Where is Tom Brady's Jersey? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Where is Tom Brady’s Jersey?

The world watches and waits in silence, and on everyone’s lips is this question - where is Tom Brady’s jersey? The Pope leads prayers for it as America’s version of the Shroud of Turin. The Queen has put James Bond on the case. French Prime Minister Francois Hollande and his cabinet are in secret session behind closed doors at the Moulin Rouge. Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken off his own shirt in a show of solidarity and geriatric pecs. President Trump said the jersey can stay if it has a current visa or if it bears his daughter Ivanka’s made-in-China designer label. Prime Minister Trudeau has promised it sanctuary in Canada. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, impatient with the Texas Rangers, has ordered the Texas Navy to set every Lake Travis party boat asail, manned with the fierce, seafaring warriors of the University of Texas Glee Club.

The United Nations has established a Where is Tom Brady’s Jersey Central Clearing House Command, and on those rare occasions when the UN is not clearing house with taxpayers’ dollars has established this pattern of reports about the possible locations of the jersey:

Riding in the white Bronco with O.J.

Sipping margaritas with Elvis on the beach in Cancun.

Hiding in a Where’s Waldo? picture.

Trying to escape to Canada in a false beard.

Still in the TSA security line at Newark International Airport.

Got beaten up by Charles Oakley and is in hospital.

Is on a secret mission for the C.I.A.

Eloped with an Atlanta Falcons jersey.

Is undergoing a trans-something surgical change and will soon appear on an Oprah special as a Yosemite Sam tee-shirt.

Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, asking people if they are saved.

Is being held ransom in a Nordstrom’s window for the thoughtcrime of Trump-by-association.

Is trying to slip through Gestapo and Milice roadblocks with Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan in order to contact the French Resistance and escape back to its RAF squadron laundry in England.

Is seeking enlightenment with the Dalai Lama and Franklin Graham.

Is doing therapy after spitting into a DNA cup and learning that its fibers are not 100% cotton.

Elizabeth Warren is reading it aloud in a bold demonstration of defiance, speaking power to truth, and, like, stuff.

Has found a new career as Kim Jong-Il’s cute nightshirt.

Slipped out for a celebratory glass of champagne at the Lone Star Grill, and was mistaken for a bar towel. When last seen it was draped around a keg of light beer. Not pretty.

Is swimming to Cuba.

And so, citizens of the world, keep your eyes open. Watch the skies. A jersey is a terrible thing to waste. Let us stand as one, hold hands, share a Coca-Cola, begin a dialogue, establish a makeshift shrine, think outside the bag, reinvent the wheel, cut to the chase, throw despair under the bus and caution to the wind, seek the light at the end of the tunnel, write a mission statement, connect the dots, stand and deliver, shift the paradigm, generate a win-win situation, transform society, reach the youth where they are, make a difference, give 1001 percent, if you love something set it free, livestream the roses, embrace spare change, avoid in-between-meal snacks, embrace your inner sophomore, and give it up for the safe return of Tom Brady’s shirt.

-30-

In Defense of Iambic Pentameter - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

In Defense of Iambic Pentameter

Oh, no! Pentameter is not a trap -
Pentameter is freedom’s wings, aloft
And golden in the morning sun, and free
It lifts our dreams into the skies, and sings

Pentameter is language’s strong heart
Its rhythm shapes our fondest hopes, and sends
Each one upon a pilgrimage of truth
To happiness enthroned at journey’s end

Besides all that, pentameter
Helps calm giddy tetrameter!

Couplet for a Military Dentist - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Couplet for a Military Dentist

The call of the bugles, the thunder of drums -
Mount up! And ride to the sound of the gums!

Tales of the Texas Rangers - The Legend of Tom Brady's Shirt - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Tales of the Texas Rangers:

The Legend of Tom Brady’s Shirt

Texas is rich with tales of old
Heroes, villains, San Saba’s gold

Once Aztecs ruled our shores and bays
And Tejas roamed the forest ways

Here in this sunburnt arid land
Comanches bold made their last stand

Karankawas, Apaches too -
All sorts of tales, and mostly true

Nueva Espana, then Mexico
Rebellion and the Alamo

But the strangest tale, we now assert
Is the mystery of Tom Brady’s shirt

Missing it is, after the game
Who is the thief? Who is to blame?

Dan Patrick, the lieutenant-guv
He swore by all the stars above

And most of all by that one Star
That’s flown in every saloon and bar

He’d catch that creep, and make him hurt
Whoever pinched Tom Brady’s shirt

So in this time of topless danger
He called upon each Texas Ranger

His voice was low, but cold as steel:
“Y’all brang that mangy cur to heel;

Load your weapons, and saddle up!”
Each Ranger answered with a “Yup.”

All Rangers, now, be on alert:
Somebody rustled Tom Brady’s shirt

Every Texan expects your best
(Tom Brady is our honored guest)

He can’t go home in just his jeans
So find his jersey, by any means

Remember - not a blouse or skirt;
You’re looking for the poor man’s shirt

That’s why you Rangers are paid so much -
Search every hootch and hovel and hutch

Somewhere under the Texas skies
An outlaw hides, and probably cries

He shamed his state and he shamed his mama
And the only end to all this drama

Will come upon him like wind and dust
And a voice will command (with great disgust)

“Stand and deliver, you ugly varmint!
Hold up your hands, and drop that garment!”

“Oh, Texas Ranger, tell me true:
How did you find me? I feel so blue!”

And the Ranger will sing softly:

“The shirt of a stranger is upon you…”1

y colorín, colorado y este cuento se ha acabado, y’all

1Apologies to Chuck Norris

A John LeCarre' Novel - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A John LeCarre’ Novel

The brick walls of the houses along the street
Are always centuries-damp in the dim streetlights
Flickering yellow past the garbage cans
And is that sound - water dripping? Footsteps?

She was to meet him in the shadows of
A shuttered plywood newspaper kiosk
That tiny red spark over there – it moves
But she doesn’t smoke. And she’s very cautious

A scream. A shot. A cat. A light. A voice,

A very soft voice:

“Mustn’t be found here, old boy. Need a lift?”

The Death of a Good and Faithful Spider - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Death of a Good and Faithful Spider

A good and faithful spider lived its life
In spinning and dusting and catching pests
In the ikon corner among the saints:
Kyril and Methodius, Seraphim

Tikhon the Wonderworker, Vladimir
Anna of Kashin, Nicholas the Czar
Zosima, Xenia of Saint Petersburg
And all the cloud of holy Slavic witness

Whose images were guarded worthily
By a little spider who served God well

Ticonderoga - Pencils and Wars - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Ticonderoga – Pencils and Wars

Ticonderoga, New York, is a small town on Lake Champlain, across from Vermont. Ticonderoga is said to be a Mohawk word indicating a river landing or river port. In colonial times the French built a fort there to guard the frontier against the English. Then the English took the fort from the French. Then Yank revolutionaries took it from the English. Then the English took it back. Then the Yanks got it back again after the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and then they made pencils there.

Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point were important because of the north-south axis of Lake Champlain, which facilitated transportation – and invasion – between Montreal and New York. Now that we’re all friends and have roads and airplanes, Ticonderoga and its restored fort are quiet places to visit. Fort Carillon / Ticonderoga is not some sort of amusement park imagining; it is a big old star fort of French design (http://www.fortticonderoga.org/).

Once upon a time a child could write about Ticonderoga in his Big Chief tablet with a #2 Ticonderoga pencil, and he still can, only now his All-American Yankee Doodle We Can Do It Ticonderoga pencil is made in China, Italy, German, or South America, not Ticonderoga, and the Big Chief tablet is no more.

The various successor companies were bought by Fila-Fabbricca Italiana Lapis Ed Affini S.p.A. in 2004 and who ended pencil production in Ticonderoga.

According to Dixon Ticonderoga, “This acquisition allowed for many synergies between the two companies creating a global, vertically-integrated, premier education supply company. (http://www.dixoncanada.com/?page_id=10).

Okay, class, can anyone tell us what “many synergies” means? How about “global, vertically-integrated?” Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? And no one can, because all that is puffy filler language devoid of meaning. Sounds impressive, though.

A pencil is made from wood and a mixture of clay and graphite. Apparently the first pencils were invented in England in the Middle Ages (said to be the Dark Ages, and of course at night things were dark but by day people were doing all sorts of things, like inventing pencils and writing with them).

Yankee Doodles made doodling all the better in the 19th century by developing the pencil as we know it, complete, in the latter part of the century, with an eraser.

Cedar is popular for pencils not because of its happy scent, but because it is less prone than other woods to fragmenting while being sharpened. Even so, the smell of cedar is a magic time tunnel which sends us back, if even for a moment, to the first grade. In illo tempore a tablet was a Big Chief tablet, no batteries required, and a stylus was a #2 Ticonderoga with which a boy or girl could make whole worlds and light them up with pictures and stories that did not need storing in the clouds because they came from the clouds.

