More emerald than jade……

Posted on January 25, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
BANG! CRASH! Hey, folks, don’t mind the noise….. SMASH! BANG!…. Murphy has brought some friends this morning…. CRASH!….. and they got into a big argument, that has turned into a huge brawl. RUUUUUMBLE! POW!…… Ouch, that had to hurt!….. I imagine they’ll stop breaking up my furniture in a few minutes, so if y’all don’t object, I’ll take a short break here, and let them finish up. BlAM! POP! CRUNCH!…. Oooh, that was nasty! Duck!…. Okay, I’ll be back shortly, when peace breaks out…..

Okay, then….. they seem to have finished up. What a mess! A couple of mornings ago, Murphy made me knock over a lamp first thing upon awakening, and must have thought it was funny, because he did it again this morning….. only worse, as it took the entire table down today. Then, I sit up, only to find Murphy, and three of his pals, rolling around, locked in fierce combat on my floor, with furniture flying in all directions…. It was almost like a scene from an old western, only there was no honky-tonk piano in the background, and no ever-present odor of horse manure…..

It was almost enough to make me go back to sleep, but, being the dedicated blogger I am, I got up and retreated, WITH my coffee, to worship at the porcelain throne for a while….. which seems to have worked, as they all got bored and left…. It’s handy that Murphy and his myrmidons have an objection to bathrooms and other places dedicated to cleaning up….. That sort of adolescent attitude is helpful to us old farts….. especially those of us who have achieved frequent-flier status in there….

Now, though, I’m at somewhat of a loss, without any idea of where to go from here…. It took all I’ve got to get this far, and I’m afraid I may have used up a good portion of today’s equanimity to keep from freaking out so early. I’m not sure what that will mean later on, but it promises to make life interesting….

Uh oh, there’s that word again…. interesting…. My life has, per the curse leveled at me when I was younger by the old Chinese gentleman, been far too interesting for my comfort up to this point, and I’m not sure I can live through any more “interesting times”…. I suppose I could just hide for the day, stay in my room and let the world go on about its business without my unnecessary presence; it’s not as if I’m involved in any seriously important stuff right now.

But, I can’t allow hiding to become a habitual response to Murphy’s ubiquitous efforts at disrupting my serenity, or he’ll win. Not going to happen, not on my watch….. So, we’ll slip on flippers and a mask, and go see what the old dB has for us this morning….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“How’s the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism?” — Zippy the Pinhead
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I’m feeling a bit nasty today, it having occurred to me that I am now into my third year of waiting for Social Security to get through winding their way to giving me my benefits…. It’s insane, is what it is…. So, the following old school group of pearls all have one object… to vilify, denigrate, and otherwise make fun of government, and all those insane, sociopathic people who engage in that disgusting habit…..

“An elephant: a mouse built to government specifications.” — Lazarus Long

“For some reason the little Senators make us laugh.” — Smart Bee

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

Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious bandersnatch

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

(Didn’t anyone ever tell you? In Jabberwocky, indeed, in most of Dodgson’s work, metaphor is king…. the jub jub bird is, of course, a Supreme Court justice, and obviously, a frumious bundersnatch is a member of Congress (in Dodgson’s world, a member of Parliament)….., and the Jabberwock? Patently, we’re talking of the President (or the Prime Minister, take your pick…..)

“Gun collection programs are a good way to get rid of a murder weapon.” — Smart Bee
(Oops…. wrong pearl…. wait…. no, it’s okay, it will work here…. sorry, but, when irony strikes….)

Honest politician — Oxymoron

“All authority is quite degrading.” — Oscar Wilde

Lastly, to round it off at nine… a very cosmic number, BTW… a summary of the other eight pearls, from one of the sharpest political and social philosophers of the twentieth century…..

“Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an ‘inconvenience.’ We have opted instead for an authoritarian system *disguised* as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.” — Frank Zappa
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Soliloquy of The Solipsist

I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
When my eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon’s celestial onion
Hangs high.

I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look’s leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.

I
When in good humor,
Give grass its green
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any color and forbid any flower
To be.

I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it’s quite clear
All you beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.

~~ Sylvia Plath

SIGH…. gotta love genius….
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“Can I leave now? My brain is full.” — Smart Bee

I’m not sure exactly why, but this appeals to me; I’ve felt this way often, and can empathize strongly with whoever wrote it….. In its quiet little way, it also points at my own current state of mind, in that I seem to be out of outrage…. There are so many examples in my sphere of perception, of the evil being done every day, by the government, by churches, by random assholes with more testosterone than brains, I’m finding it hard to pick out just one or two to rant about…. For me, that is a disastrous state to be caught in, since much of what I do here involves ranting about stuff that tickles my outrage….

I suppose y’all might just be laughing at me just now, as this may seem like a minor complaint…. and, in a cosmic sense, it really is. But, lest we forget, MY cosmos is the one being affected, which will affect what I write about, and when, and how much, and y’all will be the ones that have to deal with the fallout….. You’ll be singing a different song, then, I’ll wager…. Ripples in the pond, don’t’cha know?….

This isn’t to say that’s what I WANT to happen; I’ve given my opinion previously on how much I dislike being unable to write something, whether it’s a rant, or an old-school pearl, or a poem…. Writing has become for me as important as reading, and I’ll consider writing ANYTHING, if it seems even the slightest bit intriguing, just like I’ll read just about ANYTHING, including milk cartons and cereal boxes, if that’s all there is to read…. Now, writing has assumed an equal importance in my scheme, and any glitches in the process can stimulate worry…. mankind’s true nemesis….

“More people have died of worry, than ever bled to death.” — Lazarus Long…..

Rather than spending any significant amount of time worrying, I decided to seize on what I had, and just jump in & start writing…. So far, it isn’t too shabby, but needs…. something…. aha! A hook…. I need a hook…. okay, let’s see what we have laying about…..

Nope, nada damn thing to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, which kicks the worrying up a notch or two, for sure…. Calliope has deserted me for other parts, the headlines are too bland to get worked up about, and the Westboro Baptist Church of Fools has been strangely silent of late…. All I have here, as I gaze around the room in pathetic hope, are the same old items I’ve been looking at for seven months now, since moving here…. most of which has either been already explored, or isn’t worth mentioning….

I see now I should have, perhaps, prepared for this a bit better; research is always useful, and it would be nice to not have to get all antsy just because my imagination is coming up empty. Whining about it isn’t going to help, or solve the issue, so we’ll skip right by that, and go into strategic planning mode, followed by a dip into tactical operations mode, and we’re home free…. Let’s see now, first, a small diversion… I can do that…. Look, over there! It’s a pearl!….

“Why can’t we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a ‘War’ on it?” — Rich Thomson

Now, THERE’s a question for the BRC, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t get as much response as we’d like…. Good strategy demands, after a diversion, a foray out into enemy territory, to gather intelligence…. so….

“All power rests on hierarchy: An army is nothing but a well-organized lynch mob.” — Edward Abbey

Okay, that’s intelligent…. now, we shoot back…..

“If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” — Anatole France

Yep, that had to hurt…. Okay, so now, all we have to do to have achieved our strategic goal is to finish them off with unassailable logic, combined with a bit of humor…. no worries…

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” — Albert Einstein

“It’s not the pace of life that bothers me, it’s the sudden stop at the end.” — Hobbes

See? It’s all in the wrist…. Using two pearls for the last thought was deliberate, though it helped that both of them came up one after the other, as if pre-ordained…. But it just fit, as the first supplies the unassailable logic, and the second the humor…. and, as we all know by now, timing is everything……
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As probably came through loud and clear, I was a bit worried about this Pearl; it didn’t want to come together without some rather tricky meandering. All in all, though, it came out okay, and, once again,…. wait for it…. It’s done! That factor alone accounts for at least half of its charm, in my book…. What’s more, it’s still quite early in the day, so there is hope that the less than auspicious beginning can be mitigated enough to make the rest of the day a bit less chaotic… Time will tell, I have no doubt, whatsoever….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Mesmerizing patterns in colorful silk….

Posted on January 24, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
It isn’t my habit to begin the day with blood and death, before I’ve even had my morning coffee, so I was mildly surprised to find both awaiting me as I stepped into the hallway outside my room. Since the body lying half-in, half-out of the elevator was pale, unmoving, and there was a box car’s worth of blood pooled around the area, I didn’t bother to check the pulse, but just pulled out my phone to call it in to dispatch, avoiding transfer of the still sticky mess on the floor to my shoes by walking to the other end of the hall. As a detective in the Homicide division, I figured it was awfully damn accommodating of the murderer to drop his handiwork right outside my door, and I wasn’t going to let anyone else take over my first home-delivery corpse….

What do you think? Decent opening for a murder mystery? I haven’t figured out the cop’s name yet, but you can bet it will be something hard-boiled, and cynical. Hey, probably the biggest market out there in the book world is murder mysteries, and if I can come up with an engaging character, it could lead to a whole series of books, thus assuring me of a more comfortable retirement, and keeping me busy enough to not intrude into the lives of my children more than is healthy, for them, or me. Not that such has been an issue, but I don’t wish to be a burden on them in my ‘golden’ years, and it would be cool to hit it big with my writing…..

We writers of blogs probably all have a similar dream…. Some editor or agent will be cruising the Net, and stumble across our work…. they’ll be so impressed they offer us a the gig of a lifetime…. For me, that would be a daily column, wherein I can share with millions of folks all my angst and silliness, in the process, perhaps, convincing a few of them to make some changes in their own sphere of influence, and little by little, the world will change….. for the better…… Well, that’s the dream, anyway….. All I need now is the agent, the editor/publisher, and a venue…. 🙂 I know, it’s a dream, though, so it can be as foolish as I want it to be….

Foolish, or profound and insightful, it would no doubt be best to just get on with it. Nobody can read my writing, if I don’t write, so, let’s get into the water, and find something I can turn into a gem of great beauty…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“The mockingbird can change its tune eighty-seven times in seven minutes. Politicians regard this interesting fact with envy.” — Smart Bee

Hah! What a perfect opening pearl! Funny, and as true as the day is long….. It’s almost enough to start me off on a rant, since it zoomed right in to focus on my favorite group of miscreants to pester with my pointed stick. I say “almost” because I’ll need a bit more than this to really find a vulnerable point at which to poke; this is good, but it’s a bit imprecise for good ranting…. Let’s see what else we can come up with…..

“Innocence, most often, is good fortune and not a virtue.” — Anatole France

Hmm…. not bad, but not quite right, either….. Politicos, and other denizens of the BRC, all want us to believe in their innocence, but seem to want us to buy into that without any proof of said innocence. Not to mention, I would wager serious money that none of them qualify to use the term to describe themselves, in ANY area of their life, so, in that sense, it’s too easy…. We’ll go on, & look for something “mo bettah”….

