . .” — Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”

(Keeping the attention of the public on the manufactured enemy is essential, because then they will not be looking at the true enemy, the leaders….)

“Any statistic that can be found which is interesting can be credited to the fact that this particular statistic is a mistake. If it is not a mistake, it is a misprint, and if it is not a misprint, it is unlawful release of classified information.” — Policy & Procedure Manual, National Security Administration, US Department of Shady Ethical Rationalizations

Just in case you hadn’t heard…. Monday, when the US government shut down, the NSA proudly, and perkily, announced that this week is National Cyber Security Awareness Week! (It’s true! I didn’t make it up….) Thought you might want to know….
_____________________________

After such a beginning, and such a weird first section, I need something that can only be described as wonderful…. This works…. Powerful, there’s another word that works…

How Many Moments Must(Amazing Each]

how many moments must(amazing each
how many centuries)these more than eyes
restroll and stroll some never deepening beach

locked in feverish time’s tide at poise,

love alone understands: only for whom
i’ll keep my tryst until that tide shall turn;
and from all selfsubtracting hugely doom
treasures of reeking innocence are born.

Then, with incredible the anywhere
eclipsing of a spirit’s ignorance
by every wisdom knowledge fears to dare,

how the(myself’s own self who’s)child will dance!

and when he’s plucked such mysteries as men
do not conceive– let ocean grow again.

~~ E.E. Cummings ~~

_____________________________

It’s been a strange morning, but, then, I have to go to the dentist later, and that always weirds me out, trying NOT to think about it…. In fact, I’m so weirded out about it today, I’m going to go with a completely random pearl, picked entirely at the whim of Smart Bee, just because I have no further mental energy, of a focused nature, to spare for it…. Hope it works out okay…. remember to hold your breath until the oxygenating drugs start to work…. Last time, we had to stop the bus, and proceed directly to the emergency exits….

“If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.” — Bix Bender

“There exists in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”  — Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805-1859)

“It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.” — Eric Hoffer

“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance.” — Smart Bee

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” — Heraclitus

“I’m a solipsist and, I have to say, I’m surprised there aren’t more of us.” — from a letter to Bertrand Russell

“The old proverb was now made good, “the mountain had brought forth a mouse.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Life of Agesilaus II
_____________________________

On at least two occasions this morning, the effort to complete this process has nearly resulted in the use of emergency procedures, and that trend, I see, continued right up to the very last entry in section three, just above…. But, the necessity for such drastic action was mitigated at the very last second, by a final find in Smart Bee that put the entire piece into perspective…. That quote was placed where it belongs, in section one, and the whole shebang fell into balance… but, you’re no doubt severely disinterested in my occasionally elusive, but ever so-sincere gestalt. Suffice to say, it’s done…. On that note, I’ll bid thee adieu….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Cross pollination of adverbs remains publicly undervalued….

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Ffolkes,

I won’t rant, I won’t rant, I won’t rant….. I find myself in need of some restraint, in order to keep from subjecting both of my readers (  😆  ) to a full-out, angry, vituperative tirade against the complete idiots currently inhabiting the Congressional buildings in Washington D.C…. Fortunately, for me, and for y’all, I’ve found a perfect quote to begin such a missive, so we’ll wait until section one, or three, to jump into the rant I know is there, anxiously waiting it’s chance to strike out at what may be the most widespread act of treason in our nation’s history….

Until I can begin, though, let’s talk about something else….. How ’bout the weather? No, no, that will merely get me started on global warming, an eminently rantable concept, given the state of the atmosphere, and the intransigent unwillingness of most everyone to PULL THEIR HEAD OUT OF THEIR ASSES….. Gee, I must be just a tad upset about that one; better not go there….

Hmm…. how about gun control? Well, there WAS a recent mass shooting…. Of course, this one was perpetrated by an obvious nut case, who, in spite of a long period of providing authorities with clues and hints of his inner conflict, managed to stockpile a shit-load of guns and ammo, then was adept enough to get around all the security measures at a major armed services facility to start shooting at his imaginary enemies, using real people as stand-ins for his hallucinations…..