-30-

The Pump Trumps Trump - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Pump Trumps Trump

Enough about the president. Let us discuss adventures in buying gasoline along US96.

Last week I bought gasoline at an area station (let us call it Sooper Dooper Gas ‘n’ Cigarettes ‘n’ Lottery Tickets).

When I completed the transaction the pump said that I had bought 11.603 gallons of gas at $2.199 a gallon for a total of $25.51.

However, the ticket the same pump printed out said that I had bought 11.421 gallons of gas at $2.199 for a total of $25.11

Why the differences?

I snapped pictures of the pump readout and the ticket printout, and took them inside to the clerk to ask what this was about, how much gas did I really get, and how much would I be billed. She was very nice about it all, and printed from an inside machine a ticket that agreed with the pump’s readout, and asked to keep the ticket the pump had printed.

In a happier world I would have dismissed this as merely a machine error involving a few cents, but now I don’t know. Did someone fiddle with the pump or the two printers or all of these gadgets in order to realize an extra helping of cash from hundreds of such small errors – if they are errors – in a day?

I don’t know.

I do know that for me (a sampling of somewhat less than a hundred consumers), buying gasoline from different stations (another sampling of somewhat less than a hundred) associated with different companies along US96 has been, well, interesting in the past few months.

A station at which I bought gas for years stopped accepting credit cards at the pumps months ago. Signs said that the company was reworking the computer programming or something, but nothing changed. I did not suspect anything, but after some weeks chose to shop at other stations where I could pay at the pump and not walk away from the car.

But shopping elsewhere revealed the same problems. Other stations (some, not all) representing different oil companies, also had card readers that were not working. One clerk wanted me to leave my credit card with him while I gassed the car.

Well, no, that ain’t happening. You just don’t leave your card in the hands of someone else. You just don’t.

I have also noticed that some gas pumps at different stations reveal that access plates have been forced open (http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/devices-to-steal-credit-card-numbers-found-in-numerous-dallas-gas-pumps/287573718), that the keypads have been separated from the pump, or that the required state inspection seals are missing (http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/oct/16/hank-gilbert/hank-gilbert-says-gas-pumps-every-texas-department/).

Any one of these curious matters in isolation would probably not be significant, but a pattern of curious matters is.

Even when nothing appears to be irregular the gas customer should always:

1. Keep the credit card in hand or in sight. It takes only seconds for a bad actor to scan the code on your card on a clever little reader concealed in his pocket or palm (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/LegalCenter/story?id=3066304) or under the counter.
2. Pull on the card reader to ensure it is not a shell overlay stealing your code (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/03/credit-card-skimming-gas-stations_n_2607197.html).
3. Insist on a receipt – don’t ignore that “See Cashier for Receipt” sign.
4. Keep all your receipts and match them with your monthly statement.
5. Take a picture of the pump and the numbers every time you buy gas. Take pictures of any loose bits or damages to the pump.
6. Compare the numbers on the receipt and the pump before you drive away.
7. Don’t let the gas gauge fall below empty before shopping for gas. If you’re down to an empty tank then you’re out of choices and can’t drive away from a dodgy gas station.
8. Try not to be cynical – and sometimes that’s a challenge.

-30-

Cats are Iambic Pentameter - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cats are Iambic Pentameter

Light-footed cats are nature’s iambics
Each subtle feline step unstressed to stressed
Across a lawn, a counterpane, a heart
As a tail-twitching cat ballet, all grace

But dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon1 lines
Galumphing heavily and clumsily
Across a moor, a sleeping-bag, a heart
As a tail-wagging country reel (gone bad)

Soft-footed cats are nature’s iambics
And dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon lines

1Old English Anglo-Saxon (approx. fifth-twelfth century). Applies to four-stress hemistichal alliterative verse, e.g. Beowulf.

- Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

Office of Quality Enhancement and Innovation - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Office of Quality Enhancement and Innovation

The institution is committed to
ongoing, integrated, and insti
tution-wide research-based planning and e
valuation processes. To empha
size our continued commitment to this
process, institutional effective
ness is managed at the executive
level to foster a culture of con
tinuous improvement and is sustained
by the campus community. In sup
port of this integrative process, the
newly formed Office of Quality En
hancement and Innovation will work col
laboratively with administration,
faculty and staff to ensure the pro
cess continues.

The Office of Quality Enhancement
and Innovation (QEI) will focus
on enhancing and improving program
ming and services using innova
tion to foster quality and contin
uous improvement. QEI is lo
cated in the office suite with the Off
ice of Communications in A

107D.

In addition to special projects pre
scribed by the VP of Academic
Affairs, this office will continue to manage
Quality Enhancement projects and be
responsible for accreditation-
related tasks associated with
the QEP. Also, QEI will
continue to support your continuous
improvement efforts providing techni
cal support for Academic Effect.
This support includes technical issues
and training as needed. This office no longer
provides data entry assistance. Q
EI will also continue to assist
with survey requests and development
to assist with the evaluation
of services.

The institutional effectiveness
webpage is now listed as Quality
Enhancement and Innovation on the
Something-Something College website. Aca
demic Effect and other assessment
tools can still be found on this webpage. Fur
ther inquiries about institution
al effectiveness should be directed
to Dr. ) / ).

Thank you.

/ ) / ) /-) /, Ph.D.
Office of Quality Enhancement and Innovation
(xxx) xxx xxxx

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way. Booker T. Washington

Empdocles in Etna - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Empedocles in Etna

Empedocles – he taught
There’s nothing beyond death;
In trimeter he wrought
Until with his last breath
He fell into an alexandrine, all for naught

Matthew Arnold's Merope - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Matthew Arnold’s Merope

If she had swung that axe, our Merope,
Her son Aepytus would be dead, you see
And that would have shortened the play, the plot –
But since he lives it still drones on – a lot!

Some Year's Day - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Some Year’s Day

What century is it outside?

-Boris Pasternak

It’s a fair question: what century is this?
There was fog in the morning, this first day
Of the new year, and later overcast
There was nothing new in any of that

The fat grey squirrel raided the bird-seed at dawn
Which is why he is fat, and dampness dripped
From the roof eaves onto the long-dead leaves
There was nothing new in that, either

The first cup of coffee, the same old news -
It’s a fair question, it is: what century?

Parthian Thoughts from the InauGRRRRRation - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Parthian Thoughts from the InauGRRRRRation

Lawless day-riders, channeling the Ku Klux Klan in masks and hoods, vandalized and then burned a “stretch limo” (a really long car) during the inauguration. The car was neither marked nor guarded, which means that it was someone’s living, a look-at-me car hired out for weddings, high school proms, parties, and other occasions of innocent merriment. The mob not only destroyed someone’s car, perhaps not yet paid for, but also destroyed his or her job, thus demonstrating its collective contempt for honest workers.

Hasn’t Tom Brokaw become a grumpy old grump-grump! He used to be a real newsman, digging for the facts of a story. But that was before he became rich and cool and all about himself.

Those who wish President Trump ill surely savored the schadenfreude at his existential punishment Saturday morning in having to suffer the penance of almost two hours of being preached at by a catalogue of priests, imams, rabbis, gurus, wise ones, reverends, very reverends, and ministers in what some are pleased to call the national cathedral.

The former dean of the cathedral, the Reverend Gary Hall (probably a relation), was very clear that he would not have allowed President Trump in his church – or, rather, his private club. Members only, don’cha know, and no sinners welcome.

The current dean, The Very Reverend Randolph Marshall Hollerith, didn’t seem all that enthused himself, but let the sinner come inside. “Our willingness to pray and sing with everyone today does not mean we won’t join with others in protest tomorrow.” What a warm welcome from The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington! (http://www.christianpost.com/news/national-cathedral-rejects-boycott-trump-inauguration-173201/)

Early in the preaching service everyone stood up and sang “God Save the Queen,” only with the words changed. History is laden with ironies.

Life is in most things uncertain, but we can be reasonably sure that Mrs. Trump has never worn a “These ARE My Church Clothes” tee-shirt. President Trump might have that legend on his Sunday golfing cap.

When some microphone accessory asks a famous person “Who are you wearing?” the viewer longs to hear in response: “I’m wearing the embalmed hide of the last person to ask me that stupid question.”

Even better: “I’m wearing Wal-Mart, with accessories from Goodwill.”

On Saturday a sad woman styling herself Madonna broadcast to a crowd some menacing talk about “blowing up the White House.” As with Rush Limbaugh and his stash of illegal drugs, she won’t be sanctioned. You or I would be wearing not Ralph Lauren but jail ‘jammies the color of the president’s hair, accessorized with shiny handcuffs.

It’s the Russians’ fault.

Mr. President, now hear this: when in civilian clothes an American salutes by placing his hand over his heart. Perhaps you didn’t get the word because you were being treated for your disability heel-spur that day. And please don’t give yourself a medal.