“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.” — Napoleon

Nappie’s rule of thumb here could be said to be a summarization of every political party platform I’ve seen during an election in the past 60 years, and would no doubt make a decent rant, as the recent swearing in of our latest electoral fantasy winner provides a number of such promises, that could be used for examples…. But, to be fair, I suppose we should give Barry a few weeks, at least, to see whether or not he will make any effort to meet his stated goals, or if he’ll just put it away in the drawer marked, “election promises” along with the tax cuts, wars ended, and bankers punished for their crimes….

“One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations… is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.” — Jimmy Carter

Damn! That tears it! I forgot entirely about Jimmy Carter, so of course, since I’m looking for examples of how politicians screw with us, Murphy sends me off into one of Jimmy’s totally rational ideas, and my entire premise is shattered. Of course, Jimmy Carter is that exception that proves the rule for politicians; he is a morally upright man, who has worked his entire life to make the world a better place, working for the benefit of all people, yet somehow got roped into politics. He’s such a nice man, he didn’t want to say no, and got stuck in public office for most of his adult years.

Shoot, now we’ll have to cancel the rest of this pearl…. It’s no doubt too late to salvage the sense of outrage needed to produce a rant, and it doesn’t seem as if Smart Bee is going to cough up anything that hits the correct spot…. So, I’ll just leave you with this final indictment, and get on with the rest of this….. whatever this is…..

“A politician has to be able to see both sides of an issue, so he can get around it.” — Smart Bee
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“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” — T. S. Eliot

MORNING AT THE WINDOW

THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

— T.S. Eliot

Bonus round:

That such have died enables us
The tranquiler to die;
That such have lived, certificate
For immortality.

— Emily Dickinson
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“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” — Clive James

I love to dance, so this makes a lot of sense to me. It also explains why there are no true politicians who are capable of either sustained laughter or the simplest waltz, much less a tango…. Ah hell…. brain freeze…..

I hate that. Calliope has apparently deserted me to stimulate another fledgling poet somewhere, and Thalia, the muse of comedy, is currently on sabbatical. Polyhymnia, muse of sacred poetry, bores me to tears, and Clio, muse of history, is busy on another blog. In fact, all nine of the classical muses are unavailable, so I’m stuck with whatever I have in my head, and that means we’re all in serious trouble….. The pressure is building, and if I can’t find some sort of outlet in the next few minutes, well, the carnage will be extensive, rest assured…..

On most days, Smart Bee would provide me with at least SOMETHING to bridge the gap, but, so far today, it has been relatively uncooperative, as the first pearl demonstrated. We may have to resort to emergency procedures, which, since this hasn’t occurred before, are untested, and might not be altogether safe…. They do contain explosives, in small, manageable portions, for clearing a path through any debris that may be encountered. Quantities of debris are often a result when I have to use the emergency tools…. I realize it’s a risky policy, but, hey, we run this operation on a shoestring, and all we can do is all we can do, y’know….

— Bother! said Pooh, as he went blotchy from that time with Eeyore.

There! I didn’t want to do it, but circumstances forced my hand. I don’t enjoy pulling Pooh’s covers like this, but, given his true nature, as revealed here, he deserves it. People need to know this kind of stuff, before they let their children get all dewy-eyed at his purported terminal cuteness, and find out later how twisted he really is. It’s a sad and all-too-accurate commentary on human nature when one thinks of how many young minds have been corrupted by this evil little bear of no brain; people tend to fall for such apparent innocence every time, and allow themselves to be disadvantaged, and victimized, by evil wearing the guise of good.

There, see, even the worst of pearls can be turned around, if one is patient, and has no shame. I’m going to allow this to die a peaceful death at this point, since I can’t seem to think of anywhere else it should, or could, go….. Must be the lack of muses….. In any case, we’ll bring this faux pearl to a halt now, with no regrets whatsoever…..

“YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN DOLL HOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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Shameless, I know…. just shameless…. You might ask yourself, though, what YOU would do if you found yourself in my position, with a blog to post, and not a damn thing worth writing in your head….. Another day, maybe I would have put a bit more effort into at least providing this with some class, or elegance, but, hell, it just didn’t seem appropriate today. I guess I just woke up on the wrong side of my head….

We’ll just have to console ourselves with knowing that it is done, which, after all, is the real quest here….. Well, that, and maintaining the pitifully weak grasp I have on sanity….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Mitigating the dangers of priestly concern….

Posted on January 23, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Eerie, plaintive organ music is playing in my head, and there is something lurking just around a corner, at the edge of my vision, that darts away if I try to look at it. There’s a cold chill in my room, and I keep having to look over my shoulder, as it just feels like I’m being watched….. If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone was trying to mess with me, by setting me down in a horror flick, complete with evil poltergeist, and maybe a slasher….. Of course, I don’t have a basement, or an attic, where I can go explore the patently scary-dangerous noises, or any teenage girls on hand to provide the obligatory screams, but, I wouldn’t put it past Murphy to try to fuck with me in a new way like that; he’s pretty inventive at times…..

Ah well, so be it….. I’m not a big horror film fan, ever since 1954 when my older siblings dragged me to see the opening of the Creature From The Black Lagoon. At four years of age, it wasn’t a big hit with me, and I’ve never liked that sort of movie ever since; just never saw any sense in paying people to scare me. I manage to find enough things in real life that perform that function just fine, thank you very much, and didn’t see why I should give someone money to do so, especially since money seemed so hard to come by (four-year-olds don’t get a lot of money-making opportunities…..).

I spent the entire movie in the lobby, after the monster’s first appearance, until the ending, when I went back in to find my sister and brother, and caught the ending scene. Even at four, I was a bit skeptical, to see the chisel-jawed hero knock the Creature out with a right cross…. Though I was only four years old, that didn’t seem realistic, to see a normal sized man punch out a seven-foot tall creature that made an eighty-foot long boat rock when he climbed aboard…. My innate feel for the physical world told me that was silly….

That was my last experience with attending horror flicks; I’ve kept my personal promise to myself, to never waste money on fear, especially as entertainment….. I just don’t get it, myself. Why is it considered a good thing to make yourself afraid? Many, many people get a big kick out of it, and I’ve never been able to understand why that is; I hate the effect that adrenaline has on me, and did so even before my experiences in living with it all the time. It has never been “fun” to feel those kinds of feelings, not to me, so I have a hard time understanding the impulse. The experiences I had later in my life, when I was getting regular doses of adrenaline administered to my system, only served to reinforce those feelings in me, and I still avoid horror films, to this day…..

It’s just another example of diversity, I guess, and goes to show that it’s probably a good thing that everybody is so different. All those people who like the horror film genre can have their entertaining sessions of manufactured fear, I can totally ignore it, and nobody is bothered at all….. Just don’t ask me to go with you to explore the attic when there are funny noises coming from it, and an organ is playing in the background….. You’re on your own, in that case…… You may borrow a knife, or a baseball bat, but, no way I’m going up there with you….

Shall we Pearl?……
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“Excellent.” — Moritz von Schwind (1804-71), Austrian painter, last word

I suppose it’s normal to begin to think about Death more often as one gets older. It does seem to assume a larger significance in our view of the world, as the time for its manifestation approaches, even though we know not at all exactly when it will happen. As dying words go, this one is, well, excellent, and I can only hope that I will have something as elegant and classy to say when my time comes….. Something on the order of, “Wow, that was quite a ride!”, or “I wonder if there will be ice cream in the afterlife?” You know, classy stuff, deep with insight and philosophical significance…. Right…..

Epitaphs also become more of an interest with age, I’ve found. I saw a really cool one this morning as I cruised Smart Bee…. “Here lies XXX XXXXX, for all that it matters.” Very droll, eh? Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found epitaphs to be a very interesting, even intriguing form of literature, with some of the finest examples of wit, and even wisdom, ever written by human hand (though, come to think of it, what other type of hand might be writing, I don’t know….. just an expression….).

Limericks, poems of all kinds, questions, answers, declarations, assertions, complaints, insults, political comments and judgments, all can be found at their best on gravestones, tombs, and crypts all over the world, from all periods of history…. I’ve seen translations of the funereal hieroglyphics on the walls of Egyptian tombs that, essentially, were jokes in the form of an epitaph, and some of the ones I’ve read from early American times were absolutely hilarious. Books have been written, I’m sure, compiling the wit and wisdom that is displayed in such hallowed grounds, and I may just spend some time at the library trying to find one, because it would be an extremely interesting read…..

The subject’s interest is, of course, easily understood, as Death is just about as common an experience as exists, for all of us. And, it isn’t hard to comprehend why such a serious subject is such a magnet for humor; if we don’t laugh at Death, we will most certainly cry, for it is the single most terrifying experience we have to face in our lives, once the trauma of being born is healed, or, at least, forgotten. We humans, for some reason, have no idea what happens before we are born, or after we die, and that lack of knowledge is terrifying to most people…. well, to ALL people, really. Some just handle it better than others, I suppose….. All of which is why, I suppose, most people eventually try to assume the following attitude about life in general….

“Don’t take life so seriously… it’s only a temporary situation.” — Smart Bee

This sort of assumed lackadaisical outlook is, if nothing else, comforting for most folks, and ffolkes, too. I’m a firm believer in laughing at Life, Death, and the whole nine yards of Reality, especially at myself and my attempts to deal with all the above, and not only because it feels better than the alternative…. It’s also healthier. But, that aside, dealing with the serious side of Reality is a hard row to hoe, most of the time, so balancing that stress and struggle with some humor works well to mitigate the difficulty we all experience in getting on with our lives through the moral and ethical morass that is modern day society.

We aren’t going to get much help with anything from the BRC, or the priestly hierarchies, and society itself is too amorphous to depend on for anything so mundane, so we may as well take the reins for our own happiness into our own hands…. and part of that is facing the concept of Death with courage, and humor, and a sense of wonder, rather than letting it fill us with dread and unreasoning fear…. Mind over matter, ffolkes….. if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter…..

“It’s OKAY — I’m an INTELLECTUAL, too.” — Zippy the Pinhead
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It’s Death Again

It’s Death again – He’s always there –
Watching, waiting – e’er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood –
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he’ll never go.
The adamant phantom; don’t you know
He will but wait until it’s time
For me to hear His fateful chime? –
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: ‘You’re next, it has to be…

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
———-
Seen on a headstone in a graveyard in England:

John Macfarlane (dates unknown)

Erected to the memory of
John Macfarlane
Drowned in the Waters of Leith
By a few affectionate friends.

🙂
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“I’ve never killed a man, but I’ve read many obituaries with great pleasure.” — Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

I really love the power of understatement; this one from Mr. Darrow is an excellent condemnation of a huge class of people, unnamed as yet, but whose names are indelibly etched on our memories, just waiting to be included in a list of people the world would be better off without…. We all have a list by that title in our heads; anyone who denies it is a liar, plain and simple, and fooling no one. As a human being, it is part of our nature to hate, and nobody is so morally chaste as to escape those kinds of feelings now and then. Nobody…..

