Large Fierce Mammal

“The ‘real world’, as it turns out, is not where most people live, nor are they required to as it is just as possible to live an entire apparently fulfilled life absent any attempts at objectivity or even half-hearted use of critical thinking as it is to work for years with someone whose name you can’t remember without ever once giving the game away.

“Your own ‘real world’ may be a self-made, and workable within your own context, version of an agreed upon statement of facts. Right now, most of what has come to be called ‘content’ offered up to be eagerly gobbled down by the masses comes from sources tailored to validate this propensity which is innately human with genesis far before the current century, and well before Phineas Taylor Barnum is credited with audibly observing, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

“To indulge in it doesn’t make you a sucker although it can render the unwary vulnerable to being one. Even repeatedly.

“And from this comes the combined promise and threat of Artificial Intelligence which will be the topic of our next gathering.” ~ An Agreed Upon Statement of Facts

This, it would seem, is the next gathering as aforesaid.

On 26 September 2012, as part of my Worldly Wisdom Wednesday series, I published an article here on the subject of Tools in which I set forth a list of fundamental defining characteristics. Read this and keep it in mind as we delve into the forging of this new “tool”:

“A real Tool then must be a True force multiplier – thus a True Tool, and to be that it must fit into one or more vital categories including, but not limited to, making a heretofore impossible job possible, a hard job easier, a risky job safer. In addition, it must conform to the following absolutes, each of which is so important that the order of their presentation is of no consequence –

• It must be maintainable.
• Its durability and longevity must not constitute a built-in guarantee of waste.
• Life with it must be superior to life without it.
• Neither its use, nor the job it was devised to perform, shall represent the creation of an equal or greater problem while solving another.
• It must not represent the lesser of two or more evils.
• For any given task, it must provide a dividend in the form of time expended, materials used, and/or energy required.
• It must exist to do a job that is necessary within the context of sound ecological and ergonomic practice.

“In short, it must serve within the balanced Economy of Nature, and not the wasteful ‘economy’ of dollars and cents in which the soothing buzzword ‘sustainable’ really describes business practices that will permit continued rates of growth and consumption – business as usual – with a smaller discernible impact. For any organism, getting through a day requires expenditure of energy and resources for the purpose of acquiring more energy and resources. Simply living in place requires at least a ‘break even’ on that balance, but a higher return is required if the organism must hunt and catch its prey, for reproduction, the rearing of young, migration, overwintering, or hibernation. Everything in Nature is about efficiency and balance, which is why life is, first and foremost, an exercise in energy management. For example, the Way of the Wild demands of each parent that their offspring be made self-sufficient as quickly and efficiently as possible. A tool need not be a physical artifact – rest assured that skilled parenting is a Tool – but to be True it must help, not hinder, such processes, and must never represent a brilliant answer to a question that was never asked. Let’s look at a few modern examples that have gone that way, but didn’t have to.” ~ Worldly Wisdom Wednesday — Tools

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the 21st Century understanding of the term is a suite of technologies harmonized to collect and curate information so that the output may present an amazingly credible simulacrum of human creativity, sexuality, and mendacity. Contrary to the way it has been presented, the reality of AI is neither new nor mature, so most of what is seen, or unseen but implied, in the wild today falls into four primary classifications:

1. AI — Threat or menace?
2. AI the saviour — We’re saved!
3. AI — Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
4. AI in the shadows — Child of secret research, both private and public sector, outcomes cloaked behind a mixture of laws falling under national security, intellectual property, and a host of others designed to keep the cards close to the vest, if not up a sleeve.

The Truth is more nuanced than that but in general those are the high points one sees expressed in headlines, many of which may have been created, at least in part, employing AI technology. (more…)

Image © Amy Baker 2020 (instagram.com/amy_louisebaker)

“It’s a beautiful thing to refuse to forget…” ~ Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Fencing Master

What ho oh Weary Pilgrim, and welcome to this watch fire hard by the Yawning Rabbit Hole of Confusion. First, something to clarify at least the legal definition of today’s headline:

“More than 90 per cent of criminal convictions in Canada are not the result of a trial, but of a guilty plea. As I wrote a couple of years ago, people plead guilty for many reasons, only one of which is that they are actually guilty. But that’s another matter.

“Every guilty plea involves the creation of something called an ‘agreed statement of facts.’ The Crown and the defence agree that the set of facts in this statement are true, and those facts are then read in court as justifying both the charge and the plea of guilty …

“The thing I learned from my experience is that the key word in the phrase ‘agreed statement of facts’ is not ‘facts,’ but ‘agreed.’ The key to the statement is that the two sides agree to it and that it contains enough information to justify the charges and the guilty plea. It may contain statements that one side would not regard as factual, and it certainly will omit facts that most outside observers would see as highly relevant to the charge. In many cases the ‘statement of facts’ will not provide an adequate understanding about what happened and why. It was quite unnerving to me that the only official account of what happened in relation to my charges was so limited, if not misleading …” ~ What ‘agreed statement of facts’ really means by David Dorson, LAW360 Canada

A shortcut then, whereby the “official” record of events is built up from a framework of mutually palatable fictions wherein “agreement” may be more inferred than real, and “palatable” for some participants may be more of the order of, “It’ll fill you up if you can choke it down.” (more…)

This poem was inspired by two utterances of Wisdom from wellsprings I drink from routinely.