The inauguration is over, and now Americans all over this great land, from sea to shining sea, on the mountains and prairies and fields and farms, in the factories and offices, in great mansions and humble homes, can return to their accustomed way of life - pushing, posing, posturing, planning, and plotting for the next presidential election.

-30-

Presidential Inauguration Edition - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Presidential Inauguration Edition

Consider this possibility: at the precise and somewhat tense moment of the transition of governments, one sturdy, crewcut fellow wearing a dark suit and dark glasses officially hands off the briefcase with the nuclear codes to a second sturdy, crewcut fellow wearing a dark suit and dark glasses. An unemployed Ringling Brothers / Barnum & Bailey clown positioned immediately behind them then pops a balloon.

+ + +

In reading news and commentary (often a waste of time) one gathers that there are, with many exceptions, two hemispheres of reaction (so to speak) to our next president: slavish demi-worship or equally slavish loathing. The reality is that no president can do much of anything for you or to you. No president is going to pay your car note and no president is going to kick in your door and steal your valuable collection of U.S. National Park quarters.

(Bias alert – Y’r ‘umble scrivener voted, yes, but not for either of the loudest candidates.)

+ + +

How grand if the new president with his magic pen and telephone issued an order that Americans may hereafter freely buy bright lightbulbs and capacious toilet bowls without let or hindrance.

+ + +

Last week the world came to an end again. Weren’t you paying attention? The evening of the 12th was the Wolf Moon, and Venus was at its brightest in eight years. All this was the eve of Friday the 13th, and so the apocalypse, and, like, stuff, y’know? But maybe the Fates are deferring the Gotterdammerung until Friday at noon.

I blame the Russians. And George Bush. And public schools. And fluoride. And global warming. And Jade Helm operatives flying unmarked UN helicopters out of abandoned Wal-Mart stores. And the Green Bay Packers.

+ + +

A D.C. company named Don’s Johns has often supplied portable euphemisms for public events in the 51st-it’s-really-a-state-now. Some of the Trumpistas are taking offense on this occasion, and so the Don’s Johns logos will be covered with blue masking tape for the duration of the inauguration.

This may be related to “trump” as an English slang expression for an unfortunate noisy expulsion of flatus.

Happily, the company is not bilingual, so there are no Don’s Juans. That really would annoy someone: “Get ‘em outa here! Build that wall!”

+ + +

The inaugural parade will include military marching units, unless all the soldiers report to sick call with disabling heel spurs.

+ + +

No one wants to sing at the inauguration. Disapproval? Threats? Maybe someone needs to hire one of those middle-aged high school prom disc jockeys who never got over the BeeGees, and who has a fog machine and some Star Trek-y flashing lights.

+ + +

Gosh, what will President Obama do after Friday? Perhaps he could at last take a vacation.

+ + +

And, finally: if government functionaries, newsies, Hollywoodsies, and all the rest of us were to demonstrate as much class and character as Malia and Sasha Obama and Jenna and Barbara Bush, this nation would be a lot happier.

-30-

Where's Waldo's Pickup Truck? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Where’s Waldo’s Pickup Truck?

Hey, kids! Forget that omnivorous dog – the excuse now is that the Russians hacked your homework.

+ + +

A current topic of discussion is the nature of pickup trucks as a culture / class marker. Those living in rural areas would be hard put to name a family that doesn’t own a pickup; those living in urban areas might be hard put to name a family that does, but disapprove of them anyway.

Country dwellers use pickups to haul fence posts, feed, seed, fertilizer, tools, critters, and crops because if they didn’t their city cousins wouldn’t have anything to eat or anyone to laugh at.

+ + +

Confusion 2017: is the C.I.A. good? Or is it bad? The sort of people who used to say it is bad now say it is good. The sort of people who used to say it is good now say it is bad.

+ + +

Rumor has it that Donald Trump has assigned the C.I.A. to find Carmen Sandiego as proof of their undying loyalty.

+ + +

Our outgoing president, who never made the first day of recruit training, has awarded himself The Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. His obedientiary, Ash Carter, pinned it on him before other real soldiers at Joint Base Myers-Henderson. Ash Carter, Secretary of Defense (euphemism for Secretary for War), also is not a veteran but earlier copped himself a couple of military medals for sitting behind a desk and doing thinky-stuff.

Now that our president is a military veteran, he will be ignored by the DVA. If you like being ignored by the DVA you can keep being ignored by the DVA.

Will our incoming president, also not a veteran, award himself some military medals too? Yuge ones?

+ + +

A body impressively styling itself The Council on Foreign Relations (http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2017/01/05/bombs-dropped-in-2016/) reports that under President Obama (Nobel Peace Prize laureate), our ironically-named Department of Defense, and our Merovingian Congress the United States dropped 26,171 bombs in seven other countries in 2016. We have no way of verifying the numbers, nor does the article specify what the COFR might mean by a bomb.

That all worked out so well in Viet-Nam, but, hey, why study history?

+ + +

When Donald Trump asks “Where’s Waldo?” his staff reminds him that Waldo isn’t real.

When Chuck Norris asks “Where’s Waldo?” Waldo shows up immediately.

-30-

"Until the First Star" - Orthodox Christmas Eve

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

“Until the First Star” – Orthodox Christmas Eve

The first star won’t be seen this night. The clouds
Obscure this fallen world, and seem to hide
The pilgrim paths to Bethlehem from all
Who seek their Saviour in the colding night

But yet the first star will be seen in truth,
In all the faces around the happy table
Gathered from field and forest, east and west,
Breaking the Advent fast with Christmas joy

And with the liturgies Our Lord is born
Beneath the star that will forever shine

Wouldn't You Like to Die in My Beautiful Balloon? - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Wouldn’t You Like to Die in my Beautiful Balloon?

Last month, on 19 December, the real presidential election was held, and given the choices from a catalogue of less-than-ideal candidates the electors chose, well, a less-than-ideal candidate.

The Constitution, which is more discussed than studied, does not provide for direct election of the President. The legislature of each state appoints electors in proportion to the population, and these electors choose the President. The states are not obligated to give the population a voice in this matter except indirectly in the election of representatives and senators. As it is, they do, and when voting for President the citizen is in fact voting for an elector who says he (the pronoun is gender-neutral) will vote for president according to the popular vote, but in most states, including Texas, he is not obligated to do so.

This is inefficient. It is meant to be so. A tyranny is efficient. A Republic is inefficient, built with laws and other encumbrances so that all the people have a voice, not solely the population centers of the New York-California Axis.

The nation survived James Buchanan; it will survive the coming administration.

+ + +

According to Bloomberg and other sources, licensed Texas balloon pilot Alfred “Skip” Nichols was on thirteen different medications, including seven FAA-banned drugs, when he crashed his commercial balloon and killed himself and fifteen passengers last July. Mr. Nichols also had five DWI arrests, three drug-related arrests, and two prison terms for drug and alcohol convictions.

Apparently an FAA balloon pilot’s license (http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/faa_bal.htm) is easier to maintain than a Texas cosmetology license (http://texascosmetologylicense.org/renew.html), and, generally speaking, your barber or beautician is unable to subject you to a screaming, falling, burning death.

+ + +

Hipsterism. It’s over. Burn the stupid hats.

+ + +

All I know about Russia comes from reading The Brothers Karamazov, so I don’t know what the lads in Moscow and Saint Petersburg are up to in the 21st century. Several years ago I read that Vlad, who sometimes takes off his shirt and wrestles with tigers, had all the computers in the Moscow kremlin removed and replaced with manual typewriters and trustworthy messengers for internal communications. I think he was on to something. The typewriters, I mean, not taking off his shirt and frightening American presidents with his rippling muscles.

+ + +

In Australia, a young man named Luke Moore learned that his bank had inadvertently given him a two million dollar overdraft protection on his checking account.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, he’s going to prison for four years because overdraft protection means you have to say you’re sorry and give it back.

Mr. Moore, a law student, spent the last two years, and two million dollars of overdraft, on sports cars, speed boats, and strippers, according to The Sun.

As W. C. Fields might have said, it’s good to know he didn’t waste the money.

Still, four years in prison.

If the law school in Australia doesn’t save his seat, perhaps he can migrate to the USA and become a licensed balloon pilot.

-30-

The McDonald's Around the Corner from the Vatican - poem

What Would Chaucer’s Pardoner Say?

Someone has opened a McDonald’s there
Around the corner from Saint Peter’s Square

And this has distressed a cardinal or three -
Yankee capitalism, don’t you see

But Big Mac pays thirty thousand in rent
Each month to the Vatican (Heaven-sent?)

Which owns the building, a profitable touch
Thus paying the water and light bills and such

So bring on the sodas, ‘burgers, and fries
Through golden arches under Roman skies!


Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Good King Wenceslas and His Friends - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Good King Wenceslas and His Friends

There is far more to the days after Christmas Day than digestion and football, though I have friends and relatives who would stoutly argue the point. Certainly a lowering of expectations begins a great degree of tranquility in the last days of the old year. Shopping as a blood sport is over for another ten months. Lunch is a pleasant browse through leftovers. Obligatory merriment is off the calendar for a while.