Sometimes, what amazes me about modern life is that there are so FEW outbreaks of random violence… I’d think that, with all the pressure our society puts on people, there would be a lot more of us who crack, enough to lose control over our baser impulses, and start trying to cross names off our list of preferred targets….. The way they usually go about it isn’t the most logical, or tactically intelligent, but what do you expect from somebody in an emotional crisis? Logical thinking? Not going to happen, sorry….. I’d say it would be time to get nervous when some guy starts blasting away, then disappears, only to attack again later, in a new place…. That would indicate more planning and strategy, and a much more dangerous person…..

I’m not sure just why I started this pearl…. It might have been in response to yet another random shooting spree reported yesterday in the news, in which a teenager started firing at people because of some argument he/she had with another teen, or something like that… another totally insane reason to start killing people, but, then, do you really expect rational from these people? It isn’t rational to expect them to have an understandable reason for their insanity, it doesn’t work that way…..

But, the media will spend an incredible amount of time and energy exploring every nuance of what this idiot was doing when they snapped, until no secrets are left to the young person’s life…. In looking at the entire incident, including the media coverage, I am tempted to give a big sigh, and lament the death of society, or at least the apparent death of decency…..

Amorphous anxiety seems to be our legacy as members of today’s culture; our lives consist of a series of unpalatable events fueled by unwarranted lies, and made worse for a societal tendency toward sloth combined with a severe lack of compassion; the sheer futility of it all seems to be the only message that comes through clearly. The fatal flaw in human nature that keeps us from becoming truly moral creatures is still in control of our destiny, and any impetus toward rationality is disallowed.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.” — Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

This is the flaw we possess, all of us, and that which has plagued us throughout our history. One of my blogging friends commented a day or two ago with a relatively famous quote, in response to another discussion around the recent spate of reported shootings…. “All that is needed for evil to succeed, is for good men to look on and do nothing.” (She didn’t report the attribution, but according to Google, it was first stated by a man named Edmund Burke, with a number of slight alterations in wording since its appearance.) This single truth has been the biggest stumbling block to human progress for our entire history, and continues today to keep us from making any progress toward improving our chances of survival in the long run.

Once more, I’ve painted myself into a virtual corner, so to speak, since I don’t have any good solutions to offer to our dilemma. Oh sure, I can tell anyone what is needed for us to start making the world into the kind of place that would be home to EVERYONE…. I think, down inside, all of us KNOW what is needed for the world to be a better place. But, until it becomes common practice for people to make decisions based on compassion and love, rather than ambition and avarice, things aren’t going to change much, because the folks who don’t care about others aren’t going to stop what they’re doing…. there’s nothing in it for them if they do. Only when good men stand up, and refuse to allow that kind of usurpation of the rights of everyone else, will any changes take place…..

So, you tell me….. When is that going to happen? And how do we convince people that it needs to happen? Answer those two questions, and we might have a direction to go……

“If you ever go temporarily insane, don’t shoot somebody, like a lot of people do. Instead, try to get some weeding done, because you’d really be surprised.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
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I tend to cook, and then eat what I cook, rather than pull weeds, when I’m feeling homicidal, but that’s just me…. otherwise, Jack’s advice is unusually relevant, and surprisingly valuable, coming as it does from perhaps the world’s most egregiously stupid person…. (Don’t worry, Jack doesn’t mind the insults; his creator made him that way deliberately, so I doubt he’d sue me for stating the obvious success of his caricaturization….) That single thing is probably why I’m so overweight…..

Well, here I am, at the end of another Pearl…. I find myself almost melancholy; the process of creation has, of late, been particularly….. satisfying….. So, going on to the rest of the day’s activities brings some sadness at having to cease an enjoyable experience. Now, all I have to do is take my own advice, delivered so freely, to allow the change to happen without reluctance, or resistance from me, accepting the good feeling, and going on to the next…. Okay, I can do that….. Watch me….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Look, it’s twitching!….

Posted on January 22, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Assorted visions of inept tennis professionals dance dimly before me, laughingly serving cold cuts and hors d’ouevre to a group of banking officials dressed in mufti. Even when the music swells into a cacophonous roar, those faithful and patient rhododendron drivers continue to ply their vegetated wares to the lingering crowd of Elvis impersonators in the parlor. Fortunately for all, though every single eyelid was twitching in time, the audio synchronization was off by a full three seconds, thus preventing any further emotional outbreaks. Such is the way with all pastoral passions, in this land of enchanting cardboard homeless shelters…..

There, take that! I dare you to make any sense of it….. This paragraph has been especially designed and built to resist all attempts to do so, and we need to have someone try, to see how it does under actual reading conditions. If it tests out okay, I’m going to try to sell it to some random member of the BRC, to use next time they want to distract the public from what they’re really doing…. I don’t know, this one might be a bit esoteric for a politician; maybe a priest could use it to confuse some poor sap who wanders in from the cold, looking for food….. This won’t get him fed, but at least he won’t know why….

I’m feeling a little radical today, if you couldn’t tell….. At the least, it is becoming clear that we here at Exploring Consensual Reality have no traces of cherophobia, nor will it ever find any place here to settle in (cherophobia = fear of having fun….). If you believe in the traditional idea of God, well, then you can say, “God forbid!”, and let it go at that. Nobody’s perfect…..If you have some doubts as to the accuracy of the dogma, well, congratulations, and welcome to the party. We’ll be serving up some rather tasty political or social discourse later on, and you will enjoy it, I’m sure….. and there are handy-wipes in the receptacle under your seat…..

For those of you who may be new to the way we do things around here, all I can do is wish you luck; it’s too late for the rest of us to even think of turning back. And, as for Big Brother and the Beloved Ruling Class, they will have to wait their turn at the table; they get no special perks here….. Hmm, I am beginning to suspect that this is getting a bit out of control, and might need to have the choke chain tightened up a tad. I had to let the insurance lapse, so we can’t afford to let anyone get bitten…..

It’s a good thing, probably, that this intro section has now reached the five paragraph standard that was set some time ago; I’m not sure how much longer I could keep it out of the visitor’s gallery, where it would no doubt cause undue hardship for many. Besides, I’m getting a trifle confused, from wandering so far from what passes for normal around these parts; I think we should get on with today’s dive before it gets totally irrational. I’m thinking….. No, I’d better not…. Never mind, we’ll just grab our mask and fins, and go…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses….” — Edward Abbey

I like this….. I was thinking the other day about the things that people believe about God, as is a habit of mine, for some reason I’ve never bothered to examine; it’s just what I do. Any who, it occurred to me that most people have a vision in their mind, of what they believe God would look like, and their view of the universe, in a way, is influenced by whatever they see in that vision. Since I can’t accept the vision that is provided for us by all the different religious systems of dogma, or rather, any of the multitude of similar visions, ffolkes who read this blog might wonder what I do see when I look at my version of how a god should look….

Actually, I can answer that one with ease…. I just look in the mirror. And so can you…. You see, that answer is already documented, in my own personal philosophy, Peruaosophy, wherein Axiom #3 states, “Thou art God, you know…. Let’s do lunch.” I know that the phrase, “Thou art God”, is stealing from Robert Heinlein. His character, Michael Valentine Smith, the Man from Mars, used it as the basic premise of the religion he started in the book, by which he tried to teach the people of Earth all he had learned from living with the Martians, a very advanced race, who were completely in tune with the Real Nature of the Universe, which is to say, they had realized that they were God….

It probably sounds a bit egotistic to make that statement, but in reality, it is not. We are all God, just as every living creature, every rock, every planet, every piece of dust, and everything else we perceive, and don’t perceive, all together, is what I believe to be the real God. Everything that exists is a piece of the whole, and bears within it all the power and glory of the whole. This isn’t a new idea, and in fact, most of the Christian faiths attempt to weave this little piece of reality into the fabric of their own beliefs, but in a way that corrupts and demeans people, in favor of a delusional old man with childish passions…..

“A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.” — H.L. Mencken

🙂 It is this little bit of truth that most likely persuaded some ancient cave dweller to fabricate the religious structures that define current theological thought, knowing that most folks AREN’T capable of original thought, and would accept anything they put forth as truth, as long as they didn’t have to think about it themselves. How else to explain how perfectly normal, intelligent people will buy this BS? Most of the actions they ascribe to God, and his myrmidons, in the Bible, and other holy treatises, are those of a spoiled child, with no impulse control, and no empathy for the creatures He is purported to have created…..

One of the dead giveaways for me has always been this idea of Free Will…. The whole construct is flimsy, from a logical standpoint, to begin with, and then to make the assumption that some divine entity GAVE us this characteristic, and then placed limits and rules on how it should be used….. I’m sorry, but that is just TOO much for me to believe all at once. It doesn’t make any sense, until you factor in who is telling the tale. A quick look at the motivation behind the story will make it obvious that, oh, that’s right! This is all intended to benefit the preachers! Only the priestly classes benefit from making the assumptions they spout; that much is abundantly clear…. It’s insulting, to me, to think that they think I’ll fall for it….

But then I realize that they would HAVE to make that assumption, because almost everyone they encounter buys into it, without ever looking at it any deeper than the surface, accepting what they are told about what it all means. Sadly, it is NOT a common trait in this, or any other, country, to teach critical thinking to our children, so they tend to believe anything they are told, before they have learned or developed any defense against such cognitive repression.

I’m not sure exactly how I slipped through the cracks, but I do know there aren’t all that many of us out there, who question the validity of humanity’s most commonly held delusional systems….. Most of us aren’t too vocal about, with good reason…. Me, I don’t care anymore what anybody might think, and I’m past any fear I might have had regarding retribution from crazed ignoramuses who might get upset at my beliefs; if they want a piece of me, well, come on down, either virtually, or in reality; I’m easy….. and a lot more dangerous than I might appear on the surface. Plus, guilt never slows me down at all, having been eliminated from my emotional make-up long ago….. I only feel bad about what I CHOOSE to feel bad about, not what anyone else might think….

Okay, I’ve done it again…. written myself out of material. I can’t decide in which direction to take this, which is a sure sign it is enough. One of my intentions in writing this piece was to clarify my own beliefs, so that nobody can point out that I am against a lot of stuff, but don’t have anything with which to replace what I would get rid of…. To be perfectly clear, in all respects, I will leave you now with a reprinting of Peruaosophy, my personal philosophy, as today’s poetry selection, so it doesn’t take up any more space here….. As for here, I’m done…..
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Peruaosophy

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

Axioms

1) I think I am; that’s close enough.

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

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

4) Excellence is its own reward.

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

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

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

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

~~ gigoid

Hmm…. editorial note: I’m thinking this may need a new axiom, as I just realized there is one thing missing…. I’m thinking it would fit in at #8, with the appropriate adjustments to the old #8, which would become #9, a much more cosmically balanced number…. The new axiom would say, “Your head was not designed to be used as a chair.”…… Thoughts? Comments? Derisive laughter?….

