The Russians Hacked my Homework - Column, 26 March 2017

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Russians Hacked my Homework

Why is any murderous loser referred to as a “lone wolf?” “Lone reptile” is more appropriate.

Let us not sentimentalize wolves; they are carnivores who eat calves, colts, sheep, rabbits, housepets, children, joggers, and each other. They are not rational beings and cannot exhibit any sense of mercy, pity, or ethics. Even so, they are superior to the sort of human who, although blessed with a brain, a soul, and a universe in which to pursue the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, can only obsess on his own grievances and resentments (cf. C. S. Lewis’ A Preface to Paradise Lost).

+ + +

Do congressmen have to worry about insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays? No? That’s the affordable care act the rest of us want.

+ + +

The Writers’ Guild of America (which isn’t really a guild since they do not have a patron saint or a parish church they support) is threatening to go on strike. And one understands: the daily terror of possibly being crushed by a falling laptop computer, the risk of toxic chemicals in fashion coffees, heatstroke while lounging by the pool, being gored by a rogue pencil, and the back-breaking agony of re-typing Beauty and the Beast every few years must be soul-destroying.

Yes, the idlers spending leisurely days at the bottom of coal mines and on factory floors and high up on utility poles during storms understand the agony of the WGA. After all, how can Americans survive these challenging times without the literary wit and ethical uplift of each weekly episode of Mom?

Are carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, roofers, and electricians paid residuals every time a house they built long ago is bought and sold? No?

+ + +

In our Republic’s capital reposes an institution styling itself Excel Academy Public Charter School. Just why a school requires four adjectives to identify itself is unclear. Further, a charter school is a public school, and “academy” is synonymous with “school,” so this accumulation of puffery could read “Excel Academy Public Public Academy” or “Excel School Charter Charter School.”

That’s the sort of non-thinking that leads committees to re-name libraries “learning resource centers.” If you plop down a lot of polysyllabic words the children will magically become better readers and thinkers, right?

+ + +

This month’s Imprimis from Hillsdale College features Christopher Caldwell’s excellent article about why Americans don’t understand Russia and why Russians don’t understand Americans: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/think-vladimir-putin/. An acquaintance suggests that the most salient sentence in the article is this: "Most Russians have come to believe that democracy is what happened in their country between 1990 and 2000, and they do not want any more of it."

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CPAs for Christ - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

CPAs for Christ

Voice: an old-time numbers warrior

“I just didn’t feel welcome in a traditional church,
You know, the stuffy cowboys for Christ church,
With latte’ splatters on my alligator shoes
And ink stains on my computer-worn fingers

“Here I’m welcome to keep my green eyeshade on
Because Jesus loves everyone, even CPAs
It’s like the old times when at night accountants
Swapped stories around the expresso machine

“There’s just something real plain and honest here,
Praisin’ that Great Auditor in the Sky.”

#Winston Churchill Defies the Nazis - poem ("of a sort, sir" as Jeeves might say)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

#Winston Churchill Defies the Nazis

#Intersectionality come together
#As one we are cliché strong privileged
#Patriarchy ethically sourced all options
#Are on the table chilling effect quagmire

#Teutons behaving badly doomsday clock
#Transgressive sustainable Guccifer
#Renewable change the gender binary
#Wiretapped microinequity

#Unity in diversity is strength
#Build bridges not borders no fascists here

And let The People say “#Meme”

POSS MARIJ - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

POSS MARIJ

A smart and funny kid, lanky and tall
Cliché mop of hair which on him looks good
Personality-plus, new jokes each day
He makes the day better by being around

He’s not around today. But here’s his name
His date of birth. Some words that don’t make sense…
So that’s why no one’s seen him since…since when?
But when you ask, no one says anything

A smart and funny kid, lanky and tall
No one can hear him crying in the holding cell

Lady Day - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Lady Day

And now comes Lady Day, a new year’s day
When happier hours to summering begin
And farmers follow their ploughs among new fields
While in the hedgerows early snowdrops bloom

Old debts are settled, new agreements made
And the oldest promise of all proves True
On this the day of the Annunciation
As spring comes early in Galilee, and here

And all because our Lady said yes to Life
On this our Lady’s day, a new year’s day

Night Court - Allergens for the Prosecution - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Night Court - Allergens for the Prosecution

For the Prosecution: Spring Allergens
For the Defense: Anti-Histamines and Acetaminophen

If only headaches went away at night
They don’t, and a fresh catalogue of pills
Does nothing except fog reality
The world spins on and on, and sometimes off

The pillow is a bitter accuser
Detailing again all of life’s mistakes
The sheets and blankets wrinkle in disdain
The world’s last spring-wound clock grinds through the hours

Maybe the world will stabilize at dawn
If only the headaches will go away

Big Bird Leaps the White House Fence - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Big Bird Leaps the White House Fence

Jumping the fences at the White House has become as fashionable as soccer. Last week one fellow climbed the fence (“Goalllllllll!”) and roamed around the grounds for about fifteen minutes before he was arrested. Why fifteen minutes? Perhaps he finally had to wake up the Secret Service himself.

Was the jumper Senator Tim Kaine, hoping and hopping to get a leap ahead for 2020?

On another occasion a Secret Service secret agent left in her car a Secret Service secret computer, a Secret Service secret access card, a Secret Service secret radio (“Is that you, Agent 99?”), Secret Service secret lapel pins, and maybe a Secret Service secret Sergeant Preston of the Secret Yukon secret decoder ring. In her driveway. Overnight. Soooooooooo secret.

All this Secret Service secret spy stuff was secretly liberated from the secret agent’s secret car by the C.I.A. Or the F.B.I. Or the E.I.E.I.O. Or that sock-puppet from the trash can on Sesame Street. Or the rascally Russians taking their secret orders from Rachel Maddow via secret short-wave bowls of borsht.

But we mustn’t worry; Secret Service secret spokesguy Shawn Holtzclaw (his secret code name is surely “The Claw”) assures us that Secret Service secret laptops do not contain secret stuff, and are protected by secret layers of secret security. Like secret car windows.

Maybe they should have built a wall, a really Yuge wall, around the car. Or bridges. Or something.

If Secret Service secret computers do not contain secret stuff, why are they protected by secret layers of secret security?

