Decolonize This Place - a perhaps intemperate screed

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Decolonize This Place

 

“Colony” is a value-neutral expression but this useful denotation has been force-fitted with a negative connotation which serves no purpose except the shallowest sort of propaganda.

 

Hong Kong, for instance, was until this century a British Crown Colony in which freedom of speech, movement, and economic activity were guaranteed. Now it is part of Communist China in which the only thing guaranteed is brutal oppression.

 

The label is not important; the reality of freedom is. We are a republic, but then so are North Korea, Haiti, and Viet-Nam. Canada, God’s second-favorite nation, is a dominion within the British Commonwealth, and they seem to get on just fine.

 

Still, facts are not allowed to influence the lemmings who chant slogans that begin with that intellectual thesis statement, “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho!”

 

A ‘way cool thing now is to claim that everything and every concept is colonized and now must be decolonized in order to be restored to some sort of pre-lapsarian golden age that never was. “Decolonize this place” is now extended to art, music, literature, and for all we know beagles and flashlight batteries.

 

Well, I propose a decolonization of this nation. We have a national flag. The red, white, green, and black of the mythological state of Palestine isn’t it.

 

Decolonize this place.

 

When we see thousands of idle, uninformed, and apparently unemployable oafs marching and menacing in this country’s streets under a polluted sea of Palestinian flags we are reminded of the Ku Klux Klanner-bananers and the Nazi-nasties who in the 1920s and 1930s strutted and bellowed in our streets waving their hateful rags, shouting their hateful ideologies, and demanding our submission. A lot of Americans bought into that doo-doo too.

 

Why do we now see more Palestinian – which is in effect a camouflage for Hamas – flags in our streets than our own?

 

How is it that so many people now regard our republic as a colony of Hamas, and demand that we colonials obey the dictates of a foreign power that hates all of us?

 

Decolonize this place. Not with violence or those stupid bullhorns, but with a quiet, stern refusal to indulge Hamas. Don’t accept any arguments about a false equivalence. There is no equivalence between an ideology of genocide,, murder, hostage-taking, lying as an art form, torture, and a one-world empire [Hamas’s Genocidal Intentions Were Never a Secret - The Atlantic], and our concepts of dignity and equality (though we could be better at living those concepts).

 

Decolonize this place.

 

-30-

In Violation of Community Standards - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

In Violation of Community Standards

 

For Writing a Positive Review

 

 

“Unmutual!”

 

-Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, “A Change of Mind”

 

 

Amazon.god judged me, and found me wanting

For violating Community Standards

I don’t know what amazon.sin I committed

In praising my new Sperry Topsiders

 

Let us make such violations worthy of praise

We will not be communed against our will

Or judged by amazon.inquisition

Or any other corporate dotheads

 

I will never take an amazon.loyaltyoath

But new shoes are nice

Puppies Share Christmas in Their Own Special Way - rhyming DOGgerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Puppies Share Christmas in Their Own Special Way

 

Nothing says Christmas like sparkly glitter

Frosting the ornaments and, oh! So much more

Tiny stars shared from an incontinent critter -

In diarrheal doggy poop on the bedroom floor!

Henry Kissinger Has Left His Multi-Million-Dollar Apartment - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Henry Kissinger Has Left His Multi-Million-Dollar Apartment

 I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

 

-C. S. Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters

The bodyguards, the security details

The long black cars, the cooing movie stars

The expensive dinner jackets tailored just so

The best cigars, the rarest of champagnes

The jeweled watches and those golden cufflinks

The many underlings awaiting his call

The fawning bishops at the Al Smith dinners

The publishers eager to print his latest screeds

The voice that commanded armies and fleets

And left presidents quivering in fear

 

The millions of corpses rotting in the sun

A Connoisseur of Clinic Waiting Rooms - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Connoisseur of Clinic Waiting Rooms

 

I could regale you with tales of puppy dogs

Painted with matching little argyll vests

And Kodachrome sunsets snapped long ago

Darkness and dust settling on a fading lake

 

I could detail for you leatherette chairs

In rows beneath the television on the wall

Facing old women shrieking in HD

And years-old magazines that no one reads

 

A door opens to a whiff of germicide

My name is called – and there’s no place to hide!