You’ll be glad to know, perhaps, that no innocent assumptions were harmed in the construction of this philosophy….. We did, however, mercilessly eliminate a significant number of lies we’d been told since childhood, and, I have to admit, had a lot of fun gleefully murdering numerous misapprehensions offered up by unscrupulous power mongers in the guise of religious dogma…..
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“I want another RE-WRITE on my CAESAR SALAD!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

As is patently obvious by now, I hope, I value my nonsense. Life is serious business, most of the time, and it doesn’t always leave us room to have fun. So, I believe that one should take the opportunity, whenever it presents itself, to inject a bit of silliness into whatever is happening at the moment. It doesn’t cost anything but a bit of time and wit, and the results are often much more beneficial than we could imagine. Most of the world’s most brilliant minds know this rule of thumb, and aren’t afraid to tickle the ribs of life…. Goodness knows we all can use a good chuckle now and again, as we find our way through the maze that reality builds for us, or we become all dry, and our souls shrivel up like a prune…..

“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” — Willie Wonka

This principle, you will note, is prevalent throughout everything I write; that is my intent, and my hope, anyway. No matter how serious a subject, there is always something ironic, or something just plain silly, that one can see in the midst of all the heaviness, and it can not only make the subject more palatable, but more understandable, as well, by clarifying the definition through the use of contrast. Kind of like using a colorful frame for a boring picture, it brings out those parts that may not have been noticeable otherwise….. In cooking, think of how a bit of cayenne pepper, and a dash of Tabasco, can wake up a Hollandaise sauce, turning it from heavy and bland, to rich and savory, in an instant…..

“Are you having fun? I am.” — Smart Bee

This is the key, right here…. Life can be fun, or it can be a burden; the choice is entirely ours as to which it becomes for us. It goes back to that Free Will issue I mentioned above, in a way. You can accept the limits that society and custom place on you, and live within those constraints very comfortably, if a bit boringly. Or, you can take the responsibility for your own feelings, and your own actions, and choose a life without coloring within all the lines. No matter how often they tell you, or how convincing may be the arguments, you still have the choice in your own hands whether or not to go along with the program, or to write your own….. Personally, I prefer to write my own, and I like it that way, strange as it can get at times…..

Roses are red,
Violets are blue
Some poems rhyme
But this one doesn’t.

— Smart Bee
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Whee! What a rush! That last section almost got away from me, but, I was tougher than it was, and I got it to fall into line there at the end…. It’s a battle sometimes, to get it down just so….. Let’s see how it flows…. Judgments on quality held in reserve, I’ll take it. If nothing else, it drapes well…. and, it’s done, my favorite condition for a Pearl….. Hasta la bye bye, amigos, until mañana…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Milling around the foyer in fabulous shoes….

Posted on January 20, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Morning insinuated itself into my awareness slyly today, sliding past the pillars of sleep’s palace, to poke me in the proverbial ribs. Even before getting out of bed, there were signs that might have given me a clue about how things would be, such as when the lamp went flying away from my grasp as if I were trying to tickle it, not switch it on, taking itself and most of the nearby chess pieces to the floor. Spoons jumping out of cups, toilet seats taking a vicious swipe at exposed flesh, shirts that try to strangle one to get them on….. It seems the inanimate world had a conference last night, and decided to declare war on me, starting today at sunrise.

I can deal with it….. This isn’t a new battle in this house; I’m constantly negotiating compromises and truces with the kitchen appliances, or spending the day fixing or repairing old junk, just to stay on the microwave’s good side. Every one of my appliances, knick knacks, and decorative posters has, at one time or another, been the subject of a pitched conflict over whether or not I have the right to use them as I deem fit.

I admit there are times when I’ve lost my cool, and done harm to innocent spoons. I’ve been unconsciously cruel to various pieces of clothing in the past, it’s true, though it wasn’t intentional, merely unconsciously inconsiderate. And the floor is always complaining that I never sweep or mop…. hey, what does it want? I’m a bachelor!….. The world is lucky if I shower often enough to keep from curling the paint….

Ah well, such is life in the hours before dawn…. one can never predict exactly what will happen on the cusp of the day. Possibility is everywhere, and the choices we make can make or break the entire day, depending on how well we approach the task of waking up.

Me, I’m an old hand at getting it done, no matter what it takes. Why, I’ve been known to spew out five or six paragraphs of absolute bilge water at the slightest provocation, just to get a Pearl started….. Oh, right, that’s what I just did, isn’t it? Oops….. I’d better salvage what I can, while I can…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“.. I think I’d better go back to my DESK and toy with a few common MISAPPREHENSIONS…” — Zippy the Pinhead
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I found the Heinlein quote below, an old one, with great potential for a rant. Some time in the last day or so, however, my outrage seems to have boarded a train, or a bus, and gone on vacation. No note, no phone call, just gone…. What a pisser! Any who, I decided to just let the old sub-conscious mind have its head, and pick some other pearls to go along with it. I can’t say it is the most obvious, or the most powerful, pearl ever put together, but, it has its points….. Those points, of course, are left as an exercise for the Gentle Reader, with no promise of recompense, but assurances of value…. enjoy!….

“When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.” — Robert A Heinlein, “If this goes on –”

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” — Thomas Paine

“Still one more thing, fellow citizens: a wise and frugal government, which shall refrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), inaugural address, 1801

“Yes, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can’t let the package hide the pudding! Evil is just plain bad! You don’t cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog. Bad dog.” — The Tick

(Oops, how did this slip in here?…. Ah well, it kind of fits in, so, we’ll show a little literary compassion, and let it stay….) (Just think of how satisfying, and entertaining, it would be to use that rolled up paper on a Congressman…. Republican, or Democrat, it would be hilarious, as well as potentially lucrative….)

“And that’s the Truth! THPPPPT!” — Edith Ann (Lily Tomlin)
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After that, I’m feeling a bit serious…. hence, Dylan Thomas, a serious poet, and a serious subject….

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

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

For the uninitiated, this is from Star Trek, a line from the fourth movie, The Voyage Home. It is the answer, and question, posed to Spock by the computer, near the beginning of the movie, just before it asks him, “How do you feel?” Though the quote, and its author, are part of a fictional story, and do not, as far as I know, exist in real life, the idea is nonetheless a potent philosophical assertion, and deserving of some meditation upon its implications, and ramifications. I like it, as it creates a series of doorways, one after another opening for welcome, inviting me to come in and examine its furnishings for their value…. A bit fanciful, perhaps, but then, it IS from Star Trek….

“Trekkies” have always taken the concept behind the show and movies much more seriously than most of us, and have created an entire panorama of alternate universe stories, legends, and characters as an adjunct to the original tales. I am certain that some fan, somewhere in the world, has put together a book that lays out Kiri-Kin-Tha’s philosophy for study, complete with Laws, Axioms, and Arguments. They probably even included material from other fictional works from the ST venue, weaving them into a coherent treatise, all of which is completely fabricated….. People can be pretty amazing when they are obsessed, indeed…..

“Nothing unreal exists.”….. fascinating, as Spock would say. It is reminiscent, in a backwards fashion, of the question posed by the door to Ravenclaw Tower, in the final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, when Professor McGonagall is queried, “Where do Vanished objects go?” by the door, in order to gain entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. “Into nonbeing, which is to say, everything.”, she answers immediately. “Nicely phrased”, replied the door….. I say backwards only because the ST movie came first in real time, by about 25 years or so…. As can be seen, however, the concepts involved in the two similar episodes are more than mere ideological throw-aways, but have some valid basis for their existence…

This is the power of Imagination at its finest, in my mind. People will take a good idea, and run with it into landscapes where it has never before been conceived, turning it into passionate variations on the original theme whose quality rivals that of it progenitor. At the height of the frenzy over the Harry Potter movies, a few years ago, I visited a site called MuggleNet.com, curious as to what the fans of the movie and stories were doing.

I was completely astounded by the prolific writings by fans, who wrote entire novels, short stories, and alternative plots by the dozens, all populated by the characters from the books by J.K. Rowling. Romances between the various characters abounded in the imagination of the fans, as well as the creation of new characters, and inventive new kinds of magical spells, objects, and creatures. The variety and depth of talent displayed is incredible, and goes to show how powerful is the influence of obsession on our imagination.

And hence one master-passion in the breast,
Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle ii, Line 131

Of course, obsession has the unfortunate tendency to go beyond the bounds of reasonable action in pursuit of its object of attention. It can easily consume all of the mind’s available store of common sense, submerging it in the raging river of passionate belief in whatever idea has emerged as the passion of choice. Pope was speaking no more than simple truth when he wrote these lines, which point again to the same fatal flaw that exists in other areas of human nature, the weakness of will that makes us choose paths that are self-destructive in their intensity, or in their ultimate logical end. Too many of us tend to make our choices in life without using even the most basic of mental tools we have, including imagination; the use of those tools can be hard, in the sense that it is harder to think than it is to allow others to think for you…..

Thus, we come to another point where the subject under discussion can be expanded, and further explored. Or, we can leave it here, with the ideas already discussed as a springboard for private consideration. I have a feeling it could get a bit esoteric from this juncture, and I’d lose a lot of ffolkes to the fatigue factor. I am feeling that a bit meself, having now been sparring with this Pearl for a bit over three hours. I should have eaten some philosophical oatmeal, to increase the fiber content of my output, I guess….

Rather than go any further down that road, we’ll bring this pearl to a close….. Perhaps you can take a bit of what we discussed with you, and chew on it later…. it doesn’t seem to get any less crunchy over time, so it can’t hurt…. Fewer calories than jerky, and it won’t require flossing afterward…..

“You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant (‘ceptin’ Alice).” — Arlo Guthrie
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Okay, I’ve gone over this not-so-little effort, and can only be glad it took a long time, because it certainly did. Nearly four hours this morning, long enough to bring on some stiffness from sitting too long. I’ll have to go out & spend a bit of quality time with my body out in the Big Blue Room today, I guess, or I’ll start to calcify into one of those petrified old statues you see in public parks everywhere…. “Old Fart with Stick”….. that’s me all over. Ah well, enough incoherent rambling for one day…… Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Chance encounters with entropy, unlimited supply….

Posted on January 18, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
In direct contrast to my state of apparent poverty, I consider myself to be a lucky man, all in all. My physical assets, in terms of liquidity of funding, are, shall we say, less than prolific, and my amount of acquired property isn’t what might be termed a fortune. In fact, more accurately, the two combined amounts may be described as a pittance, if you’re feeling generous. My clothes are getting old and somewhat worn, and I’m about to walk out of my shoes. I’m struggling each month to get enough food for the entire month, and have only enough left over to pay for a phone and internet service, which I consider essential in today’s culture.

However, I also have friends, and two children, all of whom taken together make me the richest man alive. I feel very fortunate indeed to have all of them in my life, as they are all the kind of people, and friends, one knows will always be there when needed, as I have tried to be for them for the last 50 years (the average time I’ve known most of them….). And my children, well, my pride in them knows no bounds. Both of them have become fine, generous, loving human beings, and I couldn’t be happier with them….