Instead of defunding the Secret Service (“From the files of Police Squad”), President Trump is threatening to defund Public Broadcasting, which receives some of its income from taxpayers and some from advertising. Given that the wavy airs are clogged with multiple providers of entertainment and propaganda, is continued public funding of PBS important? It doesn’t seem to provide anything not already available on other slushy channels. It’s just a television network, and that some small part of its funding is through the ideology of press gangs doesn’t give it a halo. Let Big Bird find a gig on Doctor Phil, or on that show with all those harridans shrieking at each other.

But this must be said in defense of PBS – they have never broadcast even one episode of Mom.

-30-

Free Shipping with Orders over Fifty Dollars - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Free Shipping with Orders over Fifty Dollars

Free shipping with orders over fifty dollars
Let’s see – add Colin Dexter, John Updike
And a few pounds of Graham Greene, perhaps
John Steinbeck, Rex Stout, and Ford Madox Ford

Packed in foam peanuts with T. S. Eliot
The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Olivia Manning, Henrietta’s War
“Leaf by Niggle” for a few ounces more

Tolkien and Lewis, those Oxford scholars -
Free shipping with orders over fifty dollars

Grandfather's Vespers - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Grandfather’s Vespers

His rocking chair pendulums in the dusk
His coffee cup’s half-empty, what’s left’s gone cold
His newspaper’s folded and set aside -
In the evening light he doesn’t see so well

Mist rises from the neighbor’s new-mown field
Shy rabbits nibble along the old fence row
Grandchildren escape from supper into the yard
Chasing lightning bugs while Grandfather smokes

His rocking chair pendulums in the dusk
And so helps stabilize the universe

Speech of Freedom - in rebuke of certain Middlebury College students

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Speech of Freedom

I will listen – now tell me what you think
And tell me what you think, not what you feel
Not what you were commanded by bullhorns
Not chants beginning with “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho!”

I will listen – now tell me that you think
You, not a crowd, a hive, a swarm, a shoal
You, not a mood, a whim, a committee
You, not a photocopied manifesto

Because I want to hear you – you, not echoes
I will listen – now tell me what you think

Saint Joseph the Just - poem

Saint Joseph the Just

for every man

Saint Joseph in a dreary winter night
Took to himself a Newborn not his own
Yet who is always his, the Child of Light
Whose crib Saint Joseph knew to be a throne

Saint Joseph shows men truth: each child is ours
Adopted by each good man upon birth
True fatherhood ordained in starlit hours
And ratified in Heaven and on earth

Saint Joseph is the man who looked into
The eyes of Mary in her happy youth
This strong man looked into her eyes and knew
She bore within her all eternal Truth

Our witness is Saint Joseph, ever just:
God calls each man to take each child in trust

The First Mowing in Spring - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Mowing in Spring – Inspection Tour

Interior Dialogue

or

Why is That Old Man Talking to Himself?

V: Have I left that shovel outside since fall?
R: Your ol’ daddy would say something about that!
V: I could have sworn I put that hose away.
R: Obviously, you didn’t. And what a mess.

V: Pretty little ground flowers – shame to mow them
R: Shame if you don’t – later, they’ll choke the grass
V: Where is the copper cap for that corner post?
R: I told you to use lots more glue, but nooooo

V: You got anything good to say this morning?
R: Well, ain’t it grand to see another spring!

Thin Green Beer and Plastic Chinese Leprechaun Day - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Thin Green Beer and Plastic Chinese Leprechaun Day

Saint Patrick saw a slithery snake
He killed it with (a garden rake?)

Then made the others go away
Thus Ireland is snake-free today

He blessed the land, all glowing-green
The most beautiful island ever seen

The snakes were gone, and all their hissing
But now –
‘tis Ireland’s faith that’s missing

Cinder Block State University Resists the Occupation - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Cinder Block State University Resists the Occupation

Our social change internal journey to
Diversity student coordinator
Studying art facilitating a
Safe space internally generate student

Dreams of diversity dreaming diversity
Art Installation students will write their
Dreams on pieces of fabric and paper
To help guide students to their dreams the general

Path to diversity student coordinator
It’s complicated project individual

A Public Intellectual - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Public Intellectual

“Life…is paralleled by the unconditional value of each and every person.

It is that which warrants the indelible quality of the dignity of man.”

-Viktor Frankl

Reza Aslan is a public intellectual (public intellectual - how do you score a gig like that?) with a B.A. from Santa Clara University, a master’s in theology from Harvard, a master’s of fine arts from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in sociology from the University of California Santa Barbara.

Last week Reza Aslan packed along his resume’ and his catalogue of university degrees and traveled to India to eat a bite or two of human brain.

Dr. Aslan’s career is one of writing and editing thinky-books about religion, writing, hosting, producing television shows, and receiving vaguely-named awards from vaguely-named organizations.

He is also the host of CNN’s Believer.

He has not yet appeared on a cooking show.

Last week this religious explorer visited some believers in India who occasionally eat other people. Well, hey, we all worship the same god, right? After sharing a meal (no doubt Dr. Aslan will insert a Last Supper / Eucharist metaphor here) with members of something called Aghori, this well-educated man frivolously posted:

“Want to know what a dead guy’s brain tastes like? Charcoal…It was burnt to a crisp! #Believer.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/06/reza-aslan-host-of-cnns-believer-catches-flack-for-showcasing-religious-cannibals-in-india/?utm_term=.48e6f977ba24) and other sources.

Dr. Aslan referred to the Aghori as a Hindu sect. Hindus say not. Loudly.

When Dr. Aslan returned from his devotions, do you suppose his wife Jessica greeted him with a kiss?

He and his wife have three small children. Child protective services might want to look in on them occasionally. But perhaps Dr. Aslan disapproves of eating the brains of family members. Other people’s children, maybe.

So who did he eat? A man? Woman? Child? Was the victim an Aghori? Was the victim okay with all this?

And where is the government of India in this matter?

God gave Reza Aslan life and superior intellect and energy; the U.S.A. gave him sanctuary from the Iranian revolution and then freedom and educational opportunities offered to few; in the end, he responded to those gifts of God and those gifts of freedom by eating the brain of a fellow human being for the entertainment of Americans.

-30-

Beware the Odes of March (tho' this is not really an ode) - shabby doggerel and punning

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Beware the Odes of March (tho' this is not really an ode)

or

In the Italian Kitchen with Brutus and Cassius

or

I Come to Curry Caesar, Not to Baste Him

Julius Caesar on the Ides
Marches to the senate house
Up to him young Brutus strides
And, too, Cassius (what a louse!)