In the Western calendar the 26th of December is St. Stephen’s Day, honoring the first Christian martyr and the patron of charities. St. Paul helped in the stoning by guarding the stoners’ coats. He later regretted that. In the USA this is usually get-back-to-work day; in other cultures this is a day of merriment following the religious observation of Christmas Day.

Good King Wenceslaus, later a martyr himself, “looked out” on the Feast of Saint Stephen and saw a poor man. Following St. Stephen’s example of charity, Wenceslaus and his page (who was not happy about it) journeyed six miles through winter’s ice and snow tracking the poor man to deliver food and wood to his humble abode.

The 28th of December commemorates the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, detailed in Saint Matthew 2:16. King Herod failed to understand the meaning of the Magi, and ordered the slaughter of children whom he perceived to be a threat to him. This is anticipated in Jeremiah 31:15: “…Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not.”

The 29th of December honors Saint Thomas Becket, martyred by King Henry II in 1170 for the freedom of the Church. The 1964 film Becket, adapted from Jean Anouilh’s play and directed by the great Hal Wallis (Casablanca, True Grit), artfully conflates and simplifies events for the sake of the movie’s length, but serves the topic very well. In 1535 Henry VIII finally accomplished the suppression of the Church (as always, in the name of freedom), and had the remains of Becket burned and the ashes scattered.

The first of January is the Solemnity of Mary, and the 6th of January is the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Three Kings visited the Holy Family.

And may the Three Kings visit all of us in our humble homes this happy new year of 2017.

-30-

Christmas Morning - Some Dissembling Required

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Christmas Morning – Some Dissembling Required

Does the quiet magic disappear at dawn?
The Star, the stable, shepherds, wise men three
And all the mysteries of Christmas Eve
Seem less than vapor on bright Christmas Day

Among the litter of expectations
Cast happily about, and on the floor
The wrappings and ribbons of little gifts
Received and given around the festive tree

But every noisy moment reminds us:
The quiet magic never goes away

What Went ye into the Desert too See? - poem

What Went ye into the Desert to See?

What went ye into the desert to see?
A pale liturgist swaying in the wind?
A theologian dressed in soft clichés?
But what went ye to the desert to see?
Thyself, holier than anyone else?
A profit on your Catholic Me-‘blog?
But what ye went out there to see?

Go back.  Go back to the desert, and there
See the least grain of sand, larger than thee.



Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Winter Solstice - The Year's Compline - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Winter Solstice – The Year’s Compline

The winter solstice is the year withdrawing
From all the busy-ness of being-ness,
And life in all its transfigurations
Seems lost beyond this cold, mist-haunted world

Time almost stops. Low-orbiting, the sun
Drifts dimly, drably through Orion’s realm
Morning becomes deep dusk; there is no noon
Four candles are the guardians of failing light

Until that Night when they too disappear
Beneath a Star, before a greater Light

Pilgrimage Along the A1 - Saint Michael's in Chesterton - poem

Pilgrimage Along the A1 - Saint Michael's in Chesterton

For all DeBeauvilles, Beauvilles, Bevilles, and Bevils Everywhere

From Peterborough drops a road
Across the Fens, into the past
(Where wary wraiths still wear the woad);
It comes to Chesterton at last.

And we will walk along that track,
Or hop a bus, perhaps; you know
How hard it is to sling a pack
When one is sixty-old, and slow.

That mapped blue line across our land
Follows along a Roman way
Where Hereward the Wake made stand
In mists where secret islands lay.

In Chesterton a Norman tower
Beside Saint Michael’s guards the fields;
Though clockless, still it counts slow hours
And centuries long hidden and sealed.

And there before a looted tomb,
Long bare of candles, flowers, and prayers,
We will in our poor Latin resume
Aves for old de Beauville’s cares.

Millennials at Work and War - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Millennials at Work and War

Scorn not the snowflake who stands watch for us

Now thrown into the existential struggle
Surrendering their youth and taking up life
They muster in the fields and factories
And in their elders’ undeclared, shadowy wars
Uniformed in an unappreciated sense
Of duty and dignity while scorned by those
Who take their ease upon the couches of sloth
And fling cheap mockery at millennials
Who take up tools and work and love of life
Sometimes to die in deserts still unmapped
While generals dismiss their casualties as light
Despised as snowflakes by keyboard commandos
Who never got closer to any war
Than a John Wayne ketchup-bloody movie.
Some work long double shifts through university
In a sawmill, shop, or fast foodery
Only to be dismissed as slacker layabouts,
But expected to trust those who condemn them
For not being the greatest generation
As defined by those who never served at all
And while being criticized they will grab
A quick cup of coffee for the night shift
Staffing the hospitals and police patrols
That keep their sneering critics alive and safe
They drive the trucks, they man the ships, they work
They drill for oil, these useless millennials
While idlers lounge long in the coffee shops
And YooToob computered jokes about them
Millennials have no time for coloring books
Or comfort animals or revolution
For they are weary with study and work
The best of them make no demands, but, sure
A little respect, hard-earned, would be nice
If only the scripted singer-songwriters
Would pack up the tired old stereotypes
And see millennials as they truly are
But darkness falls – they must go back to work
On the eleven-seven, the graveyard shift
They do not burn draft cards or Medicare cards
Instead through work they illuminate this world
And build it up with continued sacrifice

Scorn not the snowflake who stands watch for us

The House of Winds - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The House of Winds

The House of Winds can be accessed with this:
A work-order from Aeolus time-stamped
Printed in three official colors – pink
For the customer, blue for the tech

And yellow for the infallible file
Large locks must be unlocked, and chain-link gates
Forced open over institutional gravel
The House of Winds is a shipping container

Where Burgess’ Merry Little Breezes
Are now forbidden playtime or recess

Happy, Happy Christmas - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Happy, Happy Christmas

          Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can     
          recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveler,
          thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!

- Charles Dickens

Every year the sort of people who are against just about everything do a downer on Christmas: “There really wasn’t a star; it was a blah, blah, blah,” “The stable was really a cave blah, blah, blah,” “Christmas trees are really pagan blah, blah, blah,” “Christmas wasn’t really in the winter because blah, blah, blah,” and a genuine lie, “Christmas is really an adaptation of the ancient Roman something or other because blah, blah.”

All of this is on the Intergossip, so it must be true.

The first Christmas logically came late in history, and since there are only 365 days in a solar year, the Nativity had to fall on one of them. And if it happens that on that day there was an older belief somewhere that a certain Sacred Lucky Rock had to be appeased with sacrificial offerings of sophomores for a good fishing season, what is that to us? If a man whose birthday is March 25th learns that the day is the Feast of the Annunciation he does not dismiss the holy day by sputtering “Impossible! That’s my birthday!”

Christmas falls at the time of the winter solstice, the darkest time of the year, the point at which the light – or Light – returns. Our pagan ancestors were skilled in astronomy and would have had their own ways of celebrating the return of the sun. This does not veto the Incarnation; it anticipates it.

The external observations and cultural celebrations of Christmas change. Christians in ancient Cyrene could hardly go dashing through the snow where there is no snow, and nomadic tribes at the extremes of the empire would not sing about Christmas time in the city when they had never seen a city. A boar’s head on the table was a big thing in the province of Britannia, but not in Jerusalem. What is any of that to us?

As with most holy days, Christmas is anticipated by a time of reflection and prayer. The day itself is a religious occasion, followed by a period of merriment. That we tend to mix these events out of sequence now does not invalidate any of them. The Twelve Days of Christmas, from Christmas Eve through the Feast of the Epiphany, are poorly served by the silly song. But what is any of that to us?

The Eastern Christian may fault the Western Christian for celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December, and the Western Christian may fault the Eastern Christian for celebrating Christmas on the 7th of January (Gregorian calendar), but neither will fault Christmas for being Christmas.

          This is the month, and this the happy morn,
          Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
          Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
          Our great redemption from above did bring;
          For so the holy sages once did sing,
          That he our deadly forfeit should release,
          And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

- John Milton, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”

-30-

The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, with Descants by Russian Spies - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, with Descants by Russian Spies

The C.I.A. opines that Russian spies changed the results of the recent presidential election. Given the C.I.A.’s many, many accomplishments over the last fifty years, from the Bay of Pigs to Viet-Nam to that fellow holed up in the Peruvian embassy in London, well, who can doubt them?

I suppose I should have reported to somebody about Boris and Natasha hovering around me while I voted, offering me Rolls-Royce automobiles and villas in the south of France if only I would vote Vladimirista. As a loyalist I manfully refused to do so.

My next column will be posted from my private island in the Caribbean.

+ + +

The Oxford American, which is published in Conway, Arkansas, not in any Oxford anywhere, reports that Panama City, Florida is a center of ukulele music. Saint Andrews’ Church, for instance, is home to a ukulele orchestra of some 200 members.