So, since I have such great support, and know I am loved, I sometimes wonder why am I so depressed? Then I remember….. my gift….. I’ve decided to look at my PTSD as a gift, though some may think that it is strange to consider a mental disorder in a positive light. Those people, who think it is strange, don’t have to live with it, do they?….. See, it is always surprising me, with outbursts of emotion that bring tears, or just waves of anguish; my eyes and head fill up with fluid, my heart pounds, and my mind veers off into memories of terror and pain. These little episodes of severe angst pop up at the weirdest times, and it gets to be a bit embarrassing, nay, humiliating, when it happens in front of others…..

Hell, as I typed that last paragraph, tears of self-pity were, and still are, rolling down my cheeks…. As you can imagine, this becomes problematic in keeping them off the keys, which could short out the whole shebang. Wouldn’t THAT be a treat? Having my entire stash of writing erased by my own tears would be just too ironic for me; I’d have to either shoot myself, or somebody else….. Fortunately, all the Pearls from last year are backed up on a thumb drive, so I’m safe there, but it would still be a royal pain to lose what I’ve got on here, so I try not to drip too close to the desk when I get hit by one of these emotional storms…..

Ah well, they always pass off, eventually, leaving me a bit exhausted and blue, whereupon I try to put all of what I felt into the next pearl….. which finally brings us to the point we’ve been trying to get to for five paragraphs now….. I think, rather than dwell any further on my ‘gift’, I’ll just dive into the ocean of knowledge and quotes that is Smart Bee and the Internet, and see what we can come up with for a morning rant, or poem, or other form of self-indulgence…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“By letting go, it all gets done.” — Tao Teh Ching

If it weren’t for serendipity, a lot of the fun in life would disappear, I think. Finding just the right pearl is a perfect example of this phenomenon, and this is no exception…..

For some reason, mostly to do with our inner nature, and its unfortunate flaws when it comes to dealing with reality, we humans have a tendency to hang on to things that are not helpful to us. Hurt feelings, anger, mistrust, suspicion, and most often, fear, all are reactions we have to the stuff that happens to us, whether we want them or not. Once they are present in our awareness, however, it is unnecessary to keep them; in fact, holding on to them only prolongs the associated pain. But, we hold on to them anyway, going over the incidents again and again in our minds, and reinforcing the negative reaction each time. This, as is plain to see, is rather counter-productive, in terms of getting on with our lives without carrying extra burdens around with us….

Letting go, as the Tao Teh Ching suggests, can get us past this road block, allowing us to remove the weight of the anger, or fear, or other negative emotion from our minds, and freeing us to engage the universe on a more positive level. What remains a mystery, to me, and to anyone who has used this idea to help themselves in life, is why so many people refuse to acknowledge its value, and use it. A great many people in the world seem to prefer the experience of feeling angry, or sad, or afraid, to feeling competent, and comfortable in their skin. It’s almost as if they LIKE to feel those negative feelings, and are actually afraid to be successful at dealing with life…. amazing, and sort of ironic, to my way of thinking…..

Of course, I do tend to forget that this little piece of wisdom is not as easy to do as it is to say. It does take some mental effort, to assume the control of one’s feelings enough to move them to a different spot on the scale; “letting go” isn’t as easy as it may sound. This sort of mental effort, inner directed as it is, is foreign to most people raised in Western culture, as the habit of using one’s mind is not encouraged, for the most part, in most American homes. Conformity of thought, and obedience to custom are much more commonly held as the safe way to live, and learning to think is discouraged, as it may lead to discomfort, more effort than they wish make, and certainly more than they intend to tolerate.

I often wish I could persuade people to live with ideas like this to guide them, but, in order for anyone to try a new way of living, they must first be convinced that the old way isn’t working. This isn’t going to happen, even if compelling evidence of their need to change is presented to them. It would mean admitting that the way they have been living is wrong, and regardless of whether or not it is wrong, or right, they are not willing to “let go” of their investment in the old methods of looking at life. It’s just too much for them to contemplate; it’s unknown, therefore, they fear the change, effectively blocking themselves from even seeing it as an alternative.

So, I just ramble along, singing my little song, and pointing out little gems like what Lao Tzu wrote above in the Tao Teh Ching. People aren’t going to make changes just because I tell them to; they have to make the decisions themselves. But, I can hopefully provide some sign posts for them, to give them an idea of a place where they may find a more peaceful, fulfilling existence than the one they currently are living. Maybe I can’t change the world, but I can at least point the way to where the changes are made….

“Well, O.K. I’ll compromise with my principles because of EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

I feel like a bit of the classics today…. how about y’all?…. Keats will do nicely, I think….

Lines on The Mermaid Tavern

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host’s Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day
Mine host’s sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer’s old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

John Keats
__________________________________

What we have here is what I term a “Seven Star Pearl” The name has a certain significance, and extra points are available, should you choose to address the reasons why I call it this. I’ll give this clue… The choice of quotes was entirely random; I had no particular point in mind when collecting them. I let my impulsive nature pick those it considered suitable, without asking it to explain why…. these are the result. The point(s) it brings out for our examination turned out to be quite appropriate, given much of what I’ve written earlier this week, and today, but, I don’t need to tell YOU that, do I? Of course not…. 🙂 Any who, not to worry, none of this one will be on the Quiz, significant though it is; I’m lazy today, as you might have guessed from the old school format of this one…. Enjoy!

“More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing nothing, than by believing too much.” — Phineas Taylor Barnum

“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.” — Albert Einstein

“Belief gets in the way of learning.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“That proves you are unusual,” returned the Scarecrow “, and I am convinced the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”” — L. Frank Baum, “The Land of Oz”

A poet is someone who is astonished by everything. — Smart Bee

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.” — Victor Hugo

“People are strange.” — The Doors
__________________________________

Two hours, twenty minutes, flat. Not too bad, for a Friday morning, in dead of winter, I’d say. Now, let’s see how it proofs…. Decent… three or four little wipes with the polishing rag, and it will do nicely. It isn’t blinding, but it’s shiny…. I declare this dive completed…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Artichoke juice is an efficient lubricant….

Posted on January 17, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Normally, streams of accidental tourists would be barging through the parlor, trying to see the latest version of Alice’s knickers, but the piano tuner forgot to shut down the coverlets, which caused the maids to neglect the silver. It might have been salvaged, had not the vicar arrived with the generalissimo in tow, hoping to be invited to tea. Since even Timmons, the tinker, was perplexed, Maggot, the farmer’s idiot son was sent to fetch the constable, to file a report for the insurance. Even the cats at the barn door paused in washing their whiskers to watch the ambulance pull away. Farragut Towers had never seen such goings-on, in all its days….

Hmm…. the nonsense doesn’t seem to want to flow this morning. Generally, a paragraph such as the above can fly onto the screen in about two minutes, but I had to struggle a bit to get this one down, taking at least 15 to wind its way to where it faded out. Ah well, I guess it just isn’t an English drawing room kind of day…. It’s probably just a hangover from dreaming last night, or something; I often find myself in dreams, involved in long, drawn out conversations with Lord Peter Wimsey, or Sherlock Holmes, sitting around in a smoky Victorian parlor, with the street noises of Piccadilly Circus or Baker Street muttering outside the window……

Unfortunately, that didn’t translate well onto the screen today. I don’t suppose I can expect to be able to do that on command; none of my other types of writing rely on focus or discipline. I rely far more on impulse and imaginative speculation when I’m deciding what to write, and try very hard NOT to apply a lot of conscious direction to where the decision ends up. My talent, such as it is, seems to work better for me when I just let it flow, without any direction from my conscious mind, and allow it to find its own path down to the sea, in a metaphorical sense. Metaphor is, after all, pretty much what we do around here….

Ranting at the world, even using the power of metaphor, is getting to be somewhat more dangerous, as our BRC (Beloved Ruling Class) is having a lot of success in fooling the public into being afraid, and letting them pass laws against what they fear, or, more dangerously, allowing them to make “executive” decisions to make laws, without bothering Congress about it. They are also performing a lot of surveillance on their own public, and, I am certain, marking down the names of those who are critical of the government’s actions in what they write.

To think that they will allow this criticism to go on forever is naive; they will eventually take steps to curtail freedom of speech further than it has already been eroded, just the same as how they have eliminated the right to protest in public, to gather in groups to obtain redress for grievances against the government, and the right to a fair trial by their peers. We lost the right to public oversight of the police some time ago, when the Patriot Act made it legal for them to arrest people and put them in undisclosed locations, without any judicial review or oversight. Very few of the original Amendments to the Constitution, which provided many of the rights we counted on, remain as law in this country. Americans sat around and watched, as the BRC has methodically and calmly sliced the Bill of Rights into shreds over the last 12 years since 9/11, using that day of infamy to justify their rape of the Constitution.

Oops…. I started ranting too early; forgot I was still in the intro. The latest outrageous moves by the BRC have me all worked up in that respect, as they are now, predictably, coming after the right bear arms, the one amendment that actually gives us real protection from the real world. The slippery slope of gun control is now on the public table, and the show is getting pretty raucous, on both sides of the argument….. But, all this is moot, here in the intro, or should be, so we’ll save it for below, should the subject come up…. (I know, that’s cheating, since I’m the one who picks the subjects…. deal with it…. I don’t cheat much, and when I do, it is merely a time-saving device, and has no direct effect on reality…..)

Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Gun control is not about guns. It is about control.” — Smart Bee

You had to know I couldn’t let this one go….. Yesterday, the POTUS signed several “Executive Orders” regarding the subject of gun control, addressing the issues that much of the American public is focused on (as directed to be by the BRC and the media….). Putting aside for the moment the issue of gun control itself, I wish to make it clear that the “Executive Orders” that were used to create the new regulations are a clear and obvious circumvention of the Constitution, and a direct attempt to bypass the checks and balances that our three pronged government is supposed to be subject to thereby. It seems to be escaping everyone’s notice that the Executive Branch of the government is now MAKING LAWS, not just enforcing them.

The whole system that has grown up around the concept of Executive Orders is, as far as I can see, completely illegal, according to Constitutional law. The President does NOT have the right to make laws, no matter how much urgency is seen to be present, or how much expediency is needed to address a situation. Congress is the body that is supposed to make laws, and the enforcement of those laws is the responsibility of the Executive Branch, with the oversight of both to be accomplished by the Federal Courts…. That is the way it was designed, and that is the way it has worked, to protect our rights as citizens for over 200 years….

Now, because of public fear, due mostly to the media frenzy at the behest of the BRC, and the manipulative dishonesty of the corporate masters of that same BRC, the rights we have enjoyed as Americans are now just about all gone. The assholes who run this country, the corporate masters who pull all the strings from behind the curtains, have successfully created a climate of fear amongst the general populace, and have neatly manipulated events so that it is the public itself clamoring for protection….. from itself. The media have so effectively spread the fear and horror, that the people on the streets are actually asking to have their rights curtailed, “for the good of society”…… What a load of bilge!