Then mean Brutus takes his knife
So does Cassius; you know the ballad:
“Lettuce chop cold Caesar’s life
And thus create the Caesar salad!”

Tools of the Patriarchy - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Tools of the Patriarchy

Fence pliers, claw hammers, crescent wrenches
Nail sets, c-clamps, wood planes, mitre boxes
Come-alongs, White Mule gloves, ball-peen hammers
Jumper cables, wood planes, mill b*st*rd files

Plumb bobs, twist bits, cross-cut saws, ripping saws
Tire irons, air compressors, pressure gauges
Brace-and-bits, drawing knives, pneumatic jacks
Cold chisels, clamps, mortar trowels, channel locks

A twelve-hour day plus d*mned low pay, you bet!

And

A work ethic, knowledge, muscles, and sweat

The Information Superhighway - Please Use Alternate Route - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Information Superhighway - Please Use Alternate Route

You have read your allotted quota of
Free articles this month to read more please
Subscribe or sign in you the supplied the wrong
How to supply this site the server is asking

For your user name and password warning
Your user name and password will be sent
Using basic authentication on a connection
That isn’t secure unauthorized this server

Could not verify that you are authorized
To access the document requested

Out of Focus at the End of Time Woo Hoo - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Out of Focus at the End of Time Woo Hoo

At the end of time, when reality
Is ripped and flung aside as the flimsy
Tissue of ephemera that it always was
As the deep oceans tremble fearfully

As the skies, and the universe itself
Thunder in the agonies of their deaths
And poor mankind is face in fear at last
With that true Vision all unknowable

The last sound in this created world will be
The rattle of collapsing selfie sticks

Did Russians Hide Nukes in Your Sock Drawer? - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Did Russians Hide Nukes in Your Sock Drawer?

The western sky is blue; the east is red
But try to put it right out of your head
If you find a Russian under your bed
Concealing a nuke that will kill you dead

The Intergossip surely must be right
So hit the keyboard now, and share the fright
On Social-Medium-Range all through the night
And type it really fast before…that LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ding-dong, the east is red, the west is blue

And ashes drift about, flake news, untrue

Re-Reading Tolkien for Lent - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Re-Reading Tolkien for Lent

Across the page, across the words, soft light
Soft morning light at play this quiet day
This stand-down day when duty does not call
Not call, and life is for a few hours free

Ink on a page, now forming into songs
Songs that were old when this green world was new
And fields of flowers were as fields of stars
Fields of Creation and eternal Hope

O happy fields forever, here, right here
Across the page, across the words, soft light

Old Pompeo Had Some Spies, C.I., C.I., A! - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mike Pompeo Had Some Spies

Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!
Among these spies he had some sneaks
     C.I., C.I., A!
With a wiretap here
And a wiretap there
Here a tap, there a tap
Everywhere a wiretap
Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!
Among these spies some Russians lurked
     C.I., C.I., A!
With a lurk-lurk here
And a lurk-lurk there
Here a lurk, there a lurk
Everywhere a lurk-lurk
Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!
And to these spies came Wiki-Leaks
     C.I., C.I., A!
With a leak-leak here
And a leak-leak there
Here a leak, there a leak
Everywhere a leak-leak
Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!
And then there was the President
     C.I., C.I., A!
With a tweet-tweet here
And a tweet-tweet there
Here a tweet, there a tweet
Every day a tweet-tweet
Mike Pompeo had some spies
     C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some headaches
     C.I., C.I., A!
Among these headaches was Congress
     C.I., C.I., A!
With questions here
And doubtings there
Here a quiz, there a doubt
Everybody run about
Mike Pompeo had some headaches
     C.I.,
              C.I.,
                        Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

When You Come to a Knife in the Road - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

When You Come to a Knife in the Road

     Thomas Becket: “Tonight you can do me the honor of christening my forks.”

     King Henry II: “Forks?”

     Thomas Becket: “Yes, from Florence. New little invention. It's for pronging meat and carrying it   
     to the mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers.”

     King Henry II: “But then you dirty the fork.”

     Thomas Becket: “Yes, but it's washable.”

     King Henry II: “So are your fingers. I don't see the point.”

-Becket, 1964, produced by Hal Wallis

A complete table service with knives, forks, and spoons as we know them was common in Roman times. With the collapse of the empire Europeans reverted to eating with just their hands and their own knives.

Sort of like ordering from a drive-through now.

Or hanging out with British soccer fans.

In the high middle ages forks reappeared, and except for takeout and Manchester United are still pretty popular. In some restaurants, though, like one of Chaucer’s pilgrims you’ll have to bring your own knife.

Some eateries are shy about providing knives and napkins. The meal is served with a fork so thin that it will bend if you hold it wrong, and a little square of thin paper napkin that appears to have been peeled from the roll on the wall in the euphemism.

If you want a knife, you must ask for it.

If you want a second tiny square of paper napkin, you must ask for that too.

One shouldn’t complain; there’s still a plate.

In California restaurants the pepper has been replaced with pepper spray.

Okay, okay, first-world problems, right? This is not serious stuff, like Secretary Clinton having to fly commercial and occupying only two first-class seats for herself and her bubble, the poor dear. Oh, the humanity.

Still, you wonder how long before you’ll have to ask for a cup for the coffee.

Someone probably read an article the industry magazine Beyond Roadkill about how if they don’t provide knives for customers they can save electricity and soap by running the dishwasher two fewer times a year.

Thanks to a young person of his acquaintance y’r ‘umble scrivener recently had occasion to dine at a nice restaurant in Baytown (Capital of the Culinary World), and was happy to see a complete table setting: a collection of cutlery, a big cloth napkin, big plates, small plates, and bowls.

But then, Baytown’s pretty sophisticated: they’ve got traffic lights, movin’ picture shows, sidewalks, and Russian spies.

Rumor has it that former President Obama bugged the iced tea.

And then there was this guy in corner wearing Tom Brady’s game jersey and crying softly into his double mocha latte’ with a dusting of cinnamon: “But it was the right envelope. It was. I handed them the right envelope…sob!”

He had a big cloth napkin for his tears, though.