One shudders at the horror. The ukulele might not be the Devil’s instrument, but I’m pretty sure that in Book 4 of John Milton’s Paradise Lost there is a mention (in iambic pentameter, the meter of the angels) of all ukuleles being cast down into (That Place).

+ + +

The Paris Review, which is published in New York, not in Paris, recently featured a first-person narrative which includes the sentence “Raul lives here in Tucson on an expired green card.”

That has to be a really big green card.

+ + +

Viola Desmond, a business woman, was jailed in 1946 for sitting in the whites-only section of a movie theatre. In Canada. The nation that jailed her is now honoring her by placing her picture on their ten-dollar bill.

+ + +

The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols dates to the nineteenth century and in its modern form owes much to an Anglican chaplain’s grim experiences in the First World War:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-muddy-bloody-origins-of-a-treasured-christmas-eve-ritual/

+ + +

Almost two hundred years ago Charles Dickens wrote in The Pickwick Papers, “Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness…”

Gaudete Sunday has passed, which means Christmas is close at hand for us too. May we indeed make it a season of open-heartedness.

-30-

Stern Notes, Banknotes, General Mattis, and Mrs. Trump - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Stern Notes, Banknotes, General Mattis, and Mrs. Trump

The Chinese government in Peking / Peiping / Beijing has issued a stern note to the United States government complaining that Mr. Trump is a bad boy for accepting a congratulatory telephone from another Chinese government in Taipei.

Mr. Trump is a bad boy, but as an American he is free, just as you and I are, to accept telephone calls from anyone he chooses. He could of course start by accepting telephone calls from former students at Trump University.

How does a young man or woman starting out in life secure a job sending and receiving stern notes? One always reads about nations sending stern notes to one another. What, exactly, are stern notes? What are the qualifications for sending and receiving stern notes? What does the stern notes gig pay?

+ + +

Someone named Tom Ford refuses to dress Melania Trump. I’m not sure why this is news; Mrs. Trump has been dressing herself since she was a small child. Besides, I don’t think Mr. Ford was asked to dress Mrs. Trump. Mrs. Trump would probably prefer that Mr. Ford stay out of her closet and remain in his.

+ + +

Mr. Trump has proposed retired general James Mattis – whose nicknames are “Mad Dog,” “Chaos,” and “The Warrior-Monk” – as Secretary of Defense, a post which was once more honestly titled Secretary of War.

The general is by repute the best of Marines, a scholar, and a man concerned with the welfare of the men and women in the military. Now that he is a civilian he is permitted to serve in a state office reserved for civilians. May he serve in the best traditions of the Republic.

General Mattis’ wisdom is demonstrated in many of his famous quotations, including: “Engage your brain before you engage your weapon” and “Power Point makes you stupid.”

Still, several questions obtain:

1. Why would a great war-leader choose to submit himself to the leadership of a person who, when freedom called, answered only to a heel spur?

2. Why would a great war-leader choose to submit himself to the leadership of a person who, until someone reminded him about his desire for votes, repeatedly expressed his contempt for the military, especially prisoners of war?

3. General Mattis’ personal library is said to contain about 6,000 books. Does General Mattis’ scholarship include familiarity with the foundation legal document of this nation, the Constitution, especially with regard to Article 1, Section 8? That topic has been ignored since June of 1942, when Congress declared war on Romania.

Still, you gotta respect a man who knows that Power Point makes you stupid.

+ + +

The United Kingdom’s new five-pound note (about $8, give or take the price of a cup of Twining’s or the economic value of the South Sandwich Islands) is being rejected by The Usual Suspects because it is said to contain traces of animal DNA. Eeek! I have a solution – let all good and true Englishvegans send me all of those contaminated five-pound banknotes. I’ll recycle them carefully.


-30-

December Through the Windshield - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

December Through the Windshield

The windshield wipers hiss-scratch-thunk, scratch-thunk
Scratch-thunk against the pre-dawn wind and rain
Thick sodden leaves protest against their fall
And cling forlornly until swept away

To disappear into the autumn night
Their loss unseen by two frail beams of light
Patrolling in advance, into the cold
Pgnoring the casualties left behind

December hastens to the year’s end while
The windshield wipers hiss-scratch-thunk, scratch-thunk

Advent Rosary - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Advent Rosary

Dark Advent is a silent waiting time
When autumn chills into pale, year-end days
And joy seems smothered by hard-frosting rime:
Cold is the debt that spring to winter pays

The seasons link to seasons in a chain,
The chain of being that links, also, our souls,
Seasons and souls, not always without pain:
Summer’s wild lightning falls and thunder rolls.

Linked to us too, rose by mystical rose,
This holy Advent is Our Lady’s Grace
To us who wait in exile sad; she knows
Where souls and seasons sing, the Night, the Place.

Seasons and souls, linked to days dreary-dim:
Follow them with roses to Bethlehem

Morning Mirror Face - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Morning Mirror Face

The sleeve of your bathrobe brushes away
The steam – and there you are, your morning face
All washed and ready for a day of hope
And happy service to humanity

Look not upon a straying, graying hair
But make instead a funny face and laugh
And see again the eyes of dreaming youth
And tell yourself a joke you’ve never heard

The sleeve of your bathrobe brushes away
The unhappy remnants of yesterday

The Local Department Store's Last Christmas - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Local Department Store’s Last Christmas

The overly-arranged rat-packery
Of cool-cat Christmas songs from the fifties
Descends like stardust date-expired upon
The ghosts of Christmases that never were

The aisles are teeming only with those notes
Because unlike the music of the past
Old customers have not been stored on tapes
To be replayed among the China-made

White Christmas Drummer Boy Jingle-Bell Rocks
Only mechanical air wah-wah-wah

Disoccidented - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Disoccidented

A piece of patrimony popped up today:
A scrap of Latin from the long ago
Misplaced from something, torn from something else
To mark a page of Babel new and raw

In a book of reclaimed Arianism
Embalmed in reclaimed paper, reclaimed ink
Aligned with the stars and computer bars
Composted in high definition noise

But these lines cry “Tolle lege! Lege!” as
Our patrimony, as eternal as dawn

Bleak Friday - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

          Bleak Friday

Advent, now more often called “The Christmas Season,” has crossed the frontiers of our national conscience, and the forces of civilization are falling back under heavy fire. The casualty lists are incomplete as of this printing.

Advent as it should be is happier: no long lines to get into church on the First Sunday.

+ + +

And then there is the existential despair of Hallmark holiday movies.

+ + +

USA-ians considering emigrating to Canada should be aware of this important change promulgated by Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Every Canadian citizen is now required to write a teary-eyed memorial to Leonard Cohen. Candidates for immigration or refugee status also must complete a eulogy on Mr. Cohen en Francais or in English, and may choose from one of these topics:

How Leonard Cohen Changed my Life Forever
Leonard Cohen – Icon.
Leonard Cohen Defined a Generation.
Leonard Cohen – The Sound Track of my Youth.
Parliament Must Recognize the Sainthood of Leonard Cohen.
How Louis Riel Anticipates Leonard Cohen.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Byron, Shelley, or Keats, Eh (Residents of and temporary workers in Newfoundland omit the “eh” and append “I’s d’ B’ys”).

+ + +

A hero of the poor workers died in Cuba last week. Wonder who gets his Rolex.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/trudeaueulogy

+ + +

For pretexts that elude the thoughtful, all real Americans are commanded to boycott Famous Burnt Coffee because the CEO is said to be a Communist. All real Americans are also expected to boycott New Something Shoes because that CEO is said to be a Fascist.

Maybe all real Americans could please the teeth-gritted-fist-clenchers of both sides by visiting a Famous Burnt Coffee shop while wearing New Something Shoes.

If Ho Chi Minh had become a barista instead of a dictator, and if Mussolini had designed sneakers, the 20th century might have been happier. We can’t know. As for us, we are stuck with each other in the 21st century, and could try to get along better.

-30-

Supermoon - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

          Supermoon

November’s moon is wonderfully bright tonight
A supermoon - as if she could ever be less
In her appointed spheres empyrean
And progress royal among her courtly stars

And she is not unlike that rarer friend
Whose orbits celebrate those gentle truths
Which fall as haloing silver light upon
The wistful, wakeful watchers of the hours

A dusting of mist shivers into frost -
November’s moon is wonderfully bright tonight

I Attest That I Am - poem

This week at work I received a Homeland Security form with a terse note that I had filled it out incorrectly - in 2003. But I had not filled it out at all; this new form (already out of date by its own testimony) was predicated on a Department of Justice form which I did complete correctly; it had simply expired.