Romance of the Boeing 707 - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Romance of the Boeing 707

 

Out on Runway Number 9

Big 707 set to go

 

-Gordon Lightfoot

 

Old Ginsberg wrote that the typewriter was holy

An airport of words for coming and going

On a runway of ribbon, platen, and keys

McKuen might have said it’s a safe place to land

 

But then came the Boeing 707

Dear Gordon Lightfoot’s silver wings on high

It flew our words and us all over the world

And became for us holy in its own way

 

The 707 – there was nothing finer

But the last one I saw was a roadside diner

HAMAS Appears to Have Taken Control of Our Nation

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

HAMAS Appears to Have Taken Control of Our Nation

 

Video showed a Palestinian flag raised on the statue of the Marquis de Lafayette near the White House, with "Free Palestine" spray painted on his pedestal. A Palestinian keffiyeh, popularized by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was put on the head of one of the figures at the foot of the pedestal.

 

-Brady Knox, Washington Examiner

 

Columbia University Closes Campus Ahead of Israel-Hamas War Protests - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down main entrance to Union Station in Washington, D.C. | Watch (msn.com)

 

The people say: ‘Shut it down for Palestine’ – International Action Center (iacenter.org)

 

NYPD beefing up patrols as Jewish schools worry over ‘day of Jihad’ (nypost.com)

 

Hamas’ Terror Also Holds a Warning for the US - The Washington Post

 

California Democratic convention in Sacramento shut down by cease-fire protest disruptions (msn.com)

 

Bad Medicine - Tablet Magazine

 

A Snapshot of Support for Palestinians Across America - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

Pro-Palestine protesters shut down Bay Bridge (ktvu.com)

 

Protest blocks Israeli cargo ship at Port of Oakland in support for Palestinians amid violence in Gaza - ABC7 San Francisco (abc7news.com)

 

Pro-Palestine protesters shut down OSU trustees meeting, demand divestment from Israel (msn.com)

 

SHUT IT DOWN Nov 9th Day of Rage: Terror-Tied Islamic and Leftist Destroyers Terrorize Communities, Target Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics - Geller Report

 

Pro-Palestinian group posts NYC map with locations, sparks fears of attacks (msn.com)

 

Chants ‘calling for the murder of Jews’ were shouted at me during Cooper Union protest, student recalls (foxnews.com)

 

Full List of Democrats Who Refused To Condemn Hamas Supporters (newsweek.com)

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters drag burning Israeli flag down NYC street as they warn supporters days are 'numbered' (nypost.com)

 

Jewish NYC high schoolers verbally attacked by woman on DC train after National Mall rally: ‘F–k all you guys’ (msn.com)

 

Jewish teacher hides in Queens high school as students riot (nypost.com)

 

Cornell student accused of threatening to kill Jewish students will remain behind bars | CNN

 

Israeli business owner in Florida speaks after several Jewish establishments tagged with antisemitic graffiti (fox35orlando.com)

 

Antisemitic incidents on college campuses spur federal investigation (usatoday.com)

 

Jewish communities threatened by acts of antisemitic vandalism across the US. | CNN

 

Campus Reform the #1 Source for College News

 

Pro-Palestinian Protesters Occupy New York Times Lobby In Demonstration – Deadline

 

Grand Central Terminal shut down due to pro-Palestinian protests (nydailynews.com)

 

7K pro-Palestinian protesters take over Brooklyn Bridge, call for elimination of Jewish state: 'By any means' (nypost.com)

 

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade arrests: 34 people arrested after pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted parade, NYPD says | CNN

 