I am amazed at times at how naive people can be. The world is a dangerous place, and always has been, as human nature is anything but civilized. Yet people expect the government to be able to eliminate all danger from the public venue. They expect there to never be people who go crazy, and start shooting at everything they see, or attacking their delusional enemies. They expect there to never be an instance where police shoot unarmed citizens, just because they can. They actually expect members of the Beloved Ruling Class to have concern for what is important to them, instead of blithely pursuing their own agendas….. Such naivete is sadly all too common, and is the reason the rest of us will be forced to go along with the repressive regulations that are surely coming….

Yesterday, in discussing the gun control issue with a neighbor, it became clear just how naive, and unwilling to think, the general populace is…. This person is, I’d say, a pretty average citizen, perhaps less educated than some, but with more innate intelligence than many I know of. She actually said “yes” when I asked her if she trusted the police to be more ethical than the average citizen…. When I pointed out the multitude of incidents that occur every day that show police officers to be much less moral than the average joe, she acknowledged the point, but still would not voice mistrust of the police over the citizenry. She actually believes that policemen and women are more capable of carrying a gun, and not using it unethically, than are average folks…. A very, very foolish assumption, to my way of thinking…..

So, what we have now is a dual issue… First, the government wants to limit the citizenry’s access to guns, a direct abrogation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. (Read it…. it says the right to bear arms will “not be abridged.” Period.) Second, the executive branch of government is being allowed to make law, another direct abrogation of the Constitution, which assigns that function to Congress. If nothing else, these two subjects are going to provide the impetus for a shit-load of public discussion, for sure…. The trickiest part of that is to be able to winnow out the wheat from the chaff, for there will be a LOT of chaff thrown up, much of it by the BRC, as they do all they can to obfuscate the issues, and hide their own manipulative interactions.

You will, I’m sure, see and hear more on this, both here on this blog, and out there in the Big Blue Room. I’m not done ranting on either of these issues, you can count on that. For the moment, I’m going to go search out some pearls to use in the discussions, and leave you to chew on what I’ve already brought up. Don’t worry, I’ll be back, to chew on these bones some more…..

“I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

Children’s Rhymes

By what sends
the white kids
I ain’t sent:
I know I can’t
be President.
What don’t bug
them white kids
sure bugs me:
We know everybody
ain’t free.

Lies written down
for white folks
ain’t for us a-tall:
Liberty And Justice–
Huh!–For All?

Langston Hughes
__________________________________

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

It would be difficult for me to try to describe just how influential this statement has been in my life. I first read it around 1965 or so, when it was first published as part of Lazarus’ first appearance, in “Methuselah’s Children”. This incarnation of the idea, which pretty well describes Lazarus himself, was published later, in The Notebooks, as part of Heinlein’s book, “Time Enough For Love”, his magnum opus in later years. When I first read it, I was, as with much of Heinlein’s work, impressed by its relevance, and by how much it appealed to my own view of the universe. To my way of thinking, this is a perfect definition of what a man should be, and how one should approach life in general…..

As humans, our ecological niche in the Earth’s environment is that of the animal that fits into all niches. Our ability to eat any kind of food, to cope with any kind of environment we encounter, are designed to act as characteristics that enhance our ability to survive, and reproduce, which is the genetic mandate of all species. I mean, think about it, anything other than focus on surviving, and reproducing in kind, is kind of counter-productive, isn’t it? So, having this kind of all-encompassing flexibility of talent would seem to be custom made to make us efficient at staying alive long enough to carry on the species by producing offspring.

One of the talents we possess that is an essential underlying factor for our flexibility is our imagination. This unique talent, seemingly absent in most other species, allows us to see into the future, into the realm of possible outcomes of real time actions and events, giving us the advantage of being able to prepare for dealing with such issues much more efficiently than we can by merely reacting to the immediacy of what is happening in front of us. It is a very, very powerful tool, and ultimately, it will be either our saving grace, or our own personal executioner……

You see, humans also have a flaw in their make-up, a flaw that is every bit as powerful as imagination in its effect on our existence. This flaw is part of our emotional make-up, our feelings about what we perceive in the real world, outside our minds and imagination. The flaw can manifest itself in a variety of ways, but the most harmful are when this basic crack in our armor assume the form of deliberate ignorance, exemplified by fearful bigotry, or in indifference to the feelings of others, as typified by the corporate masters of the world and the Beloved Ruling Class (not necessarily the same group of men….). The flaw is typically seen in those public events that are marked by a lack of morality, or ethical behavior, such as the common habitual lying to the public by the candidates during elections, or when the police murder another innocent citizen….

I’ve written myself into another corner here, so to speak….. This subject is one that is constantly in my thoughts of late, as I witness the historic battle that is being waged in today’s political arena, a battle that began the day after the signing of the Constitution. The unseen, hidden rulers of the world have been trying to tear apart the system of protective laws and concepts that our forefathers left as our legacy since that fateful day, and their efforts are coming to fruition now. We are watching every one of the ten rights in the Bill of Rights being eradicated, made moot, by the passage of illegal laws, executive orders, and manipulation of the public’s fear until the lost and ignorant are crying out for protection from the boogie man….

At this point, I don’t know what the answers may be, nor what they may entail…. History, and our place in that history, is about to come to a head, in a manner of speaking. A lot of very volatile issues are currently being played out on the world stage, and the outcome is still in question. I can only hope that there are enough of the people who fit the description above still alive and actively working to maintain human dignity and freedom, to make a difference in the final resolution. I’m not terribly confident of success, but, I haven’t quite given up hope…. I’m not sure why, because, damn it, the BRC and the corporate assholes are holding a lot of good cards, and have a lot of resources at hand that aren’t available to the rest of us.

Ah well, all you can do, is all you can do….. and this is all I can do for now….

“I know everything, but I’m sworn to secrecy.” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

Since I can’t ethically reveal any more secrets, it seems to be time to bring this….. whatever it is…. to a close. One can only beat one’s head against a wall for so long, before concussion sets in, and I’d like to get through a day without all the dizziness and nausea that daily events can produce. It would probably help if I didn’t go read the news every day, but, as I’ve said before, and will again, it’s good to keep track of what is going on, if only to be able to jump when necessary, and to know which way to jump…. makes the landing more comfortable….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

If only zucchini was more charitable…..

Posted on January 16, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
In today’s world, it can become hard to maintain a positive outlook, especially about the future. The Beloved Ruling Class is so intransigent, and so self-centered, I can see little hope that the changes needed for us to survive as a species will ever happen. This is, of course, tragic, to say the least, and is possibly NOT the best subject with which to start the day’s effort. A bit dark, don’t y’know?. But, I got an email last night while I was asleep that was extremely touching, and have to deal with the issue before I think too hard about it…..

As a matter of policy, I’ve never given in to chain letters, of any kind, whether, as in olden days, they had stamps, or the more modern email variety. I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe in the idea that an email, or a letter, that I don’t forward to many people, will cause me to have bad luck, or that doing so will bring me good luck. Life, and Murphy, don’t work that way; this I know for a fact. But, occasionally, one will come along that has something else going for it, and for these I will break my policy about sending it on…..

I’ll be forwarding the email to my Pearl Drops on this occasion, and I’ll tell you why….. The letter, though full of all kinds of examples of the assumptions and faith-based beliefs about which I often rant, has something that the other chain letters don’t have, and that is a compassionate reason for sending it. The person who sent this to me did so because of their own compassion, for me, and for others, in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact she has cancer herself, and is currently fighting the battle to stay alive we all will face one day. Yet she has the strength of spirit to want to give to her friends, and to feel that she is helping in some way……

Now, I’m not going to tell you that I’ve changed my mind about the healing power of faith, because it is actually one of the few parts of religious activity that I do believe is real. I fully believe the human mind has the power to heal through its own power of suggestion and belief; in history there are numerous examples of healings that cannot be explained any other way. I won’t allow that the power comes from God; I believe that power already resides within us. We all have the power to heal ourselves, and others, by dint of believing it strongly enough; we may not be able to see, or describe how it works, much less explain it, but, there are too many examples to deny the evidence…..

So, I believe in the power of the human mind, and in some unknown way, letters like these can distribute that power to where it needs to be, and can help people heal themselves….. So, I’ll be sending it along, with my own wishes for good fortune to those of my friends and acquaintances who struggle with physical issues, in hope that all comes out well in the end…. And, it’s like my friend said when she sent it…. it can’t hurt……

I’ve used up my intro section for this, and will double up its usefulness by copying it into the letter I’m forwarding. If anyone would like to see the letter, please leave your email in a comment, and I’ll send it to you; I don’t really want to paste it here, as it might shock some of my regulars out of their socks to see it on my site…. It’s a nice letter, all in all, and I really do appreciate that my friend sent it to me, even though I don’t buy into their faith… it is the impulse of compassion from them that is my concern, and I really feel loved for having them in my life….. Thank you, C….

I believe I’ve managed to accomplish my purpose without falling into either sappiness, or melancholy, so that makes this a GOOD intro, right? Well, whatever it is, it will have to do, as I don’t have the energy to go back and do another one. Time, I have, energy requires a bit more regulation, to ensure I can get as far as I can with what there is to use…. an amount much smaller than in previous periods of my life, to be sure. Before I figure out some way to screw this up, I think we should begin our dive for today….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“I hope something GOOD came in the mail today so I have a REASON to live!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” — Anne Frank

Statements such as this are the saving grace of mankind, to my mind. It always astounds me how people who have been subjected to evil can react to that treatment by becoming the antithesis of evil, i.e., they simply become more good, in response to the evil perpetrated upon them. Anyone who can deny that Ms. Frank was witness to, and subject to, some of the most evil events in history is a fool; no, they’re an idiot. Probably both…. Yet, in spite of all that she saw happen to her family, her friends, and all she endured to survive in the face of the evil she experienced, her writing is filled with optimism and hope, and faith in the human spirit. It is almost enough to convince me of her insanity, but, I know that, even if considered insane, this kind of goodness is real….

The problem is that this kind of good is nowhere near as plentiful in human culture as are the more evil aspects of personality that we humans display. The kind of activities that took place in Anne Frank’s world are all too common in human history, and indicate the overwhelming majority of those who follow those precepts, of ignorance, hatred, and bigotry, rather than subscribing to more positive rules of conduct. In essence, what I’m saying is, there are more assholes out there than there are nice guys, no matter how we would like it to be otherwise, and no matter how strong our faith in human nature. It is the ugliest part of the dichotomy we experience as part of the universe that is based on opposites, to know that the evil in us, so far throughout history, is stronger than the good.

“As a man can drink water from any side of a full tank, so the skilled theologian can wrest from any scripture that which will serve his purpose.” — Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita was written a long time before the birth of Christ, so we know that the human proclivity to turn ideas to their advantage, no matter the original intent of the concepts, has been an issue for society for a long time. This is the difference between those who subscribe to improving human nature, and our understanding of life and our place in it, and those who use their talents to obtain power over others. While the former works toward the betterment of all people with whom they come in contact, the latter spend their effort to manipulate and control everyone they meet. In the real world, these deliberately self-oriented assholes (sorry, gotta let it out now and again….) are the ones who seek elected office, or go to seminary, or study law, or business, or become police officers…. not to help others, but to find every way they can to take advantage of the naive nature of their peers…..

