"There's no such thing as a free lunch..."

- especially when you're homeless and starving.

"Humanitarian workers in Syria have been demanding sex in return for aid,
according to a UN report into the sexual violence and exploitation
faced by women during the seven-year war." - The Times, London, today.

When, in freezing weather, back in the 1980s, I brought home
to my borrowed accommodation in Paris
a beautiful young street-sleeper, and cooked him a meal,
he could hardly believe his good fortune
that I did not want to 'have sex with' him.

I was an early enthusiast

for U.B.I. (Universal Basic Income),
and, like carping, snobbish Juvenal, have led
a  frugal yet rich life of active and cultivated
unemployment,
but, unlike poor Juvenal,
supported by a weekly Dole administered
by a generous, though disliked nation-state.

PS My companion suggests

a Universal Canine Benefit
for the very good reason that dogs are beautiful

and should have a daily allowance of minced kitten.

Prime Mover, Big Bang...

Is there any cause
which is not also an effect ?

Word of the Week :

SUSPICIONIZE.

They do this while wearing (ordinary) clothes.

A fire-walker carries a woman on his back across burning embers
during the night of San Juán in San Pedro Manrique in northern Spain.
Photo by Cesar Manso/Getty.

https://aeon.co/essays/how-extreme-rituals-forge-intense-social-bonds

Today is the tenth anniversary

of my pronunciamento-prone blog.

As with a ball

or other projectile,

so in life I had

no aim.

Erotic pleasure is like icing - or marzipan - on a cake.

When it has gone, there might be nothing else -
or there might be a whole, substantial cake -
and if it contains figs, so much the better.

Queen Victoria to her eldest daughter, the Princess Royal :

"I think people marry far too much;
it is such a lottery, after all,
and to a poor woman
a very doubtful happiness."

Middle Eastern Harmony, Inc. launches its Exciting New Product.

The Electric Penis-brush.
Specially designed to clean and punish
those unclean and heavenless
males weighed down by foreskins.

Penis Brush, Penis Brush Suppliers and Manufacturers at Alibaba.com

https://www.alibaba.com › Gifts & Crafts › brush

1. 
   

Alibaba.com offers 231 penis brush products. About 28% of these are teeth whitening, 12% are silicone rubber, and 9% are sex products. A wide variety of penis brush options are available to you, such as party decoration, party favor.

The Swimming Sea-snail.

Limacina antarctica 

                           photographed by the great Alexander Semenov.

On the same website I subsequently found this sea-slug:

                                             Cyerce nigricans.

When I feed my dog,

he sits before me and the food,

and I bow - in reverence to him

and to the food.  And then he eats.

This is my only religious ritual.
It is enough.

I accidentally deleted today's blog.

But I'm sure this is better:

TO BE GREAT
by Eric Chaet

What if you were to say to me, “You’re great!”

In my younger days, I yearned
to be told, “You’re great!”

But, now, who are you?
How do you know more than I, or even as well as I
if I’m great or not great?

And what does it mean, to be great?

It’s true, Beethoven was great at writing symphonies.
No one ever wrote such great symphonies before or since—
or, if they did, word of it hasn’t reached me.
It’s quite possible.
What’s truly great may not seem so to those who witness it.
They may not notice, they may not comprehend,
or they may nervously laugh it off, or denigrate it—
so as not to feel less than someone else.

Even so, an earthworm is at least as great
as any of Beethoven’s symphonies.
Certainly, the planet Uranus, is as great.
A pear is as great, or a dandelion, or duck.
So, then, what is great?

And as great as Beethoven’s symphonies are
(I listen to them again & again)
or an earthworm, Uranus, a pear, or a duck—
still, most people suffer
& most people put on poses
because they can’t bear who they are.

I know that, some rare times, what I have done
I have done in the greatest way possible—
but how great is the deed?—
when most people suffer
& most people put on poses
because they can’t bear who they are.

After reading some lines by Ikkyū.

一休宗純  Ikkyū Sōjun, 1394–1481 BCE

Call me Kublai.

A single breath of cannabis:
tingling nipples and a surging willy -
a root and minor route of happiness,
a mystic minaret, a pepper-pot of pleasure
that I can quite soulfully
caress - not bully - in long sweet
kundalini-solitude
and brimfully
with no hint of ineptitude.

Unable to read Moby Dick

- and thus ignorant of the First Mate's Quaker, shipowner-name of Starbuck -
I have never felt
quite cruel enough
to be properly
human.

How many do ?

An 'Old Soul'

is more naïve than more recent models.

I have never understood the modern idea of 'Employment' -
- but now I realise that it is primarily ritual.

I have never subscribed to that particular and brief religion.