Altho’ I obediently completed the form, I maintain that I am not really a good-enough American. Anyway, I rendered part of the form (page 7 of 9) into not-really-a-poem, in lines of ten syllables:


           I Attest That I Am

employment eligibility
verification department of home
land security u.s. citizen
ship and immigration services u
scis form i-9 omb
no. 1615-0047
expires 03/31/2016
start here. Read instructions carefully be
fore completing this form. The instructions
must be available during completion
of this form anti-discrimination
notice: it is illegal to discrim
inate against work-authorized indi
viduals. Employers cannot specify
which document(s) they will accept from an
employee. The refusal to hire an
individual because the docu
ment presented has a future expi
ration date may also constitute il
legal discrimination. Section 1.
Employee information and attest
ation (employees must complete and sign
section 1 of form i-9 no later than
the first day of employment, but not be
fore accepting a job offer). Last
name (family name) First name (given name) mid
dle initial other names used (if any)
address (street number and name) apt.
number city or town state zip code date
of birth (mm/dd/yyyy)
u.s. social security number
e-mail address telephone number I
am aware that federal law provides
for imprisonment and / or fines for false
statements or use of false documents in
connection with the completion of the
form. I attest, under penalty of
perjury, that I am (check one of the
following)…

I Attest That I Am

This Discussion Has Been Closed - poetry

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

This Discussion Has Been Closed

Poetry Foundation

Issues of gender race, identity
Sexuality myth identity
Trans-homophobic appropriation
Referencing contemporary culture

Weaving that old shop-soiled tapestry
Of an empowering voice accessing the keys
That unlock a shared experience of
A distinct existential voice of hope

About us visit us contact us through
A discussion closed before it ever opened

An Orderly Transfer of Pen and Telephone - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An Orderly Transfer of Pen and Telephone

One is saddened to hear of some few students at the University of Texas bleating “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” They seem to disapprove of democracy and the freedom of an individual to come and go at will.

Is Mr. Trump in Austin? Why has he got to go? And where?

Given the narrow margin in the election, if all eligible U.T. students had voted for Secretary Clinton she might be the president-elect today, busily selecting furniture for the White House - perhaps some of the furniture that seems to have disappeared early in 2001.

Further, students at a great university should not mindlessly repeat middle-school chants in puerile attempts at rhyme. They should mindlessly repeat middle-school chants rendered into Latin:

     “Eia age! Eia age! Heu! Heu!
     Donald Peditum delendum est!”

     (Ee-ya ah-gay! Ee-yah ah-gay! Hey-oo! Hey-oo!
     Donald Pay-dee-tum d’lindum ehst!)

Those university students with no Latin should speak their disapproval of democracy in the plain, unpretentious English of educated men and women:

     “I disapprove of Donald Trump.”

A venerable and wise Latin consultant advises your humble scrivener that the scrivener’s poor attempt at that ancient and noble language is also mindless. That (Middle English) keeps (Middle English from Old English from Old High German) one (which could be from Old High German or from Latin) humble (Middle English from Old French from Latin).

The day after the election President Obama displayed appropriate good manners and wise leadership in inviting President-Elect Trump to the White House to begin arranging for a secure transfer of the powers of the Office for the well-being of the Republic. The two honorables seem to have enjoyed the visit, prolonging it much longer than the scheduled handshake and photograph.

Some have expressed surprised that President Obama and President-Elect Trump seem to get on so well, but in truth they have much in common: both are statists and golf-playing millionaires who appear never to have busted a sweat in honest work.

President Obama expressed gratitude to President Bush for extending him that same courtesy in their first visit eight years ago.

Because President Obama is a gentleman he did not allude to President Clinton’s crude behavior and the thefts from and vandalism of the White House by the Clinton staff in 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/12/us/white-house-vandalized-in-transition-gao-finds.html/). President and Mrs. Obama will not tolerate such foolishness from their staffs when they hand off the door keys this January.

President Obama once wore a white tie with a dinner jacket (sigh), and at least once worked some shorts in public (gentlemen, trousers, please). Other than those few slip-ups he has demonstrated good taste, and one hopes he will inspire Mr. Trump, who is neither a child nor a baseball player, to ditch the silly plastic cap.

Well, here we go, on the metaphorical road to January 20th. May God bless our wonderful, clunky, inefficient Republic.

-30-

Let's Go to the Pub and Get Bombed - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Let’s Go to the Pub and Get Bombed

New York, 17 September 2016

Twenty-nine wounded, but nothing to fear
The mayor assures us there’s no terror here

Oh, Possum! - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Oh, Possum!

or

Marsupials in the Mist

or

Didelphimorphia Park

Well, there you are, snarling behind the mesh
Of a steel humanitarian trap
For the crimes of digging under the fence
And encouraging the dogs to escape

Stop hissing, now, through rows of dragon-teeth
And listen to human words you won’t believe -
Late summer grapes have tempted you to this,
So absolution is granted; ajar is the door

Your executioner stands down: Go forth!
And be a better ‘possum forever more

A Roman Poet - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Roman Poet

He is not a Celt
He is a Roman, his lines
Formed in marching order

A Man, a Chair, a Book, a Dog - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Man, a Chair, a Book, a Dog

A man sitting in a comfortable old chair
Reading a book by the light of a lamp
And smoking a philosophical pipe
Has thus recused himself from the burdens of rule

Without his supervision the planet still dances
Its graceful pas seul around the sun
Rulers of the earth must lead without him
And bishops must teach without his counsel

A little dog dozes before the fire
A man – he reads his book and smokes his pipe

The Spirit of the Age, and Stuff - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Spirit of the Age, and Stuff

Republics are shabby in their bloody ends
And so too in their bloody beginnings
When altars, crowns, and thrones are stripped by mobs
And all the ancient unities denied

The consolations of philosophy1
Are shouted down in the execution cells
Confessions are dictated by the state
You only need to sign your sins, and die

As the caregiver takes another drag
And pushes the plunger on a health care choice

1Boethius

Central Standard Dachshund Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Central Standard Dachshund Time

Turn back the clock, but not a dachshund’s tail
Since dog and tail will turn right back again.
And then around three times, and without fail
She’ll want outside, and then –
She’ll want back in

To spin, for that is what a dachshund does
A doggy dance, a prance, and all four paws
Buzz, and where she is isn’t where she was
In violation of space-time and Newton’s laws -

On Saturday night we turn back the clocks
But there’s no winding down a baby dox

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Don’t pop your pimples during the processional
Or chew your gum before the recessional

And in between, try not to stretch and yawn
Or take a peek at your not-so-smart ‘phone

Don’t fold or tear the paperback missal
For it contains both gospel and epistle

Don’t leave your snot-filled tissues on the floor
The cleaners will think you a clod and a bore

Oh, yes:

All this advice is not for callow youth -
It’s for the grownups, in very truth!

An American Legion Meeting - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An American Legion Meeting

O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And discharge half-remembered boot camp yarns
As ragged volleys of camaraderie
Blasted through well-defended hearing aids

O let us not raise funds for this or that
Through weekend fish-fries in a parking lot
Or catalogue good deeds inflicted on

Those

For whom our kindness is a border breached

O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And remember again the Vam Co Tay

Blame the Russians - a column about Rod McKuen

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Blame the Russians

Your grandmother and I are the only two people who will admit that they like the music of Rod McKuen. Many other people enjoy the old beatnik’s sounds too, only they don’t know it. McKuen wrote the musical scores of numerous films and television shows, but unless you pay attention to the rapidly-scrolled and myopically-tiny credits you wouldn’t know it. Some – some - of his film and television scores include:

Emily
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Scandalous John
A Boy Named Charlie Brown
Joanna
Me, Natalie
The Unknown War (Russian documentary series)

Among McKuen’s many albums are:

The Earth
The Sea
The Sky
Frank Sinatra’s A Man Alone
Beatsville
Rod McKuen at Carnegie Hall

A very few of the hundreds of McKuen’s songs:

“Soldiers Who Want to Be Heroes”
“Doesn’t Anybody Know My Name”
“I’ll Catch the Sun”
“Love’s Been Good to Me”
“Kearny Street”
“Listen to the Warm”
“Seasons in the Sun”
“What a Wonderful World”
“Long, Long Time”
“If You Go Away’”
“I’ve Been to Town”
“Jean”
“Joanna”

Orchestral Pieces:

Symphony No. 1 in 4 Movements
Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra: 5 Orchestral Pieces
Concerto for 4 Harpsichords: 4 Orchestral Pieces
Piano Variations: 6 Piano Sonatas
Concerto No. 3 for Piano & Orchestra
The Plains of My Country: Seascapes for Solo Piano
Concerto for Cello& Orchestra
Concerto for Balloon & Orchestra: 3 Overtures
The Ballad of Distances: Symphonic Suite, OP. 40
The City: I Hear America Singing
Written in the Stars (The Zodiac Suite)
Something Beyond: Suite For Orchestra

The complete Rod McKuen discography can be found at: http://www.rodmckuen.org/discography.htm.