-30-

The Smart Phone That Came in From the Cold - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Smart Phone That Came in From the Cold

Along the bridge that was a wall a phone
Whispered endearments to a thermostat
Hoping to turn it as a double agent
Which would betray the satellite TV

Beyond the talking doll that talks too much
The new refrigerator’s ice machine
Betrayed its memory chip to a light bulb
Which killed an activity tracker gone rogue

Your teapot is a data dump – it’s true!
And your fountain pen is ratting on you

Stoned to the No - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Stoned to the No

Stoned to the No in 1968
On words and life, keeping the center between
Chaos and other chaos, hiding peace
In backwards lines and in the silences

Awkward and rare, perceived in starlit dreams
That flickered above conflicting demands
For fearful unthinking obedience
And the No is recusance, perhaps defiance

Fifty years later, still stoned to the No
On words and life, keeping the center still

I Spy with my Little FBI... - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

I Spy with my Little FBI

I spy with my little bright FBI
A government wet and hung out to dry
On clotheslines that might (or might not) be tapped
Through circuitry that the Soviets mapped
And passed the plans on to bad Vladimir
(Who wrestles tigers sans shirt and sans fear)
But, sure, that mighty hyperborean
Had better watch for the North Korean
And keep him closer than a dodgy brother

Because

All we Yanks do is snoop on each other

If the Russians Find Out That the Iced Tea was Bugged - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

If the Russians Find Out That the Iced Tea was Bugged

If the Russians find out that the iced tea
Was bugged they may well conclude that Area 51
Has tested Tom Brady’s jersey which was stowed
In a bus station locker in Donetsk

With the claim check issued to Kellyanne Conway
And passed to a North Korean operative via
A secret drop in a hollow pumpkin
Behind a voting machine in Spokane

That was hacked by a rogue albino nun
Carrying secret numbers for Rand Paul

Who Will Pray for Poor Topcliffe? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Who Will Pray for Poor Topcliffe?

There must be someone to pray for the soul
Of poor Richard Topcliffe, pursuivant of
The souls of others, but not of his own
This master of irons and fires and chains

There must be someone to pray for the soul
Of a liar, a sneak, a torturer
Who hounded innocents into mass graves
Tormenting thus himself no less than them

Who will then pray for poor Richard Topcliffe?

These:

Of their mercy, his hundreds of innocents

The Wolf Who Cried "Boy!" - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Wolf Who Cried “Boy!”

So - once upon a wolf there was a time
When errant lopes lupined about in rhyme
And mooned beneath the lonely, silvery howl
And rabbited frights with each savage vowel

One night a little lost was boyed in the wood
And wolved into the wandereds’ neighborhood
The wolfiest hunger of all cried “A boy!”
And all the other replies wolved “Oh, joy!”

And then they ate him. Wolves, eh.

Choosing Sides at Kursk - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Choosing Sides at Kursk

At a railway junction great powers meet
To blacken the earth with a generation
Of young musicians, mechanics, physicians
Electricians, farmers, painters, and poets

And the philosopher who loves to fish
Ground into blood and screams and scraps of flesh
By the future which some have seen, and works
For the dress-uniform closed loop of power

So choose a side which is no side; you must
Choose a side choose a side fratricide

                                                               No

Greeting Card Verse - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Greeting Card Verse

There is nothing wrong with greeting card verse:
Noses are red, some types of whales are blue
Two woods diverged in a yellow road, so what
Is any of that to me or to you?

A man must find a verse that fits his needs -
Archly obscure thick homilies preening
To poly spec for the cause of the day
Couched in cool cant neither pretty nor true

Are but ISBN numbers on file

And

Sometimes ya want to smile, crocodile!

But Why Should Someone Save the Date? - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

But Why Should Someone Save the Date?

But, really, why should someone save the date?
Would it be lost in Dante’s darksome wood
like a poor soul in search of salvation,
or lost in the 1950s tonight?

In what would someone save the date? One thinks
Of piggy banks, Prince Albert cans, jelly jars
Old coffee cans buried beneath a tree
Or an ice tray in the cold Frigidaire

One is unlikely to misplace a day
A week, a month, except in a tired cliché

Jackboots - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Jackboots

Exactly what are jackboots, eh? Tell me.
Well, jackboots were designed by this guy, Jack,
You see, because jacksneakers didn’t work
And jackloafers were out of the question

Jack wanted a boot everyone could hate
Even though they didn’t know what it was
And so anyone you don’t like wears jackboots
You polish them nicely with vitriol

Available at finer shops everywhere
And you’re a Facist…Facsit…Fascist, dude!

An Older Liturgy for Vespers - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An Older Liturgy for Vespers

The Vestal hearth is now a microwave
No mysteries or flames within it glow;
The kitchen table now is the altar, set
With old familial Lares and Penates:

Pepper and salt shakers of dime-store design
Flanked by a tray of paper napkins which
The children simply will not use, a spoon,
A morning coffee cup not put away

Even so -

When the mill whistle blows, and school lets out
An ancient liturgy will be renewed

Nocturne About is Fair Play - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Nocturne About is Fair Play

Lyrics and sonnets and ballads and odes
All fade into the page at dusk when dusk
Begins to chill and a poetry book
Is now but a silent accessory

The ice has faded from one’s drink; a cat,
As sly as the stars, arises to slink
around the assortment of weathered lawn chairs
And their assortment of humans at peace

With an evening of low expectations
Beyond a falling memory of a rhyme

Saint Blaise - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Blaise

Waiting in line to have body parts blessed
Is probably a good idea, and throats
Are more accessible than pancreases
(Or are they pancreai?). A brain-blessing

Might be an even better idea, although
A small priest could not, would not reach so high
Hands, shoulders, elbows, noses, ear lobes too
So in the end (but blessing that might be

Entirely inappropriate) you see

Even so

Let us be blessed in all humility

Habakkuk on a Letter Jacket - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Habakkuk on a Letter Jacket

We’ve yet to see a quote from Habakkuk
Glittered and glued onto a run-through sign
Or embroidered on a letter jacket -
1:11 comes to mind, or 2:7

How curious it is to write some lines
of scripture to be trampled into scraps
of paper and glitter and glue near to
the concession stand and the marching band

Or wear them as a fashion accessory

And

We’ve yet to see that quote from Habakkuk

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

The Seven Habits of Highly Defective People - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Seven Habits of Highly Defective People

If sleeping late, not making up the bed
Eating an unbalanced breakfast too fast
(coffee in one hand, cold compress on the head)
Rehearsing the day’s first whiny complaint

Dressing in haste, with no purpose in sight
And no life-goals beyond Saturday night
Washing and brushing all too carelessly
Constitute a defective personality

Then let us celebrate frivolously
This wonderfully defective liberty

Executive Orders - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Executive Orders

Why are there no executive orders for joy
Edicts commanding merriment and fun
Memos requiring bare feet on summer days
White papers on folding paper airplanes?