I can see the events of 9/11 made a huge impression on the security at armed services facilities, didn’t it? It obviously caused them to review and tighten up their security measures…. NOT!….. I suppose they figured they were safe, because nobody would EVER think of shooting at a bunch of people making weapons for the war-making machine….. Nah, I think we’ll pass on this one, too…. there’s too much implied insanity, on both sides of the issue, to get into this one right now…

Well, let’s see, what else is going on in the world that we could talk about, without getting into how screwed up the world has become, one way or another…. It’s getting to be a hard task these days, to find ONE area of our lives that hasn’t been screwed over one way or another by what our beloved ruling class has been up to….. It seems like every time I turn around, some dipshit politico is bringing up some new asinine idea, or some old asinine idea, that serves to cause divisions between people, and create more problems than are ever solved…. They can’t seem to keep their greedy little hands out of everyone else’s business, whatever it may be, and their insane twisting of reality to suit their own purposes is getting really old….

It does make it relatively easy to come up with something to rant about, that much is certain; but, that isn’t necessarily to be considered a boon, is it? The more there is to rant about, the more screwed up things are…. It would be nice to get up one day to find the news empty of ANY new idiocy from those who seem unable to keep from screwing others, but, since I don’t believe I have EVER seen a day like that, I’m not particularly hopeful of that one ever coming true….

Oddly enough, I did manage to meander around sufficiently to reach legal intro level, which, after all, was the intent…. Does that mean we’ve succeeded today? No, I’m afraid not… but, it does mean we can go on to something a bit more compelling, and, theoretically, more interesting….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“On SECOND thought, maybe I’ll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS PHILBIN..  It’s GREAT to be ALIVE!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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‘Tis written: ‘In the beginning was the word.’
Already I stick, and who shall help afford?
The ‘word’ at such high rate I may not tender;
The passage I must elsewhere render,
If rightly by the Spirit I am taught,
‘Tis written: ‘In the beginning was the Thought.’

By the first line a moment tarry,
Let not thine eager pen itself o’er-hurry!
Does ‘thought’ work all and fashion outright?
It should stand: ‘In the beginning was the Might.’
Yet even as my pen the sentence traces,
A warning hint the half-writ word effaces.

The Spirit helps me – from all doubting freed,
Thus write I: ‘In the beginning was the Deed.’

— Dr. Faustus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Faust”

I made a statement above, using a very significant word of accusation, that I should explain, and I will…. but, first, consider Dr. Faustus’ words a moment….. The last line is the key, in my mind, the basic truth that the poetic train of thought leads us to, after a very pleasant rational exercise, couched in very elegant verse. But, the power of what is implied is what concerns me today…..

“In the beginning was the Deed.”….. A group of politicians who, by grace of some election chicanery, such as  manipulation of election districts, voting regulation changes to block certain voters, massive infusion of money into spreading lies to ignorant voters, and any other underhanded method they could legally or marginally-legally get away with, were able to elect a slight majority of Tea Party supported Republicans to a number of House seats, during the last national elections in 2012….

This group is characterized by certain common traits, such as disbelief in global warming, deliberate opposition to birth control fueled by disbelief in world overpopulation, along with a mistrust of  science in general, faith-based beliefs regarding gays, women, people of color, immigration, or anyone not a white Christian male, and most critically, a stubborn belief that they have the right to force their own out-dated beliefs on a society in which they are no longer a majority.

Since I must find a word to indicate the group when I am talking about them, a word that describes the group of them specifically, it’s hard not to just use the word, “assholes”, because that is exactly how they act most of the time…. However, today, I’d like to use the word that I believe is indicated in this situation, given their actions of the last few weeks regarding the budget, and Obamacare, and in truth, any reforms that would be of benefit to anyone other than, as mentioned, white Christian males…. Oh, yes, remember to add this word to the other descriptive adjectives I used, to wit: “millionaires”… because ALL of them are…. which just makes them that much further removed from, and out of touch with, the reality that most Americans live in…..

The new word I’ll use today to describe this group of Congressional Tea Party supported Republicans is, simply, traitors…. Yep, traitors, because that is exactly what they are….. These people, because of their sense of entitlement, completely unearned or deserved, and their deliberate isolation from reality, has led them to believe that they have the right to force their beliefs on the rest of this country, IN SPITE of their complete knowledge of the simple FACT that the majority of Americans do not believe the same way as they do anymore, and never will again…. They don’t CARE that others may suffer, or that they are completely out of touch with what is going on in the actual mainstream of society; they believe they ARE the mainstream, and by god, that’s the way it should be, to them…

But, they’ve lost touch with the real world, because the great mass of Americans no longer believe what they believe, and outside this country, there are not many at all who would agree at all with their position…. Most of what they purport to believe is just old news to much of the rest of the world, and makes them look all that much less sane, to hold on to what is so obviously not true in the face of so much evidence to the contrary….. If it wasn’t so dangerous, it would be rather pathetically sad…. But, it IS dangerous, to the rest of us, because, unfortunately, a lot of them are still in positions where they can cause damage beyond their actual influence… such as now, with this whole budget crisis idiocy….