The first is this segment from Maestro Adam Crown‘s exquisite Swordmastery YouTube channel, being a four minute video titled The Law of Conservation of Combat — Bogart’s Fencing Lesson.

The other is a story from the website of the Ronin Katsujinken Kenjutsu and Battojutsu Dojo that I read yesterday courtesy of Master At Arms James Keating’s daily evolving and highly recommended MAAJAK World Ezine. Titled The Principle of the Life Giving Sword, the piece begins with this:

One day, the famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi and his student walked on a path passing underneath a large mountain outcrop. On the outcrop, a large boulder ominously loomed over the edge. Musashi’s student expressed concern and fear for passing under the boulder, to which Musashi laughed and said that this is how the swordsman should strive to be. Always exuding a spirit so strong, that a sword never need be drawn.

All that being said, enjoy the poem.

The Fencing Lesson of the Leaning Hemlock
By LFM

This lofty Hemlock straight and tall
Once picked by Nature’s hand to fall,
Reclining now o’erlays the trail,
Held up by straining neighbours hale.

Their trunks hard bent by weight and sway,
Those saviours hold Earth’s call at bay,
And that was how I found them there —
As bow limbs drawn too far to bear.

Yet bear they did without complaint,
No groan nor crack, however faint,
An homage to tenacity,
Proclaimed in stilled veracity.

Though absent sound to prick the ear,
The Fencing lesson, loud and clear,
Revealed itself there in the Wood,
To strike unbidden where I stood.

One never knows, a Master said,
Just where a lesson will be fed,
Nor who will cook and serve the fare,
Upon the student’s humble tare.

With grateful words upon my breath,
And no good need to flirt with death,
My careful feet pursued a path
Around my Teacher’s looming wrath.

And ken thee now the why of this,
‘Tis no mere game of hit and miss,
The blow is certain, understand,
And death to him where it will land.

As Distance so be Timing, ken?
The where is known but not the when!
He moves on sprightly dancing feet
Where blow and target ne’er can meet!

Declined la belle now left behind,
Another Truth suffused my mind —
‘Tis no dishonour not to tarry
Before a blow too strong to parry.

And should Honour not demand
The taking of a final stand,
Speaks he of tested mettle, “Fie!
“”Tis not the hill on which to die!”

Strive ye upon the Swordsman’s way
To be the Hemlock every day,
For those with Strength of Spirit know
Less call to strike the final blow.

A train traverses the Isthmus of Chignecto on what passes for a crystal clear day by my experience. Source: Here

Previously in this series:

• T’ick o’ Fog (Part 1)

Welcome back Goode Reader to this second installment of T’ick o’ Fog. Today we will look at a variety of “fog” that may not be foremost in the mind where atmospheric phenomena normally hold pride of place. I speak, of course, of metaphorical fog, which draws not only its name from the meteorological kind. For like that one, it may still dangerously obscure perception either by its nature or manipulation thereof, and yet differs as it need not exist in any tangible form at all to make its presence known through outcomes.

A lot of humans are possessed of a desire to be freed of personal responsibility for choices and the actions made manifest by them. The concept of the scapegoat is an outcome of this. The scapegoat may be a person or group, a set of undesirable circumstances, but more commonly a combination of the two. Let’s look at an example of what I mean. (more…)

2025 blew in over the shore with its own version of the vapours, alleging worldwide envelopment in mystery obscurants portending doom, and offering me an invitation, if not an outright demand, to give the situation a sniff of my own.

At first, I was inspired to recall the intro to this episode of Get Smart … (more…)

We’re girding our loins for another Winter campaign. (Source: Three Princesses of Whiteland, illustrated by Kay Nielsen

Greetings Goode and Weary Pilgrims as we embark together on another Hunt, joyous in the comradeship of our Worthy fellows even as many among our number may have been lamed by the vicissitudes of months past.

We aren’t dead yet.

An odd time this. In my travels upon the land, I find even the Wise and Accomplished taking solace in an end to travails now all too well known and of a certainty not missed, while at the same time stepping off into the Great Unknown in a manner not unlike our progenitors of yore who willingly cast off old and worn dangers to face even older and more primal Realities heretofore unimagined. Know that however restorative meditation over past woundings and future options may be, its practice by the ill advised comes with a stacked deck capable of stifling boldness of Action, and instead harnessing the hesitant to a treadmill of second thoughts.

The Worthy will turn those cards to better use by burning them to light the way through these dark times, along with the treadmill and any other artifice that stinks of knees, for weakness stays the hand, and in stillness is Death.