Take now an oak-tree leaf, and thereupon
Write with soft, happy whisperings your hopes
And post it on the evening breeze with love
To sail beyond the softly-singing stars

Let us bring to each other each other
and let be signed executive orders for joy

Spinning Seventy-Fives - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Spinning Seventy-Fives

We sang so cheerfully about far death
And seasons in the sun, without any fear
For we would be forever young and tanned
Splashing about in the happy shoals of life

The new hi-fi was almost everything
An altar to the religion of youth
The latest spinnings our gospels of truth
Before communion in afternoon kisses

And now we search for long-lost seventy-fives
And dream so gratefully about far life

About the Type - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

About the Type

The text of this book was carefully set
In Elbow Macaroni Minus Bold
Designed by Minus Minor the Younger
Who created it in the tradition

Of non-received mediaeval Street Vendor
Emeritus Yonkerite Torchlight font.
Minor the Younger also served the Landgraf
Ludovicus Ficus von Superbus

As Secundus Keeper of the Privy Privy
And warden of the palace coffee grounds

A Pedestrian Statue - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Pedestrian Statue

A plebeian pedestrian on a plinth
A plinth in its place in a people’s park -
He leads a charge of ordinariness
From the bus stop to the coffee shop

His evening newspaper wielded in defiance
Of an unseen enemy far away
Beyond the carefully planted shrubs and lawns
His victory is a quiet cup of joe

No noble blood in him, not even a tenth
Our happy pedestrian on his plinth

Happy Palace Bakery - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Happy Palace Bakery

No one seems especially happy today
And a cube of cinder blocks is no palace
Fluorescent lights flicker most plebeianly
On a picture of Angkor Wat at dawn

A pale Cambodian sun rises over gods
Watching silently for a thousand years
And here the sun rises over kolaches,
Rolls, doughnuts, apple fritters, and croissants

Whose supplicants process in pickup trucks
In quest of truth and the blessings of carbs

The Happy Reaper - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Happy Reaper

Maybe Death should be personified as a
Merry mayhemic fellow, chopping heads
While laughing through his homicidal day
Fitting taller people into shorter beds

The Merry Reaper isn’t really grim
Lurking about and cackling in mania;
He’s simply doing what is best for him
Relieving humans of their crania

He keeps his lawn trim, and he’s really sweet,
And he lives up the block, along your street!

The Pleasants' Revolt - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Pleasants’ Revolt

No problem have a nice day thank you for
Not smoking sanitized for your protection
Your call is important to us hello my
Name is how’s my driving for quality

Control this call may be monitored
Customer satisfaction is goal one
We treat you like family please hold for
The next available representative

Sanitized for your protection your call
Is important to us hello my name

August - June - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

August - June

They are but faces, not even faces
But ovoid fuzzes like the innocents
In crime photographs (he was a quiet man
Who kept to himself, but his lawn was neat)

As term progresses their faces fill in
With the lines and colors of their stories
And when each story is brought up to date
Like Hamelin’s children they disappear

The years erase the chalkboard, but faces,
Faces and stories, linger forever

What We Talk About When We Talk About - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

What We Talk About When We Talk About

Or

Let’s Begin the Conversation

What we talk about what we talk about
What we mean when we say what we mean
Empowering what we mean when we talk
About the resistance he will not divide

Us secure the existence of the people
Speaking power to truth sanctuary
Debate what we mean when we talk about
Campaign promises ho ho and hey hey

We have only so many rhymes, okay?
What we talk about what we talk about

Doctor Ponsonby's Patented Empowering Electrical Rosary - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Doctor Ponsonby’s Patented Empowering Electrical Rosary

This ilke Monk leet olde thynges pace,

And heeld after the newe world the space.

-Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

How out of date are simple wooden beads
An upgrade is what the Rosary needs!

Something to give your meditations spice
Connected to your electronic device

Beamed back and forth to The Cloud, you see
With mega-mega gigs of memory

Doctor Ponsonby’s Patented Empowering
Electrical Rosary is just the thing!

The Ave Maria is so out of date
It’s Ave ME now, ‘cause we’re all so great!

Make your prayers less about God, more about you
Signal yourself through sacred Tooth of Blue

A camera hidden in the crucifix
Enables you to take your selfie-flicks

The Pater beads count each joggery mile
Or kilometres if those are your style

The Ave beads are recycled with care
To save the forests, the rivers, and air

Designed in Germany, made in China
High-definition beads; there’s nothing finer

Buy the first (as advertised on tv)
And we’ll send you a second all for free

Remember: for weddings, funerals, and daily devotions
Let RAM and ROM go through all the motions

Doctor Ponsonby’s Patented Empowering
Electrical Rosary – O make it sing!

Alter Christus, Alter Vir - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Alter Christus, Alter Vir

For Reverend Angelo J. Liteky

He died three times, for other men
Who lived because he died – once in Indochina
Once in his vocation, and one last time
Forgotten in a poor hospital bed

Soul-wounded in the false, incessant wars
Humanity inflicts upon itself
Fallenness falling again, ever fallen
And the ever-falling fell upon him

Though he lifted his love – always for others
He died again – and who will live for him?

Little Frankie - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Little Frankie

For Jacob Garza

His name is really Jake, but he doesn’t know that,
Not yet. He knows lots of other things, though:
That slowly turning fans are fun to watch
And “Ode to Joy” plays from a little box

He knows how to smile and wiggle and kick
And coo along with the songs of the wind
And when he’s tired and needs a hug or a nap
Aunt Beverly will hold him all afternoon

His name is Jake. He’s new to the world;
He doesn’t know his name – but he knows love

What the Pope Said About the President - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

What the Pope Said About the President

If the pope said what they said that they said
That they said that they said that they said that
They said that they said that they said that they
Said that they said the pope…
                                                  I dunno

Maybe We'll Hear Better after the Revolution - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Maybe We’ll Hear Better after the Revolution1

Some pause, some charge, some flee, some fly
Protestors wild in riot run
Methought these poor ears heard them cry
“Asparagus for everyone!”

