Ffolkes,
Yet the river flows on.”
~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~~
Europa’s Ice Wolf watching Pluto from Charon
https://europasicewolf.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/smashing-the-final-planetary-frontier/
Good morning…. The odds on that have improved a bit, thankfully…. Mind and body yearn for more sleep; five hours, though welcome, doesn’t quite make up for the weeks of 2-3/day I’ve just gone through. I have to admit, though, more, in this case, is better. Not that I’m a bundle of energy, by any means, but, it is nice to not have to summon my courage just to stand up….
Today’s Pearl promises to be something of an anomaly, though why that should be is still unclear…. It’s a sort of background hum with which we are familiar, from the identical phenomenon in my nervous system; when it’s there, tension reigns, though the underlying reason seems hidden…. It is only when it stops we note we’ve been so tense; the relief is immense. Sadly, there isn’t much that relieves it for my nervous system; for Pearls, I have yet to even identify the root cause, much less figure out how to get it to stop…. So, we end up with weird, which may not seem all that odd, but, trust me, it will be…
Since I can’t seem to find much of anything to say here, and don’t want to completely bore anyone in the intro section, we’ll take this slow on the road…. Luigi! Fire that sucker up, & let’s hit it! Time’s a wastin’…..
Shall we Pearl?….
~~ Robert A. Heinlein ~~
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A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a You Tube video, which I enjoyed so much I’m including it here today. It’s a verbal performance of a W.B. Yeats poem, The Stolen Child, one of the most famous poems in all of English literature. The accompanying original video and music are the perfect enhancement to the poem’s beauty, and though short, one of the most intense doses of beauty I’ve ever been fortunate to experience…. I hope you enjoy it….
The Stolen Child – W.B. Yeats
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“Justice is incidental to law and order.” — J. Edgar Hoover
For someone of my ilk, such a statement, with its inherent arrogance and sense of entitlement, is an obvious invitation to rant; one might say, metaphorically, it’s a red flag to my bullish intellect…. But, that would leave me open to too many bad puns on referring to myself as a bull, or with bovine qualities to my thought processes… I certainly hope NOT…. Nonetheless, whichever metaphor we end up with, if any, I’m going to rant…. J. Edgar is just too much of an asshole to pass up the chance to chew on him. He was SUCH an asshole, I am prompted to pearl….
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” — Oscar Wilde
I’m sure Oscar must have been thinking of J. Ed; I think he met him as a child…. I mean, J. Edgar was a child…. Oscar was already nearly dead at the time…. In fact, it’s a little known historical fact the sight of J. Edgar’s face at the age of three, was the event which actually kicked Oscar over the edge…. (Little known = I made it up…. But, imagine it. Remember J. Edgar’s face when he was at the FBI? At three he must have been a truly scary sight; probably never had to buy a Halloween mask in his life….)
Okay, I’ll stop picking on the dead FBI guy. We’ll get back to what he said above, which, as far as I can tell, is just about as far removed, philosophically, ethically, and morally, from the ideas and concepts involved in the US Constitution, as it can possibly get. I don’t believe the framers of the Constitution had that sort of brutal single-mindedness in mind when they drafted the document; it’s completely foreign to the same view of, well, everything…. The intent of Mason, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, and the rest was to secure Justice for the people, not place it in the hands of the faceless myrmidons who have taken over the police forces, not to mention the courts, of this country.
“All I kin say is when you finds yo’self wanderin’ in a peach orchard, ya don’t go lookin’ for rutabagas.” — Kingfish
Yesterday, when I began this rant, I had the firm intention of dissecting Hoover, and the ridiculous, self-centered attitudes he espoused, which have, sadly, become the modus operandi of almost every police force in this country…. The more I think on it, however, the greater is my feeling of futility, as I so often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir when I rant; the people who NEED to see, and think about this material, almost never do see it, as they’re not interested in changing their minds. Hell, most of them aren’t even aware they HAVE a mind….