McKuen’s books of poems are of lesser stock. One might conclude that McKuen, a good businessman, culled from his notes and rejected lines and ideas the leftover words that, when, put together, could be called poems. The undisciplined, unorganized, and aesthetically void scribblings in what some are pleased to call free verse (if it’s free, it isn’t verse, okay?) were a fashion of the 1950s and 1960s that clings to a desperate half-life in the self-obsessed and incontinent gushings printed in little magazines and read by no one except the compositors. McKuen simply adapted to a transient literary fashion and made a nice profit: his thin verse sold very well, much better than a recent Secretary of State’s spook-written books, and will last far longer than any Trump tower.

Rod McKuen was never awarded that annual literary prize named for the inventor of high explosives, Mr. Nobel, who exceeded even Dr. Guillotine in the quantity of deaths due to his invention. Last week, however, a Nobel committee recognized another American songwriter for literature, maintaining that Mr. Dylan nee’ Zimmerman invented a new thing, “poetry for the ear.”

Any child who paid some attention in literature classes will scoff at a committee of European sophisticates who are unaware that, until the I, I, I, me, me, me prosetry of the well-dynamited 20th century, all poetry was for the ear: Sumerian religious chants, the Hebrew Bible, Homer, Beowulf, “The Seafarer,” sea chanties, work songs, Victorian parlour poetry – all are poetry for the ear. And yet the distinguished Nobel committee is unaware of 6,000 years of human civilization. They have ignored reality, and have from Sweden ruled that the oral tradition begins with a fellow who mumbles, does things with a harmonica, and is against stuff.

Frankly, I blame Russian hackers.

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Edgar Allan Errol Flynn Poe - column

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Edgar Allan Errol Flynn Poe

Being part of the theatre department means being part of a family.

A really weird family.

-Numerous variations and attributions

Last week the Jasper High School Bulldog Theatre Company, directed by Mackenna Coffey, staged a pastiche of Edgar Allan Poe scenes culled from “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

Why are we never presented with a Tell-Tale Pancreas?

Given the small production and cast, Director Coffey and co. chose to position the audience seating on the stage, making for an intimate performance space which almost draws the audience into the set. The skillful blocking included cast members beginning their performances among the audience. This is the sort of thing that could project as a bit precious, but the actors worked the technique smoothly and without artifice.

The one set was minimalist with, as the program says, “Gothic Victorian and Steam Punk design elements…to blur the lines of what is real and what is in Poe’s mind.” This was the first indication that there would be no car chases or sword fights. Sigh.

Part of the fun was being able to see the lights, pulleys, lifts, connectors, and all the other complexities and gadgetries that make a professional theatrical presentation work. Every light, connector, and mysterious glowing globe is labeled with arcane markings and codes that are a mystery to the casual viewer but are a lingua Franca to the stage manager, lighting crew, sound crew, and move-heavy-things-around crew.

This was a premiere performance for many of the cast, with most of the experienced members of the troupe serving as crew and mentors so that the new actors could develop their skill and self-confidence. Sometimes the nervousness showed, which is how it should be. You don’t get to be a State of Texas U.I.L. championship actor as a senior without having been the third left nervous ensemble place-filler as a freshman.

A special strength was Cheyanne Nerren, who played Edgar Allan Poe with a vigor worthy of Errol Flynn, leaping around and sometimes onto the furniture. You almost expected her to draw a sword and as Robin Hood send the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham to his doom. She was outstanding through her sheer physicality and her mastery of the alternating comic patter and existential despair flung through hundreds of lines.

Savanna Billingsley in her too-brief appearance as the eponymous Raven very nearly took attention away from the lead. Even a small human is much larger than a large raven, and costuming said human as a raven could easily have deteriorated into an unintended comic effect. However, with restrained makeup and a simple black cloak with a bit of feathering at the throat Billingsley almost slithered (if a raven can be said to slither), slowly, menacingly, like a snake cornering a fear-frozen mouse, or one of Shakespeare’s three witches brooding wickedly over her destruction of Macbeth. Brilliant!

Mrs. McKenna’s band of merry minstrels this year includes: Breanna Astorga, Savanna Billingsley, Savannah Brasher, Jaden Carter, Daiyonia Collier, Katy Ferguson, Erin Klay, Lyric McLemore, Danielle Miller, Cheyanne Nerren, Allan Pulliam, Isabel Torres, and Daniel Zavala.

We look forward to seeing all of our fine young actors breaking metaphorical legs in different roles in the months to come, both in Jasper High School and Jasper Community Theatre productions, and sometimes as the second shepherd downstage right in Christmas plays.

     Television is furniture.
     Cinema is art.
     Theatre is life.

-Numerous variations and attributions

-30-

Two Small and Legless Trunks of Electronic Devices - column

Mack Hall, HSG,
Mhall46184@aol.com

Two Small and Legless Trunks of Electronic Devices

This weekend my summer-new computer did the Aunt Pittypat thing – it suffered the vapors, and fainted. While waiting for the high priestess of electronmongery to perform an exorcism I am pitty-patting the keys on an arthritic older computer – about three years old, which in computer years is 120 – that I never got around to tossing…uh…recycling. If this fails, I’ll scout out the good ol’ Royal typewriter that I bought for $10 when a newspaper office long ago computerized itself.

The wise ants among us back up their files daily to an external drive. The frivolous grasshoppers defer that easy-enough chore with “Oh, I’ll let it pass; I backed up stuff only last week.” I am a grasshopper, playing the fiddle while Rome burns. Or something.

+ + +

A friend in the far north lost his MePhone in a river while catching a large salmon. That seems to be a good trade. The bad part was when the fishing party made camp in the chilling evening and my friend had to make a word by rubbing two typewriters together.

+ + +

Women read stupid stuff – bodice-ripper novels, magazines with recipes and gossip and pictures of Duchess Kate’s baby, and articles about diets.

Now we men, we real men, we read the really important stuff – the comparative merits of the Lancaster bomber and the B17, gunfights at the Something Corral, baseball, spies, and spaceships.

+ + +

October 7 is a good day to read G.K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto” and reflect on the solidity of history, which affects our transitory present and our not-yet-happened future.

+ + +

New Orleans is greeting the autumn with a merry set-to about the statue of Andrew Jackson (who really was a bad man), among other monuments. One group wants to censor history out of existence, and the other group, led by David Duke, who also seems to be a bad man, wants the statue to remain.

I submit that the proper response to a questionable monument is to add another monument telling the narrative from a different point-of-view. After all, the Custer National Battlefield Park wasn’t bulldozed; it was quite logically renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The city bus on which Rosa Park refused a seat was not recycled as a dozen Toyotas but was restored and is now the center of a museum on the campus of Troy University in Montgomery. In both cases history was enhanced, not obliterated.

No one can learn from history if history is destroyed by cultural suicide.

And, after all, time and nature tend to reduce all our human vanities anyway. As Shelley wrote of “two vast and trunkless legs of stone”:


     “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
     Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
     Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
     Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
     The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-30-

The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue

Brushed aluminum, S & R Green Stamps
Tiki torches and instant Polaroids
George Jetson on the Sylvania TV
Elvis rockin’ away on Ed Sullivan

Chubby Checker twisting all over again
Like transistor sister did last summer
Eskimo Pies in the Kelvinator
But you can be sure if it’s Westinghouse

Keds, Schwinn, Salk vaccine, Captain Kangaroo
Randolph Scott, and President Eisenhower too!

Bourgeois Sentimentality - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Bourgeois Sentimentality

A beagle puppy napping on the hearth
The morning offering whispered at dawn
Young lovers flirting on a garden bench
The chair in which Granddaddy used to sit

Cranky old men who feed the birds each day
Cool boy-band posters on a teenager’s wall
Red spider-lilies in the autumn sun
And children’s toys scattered all over the yard

“Bourgeois sentimentality!” some cry:
Well, yes, yes it is – by the Grace of God

Shepherding Winds - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Shepherding Winds

“Once I lived all alone in an isolated hut near a Greek village,

‘shepherding winds’ as a Byzantine ascetic used to say.”

- Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

The optimism of spring passed long ago
Those darling buds of May1 need raking up
Fallen away from summer’s apogee
Onto this evening’s still-warm autumn earth

And as with leaves and wind, dreams fly about
Flittering and falling until they land
As litter upon a page, jumbled among
A merry confusion of iambs and lines

Playfully resisting organization -
The promises of spring are autumn’s now


1Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII

Indian Summer - poem

(Very happy to have the computer back from the mender!)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Indian Summer

Late, errant honeybees still swarm about
The hummers’ feeder in the afternoons
While lingering sunlight warms October days
Like lovers reluctant to say goodbye

Our little apian friends in chorus sing
A fading summer-song, before the frost
Sends workers home among soft, leafy ways
Of air and mist, over stubbled fields at rest

In that quiet hour before the moon
Ascends to light the autumn safely home

Che Guevara and His Darling Bonnet - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Che Guevera and His Darling Bonnet

His beret’s ‘way cool, his reputation’s hot
All for having lots of innocents shot

Nach Canossa Gehen - poem

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Nach Canossa Gehen

 

Everyone stands in the snow at Canossa

Not all at the same time, but eventually,

Alone, barefoot and alone, in the snow

Knocking on a door, for three days or more

 

A bare-headed, self-shaming penitent

Cold, hungry, shrouded in an exile’s shift

And fearful, hopeful, desperate for admittance

To mercy undeserved, and love, and peace

 

The door will open eventually, but first

Each man must stand in the snow at Canossa

A Babbler of Mere Fancies

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Babbler of Mere Fancies

A babbler of mere fancies and conceits
A distant figure lost in space and time
And speaking to an ever-present now
For whom there is no horizon or history

Indian Autumn - poem

Indian Autumn

 

Late, errant honeybees still swarm about

The hummers’ feeder in the afternoons

While lingering sunlight warms October days

Like lovers reluctant to say goodbye

 

Our little apian friends in chorus sing

A fading summer-song, before the frost

Send workers home among soft, leafy ways

Of air and mist, over stubbled fields at rest

 

In that quiet hour before the moon

Ascends, and lights the autumn safely home

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue

Brushed aluminum, S & R Green Stamps
Tiki torches and instant Polaroids
George Jetson on the Sylvania tv
Elvis rockin’ away on Ed Sullivan

Chubby Checker twisting all over again
Like transistor sister did last summer
Eskimo Pies in the Kelvinator
But you can be sure if it’s Westinghouse

Keds, Schwinn, Salk vaccine, Captain Kangaroo
Randolph Scott, and President Eisenhower too!

9 October 2016 - Existential Computer Silence

I'm still waiting for my computer.  I'm still waiting to hear anything from the repairman.  And I'm not surprised. 

Forget the Clowns; Send in the Heroes - column, 10.9.2016

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


Forget the Clowns; Send in the Heroes

Are there any clowns that aren’t creepy? The appeal of face paint and grotesque costumes – including the appearance of our presidential candidates and some of our popular entertainers – to otherwise stable individuals is inexplicable.

+ + +

Every filing cabinet in England is an Anglofile.

+ + +

Every telephone in France is a Francophone.

+ + +

If the Czech Republic were to free itself of the European octopus, that is, rule by Germany and Belgium, its new currency might be the Czechmark.

+ + +

Indecisive Flemings and Walloons are Belgian wafflers.

+ + +

Folks in Saint Petersburg are always in a hurry because they’re Russian.

+ + +

“Deteriorated” is a buzzy weather-word just now. You and I might say that the high winds are dangerous or that more flooding is expected, but the weather wardens chant that “Conditions are deteriorating.” Hurricane Matthew deteriorated all over the place for days. While millions suffered from the real storm, the wardens tossed together “deteriorated, “absolutely,” and “actually” every few minutes for their own word-storm of little content.

+ + +

Shortly before his scheduled graduation from Orangefield High School in 1945, Abner Simon went off to war. After his military service he earned a G.E.D. and then a college degree, and became a Baptist minister. At age 91 he is still serving his church.

The Orangefield ISD board and administration, all of whom were born long after World War II, heard of Mr. Simon and so invited him to his old school, fitted him into the traditional Orangefield graduation gown, mustered the Orangefield High School band, and presented him with his diploma as a 2017 graduate. When the rest of the Orangefield Class of 2017 catch up with Mr. Simon in the spring he will be their speaker.

Some old fussies will say that, by cracky, the kids need to listen to Mr. Simon. And one can only agree. But we must also agree that the President, too, needs to listen to Mr. Simon, and so do the presidential candidates, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, and the high flyers at Wells Fargo. Every generation grows up to complain about the following generation, but the reality is that if every adult role model were more like Mr. Simon, the rising generation would do just fine.

That famous hat-tip to Channel 12 News and Orangefield ISD – and Mr. Simon! - for this happy story.

-30-

2 October 2016, Computer Failure

My summer-new HP laptop failed after only four months, and I learned from this experience that Windows 10 does not permit a safe start for sneaking around an error and mending it.

As far as I know my computer still reposes undisturbed on a table in another town waiting for the person who said he would repair to repair it. Perhaps he is related to the authorized dealer who did nothing more than reduce my lawnmower to boxes of debris, or to the many people who, when called, said that they would definitely show up "tomorrow, maybe the next day" to bid on tree removal, and never did.

I have a century-old typewriter which is aesthetically pleasing and which works as smoothly as the reputation of a Swiss watch (the only Swiss watch I have ever owned is an Omega Constellation, which never kept good time). Alas that a typewriter will not post to the InterGossip, so until my own computer is repaired or replaced with another disposable piece of electronic debris, I will file content only infrequently.

Season of Mists and Bee-sy Fruitfulness - column, 2 October 2016

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Season of Mists and Bee-sy Fruitfulness

Prime Minister Trudeau, a well-known international authority on prolonging adolescent behavior into middle age, attempted to teach Prince George how to high-twerk (or something) during last week’s state visit of Prince William, Duchess Catherine, and their children to Canada. Prince George, three years old, refused to indulge the P.M.’s low-prole importunities, and in so doing gave an adult a lesson in adult behavior.

Perhaps Prince George will visit the United States and help our 70-year-old presidential candidates try to grow up.

+ + +

An eternal bottom-of-the-page filler for newspapers is California’s San Andreas Fault. The theme is that someday the fault will split and California will disappear into the sea in an Atlantis-ish (or Pacific-ish) disaster. My theory is that California will remain in place and the rest of North America will disappear into the sea.

Either way, the Deep Internetistas will insist that the earthquake was all a false-flag operation promoted by the Galactic Masonic Skull and Bones Vatican Klingon Illuminati Rosicrucian Templar Golden Dawn Bilderberg Opus Dei Priory of Sion Lizard People Bohemian Grove Continuum of Really Mean Evilness in a secret plot to…but I lost the plot of this narrative long ago.

+ + +

The Peerless Progressive People’s Excellent Bobdescanted Exploding Smartphone and Washing Machine Company has been falsely headlined for its purportedly exploding washing machines. PPPESES&WMC’s dumb-phones have been known to burn down American cars, but their washing machines don’t really explode; they merely wobble sometimes. Hey, duty laundry dude or dudette, just balance the load, okay? It’s not that difficult.

+ + +

One longs to see a bumper sticker or a letter jacket featuring a quotation from Habukkuk.

+ + +

New tenants have settled in nicely on my magnificent rural estate – several colonies of well-behaved and industrious honeybees who were raised in Buna. My north county apiarist consultant, Terry McFall, tells me that the work of honeybees is responsible for roughly a third of all food raised, so without the little fellows we would all be hungry. Further, although there are native wild bees in the Americas, Europeans imported honeybees in the 17th century for their greater honey production.

Alaska’s beekeepers must import honeybees each spring for their honey production and for the enhancement of agriculture. There have been some experiments in keeping bees alive over the winter, but the results are inadequate and the few survivors never manage to recover fully.

In these October days we may turn to Keats’ “Ode to Autumn” for a celebration of bees:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
…to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease

-30-

Bourgeois Sentimentality - poem

Bourgeois Sentimentality

A beagle puppy napping on the hearth
The morning offering whispered at dawn
Young lovers flirting on a garden bench
The chair in which Granddaddy used to sit

Cranky old men who feed the birds each day
Cool boy-band posters on a teenager’s wall
Red spider-lilies in the autumn sun
And children’s toys scattered all over the yard

“Bourgeois sentimentality!” some cry:
Well, yes, yes it is – by the Grace of God

To Incorporate Institutional Effectiveness into Our Everyday Language - poem

To Incorporate Institutional Effectiveness into

Our Everyday Language

)/)/)/ is updating our assessment plan for
Instructional units beginning this fall
2016 semester. After
Visiting with /)/, our SACSCOC
Consultant and Dr. /) yesterday
About our assessment process, it was
Determined that it is in our best interest
To clarify, verify and hopefully
Simplify the current random selection
Assessment process. Therefore, in lieu of
The use of the random selection process,
The plan for this semester and moving forward
Is to assess all students in all sections
Of courses used in the assessment process
And to report data on all students,
NOT just assessing or reporting data
On a random sample. In order to provide
Appropriate artifacts, we will choose
Representative samples (examples
Of great, fair and low achievement artifacts)
To be included in the artifacts
Collection for SACSCOC reporting. However,
We do still need to collect all artifacts
So we have those in the event they are
Needed. This will give us a better picture
Of how our students are performing.

I know that we are changing directions
And I ask that you be patient as we
Navigate through this process and determine
How best to collect, assess, and use the data
We receive to make continuous improvements
For the good of the students and to
Incorporate institutional effectiveness
Into our everyday language.

Thank you for your willingness to assist
In this process and determining the best
Ways to help our students. Stay tuned as we
Look at and develop some additional
Templates or formats to report the data.
Please share this information with your faculty.