1cf. Doctor Zhivago

The Amber Room of the Czars, as Re-Imagined for a Hotel Lobby - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Amber Room of the Czars, as Re-Imagined for a Hotel Lobby

A bloated Calvinist acquired and built
In vanity, in glory to himself
A pleasure-cube of cubits many, high
But not as high as vanity ascends

Like ziggurats, in mockery of Heaven,
Wherein strange brazen chariots in tubes
Ascend, descend, bearing those mighty men
Who bear their manhoods cheap i’th’ presence of

Their alpha whale on whom hair never sets
That bloated Calvinist Epiphanes

(Exeunt omnes, disdained by a toad)


[Allusions to Genesis, Coleridge, Shakespeare, and Milton]

If You Pick Up a Dream - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

If You Pick Up a Dream

If you pick up a dream, it might explode
Shooting pulses of light into the skies
And winds of words to wheel among the wings
Of truths in flight above a moonlit night

If you pick up a dream, it might explode
Into disasters unimaginable
But realized all the same, in smoking ruins
Of fragile constructs thoughtlessly knocked down

Be careful, then, along your pilgrim road:
If you pick up a dream, it might explode

Thank You for Your Service - Now Shut Up - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Thank You for Your Service – Now Shut Up

Heat, mud, mosquitos, humiliation
Despair, stand to, stand down, stand to again
Wait, wait, the trucks are late; you’ll have to march
Do something with these bodies, Godammit

Damp, rot, no sleep for how many days now
Your promotion got misplaced in Saigon
We gave your medal to an officer
Because we had more officers than medals

What do you know; you weren’t in a real war
My cousin was; he told me all about it

A Cloud of Scary Witness - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Cloudy of Scary Witness

And so it came to pass on the fifth of February
The Prayers over the Offerings spoke thus:

…created things
to sustain us in our frailty

There seemed to be a poem in those lines
To be developed with full credit to
The copyright holders, and thus it is written:

…from the Lectionary for Mass ©
1968, 1981,
1997, International Committee
of English in the Liturgy, Inc.
Washington, DC. All rights reserved. Excerpts
from the Lectionary for Mass, copyright
© 1970, 1998, by the Confraternity
of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC
are reproduced herein by license of
said copyright owner. All rights reserved.
No part of the New American Bible
may be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the Confraternity
of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC.
Published with the approval of the Committee
on the Liturgy, National Council of
Catholic Bishops. Please write for information
on our other publications.

But maybe not. How much frailty can one bear?

What Did the President Not Know and When Did He Not Know It? - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

What Did the President Not Know and When Did He Not know It?

Ripped from the Headlines!

Defiant Flynn insists he crossed no lines
Leakers must be prosecuted Obama
Wars of identity loyalists waged secret
Campaign to oust weaponized spin

Putin anonymous spooks agenda
Engineered “soft coup” intel chair FBI
Agenda fear Trump assassination
Needs to explained recorded calls leaks fear

The commentators yelp, the twooters groan
But no one seems to know what’s going on

An Open Letter to... - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An Open Letter to…

A response to the recent fashion, victim-y and self-obsessed, of open letters

Dear Mean People,

You don’t know me but I know you hate me
Because you are not me so I hate you
Even though I don’t know you, but you hate me
For not being as kind and loving as me

So I forgive you, you Facs…Fascs…Fascists
For not thinking and feeling just like me
You just don’t understand my special needs
How my soul is a flower that always bleeds

Because your jack-boots stomped all over my heart
And I’ve got a degree; respect my smart

Good Morning, Caller... - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Good Morning, Caller…

My son was diagnosed with monitoring
Resources I know he’s not the perfect
Child screaming obscenities but acting
Out one-on-one the other children don’t

Like him OCD bi-polar borderline
Medications overexcitabilities
Acting out his needs inclusivity
Outreach special needs EQ his options

A cry for help individualized socialization
My son was diagnosed my me mine I

Aliens Foreign and Domestic - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Aliens Foreign and Domestic

A little Ford bearing on its bumper
A made-in-China South Vietnamese flag
Tailgated by a menacing larger Ford
Which passes, bearing on its bumper
A made-in-China Confederate flag
And then another Ford with an image of
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
On U.S. 96 near the Wal-Mart -
There must be something in all that
                                                            But what?

Collateral Damage - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Collateral Damage

His final defensive perimeter
Room 304 in The Plaza Hotel
Convenient to the bus stop, and not far
From the public library one street over

He checks out a Perry Mason each week
“They knew how to write a good yarn in those days”
And bears it off to The Corner Café’
Free refills; the waitresses always pet him

He makes speeches in Perry Mason’s courtroom
The Social Security office, and Korea

Not the Most Boring American Legion Meeting Ever - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Not the Most Boring American Legion Meeting Ever

The coffee was good, the stories were old
Of days when we mumbling men were bold
And young and trim, slender of waist
Leaping to our duties all in haste

And now we sit in the parish hall
Our waists are large, our muscles small
But “with advantages”1 we dare think back
When the word was not “reflect,” but “Attack!”

The coffee is good, even when we are old
And our memories warm, tho’ the nights are cold


1Henry V

Puppies and Planets - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Puppies and Planets

The universe is that construct which gives
Some definition to a man’s small soul:
He is beneath a tree, upon the ground
Beside another being not yet named

Though stars dance distantly, eternally
One’s soul is larger than the universe
And smaller than a happy child who laughs
At puppies chasing springtime’s butterflies

For such a moment may be all God wanted
In singing this world into its creation

Mardi Awwwwww! - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mardi Awwwwww!

Casualty lists, mass arrests, throwing up
On a copper’s shoes, the parish drunk tank
Big dude with QUEEN tattooed across his chest
A-blowin’ kisses and a-makin’ eyes

At the most recent poor dumb fish now trapped
In mandatory happiness Woo Woo
That’s what he yipped when he saluted a cop
With just one finger, attached to his hand

Which then was attached to his other hand
With a bulk-discount plastic tie – Woo Woo

(Emesis follows)

STEMinists - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

STEMinists

That women must be as shallow as men
And thus surrender all their high estate:
Art, music, government, medicine, law
Science, literature, administration

To be programmed, obedient to machines
That turn, tilt, twist, light up and make noises
Measure this, adjust that, obey, obey
Functionaries in a factory – why?