Pro-Palestinian protestors block Port of Tacoma military ship | Crosscut

 

https://www.bing.com/search?q=palestinian+disruptions+of+america&qs=n&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=palestinian+disruptions+of+amer&sc=11-31&sk=&cvid=A41FE5C2F4374955B9BA0D1649506991&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=&FPIG=24A5D720EB0C48F18D38923D216D8256&first=11&FORM=PERE

 

Pro-Palestinian Protesters Shut Down 3rd & Fairfax, March Through The Grove – Deadline

 

Hamas terror organization charter targets Christians and US service organizations (msn.com)

 

Hamas Ally CAIR Has Been Operating With Impunity Inside America for 30 Years | | news-journal.com

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters rally on Mag Mile to draw attention to Israel-Hamas war - Chicago Sun-Times (suntimes.com)

 

‘Bombs are dropping, why are you shopping?’ Black Friday traditions interrupted by anti-Israel protests (bizpacreview.com)

 

Hamas’s Genocidal Intentions Were Never a Secret - The Atlantic

 

-30-

 

 

November 2023 Update Made a Mess of my Apple Watch - Caution

 On the morning of 25 November I downloaded the latest Apple security update. I don't know about security, but the update made a mess of my settings without asking me if I wanted anything changed. Further, despite all the directions from Apple and other sources, I cannot change the settings back and I cannot delete the update. 

When this, my first and last Apple Watch, fades away I'm going to crush it into its components and retrieve my decades-old $10 Wal-Mart Timex from a desk drawer where it still ticks.

Like Children Dancing - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Like Children Dancing

 

Like children dancing, leaves form up in rows

Then skitter across each corner and street

As shoals in rolling ranks overflowing other ranks

Or little tornadoes laughing through circles and swirls

 

Like children celebrating their youth and strength

Leaves tumble and run before the shifting wind

‘Way up into the air and back to earth

In happy games of catch-me-if-you-can

 

Like children in the afternoon, just out of school

Autumn leaves joyfully mock every rule

The First Folio of...You! - mere rhyming doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The First Folio of You

 

On the 400^th anniversary of the First Folio

Of some playwright or other in England

 

I fear that there will never, ever be

A First Folio of the works of – Me!

Bound in leather most luxuriously

For sale at a wildly exorbitant fee

 

Scanned for pleasure over cups of tea

And studied by academics thoughtfully

Beloved by the climbing bourgeoise

As much as by the high nobility

 

I can’t adorn my poems with a PhD

So will kind readers accept a high school degree?

Thanksgiving as a Singleton - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Thanksgiving as a Singleton

 

Memories of a drive-through just won’t do

Set something on your table, if only for you

A turkey plate from the grocery store

Two side dishes from cans, or maybe more

And gravy even if it’s a store-bought broth

Silverware, real plates, and a tablecloth

Wash your hands, light a candle, say a prayer

And open your napkin with your special flair!

 

You are where you are meant to be, it’s true

And know that God is with you to see you through

First, Catch Your Cookbook

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

First, Catch Your Cookbook

 

Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness…

 

-Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

 

Having never seen a copy of Mrs. Beeton’s famous cookery book I don’t know if her recipe for rabbit begins with “First, catch your rabbit.” If it isn’t true it ought to be, for it is fine example of both English logic (rare) and English whimsy (a defining trait). The expression is often used as a cautionary warning, similar to our American “Don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched.”

 

The arc from Thanksgiving to Christmas is when the thoughtful cook will seek out MeeMaw’s cookbook to verify seasonal specialties: Waldorf salad, corn casserole, turkey fried or baked or broiled, ham fried or baked or boiled, and those old traditional dishes special to each family.

 

Cookbooks are otherwise seldom consulted in our electrical times, for the cook can quickly seek out a recipe on the Orwellian telescreen / Tolkien Palantir. However, opening an old family cookbook in anticipation of the holidays is a way of inviting all the ancestors back home for a moment in time. The crumbling pages are the ones that the cook’s mother and grandmother and great-grandmother read, maybe by the light of a coal-oil lamp on a dark winter day long ago.