“I wish Conservatives would be less liberal with their whining.” — Smart Bee

It sure would be nicer for the rest of us if they were, wouldn’t it? I get so tired of hearing stuff from these idiots, but, for that I blame the media, who are just as stupid in the way they pick and choose what to write about…. All the worst stuff, the least important, but most easily sold, is what ends up in the light, while all the stuff that NEEDS to be illuminated is passed over, or ignored, or made to be less important than it is…. Ah me, let’s not go too far into that subject, we’re still ranting against the traitorous congressional assholes….

They are traitors because they defaulted on their oaths of office, an oath which enjoins them, in intent, if not actual word, to uphold the law, and TO SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE…. They have failed miserably in that respect, and there is NO ONE who can tell me that they haven’t…. None of these assholes even considered that what they are doing will harm more people than it could possibly help…. If they did, they didn’t care, and did it anyway, out of their sense of entitlement, which just makes it more traitorous, and well as more immoral and more unethical (both are correct…. these people have none of EITHER one….).

“The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect is already in the cause.” — Henri Louis Bergson (1859-1941)

Knowing this only makes it hurt worse, for me, because it means that nobody in history has ever been able to cast off the shackles that the BRC and the shadowy masters of society have managed to place upon all of us….. They’ve had their way in the world for thousands of years, and the flaws in their control over the mass of humanity are few, not anywhere nearly large enough, or well-known enough, to cause the rest of humanity to protest, and throw them out…. Believe me, there is nothing the master class doesn’t know about how to control people in masses; just look at what they’ve accomplished in this country, in only two hundred years …..

“America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don’t misuse a household pet.” — Dick Gregory, The Shadow that Scares Me, 1968

I’ve wandered around enough for one morning, and haven’t really taken more than a few shots at my intended targets…. But, they will manage to make themselves look foolish enough in the coming days, as this whole idiotic scenario plays itself out, so, I think I can let it go now, and not feel the worse for it…. I feel a bit better, having vented at least some of what built up over the last few days of watching it all unfold; it can be hard on us curmudgeons, having to hold stuff in like that…. Oh well, such is life…. thanks for listening….

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.

— John Dryden (1631-1700) — All for Love, Prologue
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Ranting often leave me somewhat down, so, to bring myself up a bit, I’m going to use one of my own poems, one that, oddly enough, rings with some rather positive notes….

Tuesday’s Child, from an Oblique Angle
When I really stop to think, it isn’t too much to expect
a warm bed, a bite of food, a loving smile to reflect.
We all need such comfort and supportive attention,
so basic to our soul, there is no real need to mention.Life often offers opportunities disguised very well,
illusions are rampant, what’s real can be hard to tell.
To honor old ties may seem like the only thing one can do,
but evidence is real, despite one’s wish it were untrue.

Those who love us truly, without thought of any gain,
hate for us to experience life’s portions of pain.
They also know we each must follow our own chosen way,
for the lessons we learn, we all have our own price to pay.

Still, wishing and hoping can’t do any true harm
and wishing good things to friends feels welcome, and warm.
The pageant of society will pass on to the next day
what new sights and sounds it brings me, thankfully, I can’t say.

~~ gigoid ~~

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I’ve ranted, twice, technically, if you count the intro, which COULD be considered a rant, as it’s long, makes little sense, and insults politicians at strategic moments…. So, any who, y’all can’t make me do it again, not legally, and not in reality, because I just won’t do it, so there…. I will, however, construct an old-school pearl, which, once again, you cannot prevent or delay…. Well, not without explosives… It’ll be okay, though, I’ll instruct SB to be really nice to everybody, and throw in some kind of incentive…. maybe, if we’re lucky, we won’t have to use the fire hoses….