To bow before gadgets, just like the men -
The old Eden thing, all over again

The Secret That THEY Don't Want You to Know - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Secret That THEY Don’t Want You to Know

The secret that your banker, car dealer
Doctor, insurance agent, mechanic
Dentist, electrician, wireless service
Neighborhood Russian spy, travel agent

Hairdresser, ophthalmologist, plumber
Lawyer, barber, grocer, parole officer
Pharmacist, barista, pedicurist
Watchmaker, stockbroker, cable installer

Or county agricultural agent
Doesn’t want you to know:
                                              wait…what was it…?

Speculative Fiction - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Speculative Fiction

Life planned according to an instruction book
All parts identified and catalogued
A solid base established in its zone
Some assembly required by the tenant

Permits purchased from the correct agencies
The proper engine fitted to the frame
Boilers fired up with renewable energy
The flight planned filed into the horoscope

But then the book’s first copyright expired
And 0200 is too dark for reading anyway

Catholic Calisthenics - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Catholic Calisthenics

(Stations of the Cross)

Make the sign of the cross stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand

Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand

V: This is rather rough on my creaky old bones
R: Remember, old man, it’s not about you

Alternatve Turtle Bayou Resolutions - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Alternative Turtle Bayou Resolutions

Be it resolved:

1.

Peace be upon these ancient waters again:
Let the turtle laze on its log in the sun
While the armored alligator cruises
Silently, half-submerged, hungry for – you?

2.

Let the snow goose feed in the winter marsh
And bitterns and wrens during the summer heat
Among lizards, mosquito hawks, and bees
Palmettos and flowers lost in the shadows

3.

Let governments and revolutionaries
Having committed now mischief enough
Drop their weapons and manifestos, and

     Pass by in silence

A Laughing Springtime Child - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Laughing Springtime Child

Her locker was just outside the classroom door
And sometimes during class change I called out
Confusing numbers as she worked and turned
The combination lock: “12...32...”

Ashley indulged her teacher’s feeble attempts
At humor, twirled the dial exactly right,
Popped open the locker, and laughed:
“Ya can’t fool me, Mr. Hall; I am good!”

And indeed you were, and are, and will be forever,
Forever our happy, laughing springtime child

“And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

-- Hamlet, V.ii.371

Mardi Grouch - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mardi Grouch

C. S. Lewis’ older brother, Warren, kept a diary most of his life, edited into a small book, Brothers and Friends, by Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead. Major Lewis was a career officer in the British army, and aboard the Chinese ship Tai-Yin, homeward bound after overseas service in Shanghai, he made this entry for Wednesday, the 26th of February, 1930:

About teatime today a woman I have never seen before came to the smoking room and asked each of us to a “karktail poity” in her suite at 5:30. Resistance being obviously futile, we all went…the conversation by the way was exclusively on the subject of alcohol. The sort of remarks I remember are “Does this baby love to throw one bug grand gin poity? Well I should say!”

The theme of scheduled, organized, and mandated happiness is a common one in narratives of well-meaning oppression. In an episode, appropriately named Dance of the Dead, of Patrick McGoohan’s miniseries The Prisoner, all the inmates are commanded to participate in a costume party through a bullhorn proclamation ending with "There will be music, dancing, and happiness - by order!"

Which conscripts us into the Danse Macabre horror, inflicted even on children, of something called Mardi Gras.

Most people are aware of the origins of Shrove Tuesday / Meat Tuesday / Fat Tuesday in Christian Europe as modest, family-oriented merriments during which, depending on varying local customs, remaining rich foods (meat being a luxury) in the house were eaten on Tuesday night before Ash Wednesday in anticipation of a modest diet, prayer and reflection, and generosity to others during the six weeks of Lent.

As with so many customs, the Tuesday evening meal before Lent has metastasized into a mandatory, weeks-long bother and expense that is disconnected from anything else. “Mardi Gras” has become a theme for any sort of party at any time of the year. Just as the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple has been displaced by Groundhog Day, and Advent by shopping, ordinary housekeeping in anticipation of Lent, usually along with Lent itself, has been displaced for what often seems to be nervous hysteria rather than ordinary enjoyment of life.

Country-and-western songs and InterGossip memes ‘n’ themes notwithstanding, any group activity that features casualty lists, mass arrests, and piles of garbage in the streets seems to miss the point in merriment.

There are many non-liturgical customs that develop culturally from Christianity - Christmas carols, Thanksgiving, and Easter dinner come to mind - but throwing up on a police officer’s shoes while being cuffed and stuffed is not one of them.

And let The People yelp “Wooh! Wooh!”

If they wish to do so.

-30-

A Shining Checkpoint on a Hill - poem

Your ‘umble scrivener must be cleared every few years by Homeland Security in order to teach as a part-time adjunct faculty of no status whatsoever at his little cinder-block community college. This began under President Bush. President Obama did not end it. President Trump is for now making yuge deals or something.

A Shining Checkpoint on a Hill

There is within this body no pedigree
And the DNA is hardly worth knowing
No yellow star, kennkarte, or ausweis
No tribal identification card

Form 3078, TSA Pre(checkmark)®
FEMA security clearance, TWIC card
NEXUS, SENTRI, Proof of Residency
USDA HSPD-12 card

A Costco card – oops, failure to renew:
Say, will a Barnes & Noble membership do?

Compline in the Alley - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Something Fr. Raph said reminded me of the poor man to whom Becket gives a blanket in the 1964 film:

Poor man: Thank you.

Becket: You're welcome. It will keep you warm.

Prissy cathedral canon: He'll only sell it for drink.

Becket: Then that will keep him warm.

Compline in the Alley

Oh, let the poor man cling to his bottle
It’s his, isn’t it? It’s his own free choice
The only thing he owns. Not even the space
Behind the dumpsters is reserved for him

Some bigger guy might take it away tonight
And his blankets too, and maybe his shoes
But with his bottle he is a worthy man
And he will drink to his own worthiness

Hard-earned, hard-fought, hard-drunk, ‘til dead
And kissing no one’s feet or hands or *ss

Harrison Ford Navigates Us Through the 21st Century - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Harrison Ford Navigates Us Through the 21st Century

A state representative in Mississippi, channeling his inner Borgia, wants to kill more people and employ more diversity and inclusion in doing so. In addition to lethal injections, Representative Andy Gipson proposes killing people with firing squads, electrocutions, and gas chambers.

Poisoning, shooting, shocking, and gassing – yeah, that’ll probably do it.

Representative Gipson, that merry rascal, missed his true vocation as the villain in one of those lurid Hammer Studios thrillers of the 1950s.

