Thursday, August 28, 2008

Take That, You Rascally Republicans!

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Mack Hall All the world turns its attention to the upper midwest this week, because when you’re talking about Republicans in Minnesota, you’...
Saturday, August 23, 2008

Down From the Door Where it Began

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First printed in 2001 Mack Hall The road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began Now far ahead the road has gone And I must fo...
Sunday, August 17, 2008

Roderick Spode Goes to the Olympics

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Mack Hall Dictators are not as sartorially formal as they used to be. Wodehouse’s fictional Roderick Spode practiced dictator-poses before a...

Roderick Spode Goes to the Olympics

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Mack Hall Dictators are not as sartorially formal as they used to be. Wodehouse’s fictional Roderick Spode practiced dictator-poses before a...

The Secret Jail for Democrats

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Mack Hall To read that Denver has built a secret jail for the detention of Democrats (activists say so; it must be true) is a thought so hea...
Sunday, August 3, 2008

Preabsolutely

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Mack Hall Perhaps the excessive use of the prefix “pre” began with advertisements by funeral homes: we were urged to preplan preneed for our...
Sunday, July 27, 2008

Beijing, We Have a Problem

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Mack Hall The 19th was the British century, and the 20th was the American. The 21st is said to be the Chinese century, but beijing has a pr...
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Mack Reports on Hurricane Dolly

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Mack Hall Mighty Category (number) Hurricane Dolly demonstrated Mother Nature’s wrath and scorn for man’s place in the planet as she slammed...
Sunday, July 20, 2008

World Geezer Day

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Mack Hall With the close of World Youth Day in Australia, we aging Boomers naturally ask why we can’t have a day of our own with a visit by ...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

For Jason and Ingrid on the Pilgrimage Road to Santiago de Compostela

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Mack Hall An Old Man Takes His Evening Walk For Young Jason and Inky on Their Morning Journey An old man weary-wends his evening walk Along ...
Sunday, July 13, 2008

Orwell Was Wrong

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Mack Hall Orwell got it wrong, of course. In 1984 the omnipresent telescreen is forced upon a subservient population by an omnipotent socia...
Saturday, July 12, 2008

Priestblock 25487, by Jean Bernard

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A brief review for Amazon.com: Father Bernard's narrative, written shortly after the war, is especially effective in its understatement....
Monday, July 7, 2008

The Curse of the Headless Hitler

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Mack Hall In Berlin a Communist ex-policeman crossed a barrier in a private museum in order to twist the head off a wax statue of Adolf Hitl...
Sunday, June 29, 2008

Time to Wear the Big-Boy Pants

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Mack Hall Booze is at last legal in Jasper, Texas, and the first purchaser probably looked at the news cameras while heaving a case of Sloug...
Monday, June 23, 2008

Reality Funerals

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Mack Hall Several weeks ago a fellow who made his living arguing with people on the tellyvision died unexpectedly (but, really, does anyone ...
Sunday, June 15, 2008

No, It's Not Katrina

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Mack Hall All of Iowa’s major rivers are flooding, which means most of Iowa is flooding. Farms, suburbs, urban areas, the capital, the cap...
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Sunday, June 8, 2008

Beggars, Urban Climbers, and the Environment

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Mack Hall Last week one of the world’s superfluous rich climbed the New York Times Building (is there a connection?) to unfold a banner mai...
Sunday, June 1, 2008

When in Doubt, Blame the Soldier

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Mack Hall “War hath no fury like a non-combatant” -- Charles Edward Montague On the night of 6 June 1944 my father was on a ship in the Engl...
Monday, May 26, 2008

A Sequence of Iambs for Graduation Night

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Mack Hall A Sequence of Iambs for Graduation Night A few clumsy iambs are not enough To thank you for the bles...
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Indiana Jones Wheezes Through

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Mack Hall When one thinks of high adventure one naturally thinks of Indiana with its menacing cornfields of death, gravity-defying flat land...