“The promotion of “self-esteem” in our schools has been so successful that people feel free to spout off about all sorts of things — and see no reason why their opinions should not be taken as seriously as the views of people who actually know what they are talking about.” — Thomas Sowell

“Now, that the sovereign power and deity, whatsoever it is, should have regard of mankind, is a toy and vanity worthy to be laughed at.” — Pliny The Elder

“Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you (religionists) whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon by your own bluster.” — Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), “An agnostic’s Apology”, — Fortnightly Review, 1876

“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.” — Lao Tzu

IMMORTALITY, n.
A toy which people cry for,
And on their knees apply for,
Dispute, contend and lie for,
And if allowed
Would be right proud
Eternally to die for.
G.J.
— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“BEWARE!  People acting under the influence of human nature.” — Smart Bee

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
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I love being able to end a piece with the same author, and work, as I started with; even if this turns out to be a pile of crap, it still makes the grade for being artistically balanced, if not intellectually so…. Let’s see what happened here…..

Whew! Longer, and tougher than I’d thought…. Not too bad, though, all in all, and certainly good enough for this venue…. Hell, a little bit of fluff, wax, and polish, I could probably post the rant in section one on another site, as an essay on current events, but, I’m lazy, and by the time I work up the wherewithal, energy-wise, to do that, it won’t be so current anymore…. C’est la vie! At least this one’s done, and I can go give my back, my fingers, and your credibility, a well-earned rest….. See ya….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

dozer3

Avoiding those odd “Elvis” moments….

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3

Ffolkes,

It is not without a certain degree of trepidation that I come to this decision; no one at all could ever consider taking such a step without thinking about what might happen, if things do not go as planned. If things don’t work out as hoped, the carnage will be extensive, and the world, as we know it, will never be the same…. Contrarily, if what I am contemplating works as it should, no one will ever know they were mere seconds from annihilation, destined to exit this plane of existence, not with a bang, but with the poet’s whimper….

On the other hand, I could quit fooling around, and tell you that all of the above is just another silly collection of words, put together in such a way as to draw your attention, and engage your mind in some sort of fictional scenario, with no real connection to reality…. How’d I do? I don’t know about y’all, but I was completely fooled….. and I was the one writing it! Now, THAT’S some powerful writing!….. Just kidding, ffolkes….. I’m fully aware of how my pomposity, my arrogance, my regular and harsh criticism of religion and its icons, and my so-far-left-I’m-right political positions, have a tendency, no doubt, to make people uncomfortable, or, at the very least, leave them with feelings of guilt, which nobody cares for at all….

The guilt, if I’ve done my job correctly, comes from knowing that we, the American people at large, are responsible for the mess we are in, due to our long-term habit of putting our head in the sand every four years, and voting for yet another batch of lying, cheating, immoral assholes, establishing them in their elected positions, where they will proceed, like every other politician in the last 100 years, to fuck things up beyond all belief….. Sometimes, I think that what they studied in college was not law, but bozoid technology….. how to make best use of those tools we all employ at one time or another to make fools of ourselves…..

What is THIS all about? Good question…. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been looking back at all I’ve written in the last couple of years, since beginning this blog, and I realized that I’ve been beating a horse so dead, it’s petrified, and has been erected as a statue in the local park…. I’ve ranted and railed against the machine, belittling the churches and their deliberately delusional perpetrators, and accused ALL politicians of psychopathic greed, not to mention congenital prevarication….

I’ve pointed out the lies that the politicians tell us, either by omission, or by commission, and bemoaned the entitlement and arrogance of the para-military police forces that most of our towns and cities have espoused…. All to little purpose, and littler effect, as it turns out, as the same people keep on screwing us over in the same old ways…. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m getting a bit tired of putting out so much effort to such small effect; I’m accustomed to my work having some kind of positive outcome, but, it’s hard to call the response I’ve had as being overwhelmingly so….

While it’s true that most of the ffolkes who do comment here tend to agree with my take on matters, it is also true that, even given the 315 followers I reportedly have, the number of people who SEE it isn’t exactly what can be called a huge audience…. Now, that’s okay, in one respect, which is, I don’t care about the numbers, very much…. I write to get this stuff out of my head before it rots, not for the usual purpose of stimulating action in the public; it’s always been more about saving my sanity than it has about saving society….

BUT…. and it’s a big BUT…. saving society wouldn’t be such a bad thing, now, would it? It would be nice if I could tell myself that what I say here has some positive effect in that direction, even if I wasn’t telling the entire truth…. SIGH…. As a curmudgeon, though, and as a self-made, self-taught, self-reliant philosopher, no matter how much better it would make me feel, I can’t do that, because it just isn’t true….. If we don’t stick to the truth, it’s all just an exercise in futility, and we may as well just go lay down in our graves now….