One wonders if Representative Gipson takes Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter off from imagining different ways of killing people.

+ + +

Vice-President Pence visited Dachau last week. My father was in that area in early May of 1945 but I don’t know if he entered any of the Dachau compounds; I do know he was in Ohrdruf / Buchenwald with the 602nd Tank Destroy Battalion a month earlier on 3 April (http://www.89infdivww2.org/memories/tank_7.htm). He did not have his picture taken.

+ + +

Recently we have seen disturbing photographs and video images of refugees fleeing from the USA into Canada across frozen fields in areas usually isolated but at present busy with taxis, photographers, and border agencies from two nations.

One might dismiss the reports if they came from Native Texan Dan Rather, but they’re not; they’re from many different sources.

Is this nation suffering an East Germany moment? Or did someone or some group make a point of frightening these poor people into hazarding their lives unnecessarily?

The keyboard commandos with their programmatic slogans and clichés don’t have answers to any of this. But who does?

+ + +

According to the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-construction-start-20150105-story.html), the California high-speed train project, which taxpayers have been funding since 2008, is scheduled to begin construction this week. Expected to cost working Californians $65 billion-with-a-B, this tribute to Jerry Brown’s vanity choo-choo has not, after eight years of taxing and spending, carried the first passenger because it doesn’t exist.

In the meantime another California project, the 50-year-old Oroville Dam, is in danger of collapse, possibly due to inadequate funding for maintenance. Essential to the state’s economy because of its service in flood control, agriculture, and power generation, loss of the dam would threaten the lives of approximately 180,000 people and flood several counties. Depending on the circumstances, there might not be adequate warning time (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/19/if-oroville-dam-failed-residents-likely-would-not-be-advised-in-time.html).

And those 180,000 people sure can’t escape the flooding by riding away aboard the governor’s imaginary Hooterville Cannonball.

+ + +

Numerous government and news agencies, some expressing indignation, report that a Russian spy ship is lurking off our Naval bases on the east coast. The Russians are not lurking very well if we know that they are lurking. But then, our spy ships are lurking in the Black Sea and in the Baltic. Lurk, lurk, lurk. Maybe in all that lurking someone’s spy ship will spy, with its little electronic eye, Tom Brady’s jersey.

-30-

For John Keats - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

For John Keats

Wanderer by moonlight, you never knew
That mellow autumn of elusive fame
Which you well-earned in your suffering youth
Through the fatal cough as you labored in haste

In haste to set in jeweled, sunlit lines
Each joyful day’s delight in nature and man
Before they faded into that long night -
You never knew what treasures you left to us

Then may your desperate pilgrimage to Rome
Lead you at last to more glorious Stairs

The Chair of Saint Peter - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

The Chair of Saint Peter

Wherever our errant bishop teaches
There is his throne: a rock beside the road
A rock beside the road that leads to Rome
A wooden bench in a laborer’s hut

A grassy bank along a fishy stream
A pile of hay in a stable by night
The ivory couch in a rich man’s house
Or the floor of the executioner’s cart

Wherever our vagrant bishop teaches
There is his throne, where we attend his words

Saint Robert Southwell (not a catchy title; I'll work on it) - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Robert Southwell

+21 February 1595

O clever Jesuit! sneaking about
From house to house, and, too, from heart to heart
Speaking the treason of faith, hope, and love
And bearing true the Passion of Our Lord

O pray for us, poor brave seeker of souls
Your faithful remnant of Our Lady’s Dowry
Against the whisperers, the rack, the rope,
Hiding, flying before pursuivants

Without you

Our souls, like looted chapels, lie in heaps
While still Our Lady of Walsingham weeps

Coffee - A Dipstick (or Something) - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Coffee – A Dipstick (or Something)

I. Elegy for a Four-Cup Coffee Maker

Poor Mister Coffee – may God grant you rest
After long years of humble service to man
You never abandoned your duty station
Next to the cookies and the kitchen sink

You were the first to bless each day at dawn
Your little red sanctuary lamp aglow
As with electricity you commingled
Water and coffee into a sacrament

Fruit of the bean and work of human hands -
But now you are silent, to drip no more

II. Signor Bialetti Brews the Coffee Now

Grazie, grazie, Signor Bialetti
Natty with your moustache and pork-pie hat
Charming man, your aluminum design
And Italian elegance grace my stove

If Don Camillo were to visit now
And bring along his Commie pal Peppone
They would still argue faith and politics
Just as they do in Emelia-Romagna

But here, over biscotti and expresso -
Grazie, grazie, Signor Bialetti!

PowerPointlessNess - poem (of a sort...)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

PowerPointLessNess

for ConnectHook via Hello Poetry

Where is the screen is there an outlet here
Can anyone find a bulb for this machine
DATA FAIL RETRY oh this is
The wrong set wait a minute okay why

Don’t you all take a break while we sort this
Out I think that memory is in the car
Would you go check RESTART okay could
Someone find me RETRY okay listen

Everyone the computer doesn’t seem
To want to work today ha ha so um…

A Small Boy to His Pencil - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

A Small Boy to His Pencil

O, Ticonderoga, my magic wand –
I wave you, and I am an engineer
Speeding a silver passenger train
From Texas to California, and back

I wave you once again; I am Robin Hood
Drawing my bow against a bishop fat:
“I invite you, Your Grace, to a great feast
in Sherwood Forest, at your own expense!”

I wave you yet again - and Old Miz Grouch
Fusses at me: “Do your sums! And don’t slouch!”

Candlemas - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Candlemas

Let Candlemas cheer our late winter days -
The Presentation of Our Lord as Child
In the Temple according to ancient ways
When Simeon prophesied and Anna smiled

Let us present ourselves, candles alight
For we are waiting in the Temple too
This joyful mystery, this sacred rite
In hope, in peace, in love, in witness true

Simeon blesses us all, and Anna prays -
Let Candlemas cheer these late winter days

Children Waiting for the School Bus - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Children Waiting for the School Bus

Children still wait for the yellow school bus
Along old country roads as early spring
Makes green the happy springtime of their lives
They carry backpacks now, and wear shoes every day

Because

The State of Texas sternly forbids bare feet
In the sacred halls of learning, even on hot days
Children ignore the passing cars, and joy
In their new world of giggles and first crushes

Cedar-wood pencils and Evangeline –
We too still wait for that yellow school bus

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-