So, I’m gonna sublimate, to please myself. We’ll find some statements, about politicians, dogma dogs, snakeheads, myrmidons, pimps, and all the other assholes who are dragging us all down to Hell with them…. Let’s see what SB can come up with today to poke a few holes in their misguided sense of adequacy…. Ah, what the hell; we’ll poke a LOT of holes today…. How about, say, oh, 13 holes?…. Hope they bleed a lot…
In children’s circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What’s never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone’s unhurt, so the blind man sees best.
~~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), “Was There A Time” ~~
“I like the way ONLY their mouths move…. They look like DYING OYSTERS” — Zippy the Pinhead
“The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), “Prejudice”
“Our “neoconservatives” are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.” — Edward Abbey
“If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.” — G.K. Chesterton
“Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess.” — Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
“With rank goeth privileges- so it ever shall be. But also with it go responsibility and obligations, always more onerous than the privileges are pleasant.” — Robert A. Heinlein
“I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue” — Bertrand Russell
“Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.” — Confucius
“I’m going to have you wrapped in a U.S. flag and burned personally by the President, in high octane American gasoline!” — The Firesign Theatre movie, J-Men Forever
“Ignorance is Strength.” — George Orwell’s 1984
“Remember: there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.” — Frank Zappa, “He’s got 20 million dollars in his heavenly bank account.”
~~ Aldous Huxley ~~
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Here is a poem I haven’t re-posted since first written… Don’t know why, as it may be one of my best, such as they are…. I hope you enjoy it…
In the most patient moments of rationality
kindness flows smoothly in a special milieu,
fallow thoughts speed first from equality
to give no anxious fever, anger to eschew.
Indignant mothers and step-sons in-law
shall fade simply from brilliant to grey,
intoning ritual dogma, fresh, avid, and raw,
falling, falling, in massive pastoral disarray.
Safety lives not, save brightly in ignorant bliss,
it follows us all, silent and infinitely frail,
foremost too often, soft as a virgin kiss,
alive, always eager, willing, and pale.
Intimate knowledge finds only the bold few
with courage and virtue to gift, unbidden.
No solemn royal version may pass in review,
true love for man, never to remain unhidden.
Sweet feathers of Emily’s hope uplift,
calm, drowsy episodes bursting with light,
With final glad cries we set ourselves adrift,
swimming in the oceans of natural delight.
When sorrow is banished, in ages yet to come,
roots solidly anchored, cold and remote,
Ample supplies of kindness sit silent and dumb,
and the old stranger shrugs on his faded coat.
Dreaming, then, I wait with shadows in the night
aspiring to inspire, a message from the muse’s heart
Never forgotten images, framed in color bright,
tempt me only, grieving, steeped in serenity’s arcane art.
~~ gigoid ~~
Written 9/18/2013.
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Our final pearl is, apparently, a small, if significant part of what makes today’s effort such an anomaly…. Created in only two sessions at the computer, it came together quite easily, which is the first sign of possible oddity. After a bit of rearrangement, I realized it’s actually a pretty good pearl, for a certain type of mind…. The others who read it may find it a bit hard to penetrate, but, s’okay, not everyone likes peanut butter, even the chunky kind…. Enjoy, ffolkes; I think you can figure it out from here….
“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.” — Immanuel Kant
“Remember what the dormouse said… FEED YOUR HEAD…” — Grace Slick
“A good reputation is more valuable than money.’ — Publius Syrus — Maxim 108
“A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.” — Bob Edwards
“The worst deluded are the self-deluded.” — Christian Nevell Bovee
“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” — Baltasar Gracian
“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Meditations, ix, 16
“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.” — Walt Kelly, Putluck Pogo
At this point in the process, you may ask, what the hell was that all about? I have only one response….
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Y’know? Maybe I’ll make that last line my standard response to ALL queries…. Yeah! That’s the ticket!….
Then, again, that might tend to stifle any potential dialogue…. Okay, we’ll continue to use it only when appropriate…. Now we have that settled, I’m outta here, with energy, a bit of the ready in me pocket, and time on me hands. It’s a big world out there in the Big Blue Room outside the place where my computer lives…. I think I’m going to go see what kind of trouble I can create today…. Not get INTO, mind you, just create…. I’ll try not to involve any innocents, but, they would probably be better off staying off the streets, anyway…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if I don’t run into anyone faster than me….
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch
À bientôt, mon cherí….