So, anyway, I see now that this has turned into not merely a rant in the intro, but has become what seems to be a series of personal revelations about the relevance of what I’m doing here…. Though I don’t really care about how many ffolkes read this, as it is written for another purpose altogether, there is another part of me that would like to have the world pay attention to what I’m saying, for their own benefit…. It’s a bit frustrating, and that frustration may prompt some radical changes around here, in how I approach the entire subject of ranting….

If I can make it more effective, I’d be willing to put more effort into publicizing it, to get more ffolkes to read and spread it around…. I’d even be willing to take more meds, so I could spend more time reading and commenting on other blogs (which I would LOVE to be able to do, but for the pain it causes me physically…), so that my readership would continue to grow, to a level that had some real power of distribution….. Ah well, it’s all just speculation, at this point, so, we’ll just have to see how it goes…. but, expect SOME changes, for sure…. I’m just not certain what form they’ll take, or how it may affect the rest of what I write, but, I HAVE to do SOMETHING, or I’ll drive myself crazy…. which, I admit, is not a long drive…

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Don’t take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; then you can let go when you want to.” — Josh Billings

(Trivia note: This statement is a more effective method of animal husbandry than is first apparent, which only strengthens its metaphorical nature…. As any farm boy knows, you can’t persuade a large animal to go anywhere by putting a  rope around its neck, and yanking on it, especially large animals such as cattle, or mules, or donkeys, of either gender; they’re all quite stubborn, and stupid, to boot. However, any and all of these animals will go wherever you wish them to go, if you will merely grab them by the tail, with a good strong grip, and give it a firm twist…. Guaranteed, the animal will move IMMEDIATELY, and briskly, in whatever direction they were pointed at the time the tail was twisted….   🙂    )
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“Ignorance is temporary. Stupidity lasts forever!!!” — Smart Bee

A few days ago, in the news, one of the Republican Senators, John McCain, took some heavy shots at a freshman Republican Senator, some guy named Cruz, a desperately confused young Latino, for his useless, and even harmful, use of a filibuster-like speech to delay a vote that was going to happen anyway…. It was actually kind of cute, the way they bickered over the issue, and provides a perfect example of how, even amongst themselves, these psychopathic idiots cannot figure out how removed they are from real life, or how little all their contortions have any positive effect on the public… They all just look like little kids, running around getting mad over trivial stuff, and never getting anything done that would benefit anyone other than themselves….

“He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE  inside me like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER!  Or maybe he’d like to PSYCHOLOGICALLY TERRORIZE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!!  I guess I should call AL PACINO!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I don’t think even Al could help in today’s political world…. Any who, what McCain objected to in Cruz’s speech were some comments he made comparing certain people with a certain view to Nazis… I’m not sure to whom he referred, but, it definitely offended McCain, and he made some comments of his own…. over which I had to laugh, heartily, as I could think of nothing other than “the pot calling the kettle black”….. If there is ANY political group that has shown characteristics shared by the Nazi Party in the last 50 years, it is the Republican Party, which can barely figure out how to phrase the planks of their platform without resorting to racist epithets….

Not only the Republicans, but the entire government machine, by its very bureaucratic nature, at times will naturally fall into postures which remind one of the fascists who once ran Germany, but are now confined mostly to chat rooms, and a few conclaves in Minneapolis (I hope…)…. As a perfect example of what I’m saying here, I offer the following article, from yesterday’s SF Chronicle, which describes the latest events in the housing market in SF, wherein nobody cares when the elderly and the disabled are abused, all in the name of BUSINESS….

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tech-boom-forcing-longtime-S-F-family-out-of-home-4843955.php

“Our eviction-assistance team has been there several times and left notice for the family to contact us, but the family has chosen not to do so,” said Fahey. “We certainly don’t want anybody going without a place to live, but we have our orders.”

“I feel bad for the old people being evicted, and I can see why there is so much controversy,” said Allie Crocco, 25, who works in finance and moved into an apartment a few blocks away this summer. “But on the other hand, there’s a lot of money to be made in these buildings.”

