Trump Follows Own Path, Not Establishment, With Overtures to Kim and Duterte

It used to be that invitation

From the White House to rogue nation

For leaders to meet

Was thought indiscreet --

Now it is Trump’s new vocation.

Shaming Children So Parents Will Pay the School Lunch Bill

The practice is widespread — a 2014 report from the Department of Agriculture found that nearly half of all districts used some form of shaming to compel parents to pay bills. (About 45 percent withheld the hot meal and gave a cold sandwich, while 3 percent denied food entirely.)

by Bettina Elias Siegel 

Don’t send your kids to second grade

If you have lunch bills still unpaid.

The luncheon ladies will assail

Your little ones with stalks of kale.

A guy named Guido will appear

And pinch your loved ones in the rear.

And all they’ll get for nourishment

Is a cruel discouragement.

An unpaid school lunch bill today

Is treated worse than KKK.

The Wedding Clown

One June day back in 1978, when I was ‘between engagements’ with the circus, I answered the phone and a young woman asked if I was the Tim Torkildson who was a Ringling Brothers clown. When I told her I was she asked me to clown at her upcoming wedding. I’d done birthday parties and schools and libraries and hospitals -- but no one had ever asked me to yuck it up at a wedding. Somewhat flustered, I quoted her an outrageous price for my clown services. She agreed immediately, got my address to mail the check, and gave me the time and place. And so I was suddenly in the wedding clown business.

The nuptials were held lakeside at Como Park in Saint Paul. It was a deep green summer day -- the kind of Minnesota summer day when you can almost make out pixies running through the luminous grass. Dozens of squirrels bounced around the wooded fields. The huge white reception canopy billowed in the spent-lilac scented breeze -- underneath it were many good things to eat and drink.  

And I had no idea what in blazes I was going to do there as a clown.

I’d dragged along a footlocker full of clown props, including my musical saw and pencil balloons. But what is a wedding clown supposed to do, exactly? In my case, I did some standard meet and greet prior to the actual ceremony -- making balloon animals for the guests and taking pictures with the children.

The ceremony was conducted by a Unitarian minister, with soulful music provided by a Donovan wannabe on guitar. The bride and groom exchanged vows written by themselves. I made funny faces at the horde of babies being jiggled by their sweaty mothers -- inducing them to scream and whine (with fear or pleasure, I couldn’t tell.)

It was a very short ceremony, and I was contracted to provide entertainment for three solid hours. And I’d already cashed the bride’s check.The crowd began stuffing their faces at the buffet while looking to me for entertainment. I felt like a tummler at a Catskills resort. As noted elsewhere, I was committed to silent clowning -- so jokes and sing-a-longs were out of the question. I settled down with the older relatives first, the ones who kept asking if there was any soup. I played the Anniversary Waltz on my musical saw for them -- not once, but several times, since they immediately got misty-eyed and kept calling for encores.

Then I tried a bit I lifted from an old Olsen & Johnson movie. Using a cardboard tube mounted on a tripod, I started handing out string and positioning people all over the place with said string creating all sorts of spiderweb designs -- each time I gave someone a length of string I made sure they stood completely still while I squinted at them through the cardboard tube and made notations with an oversized pencil. I had a coach’s whistle dangling around my neck, so when someone would try to cross under one of my lines I’d whistle them away. The gag succeeded in confusing the milling guests completely -- after I got my lines up, people were cut off from the food and each other in a very gratifying and arbitrary pattern. Very few actually thought it was a joke. I overheard people telling each other “This must be to keep us in line for the wedding photographer.”

I cherish gags where the audience provides the comedy, not me. In this case, the few cognoscenti who ‘got’ what I was doing began helping me put up more string while laughing hysterically as the crowd became more and more roped in. Finally the wedding photographer, exasperated at the lengths of cheap string befouling everyone’s profile, commanded everyone to take it off so he could get some decent pictures.

And then the trouble started. The children, with a singular malevolent intent, decided to gang up on the clown. It is my belief that the little nippers had surreptitiously gotten into the champagne, inflaming their naturally adversarial bent.