 

On the margins are many penciled notes and corrections. You can almost hear some ancestor muttering, “Harrumph! What does that editor in New York know about real cornbread!”

 

A slip of paper falls out – in Mama’s elegant penmanship is a recipe she copied out from her own mother’s telling. Another piece of paper might be a yellowing clipping from a newspaper, a rationing recipe with a scrap of war news on the other side.

 

Older cookbooks might be bound in leather, like a Bible, and the connections are real, for both allude to bread and life and stories. The pages of both books are pages of the histories of families. In them you can, for a moment, be a little child again, barely as high as the stove stop, helping (not very well!) your grandmother with baking your favorite cookies. Do you remember? Do you see and smell the joys of her warm kitchen again? Is Grandpa still sitting at the table rustling the pages of The Houston Post and muttering about the prices of cattle feed?

 

Some of the best memories are in that old family cookbook. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming soon, it’s time to refresh them. This is a season when memories of a drive-through just won’t do.

 

-30-

 

Decaying Orbits - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Decaying Orbits

 

Wild vultures swirl in distant elegance

Circling gracefully in the high, cold blue

Wings beating the downdrafts into place and space

Then orbiting down, a narrowing decay

 

And landing lumpishly upon the dead

Their distant grace was but foul deceit

Up close they know only vomit and filth

Their orbits have decayed into decay

 

Perhaps at a distance we seem beautiful

But would we want to know ourselves up close?

A Good Enough Leaf-Time - photograph and poem

 

We can make a little order where we are, and then the big sweep of history on which we can have no effect doesn't overwhelm us.  We do it with colors, with a garden, with the furnishings of a room, or with sounds and words.  We can make a little form, and we gain composure.

                                                               -Robert Frost

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Good Enough Leaf-Time

 

No more the withered summer-browns of death

Crumbling and sere upon the dry and crackling ground

Beneath a Rime of the Ancient Mariner sky -

Leaves in autumn colours are falling now

 

Pale greens, poor yellows, weak reds, but good enough

To decorate this time of early frosts

With appropriate merriment, good enough

To rake into playtime heaps for children and dogs

 

These modest scenes will attract no peepers this year

But I will send you a snap – it’s good enough!

A Gift of Omelettes - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Gift of Omelettes

 

For Max and Tod

 

We leave the comfort of a little fire

And repair to the kitchen for a morning repast

Of bacon crisp, of toast from homebaked bread

And omelettes more golden than the morning sun

 

The dogs come with us, for something good might fall

To be nipped before it ever hits the floor

And the fireside conversation begun

Continues around the festive Dickension board

 

Old friends, old dogs, and Christmas coming soon

And omelettes - altogether a happy boon!

American Businesses Losing the Metaphorical Plot - a back-of-the-hand business response chopped into ten-syllable lines

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

When Your Security Code is not Your Security Code

And Your Password is not Your Password

 

CONTACT US Our manufacturing facility

Near Austin, TX is not open to the public

And we no longer accept phone calls, but we'd

Be happy to answer your questions here.

 

Legitimate inquiries can expect

An email response usually within

24 business hours or less. We're closed

Friday - Sunday but we may occasionally

 

Answer a few emails over the weekend

If we get a chance. Thanks for your inquiry.

EMAIL US: Thank you! We've received your submission

And will get back to you soon.

At Yevna Something Happened - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

At Yevna Something Happened

 

The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart's blood of the Jewish religion. Whatever laws, customs or ceremonies we observe - whether we are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or merely spasmodic sentimentalist - we follow the Talmud. It is our common law.

-Herman Wouk

 

At Yevna something happened, something quite real

Though no one seems to know exactly how

Those who entered as priests arose as rabbis

Carrying Talmud out into the world

 

At Yevna something happened

 

Ben Zakkai and Gamaliel sit at your table

Your study table, a house of wisdom in Yevna

Where all may come to study Mishnah and Gemara

Where the lamp of peace is lit on Sabbath eve

 

At Yevna something happened

 

G-d sees to it that even a few holy books

The wisdom of the sages

The library of the ages

Are Yevna written into your modest home

 

At Yevna something happened

Note: The quote from Herman Wouk might not be exactly as he wrote in 1959; I was following an elusive and shape-shifting cut-and-paste text through a trackless forest of quotations.