There you have it, ffolkes…. Rampant Nazi-like behavior, with quotes…. The first of the two highlighted phrases, both of which came from the above article, was uttered by one of the people responsible for evicting people, under the law that was specifically passed for that purpose, to make it easier for businesses to get around the existing laws that protect the tenants…. Please note how it echoes the statements of more than one Nazi prison guard convicted during the Nuremberg Trials after WWII…. The other quote is from a person who lives nearby the house where the old couple is being evicted, and clearly demonstrates the lack of empathy in those who are not involved in the issue…. To the average joe in our society, if there is money to be made, it justifies ANYTHING, no matter how egregiously immoral it may be….

IMHO, no further rant is needed to make my point, so, I’ll trust in the intelligence of my Gentle Readers to fill in the rest of what might have been said, and, mercifully, was not….

“Coming up: our definitive answer to the JFK assassination, the Iran contra coverup, the cure for the common cold, and our hidden videotape of Madonna’s torrid affair…” — Anchorman, “Zombies in PJs”, Eerie Indiana
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I’m hopeful for the quality of today’s Pearl, so the poem needs to be just right…. Let’s see what I can find….. Ah, this will do nicely….

Personal Helicon

for Michael Longley

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

~~ Seamus Heaney ~~

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“It is quite untrue that British people don’t appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.”–Sir Thomas Beecham

“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” — Homer (c. 700 B.C.)

As you can see, for this final section, Smart Bee has presented me with two directions to go… The two don’t stretch, in any way I can think of, to work together to make a point, at least, not one I’d care to make, so I’ll have to either make a decision, or trust to fate, an uncertain proposition at any time…. I’m feeling lucky, though, so let’s see what happens if I just dive in, like this… Oooh!, that’s cold!…. Okay, take a deep breath, and follow me…. Don’t worry, any sharks you see are just metaphors….

“Don’t take life too serious. It ain’t no ways permanent.” — Pogo, by Walt Kelly

“Here, let me show you.” — Famous Last Words

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw

“Every society needs someone whose job it is to tell the Emperor he’s naked.” — Smart Bee
(Me! Me! Pick me! I’ll do it for free!…. Oh, wait, I already do that…. okay, well…. to continue…)

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” — Albert Einstein

“At any price that I can pay, let me own myself. And the price is worth  paying if you keep what you have bought… A man may apply his independence to what is called worldly advantage, and discover too late that he  laboriously has made himself dependent on a mass of external conditions for the maintenance of which he has sacrificed himself. So he may be  festooned with the whole haberdashery of success, and go to his grave a castaway. Some men hold that the risk is worth taking. Others do not. It is to those that I have spoken.” — Rudyard Kipling, speech at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 1923, — quoted in _Kipling’s Science Fiction_ edited by John Brunner

“Small change can often be found under seat cushions.” — Lazarus Long
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“Within the oyster’s shell uncouth
The purest pearl may hide,
Trust me you’ll find a heart of truth
Within that rough inside.”

— Mrs. Osgood

And aren’t we all glad that is so!… Well, I’m glad…. You’ll have to make your own decision as to how you feel about it…. What I’ve done here today, well, it’s the same, but different, sort of…. which is exactly what I need to think about…. See y’all tomorrow, perhaps with a new gestalt….. No new physique, no altered proportions, of anatomy or build, perhaps, but, just maybe, a bit of a change in the silhouette, some contrast to the shadows that haunt the edges of my perception….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3

Free speech, with a side order of lies….

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1

Ffolkes,

Today’s title is a bit more relevant than usual; it’s kind of a mini-rant, in it’s own little way, complete with sarcasm, and outrage, right there for all to perceive, should they so choose. The title was a reaction, in essence, to an email I got yesterday from the White House…. Yes, that’s right, the White House…. There’s no need to be impressed, or to think I’ve got a good line into the administration, or anything like that….. Like millions of other folks, I once clicked on some link that offered me a chance to give my opinion to them, back in the beginning of Barry’s reign….. I sent what was supposed to be a comment on some of what I’d seen, knowing full well I what I was letting myself in for, to wit: spam with a side of grits….