We all return to the asylums of our future.

My Zen Master,

Diogenes Rumi Krishnamurti,
said:
There is food for thought everywhere
for stray-dog intellectuals.

Maybe the Secret of Happiness
is to keep one eyebrow cheerfully lifted
while keeping well-fed...

Bad Taste.

Now that aid-workers have had The Finger of Shame
pointed at them retrospectively
(especially in Haiti, but also in Congo,
Bosnia and - we'll probably learn - in Lebanon and Bangladesh),
it may soon be time to mention the skunk-fisters of North America.

To have a little war, any excuse will do.

from Quora.

The ongoing “Whisky War” between Canada and Denmark 
involves both a territorial dispute and a sense of humour.

Hans Island (Hansø) is a barren Arctic rock in the Kennedy Channel.

Every few months the Canadian military will land on it,
find a Danish flag and several bottles of schnapps.
The soldiers will remove the Dannebrog and hoist the Maple Leaf,
then take the schnapps (snaps),
replace it with a crate of Canadian whisky (yuk), and leave.
Mission tastefully accomplished.

Normality

is
     muzzled
                    muffled
                                  insanity.

Crusty

or grumpy old men
may simply be those from whose eyes
the scales have progressively fallen,
are progressively falling -
and they are simply no longer prepared
to pander to other people's hypocrisies.

Since no language is logical,

and some are fanatically complex,
it is likely that we are not logical beings.
Our ever-vaunted intelligence
may only be refined anxiety
over death's logical intransigence.

Yet another unscientific thought.

Maybe Early Homo Sapiens
'dealt with' Neanderthals
as Chimpanzees treat Bonobos -
raping all the women
and eating at least the brains
of the strongest males.

We particularly dislike
those animals who mirror us:
magpies, alligators, foxes, wolverines
and killer whales.

Except in very rigidly tribal or divided societies,

we don't have enemies,
but make them.

A Sufi aperçu.

When you close your eyes
you can experience great pleasure
in listening while paint dries.

I don't suppose

that, at 'The End of History',
anyone recalled
(nor will remember)
the sad tenth of Nivôse.

No Other Creature Is Inconvenienced.

The moderately-ascetic hermit
will sometimes go to bed
not long after eight p.m.
to sniff last week's underpants
and joyfully ejaculate.

On receiving a new credit card.

It still  'Requires a Signature'...

...which can be anything,

so long as the card-presenter can repeat (or copy) it.

But of course nobody looks at mere signatures anymore.

Instead of my name, I write my PIN in two ways, in Danish

(Tretten treogfyrre and Een-tre-fire-tre)

which only a Nordic could translate.

I could do the same in Finnish

(YksiKolmeNelyäKolme).

I can count up to 20 in Finnish – but not in Irish. 

“Go figure !” as they say

in the USA.

My head is full of the strangest things -

such as the year of the Murder of the Estonian Kings.

If you want to be a Sufi

the first step is :
stop wanting to be a Sufi.

S'appeler Soufi ne suffit pas.

According to Charles Darwin,

the best way to catch a baboon
is to get it drunk with beer,
then grab it by its tail when it was hung over.

But what to do with a baboon when it is feeling good again ?

I have experienced temporary loss of balance recently.

This is from an on-line forum on a drug I have been taking for 30 years:

There is an increased risk of falls amongst elderly patients who take benzodiazepines,

but there is also an increased risk amongst sleep-deprived patients.

Elderly patients are often also sensitive to medications and require a lower dose than is the norm.

Temazepam is a fairly short-acting benzo so once-daily dosing doesn't carry the same risk of physical dependence as taking diazepam once a day, for example, although over time it is possible to build up a residual background level.
The main concern is psychological dependence and rebound insomnia on stopping the drug. - a procedure which should be gradual.

There is also the possibility of it becoming less effective over time - but, equally, some people can take a steady benzo dose for years for sleep; 'mileage' can vary. Sleep has a large psychological component and this can affect the efficacy of sleeping tablets.

Sleep hygiene is important. This means going to bed at a set time, using bed only for sleeping in, doing relaxing activities before bed (not involving a screen), no caffeine after midday, no nicotine right before bed, getting up after 30-60 minutes of not sleeping and doing something else for 10 minutes, not lying in no matter how bad the night's sleep was... it can take a while to get into good habits but they can really help.

I'll see if I can find some papers on temazepam use in the elderly later - or you can try a google scholar search."

I learned the names of trees

and types of cloud
and wild flowers
at an early age
from my mother.
Most kids now
could not identify an acorn*
or a horse-chestnut**
without a spot of Google-bother.

* amusingly called gland (=glans) in French
**also called a conker and a cheeser