Whatever the cause, after the string came down my ‘Clowny Sense’ began tingling. The kids were no longer in awe of me, nor did they want to be amused by me. They were coalescing into a lynch mob. Professional entertainers have a sixth sense that tells them when an audience has turned sour -- it’s a terrifying experience, like being caught in the path of a tornado. At this wedding the adults were ready to forget about me to concentrate on the bride and groom, while the kids were bored of the whole thing and wanted to throw wedding cake at the clown. Which they did. I ducked the first few pieces, and then cut and ran. I had on an expensive satin coat and vest which I had just bought at Teeners Theatrical Supply -- and I was darned if I was going to let those little pishers ruin it with pink icing and white cream filling.

In theory, clowns are never in control of anything -- that’s part of their humor and appeal. But the reality is that when clowns work solo they radiate a commanding aura that keeps the crowd attentive and in place. When that mood is punctured there’s no earthly way to regain it. So I ran a marathon the rest of that wretched afternoon avoiding those miniature savages until my three hours were up. Then I collected my props and foot locker and got out of there, panting, faster than you can say ‘cardiac arrest.’

Strangely enough, my performance was considered a howling success by the bride and groom, along with their family and friends -- a dozen offers to liven up a marital event came the following week. I politely turned them all down. I had snagged a gig at Paul Bunyan Land up in Brainerd for the rest of the summer. That beat the heck out of dodging lumps of frosting. Besides, I heard the walleye were really biting at Gull Lake.    

Turkey Belongs to Erdogan

In Turkey no job is too safe.

The internet’s more like a waif.

And all dating shows

Have come to a close --

Cuz Erdogan they really chafe.

There is room for those with differing sexual attractions.

“There is room for those with differing sexual attractions.”

Jeffrey R. Holland

To comprehend the Lord’s embrace

Takes loving kindness, wit, and grace.

How oft we fools do push away

All those who from our course do stray.

Far better to let God alone

Throw any arbitrating stone.

To Amy

The fading light has stripped away my midday certainty,

as brewing shadows boil upon the mountains distantly.

Soon the stars and orbs of night descend upon the sum

Of all my doubts and heartaches -- leaving me both low and mum.

Then comes flooding back to me the past of love and joy --

When young and sound we played with life as if it were a toy.

We gamboled far together ere our roads asunder rent.

After that I found much less of all but discontent.

I dare not dream that you’ll come back -- I dare not, but I do.

But words upon the screen (or page) are merely deja vu.

They speak of ‘closure’ -- those who think the heart can prudent be.

But I know (maybe you do, too) that such is foolery.

No styptic pen can overwrite the blunders that destroyed

Our happiness and sent it crashing deep into the void.

But when the dawn lures me away from melancholy thought,

I sometimes fancy -- in spite of years -- our love you’ve not forgot.

Congress at 100 Days

A divisive election, the growing use of arcane rules that disenfranchise the minority party and a chaotic White House have combined to create one of the least productive opening acts by Congress in recent memory.

From the NYTimes 

Our Congress in session so far

Has done very little but spar.

Mistaking exhaust

For true Pentecost,

They’re moving as fast as cold tar.

The Murdered Journalists of Mexico

Mexico is one of the worst countries in the world to be a journalist today. At least 104 journalists have been murdered in this country since 2000, while 25 others have disappeared, presumed dead.

From the NYTimes

A journalist from Veracruz

No longer conducts interviews.

“A hole in the head

Is irksome” he said.

“I’ll write about soccer for news.”

Kindness to all

“As we earnestly strive to be true disciples of Jesus Christ . . . There will be no disparity between the kindness we show our enemies and the kindness we bestow on on our friends.”

Robert D. Hales

I’ve treated all my enemies with silence and disdain;

My friends receive warm words of praise as sweet as sugar cane.

To find some kindness in my heart for those who damage me

Is harder than to skate on mud or climb a thorny tree.

Yet Jesus has been very clear upon this subject -- when

He says to love my enemies can I respond “Amen?”

I’ll keep trying, Lord, to offer honey and refrain

From judging and condemning those who give me naught but pain.

Since thou dost make it rain upon the good and bad alike,

I’ll try to keep my charity from going out on strike!

Bachelors and Bread

As a dumb old bachelor I have so much stale bread

That if it didn’t start to smell I’d use it for my bed.

I only buy one loaf per week, but then go out to eat

So often that the lonely loaf turns into mucky peat.

I put some in the freezer but forget about it till

It freezer-burns to concrete and would blunt a diamond drill.

But sometimes only sandwiches at home can fill the void --

So if I’m lacking bread I start to cry or am annoyed.

I tried to keep a pig to eat my leavings with no pout --

But once it saw the mess I call my home it just moved out!