I don’t mean to be racist by that statement; I was being literal, actually. Ever since sending that one email, I have been inundated with multiple daily blurbs from Michelle Obama, from Stephanie Cutter, and a host of other names I don’t recognize, all of whom are perky, enthusiastic, and want me to send them money…. Occasionally, like today, a personal note from the First Lady herself, asking me to send in a comment for them to parade as part of their claim to grassroots connections…. I’m so thrilled to have been personally addressed by the FLOTUS, and will immediately rush out to complete the task she asked of me, to furnish my version of “the number one issue I care about”, so they can use that information to guide them to doing the best thing for me and all the other poor saps out there believing this crap…

What annoys me the most, aside from having to delete several emails a day from these idiots, (and, yes, I include the FLOTUS in that group…. Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to get too enthused about anyone who buys into the whole scene she endorses….). Just because I sent ONE email to them, an email they obviously did NOT read, they assume I am behind them 100%, and address me daily as if I am one of their trusted minions…. This is actually the reason I have not opted out of the email group; it gives me some idea of what they are up to, which is a good thing for my strategic plans. I’m just following the old saw about keeping my friends close, and my enemies closer….

You may wonder how I can call myself a patriot, when I am so dead-set against BOTH sides of the political scene we see today…. Well, it’s simple…. I am patriotic only about the vision of our country, of what I believe framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights had in mind when they wrote them. They had a vision of a country where men of good virtue and character could pursue their own personal view of what is good and right, in the atmosphere of freedom of thought, and of action, that the laws provide to us. The founders of our nation saw very clearly that what they sought was a fragile state, and would always be in danger from those who envy the freedoms we enjoy, and from those who would take it away, for their own profit and power….

Those people, the ones who have no virtue, save that of self-interest, are now in control of this country, and have been since the mid-19th century, when a corrupt federal judge made a landmark decision that gutted the Constitution, making it relatively useless for the purpose it was created.  One legal judgment, deliberately made by a judge who made no secret of his loyalty to those who paid him, took the most basic rights away from the common man, and put them into the hands of corporate entities that don’t exist anywhere but on paper…..The corporate interests that actually control the events of history thus secured their position as the shadowy puppet masters of society, and they did so right in front of the public eye….

SIGH…. I see that once again I’ve ranted before I was really ready to do so…. I just get so outraged when I start to think about what ASSHOLES these people are…. They don’t give a SHIT about anyone but themselves, and could care less that what they do is detrimental to the well-being of others; it’s not something that even crosses their awareness, other than as it affects their travel plans…. It’s tough to have to decide whether to jet off to Chamonix for winter sports, or to Bali for water sports…. I suppose it’s marginally better than having to decide whether to stretch the chicken to one more pot of soup, or break down and buy some beef, which they can’t afford…..

Okay, I’m done for now….. I never really got started strongly, and only used vague references to real events, rather than factual accounts of actual happenings in the world, to make my points…. But, that is only because the urge to rant caught me unaware, again, and I didn’t want to take the time to go research so early…. Besides, I figure once I go look at some news headlines, I’ll find plenty to bring back the outrage, with plenty of evidence, as it is right out there for all to see, every day….. which, actually, is kind of scary, when one stops to think about that…. They don’t even really try very hard anymore to hide what they’re doing from us, which means they know there isn’t anything we can do to stop them, or to make a difference in what they wish to do….

I’m so discouraged, I’m going to end this introductory section here, after a healthy sized rant, and go on with the rest of today’s Pearl… even though my discouragement is preventing me from enjoying it very much…. I just get so angry at what I see in the world, because I know there are solutions…. solutions that will never be tried, because the assholes who run things don’t WANT any changes in the world, not until they have ALL they want from the rest of us…. and their avarice knows no boundaries….

Ah, the hell with it…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“We, the people, are not free.  Our democracy is but a name.  We vote? What does that mean?  We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” — Helen Keller
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Having lost my way completely, by giving in so far as to spit out the above seriousness, I want some funny…. Smart Bee, give me…. humor…..

“Is this where I’m supposed to insert the funny lines?” — Smart Bee

Yes, yes, it is…..

“All I kin say is when you finds yo’self wanderin’ in a peach orchard,  ya don’t go lookin’ for rutabagas.” — Kingfish

(Good start!…. Humor and wisdom all rolled into one bubblegum cigar! Hopefully, it’s the exploding kind; a good explosion always raises the ratings….)