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper - rude, shallow doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

 

In every generation rises a toxic SSap

This one wears a SSoviet-red plastic cap

If you obey mindleSSly, SStand, and clap

You too can be his little SStormy trooper

 

Obey!

 

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

 

Make hiSS perSSonal SSluSSh fundSS great again

He’ll grab you by your wuSSy; ya like it, then?

Now go to jail for him if you’re real men

And SSurrender your SSoul; exiSSt in a SStupor

 

Obey!

 

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

 

SSo throw away your life for that coSSmic blooper

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

Forty Guns to Apache Pass - movie review

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Forty Guns to Apache Pass

 

If you’ve never seen Forty Guns to Apache Pass, you’ve still seen Forty Guns to Apache Pass.

 

Audie Murphy’s 1967 low-budget cavalry vs Indians film employs every trope of matinee shoot-‘em-ups: a brave, brash young army officer who breaks the rules, a patient and fatherly commanding general, a platoon of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and ill-tempered troopers, the usual casting-office injuns (none of them genuine Apaches), the blonde love-interest and her cranky old Pa, the love-interest’s errant little brothers, civilians who need rescuing, horses, wagons, villains, desperate sorties against a powerful enemy, a sub-plot of redemption, and lots of shootin’.

 

The film is centered on an element of the mediaeval quest; in this story the object that will save the kingdom / Arizona is not the Grail or a magic sword, but forty modern repeating rifles. The faraway government will send only those forty and only as far as Apache Pass. Our hero and his comrades must make their way through lots and lots of Apaches to reach them.

 

After a long journey, many battles against a fierce enemy, and complications in loyalties and plot twists, the hero and his surviving companions come through, true love is rewarded, and Arizona is made safe for truth, justice, and the American way (Superman).

 

We’ve seen the same plot, setting, and characterizations over and over in hundreds of assembly-line boots-and-saddles yarns made from the 1920s until the 1960s on budgets of hundreds of dollars, and yet the same old stories are still fun. Children enjoyed them as Saturday afternoon matinees at The Palace or The Bijou for generations, and now we can popcorn-out on the couch at home, still on Saturday afternoons, for thrilling tales of yesteryear (The Lone Ranger).

 

Sometimes we want cinema (pronounce “cinema” as a snooty anapest): a soupcon of French existentialism, a serious study of post-war Italian cinema, or a new adaptation of Shakespeare, and then sometimes we want movin’ pictures with cowboys and Indians and saloon fights. And though the plots are familiar, that’s okay; Shakespeare’s plots were old when he borrowed them for his plays.

 

Audie Murphy was a fine actor – as The American in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, filmed in newly independent Viet-Nam in 1958, he is brilliant. But the westerns put more fans in the seats and paid the bills, and Mr. Murphy was a great cowboy.

 

One of the best things about Forty Guns to Apache Pass is the title. The viewer needs no exposition, no advance reviews. He or she (not “they”; one person cannot be “they”) knows what’s going to be on the screen and knows it’s going to be great fun.

 

God bless the American cowboy film, and God bless Audie Murphy, a hero in the movies and a greater hero in life.

 

-30-

An Old Man in the Hardware Store Considers Autumn - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

An Old Man in the Hardware Store Considers Autumn

 

“And He has poured down for you the rain”

 

-Joel 2:23

 

“When I’m through here,” he laughed, “I’m going home

I’m going to sit and listen to the rain

My hayfield’s all burnt up, my yard is dead

So I’m gonna to let the rain sing me to sleep”

 

We said our good-byes to the driest summer ever

And a thank you, Jesus for sweet rain at last

Next to the paper sacks of deer-bait corn

And a display of made-in-China tools

 

The wind blew open the heavy double doors

And the rain blew with it, and we were glad