SIGH…. (That’s a sigh as commonly sighed in County Clare, Ireland, indeed, in all the west counties of Eire; long, drawn out, slowly exhaled, complete with mournful expression, shrugging of shoulders, and shaking of head….) I don’t know the answer, though I have some ideas that might work, should they ever be considered. But, they all involve a certain degree of “giving in” to the more violent side of our nature. Though it is a soothing thought to think of all those assholes getting what they deserve, it is, to some extent, assuming the same characteristics that define them in their state of anti-humanity.

To get rid of them, we would have to become them, if only for a short time, and would thereby lose part of what makes us different in the first place…. So far, I haven’t been willing to give in to that extent. I don’t know if that shows that I have integrity, or if it means I am afraid to change to that degree, even if temporary. How to get back to the same ethical standing seems to me to be the issue, and I just don’t know the answer…. My karmic balance is no doubt too delicately perched on the cusp to risk any unreasonable violence without just cause….

But, if it gave the rest of us a chance to make some changes to society that would be of help to all of us, rather than just a few, well, I think I’d be willing to pick up a weapon and join the fray. Maybe having honorable motivation would be enough to get the job done, and still maintain some integrity…. If nothing else, it might give us a bit of breathing space, in order to come up with a more permanent, and more humane, solution to the issue…. Hard to say, as things have been the way they are for a long time, and rooting out the Beloved Ruling Class from their well-fortified position is not going to be a simple task…. As we all can see, human nature is what it is, and it doesn’t WANT to change….. None of us do…. unless, of course, we want to keep on living…..

“Either you think — or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
__________________________________

“A picture is a poem without words.” — Horace (65-8 B.C.)

And a poem is a picture of Life, with words as colors….. Here is what I think is possibly the best poem ever written by an American poet…. No other poem I’ve seen or heard of comes close to matching the depth of its simplicity…. and that phrase is precisely what I mean to imply…. Enjoy!…..

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost
__________________________________

Okay, so there I was this morning, cruising along through Smart Bee, and all these pearls kept popping up in front of me, demanding inclusion without telling me why. Being the patsy I am in re: my muse, I did so…. and this is the group that ended up as the end result of my indulgence. It makes a good point, or two, actually, and I really like the way it ends, with the pointy finger and all…. The points it makes, of course, are left as an exercise for the Gentle Reader, with bonus points for knowing which parts to chuckle at, and which to guffaw….. (a thinly disguised manipulation on my part to get the word “guffaw” into a pearl…. I love it when a plan comes together…..)…..

“Love of money is the root of all politics.” — Smart Bee

“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire

“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!” — Albert Einstein

“The vultures are circling…they have the faces of presidential candidates and carry bowling balls in their buttered claws….” — Smart Bee

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

‘And if you’ve just tuned in, we’re talking about the red-hot, tight-buttocked, hairy host of Hell.’ — The Church Lady

And there you have it, all wrapped up in a nice big bow….. Ta ta, then, luvs….
__________________________________

I’ve gone over it thrice, and proof-reading aside, it ain’t too bad….. Not too bad at all…. and, it’s done. So, I’m going to now indulge myself again, and spend the next five minutes leisurely getting this copied, pasted, emailed, and posted to WordPress…. which is all the time it takes, now that I am once again blessed with home internet service.

Strange how things work out sometimes, eh? A state of existence that didn’t exist at all 20 years ago, now becomes an essential ingredient to a comfortable lifestyle….. It isn’t a surprise, so much, to those of us who grew up reading Science Fiction, as it is a gleeful sense of fulfillment that imagination and reality merged into such a powerful societal manifestation. Or, is that infestation? 🙂 Nah, it’s a good thing…. and it sure makes my day a lot more enjoyable, without a doubt….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Uh oh, it’s leaking magic smoke…..

Posted on January 15, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
It isn’t the most horrific thing I can think of to have happen, but, it’s annoying enough…. Did you ever get a song stuck in your head, and not be able to stop it? I have, and it isn’t pretty; by the time the song fades away, I generally have about half my hair left, and have lost weight from the stress of hearing the phrase “oh lord, stuck in Lodi, again..” for the ten-thousandth time in a row….. Like I said, it could be worse (it could have been the theme song to “Barney”…. you know… “You love me, I love you, etc.”, on and on, into nausea unlimited….), but, even Country Joe McDonald’s voice gets old after a while…. of course, he’s old now, too, so…. Oh right, sorry, forgot…. he’s dead, now, so he probably sounds even worse….

This was a particularly sticky episode of this kind of conundrum; even playing classical music to drown it out wouldn’t work, and since my guitar is still in the pawn shop gathering dust, I couldn’t play through it. It wouldn’t be so bad, I guess, if it would change lyrics occasionally, to finish the song, at least. But, no, it has to repeat the same line, over, and over, and over, until you want to scream at your own head to SHUT UP! This, of course, leads people to believe you just might be too near the edge, and give you a wide berth on the sidewalk. It can also make it tough to get a waiter to approach one’s table at the cafe ….. Well, if I were at a cafe, it would…..

The song finally faded out last night, thankfully, just before bed time, but was sure a pain in the old arse while it hung around….. Now this morning, the incident came back to me, and I thought to myself, “Why not?”….. So, shamelessly, I have just used that minor incident, one without any particularly compelling features, or dangerous attributes, and turned it into a three paragraph intro section, through the magic of inconsistency and mumble, mumble, as well as the power of a sick imagination. (‘Mumble, mumble’ is a euphemism, for stuff I choose to hide from you due to its manipulative nature…..). I know, it was a bit unethical of me, but, that is the way we authors get when faced with a blank page…. ruthless, you betcha….

No blood was drawn, however, so I don’t see that there is much to complain about. Sure, I stretched your credibility, but that’s good practice for what comes later. And sure, I took advantage of your willing, or at minimum, unsuspecting, nature, to lead you on down a primrose path to nowhere…. But, ask yourself this: where would you be if I didn’t? See, I’ve done y’all a favor by this, and you should be grateful…. You could be stuck somewhere, reading something that makes sense, and what would that get you? Nothing you need, for sure….

So, quit the bitching, and just buckle up for the ride. It promises to get a bit bumpy today, given the state of this intro…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iii, 5

(Oops! Too late…. I wish I’d gotten the memo earlier in life….)
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“Hurt not others with that which pains yourself.” — Udana Varga, c. 500 B. C.

This particular rephrasing of the Golden Rule from ancient India shows how long the concept has been around; in fact, it is a rephrasing of writings that are even older. This rule of behavior in society has been commonly held knowledge since the beginning of civilization, whenever one chooses to mark that date. Given that presence in the basket of platitudes that are carried by all, it brings to mind the question, “Why the fuck doesn’t anyone do this?”….. Well, that’s what came into MY mind, so deal with it…..

The Golden Rule is accepted by all societies on Earth as being a critical key to a peaceful existence, yet those who consistently ignore it, and break it with regularity, seem to always end up as the ones who are in charge of that self-same society. Everyone alive knows the rule, but many choose to not follow its advice and direction, instead, making it their purpose in life to acquire power over others, giving them both the ability, and the right, to harm others at their whim. I say right, because we have only those rights we can defend, and we, the common folk, do not defend ourselves against the BRC…. most of the time, whatever the BRC says is passively accepted by society, sometimes with regret and resignation, but mostly with barely reluctant acquiescence.

Me, I’ve never really been able to grasp what it is in those people that allows them to hurt others without suffering pangs of guilt. I know it is possible to suffer feelings such as that, and still ignore them, but it seems to me like those in power have learned to not even feel the guilt, having somehow come to be able to justify their desire for power as rational and right, rather than evil and cruel. It’s as if they come to decide they are destined to lord it over others, and thus feel only satisfaction at the suffering of others. It doesn’t make any sense to my world view, but, I understand that is how it works for them. Sick bastards….

Yes sick…. in my mind, any person who wants a public office in this country, one requiring election, is a sick person, riddled with all sorts of delusions and aggrandizements, and should be isolated from the rest of us, as it (greedy ambition, and the desire for power) can be a contagious condition. I don’t care how many logical sounding arguments or positions the person is able to spew out, they are mentally ill, and should be forced into treatment, for the safety of all society.

In fact, I think it would be a good thing if we started talking about some political control, rather than gun control. I think the political world needs regulation much more than do guns…. Guns are going to be used against people, it is what they were designed for, and people aren’t going to give them up, or stop doing crazy stuff with them, just because of a few regulations…. But, the politicians NEED to be regulated, much more than they are, and it really can’t wait…..

“Under every stone lurks a politician.” — Aristophanes

This particular subject is an easy rant for me, with all the major characteristics of a good subject right out there to see and write about. As such, I could probably go on all day without running out of stuff to poke at in this area of human nature. But, I’ve made my point, I think, so we’ll save some of the energy for later. Let it suffice to say, how someone feels about the Golden Rule is usually a good indicator of how they feel about politicians, et al. A real politician will look you in the eye, tell you they support the Golden Rule wholeheartedly, then will turn right around and say the exact opposite to your enemy. to gain their support. And, they’ll never feel a moment’s guilt over doing so…. If they did, how could they ever consider trying to be elected in the first place? Just wanting that kind of power is a clear sign of mental illness, guaranteed….

“My CODE of ETHICS is vacationing at famed SCHROON LAKE in upstate New York!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I was done with this, but fate intervened…. Just to show how our culture has developed under the influence of the delusions fostered by the lies of the BRC, consider this, which I found in the 13th Bathroom Reader…. One of our cultural myths says that the soldiers at Valley Forge under Washington during the Revolutionary War starved during winter because there was no food anywhere for them. The truth is, there was plenty of food, but the farmers in Valley Forge sold it all to the British Army, who were able to pay cash…. Kind of takes away from the grandeur of the alleged events, and puts the lie to any elements of implied nobility, doesn’t it? Conversely, it does rather support what I’ve outlined above, wouldn’t you say?…… Sick puppies, all of them, and always ready, and willing, to take advantage of human greed….

“If any man can convince me and bring home to me that I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, vi, 21
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On the birth of his son

Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister

— Su Tung-p’o

Remembrance

To what can our life on earth be likened?
To a flock of geese,
alighting on the snow.
Sometimes leaving a trace of their passage.

Su Tung-po

A two-fer…. 🙂
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I’m feeling a bit lazy this morning, having already ranted sufficiently to relieve the toxicity levels in my brain; it always has such a soothing effect on me to spew…. 🙂 So, I’m going to go old school again, as I am wont to do in these cases…. Today’s group of pearls are all in the same vein, so to speak…. Each one gives us a little glimpse into the methodology of life lived well, and can, if duly appreciated, absorbed, and utilized, be quite valuable tools in the daily struggle against entropy and chaos…. If, for some unknown and incomprehensible reason, they don’t strike that chord for you, well, it will impress your friends to quote them now and then; if nothing else they’re quite engaging ideas, well stated…. enjoy!…..