Other fuels expended, fear no encroaching shadows for their banishment is assured by burning the bridge or the ship that brought you to where you stand today, for today is all you can lay claim to, and even that only if you are Worthy.

Are you Worthy?

That isn’t for anyone but you to judge, but you’ll know Goode Pilgrim. You’ll know.

Stay True.

No apples today. Come back later. (LFM Photo)

In thanks to all those who have noticed my absence of late and felt motivated either to take up arms in proclaiming their disquiet, or clutch them tight to suffer in silence, I offer this brief walk in yesterday’s woods and my promise that you will find yourselves back to being tired of me soon enough.

To all my Goode Readers wherever you may wave, Mrs. LFM, your not so humble Scribe, and our three thriving offspring, wish you at least some solace from travail, and a favourable send into days ahead full of more light than dark.

Except the Dark you come here to find. We’ll give you all of that you can stand.

As one late breaking bit of meteorological news, it remains to be seen if my snowshoe story as told in the video will repeat itself with the new cargo sled I and #1 Son sallied forth to bring home on Friday. Conditions are delightfully foggy as compacted snow remains to grow denser, so faux Spring or gathering of breath for more Winter right and proper? Time will tell. (more…)

My Esteemed Friend Martin, of Crime Scene Man fame was once in the employ of a police agency in a small Nova Scotia town that had come to contain a population of White Tail Deer of, let us say, unsound proportions. One day, while on patrol, he was driving a street running along the edge of a field that met the roadway in a steep descent so anything approaching the pavement from that direction would be above a driver’s lines of sight until very near. That’s how he hit a Deer, breaking a headlight and I don’t remember what all else.

The vehicle he was driving was sent to the repair shop his employer used for such things and was returned to service with speed, good as new. Until on his first shift back from days off, my Esteemed Friend Martin took it on patrol, drove along the same road at the base of the same field, and suddenly heard a loud thump on a rear door. That was when a Deer hit him. The door was crumpled a might, and I don’t remember what all else, but back to the shop it went with orders from the Chief of Police for it, and the rest of the fleet, to be fitted with “deer whistles” in case whatever was causing Martin’s one-man epidemic was catching.

As to the Deer in question, in both cases they got up and ran off in the way Deer have of absorbing unbelievable trauma and then running away to either heal, or pause to check if they’re being followed, feel unwell, lay down, and expire.

Now on to more recent events. (more…)

Source: Yore Mom

In my over 40 year career of advising clients in the methods and madness of protecting their persons, property and interests, I have been consulted many times for recommendations on solutions to problems that were so wildly unlikely to manifest as to be undetectable on any actuarial table as a potential cause of death or material loss. Persistent hand wringing pearl clutchers traditionally get steered in the direction of their insurance company with instructions to lay out for them the same concerns. If those mercenary bastards fine people are unable (or unwilling) to quote a premium, or addition to the premiums of an existing policy, I would take that as evidence that even they haven’t thought of adding it to their revenue generator.

This came to my mind from a brief conversation with the operator of an annual Hallowe’en themed attraction, specifically the Haunted House operated by Noggins Corner Farm in Greenwich, Nova Scotia. Greeting people before they enter the “Haunted House” and explaining the safety rules, she made mention of certain behaviours not being permitted on the grounds that they would violate their, “Haunted House insurance,” adding, “Yes, that’s a thing.” (more…)

One is never too young to learn these lessons. As to the kid, I have no idea how old he is. Got your nose! (Cute is Cute by TheFulkrum.)

“Darkness, as it inspires me, isn’t limited to expressions of evil, mayhem, and bad outcomes. Something can also be considered “dark” if it is unknown, misunderstood, or incorrectly interpreted. So, depending on your sensibilities good reader, I believe that if the title of the series, let alone its author, didn’t dissuade you from stepping inside, then you will find some modicum of entertainment in what follows. Nevertheless, you may also come to find, albeit too late because by then the arrow will have already found its mark, that some portions are best avoided by those imbued with that tortured combination of empathy, clarity of visualization, and a propensity for nightmares.” ~ Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 1: Another Harvest

“None are innocent. There are only those weak enough to believe they are, and those strong enough to revel in the knowledge that they are not.” ~ Ye Diary of a Madman, Jacob Strauss, Magus of the Shining Hill, London 1940

Let Us Speak of Darkness

By LFM

Let us speak of Darkness,
Of what is and isn’t that,
No entry level nonsense,
As mere plumage on a cat.

Let us speak of Darkness,
How it lives by darkest moon,
With its power undiminished
By the brightest light of noon.

Let us speak of Darkness,
With its very name a ruse,
It grows fat on hate and ignorance —
Beware the paths you choose.

Let us speak of Darkness,
The unknown, misunderstood,
And find the joy of knowing
There are different kinds of “Good”.

Let us speak of Darkness,
Sloughing innocence like scurf,
He keeps what he can take and hold
From weakness on the turf.

Let us speak of Darkness,
Jolly Lovers of the Shade,
And let the meek inherit
All that innocence has made.