“Here I am in the POSTERIOR OLFACTORY LOBULE but I don’t see CARL SAGAN anywhere!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

(Zippy goes over the top much of the time, I know, but, it’s always amazing to me to look at the things he says, filtered through the light of metaphor; in that light, they take on deeper meaning, every time, and always in a way that can be traced back to reality, sort of….. As we all know, “sort of” is as close to real reality as we can tolerate around here, especially when I’m in a mood like this one…. the risk of explosion right now is, as they are fond of saying in the newspapers, significant…. Zippy is like cold water on a hot fire, in that sense…. )

“Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven, it is impossible to be a superior man. Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established. Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men.” — Confucius, _Analects_, Book 20

(Well, it was funny when I read it….. A worthy group of statements, though….)

“The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.” — George Bernard Shaw

(Doesn’t seem to have worked very well, though, does it?…. I mean, look at them… Now, they are touting this poor new lad born to the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge as their symbol of continuity and tradition…. Poor baby, can barely even drool yet, and already an icon, destined to live a life well-insulated from reality…..)

“Well, Darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable,
And Lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.”

— Indigo Girls

(Okay, busted…. not funny, but, it’s powerful, and it’s beautiful, so it stays….)

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” — Dalai Lama

(Actually, it might have been someone else who said this…. but, it’s something he would  have said, had he thought of it…)

If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink,–
Good wine, a friend, because I ‘m dry,
Or lest I should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.

— John Sirmond (c. 1589-1649) — Causae Bibendi

Well, I’m retired, what do you expect?….. It doesn’t HAVE to make sense any more, now, does it? Nope…. so, as is obvious at this point, most days, I don’t even bother trying to police that particular concept…. You get what you pay for, every time, right?….. Of course, I’m not counting the cost to me, but, that’s just the kind of guy I am…..
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“What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! … Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash.” — Mark Twain

A drop fell on the apple tree
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roa
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

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I’m not sure what my mind is doing…. Some days I keep track, and others, it’s just too much work, so, I don’t…. Today is one of the latter type of days, and it’s probably showing in the structure of this Pearl…. So be it…. I’m not one to argue with what is, and I’m too short on meds to risk getting all bent out of shape about it….

Whenever I fight against reality, it wins, and I hurt for a while… So, I’m going to hearken back to the days of yore, when I was learning Judo, from Sensei Uchida, at UC Berkeley, and let the force of my opponent do the work for me…. a little cosmic judo, don’t y’know?…. Hope you enjoy it…. just relax, and spread the shock of contact with the floor over as much area of your body as you can… It will hurt less, and you can get right back up, where I’ll show you how it was done….. or, give you a couple of aspirin & some water, if you prefer….

“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you please unless it causes others harm. With it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.” — P.J. O’Rourke

“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

A drill is a tool. A hole is a solution. — Smart Bee

All who joy would win
Must share it, –happiness was born a twin.

— Lord Byron (1788-1824) — Don Juan, Canto ii, Stanza 172

“To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.” — Plutarch (46 AD-120 AD)

A Scholar asked his Master, “Could you advise me of a proper vocation, Master?” The Master replied, “Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds. Others must use their strong backs, legs and hands. This is the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, hogs & goats. Other animals must struggle for their food, like beavers, moles & ants. So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual.”  “But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master,” the scholar sobbed.   “Have you ever thought of becoming a salesman?”. . . the Master queried.– Smart Bee

“In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears.  Things are not only what they are.  They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.” — Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-78)

(The last one is included as contrast to the other six pearls in this group, just because it popped up at a propitious moment…… Mr. Humphrey’s statement, while almost true, is actually a good example of why politicians in this country find it so simple to lie to the public…. This is related with all seriousness, as if it is great wisdom, when, in truth, it is simply not true, unless the person in question wishes it to be true…. Things are only what they seem to be in our perceptions, not in reality, and refusing to acknowledge that distinction is the same as learning to lie about it…. and believing the lie, rather than the truth….. Insidious, isn’t it?….. They get people to buy into the very lies they tell, by making it sound  as if it should  be true…..)
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“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” — Terry Pratchett.

That’s for damn sure, and exactly how I’m feeling today…. But, I’m okay with it, too, so, no big deal… I wouldn’t go back for anything…. Let’s see what the last three hours of struggle and pain has come up with today….

Well, it’s certainly more than I bargained for when I started…. I do have a tendency to ramble, don’t I? Ah well, so be it… I was up early, this took forever, and I’m too tired to make it all better, if such is possible at this point….. In fact, bye, now, y’all be real, I’ll see you tomorrow, I hope….

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

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

Which is Why….

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

gigoid

dozer3