“As you go the way of life you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.” — Native American advice

“Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

“For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, ii, 14

“Any necessary work that pays an honest wage carries its own honor and dignity.” — W. Kelly Griffith

“Doubt is the key to knowledge.” — Persian Proverb
(Caution: If you quote this one, be prepared to defend your statement….. This has a tendency to create ‘doubt’, even in those who just hear it…..)

And, for the final word, our old friend Alan Watts, doing what he does best…. making the complex seem simple….

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.” — Alan Watts
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I have to say, having the time to spend on these Pearls, without the stress of thinking of how to get it published, is certainly helping the quality of the gems that are being produced. Probably something to do with the available time for editing and polishing, but, no doubt the reduction of the need to hurry is key…. Whatever is the reason, I’m content with how today’s version of my take on Reality has worked out….. plus, it’s done. Therefore, I pronounce this Pearl closed for business…. Hasta mañana, amigos! Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Small piles of duvets sat in a corner…..

Posted on January 14, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Coffee is on the way, so I won’t have to shoot anybody before it is ready. Or even because it isn’t ready…. I hate cleaning up dead bodies before breakfast…. So tacky….. Not that I’ve ever had to kill anyone yet, not over coffee. (No, not over anything…. I’m a virgin in that respect, thankfully….) It’s always a fun thing to think about though, especially when one is still waiting for that first glorious sip to bring the universe into focus. I don’t CARE if it is addictive, or bad for me, or whatever; NOTHING is like that first sip of coffee in the AM, nothing….. It would take someone with some serious martial arts skills, or a large weapon drawn first, to keep me from that first cuppa in the morning….. and, they would lose, due to my superior motivation….

Ahhh….. Now that the first sip is down the hatch, all is well with the world, for the moment, at least, and we can get on with the day’s business. It’s kind of fun, actually, as I’m falling back into the routine I developed previous to moving here, wherein the Pearl is the focus of my day, rather than the trip to post it being the primary subject of attention. I’m up at a decent hour (0610), and already into the intro, coffee in hand, by 0624, just bursting with ideas and plans for pearls. Of course, I know that once I try to pin down a solitary idea to use, it will slither away, pretending to hide, just because they all work for Murphy….

I’ll bet you didn’t know that…. that all your best ideas are from Murphy, who keeps a workshop for that, to develop ideas that he can use to torture authors with…. You can tell which are his…. They catch your attention, as a brilliant idea, then sort of fade off into the background, avoiding any close examination…. a technique Murphy taught them to further frustrate the author, as he or she chases down an idea that keeps moving away….. Then, when caught, at last, one sees the idea isn’t as shiny as it seemed, but rather is a buffed up re-run of an old idea….. He is SUCH an asshole……

I only know this because he, Murphy, spends so much time messing with me, I’ve learned a lot of his secrets…. I can’t block, or fix, or even prevent any of his activities but, I know for sure when he’s been around, fucking with someone, ’cause it’s usually me….. I’m just lucky, I guess…..

Now, I could spend more time lamenting Murphy’s kind attentions, or I could find something else more Intro-appropriate for this space. Or, we could get on with it, and go find some pearls to write about….. which is, no doubt, the most intelligent thing to do. Though such are not our general course of choice, we’ll go with that, if only to provide some comic relief, right?….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere” — George Washington

Wouldn’t it be grand if everyone felt this way? George wasn’t the only advocate of hemp amongst the founding fathers; I’ve seen others who wrote in praise of its qualities, though I didn’t save the references. I’m sure that the plant they found in use among the Indians back then during the colonial days was being utilized in a number of ways, as it has some very useful qualities, aside from the mind-altering characteristics in the chemical make-up of the plant.

It makes the finest rope possible. (Western civilization was built with rope…. literally…..) It can be used to make paper, clothing of all kinds, including shoes, and hats, string, food items, and a host of other things that are useful as tools or household items. It has medicinal qualities that even modern medical science cannot dispute, all of which are beneficial to people; it has no toxic qualities, and cannot be overused…. Well, one could fall asleep and dream very colorfully if one consumed a LARGE amount of cannabis, or of the THC ( tetrahydracannabinol ) component responsible for the mind altering effects, but over-dosing to the point of physical harm is, as far as can be determined, impossible…..

Now, society will tell you, and provide what they call convincing evidence, of the bad effects that using marijuana can have on the human mind. And, if used improperly, at the wrong time of life, there CAN be some slight problems encountered with long-term use. But, these issues are easily avoided, and easily overcome, given the proper treatment, and the overall harmless nature of the plant is not compromised by such evidence, as it does not allow for alternative patterns of use that are NOT harmful, but concentrates only on the ONE way to use it that is less than helpful to the organism. In other words, yes, you can find a way to harm yourself, but a small application of common sense will fix the issue, and it need not ever become a problematic issue thereafter…..

No, what makes marijuana a social problem is Society’s reaction to it, not the drug itself. The reaction by those who do not understand its benefits is extreme, to say the least. The common reaction is to totally reject all evidence that shows the drug to be relatively harmless, and to focus on only the issues involved that show it as bad; denial is a common tool to those in charge of our culture. Hell, if the BRC didn’t wear blinders all the time, they wouldn’t get ANYTHING done, as they’d be cringing and cowering in fear of everything that happened around them. If our rulers were not allowed the use of denial, they wouldn’t have anything at all to say…. think about it….

We are told, by those who make such pronouncements, that using marijuana regularly will reduce one’s cognitive abilities, turning them into clones of the character played by Sean Penn in the old movie cult classic, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, and similar to the character portrayed by George Carlin, Al Sleet, The Hippy-Dippy Weatherman….. And, if used as I described above, at the wrong time, by the wrong person, under the wrong circumstances, that can happen. But, from personal observation over 50 years now, I can attest that regular use does NOT have to affect cognition, nor does it necessarily turn one into a muddled, foolish caricature…. I’ve known too many ffolkes personally who use it on a daily basis, and there is no lasting negative effect on their intelligence, or their ability to think…. other than a slight difficulty making up their mind when confronted with more than one choice of food items…. 🙂

SIGH…. I could offer even more compelling evidence, but that would entail revealing information that might conceivably turn on me, so it will have to suffice to say that I speak from personal knowledge of these events, having closely observed them, from the inside of the culture, for many years. That long period observation and information gathering has led to my understanding of the issue, an understanding much more complete than any on the other side of the fence, as they do not allow for any of the evidence I can present, whereas I can account for ALL of what they can bring forth.

It has always seemed obvious to me that the arguments presented against marijuana all tend to use the same, outdated information, collected with prejudice by those who already denied any value to the substance, and will deny, deny, deny, any and all new evidence, or any evidence that seems to contradict that old nonsense. Typical, actually, of the tactics used by the BRC (Beloved Ruling Class) to deal with ANY issue…. denial is their default position on any concept that is potentially negative to their chosen beliefs…. If denial doesn’t work, they generally resort to name-calling, of some sort….

It seems as if I could keep on this rant for some time; it is one I’ve not really explored deeply in past pearls. A matter of self-protection, as it were; it’s not an issue I want a lot of attention focused on in my life, as most folks fail to grasp any of the important aspects of the issue, and tend to get emotionally involved in any discussion of same. Many, many people react to things they don’t understand with vehemence that is entirely misplaced, due to the lies and misinformation they have received for most of their lives from the BRC and priestly hierarchies. So, it has always been a policy with me to not encourage forays into the subject, as it tends to become relatively fruitless in a short time. In other words, why beat my head against a brick wall, when I can just walk around it?…. Or, float around it, as the case may be….. you decide…. for you. I’ll decide for me….

“Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard — I’m living for today!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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Tableau at Twilight

I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

A parent is easily beguiled
By sight of this coniferous child.

The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.

Cones are composed of many a vitamin.
My lap is not the place to bitamin.

Although my raiment is not chinchilla,
I flinch to see it become vanilla.

Coniferous child, when vanilla melts
I’d rather it melted somewhere else.

Exit child with remains of cone.
I sit in the dusk. I am all alone,

Muttering spells like an angry Druid,
Alone, in the dusk, with the cleaning fluid.

Ogden Nash
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But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle i, Line 111

Here is a line from Mr. Pope that raises a question whose answer is one I’m unsure of, and will need to ask someone who is more educated in dogma than me. I don’t know the answer to whether or not dogs go to heaven, according to Christian beliefs. It does strike me as a pretty good way to determine just how dogmatic a person is, to see how they answer the question (and yes, I see the irony of that…. dogma about dogs…. I get it…. I was trying to ignore it….). It seems to me that the answer they give would be a pretty clear indicator of how tolerant they are toward other species, and would tell one if they are worth knowing at all…. Someone who thinks that dogs shouldn’t be in heaven would definitely be the kind of person I would avoid, as they just don’t have the kind of outlook I can tolerate for long, without having to say something to them about it…..

In my less than humble opinion, any God, or god, who didn’t allow dogs into heaven, wouldn’t be worthy of the title of their supposed divinity. To imagine that humans are superior to dogs, in ANY way that matters, is to completely deny reality, and any philosophy that doesn’t account for that principle is one doomed to unreality, to my mind. Dogs, in so many ways, are superior to Man, in ethics, in morals, in instinctive rightness of spirit, and prove that every day. Man, too, proves his own inferiority the same way, as he torments, abuses, and kills these wonderful creatures, for sport, for cruelty, and just because they can….

I’ll take a dog over a man, any day, in almost any situation you can name, and will know for certain that the choice is one I won’t regret. Sure, you can find dogs who are mean, and vicious, to almost all who come close; those dogs have had their nature perverted, and were taught the behaviors they display. None of those kinds of behaviors are natural to dogs; they have to be taught to be bad. Their only purpose in life is to please us, and that simple characteristic is what makes them better than us, for we, as a species, have to force ourselves to act morally, to choose deliberately to forgo our impulses, and act rightly. For dogs, it comes naturally, and can only be perverted with effort…. or with ignorance….

I’m not going to carry this on further; a four paragraph rant about dogs versus humans is about right, I think, to cover the subject without going into depth. I’m of the firm opinion that dogs are far more deserving of entrance to heaven than any human would be, given the rules by which entrance is supposed to occur. So, if they AREN’T allowed there, why on Earth would I want to end up there? I can’t think of a single reason…..

“This is what I do for fun, can you imagine my job?” — Smart Bee
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I’m still liking it…. though I’m not yet used to it. I’m done with the Pearl for today, and I just realized, I can go email and post it online as soon as I wish. I don’t have to shower, get dressed, and go to the coffee shop or library. Another fine way to show that sometimes, it is what we DON’T have to do that is just as important as what we do have to do. Or, at the least, it is much more enjoyable to NOT have to do something…. ah, shoot, you get the idea…. I’ll quit belaboring the point now, and bid thee a fond adieu….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

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

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