Snow

The sky has come down

To cover branches in lint

To bear silently

Winter Light

The pure winter light

Softens abandoned childhood

Hides the trash they left

Ledes & Limericks. Friday January 19 2018

Trump’s Approval Rating

Slides, but President Gets

Credit for Economy,

Stocks

The President popular ain’t,

But on the Exchange he’s a saint.

The reason must be

Gullibility,

And growing more used to his taint.

Peter Zych replied to this poem in the Wall Street Journal: "Yes Tim.  All of us stock investors are as stupid as rocks but somewhat wealthier recently.  MAGA!"

U.S. Military Escalates

War Efforts in the

Philippines

Warmongering and Uncle Sam

Are nearly synonymous, ma’am --

So please don’t be riled

That we shot up your child --

As a token of peace, here’s some Spam.

Mathew Zobian replied to this poem in the Wall Street Journal: "What ignorance. Go to these areas, Tim. Learn about the world."

Venezuela’s Oil Production

Is Collapsing

Maduro wants children to know

He’ll feed them as soon as some dough

Is brought in by oil

Sucked up from the soil

As derricks turn into skid row.

Blame Game Begins as

Budget Showdown Looms

in Senate

The Senate is slow to react

To anything based on a fact.

If it is absurd

They’ll act like a herd --

And that’s why the country is wacked.


A Ms Hendley in the Wall Street Journal replied to this limerick: "substitute terd for herd......sounds more appropriate"

and Joseph Miksis also commented in the same paper:  "The lobbyists are the people responsible for the shutdown.  They will be even busier, paying off all the Congressmen and women they have bought to make this shutdown happen."

An Unwelcome Tax

Surprise Could Soon

Lurk in Your Paycheck

 from the Wall Street Journal

Withholding tax isn’t a cinch.

You might get a terrible pinch.

The new taxing laws

Should give us all pause;

The IRS still is a Grinch.

Mention Bitcoin One

More Time And You’re

Sleeping on the Couch

from the Wall Street Journal

I’d rather you went on a drunk,

Than spout anymore bitcoin bunk.

It may be your god --

To me it’s just odd;

Your millions will soon turn to junk!

Like a cord of wood

like a cord of wood that's split
going down into the pit
is the flow of my life force
to a halt abrupt, of course.

yet have I been spared this day
to repent and mend my way,
only if I do not dream
of pulling out another's beam.

finely carved or left to rot
my grain determines quite a lot
until the splinters of my life
are burned away by holy strife. 

Ledes & Limericks. Thursday January 18 2018

Diners are asking for ever hotter dishes, but

restaurants say few can handle the heat;

‘This is not a joke.’  from the Wall Street Journal

When ordering chili to go,

Beware of the peppers they show.

To boast of the fire

You like can be dire --

Capsaicin will make your tongue glow.

Before Eating Schnuddelhong

With Gromperekichelcher,

You Must Pass the

Sproochentest

When speaking a language that’s foreign

You mustn’t tell people it’s borin’

Or spritz all about

If there’s an umlaut --

Or else you’ll be treated with scorn.

For These Young Entrepreneurs,

Silicon Valley Is, Like, Lame

The Silicon Valley allure

Is lost on Gen X’ers for sure.

Their praise is frugal

For places like Google;

They’d rather tour Kuala Lumpur.

Federal Climate Experts

Rank Last Year Among

Three Warmest in

Modern Times

There was a young person of Leeds

Whose sweat splashed away in great beads.

Twas not exercise

That made his temp rise --

But mankind’s great sooty misdeeds.

Tide Is Telling People

to Call Poison Control

After Doing the Tide

Pod Challenge

People who swallow Tide pods

Are certainly acting like clods.

Your tongue needs the rinse

Like it needs some raw quince --

You’ll be farting soap bubbles in wads.

How Donald Trump Has Upstaged U.S. Foreign Policy

‘Topsy turvy’ is the watchword of the new regime;

Working like the Marx Brothers,and not as expert team.

Sowing discord with our friends, and giving foes a pass --

Our foreign policy is now straight through the Looking Glass.

Will we invade Caracas, or put Asia on the spot?

Is Cuba to be downgraded and Pyongyang made too hot?

Insulting Third World countries seems to be the master plan;

Calling it a poop hole doesn’t do much for Bhutan.

Diplomacy by tweeting has replaced the old Detente;

Intelligence is shrinking and good manners are quite gaunt.

Don Rickles would have been at home at any Embassy,

While Russians rig our Facebook news with snide impunity.

ENCORE:

An Australian filmmaker accused of spying in Cambodia
has called upon the federal government to defend his right
to free speech after a Phnom Penh court postponed
James Ricketson’s appeal for bail.

“Journalism is not a crime. I have the right to free
speech under the Cambodian constitution. I’d like
to think the Australian government would defend
my right to free speech.”

From the Guardian

Reporters should never assume

That they are immune from the doom

Of penalties for

The breaching of lore

That governments smell like perfume.

Colleges Brace for Tumult

 in 2018 as White Supremacists Demand a Stage

The freedom to say what you please

Belongs to the birds and the bees;

There’s nothing too wrong

With buzz or bird song --

But humans employ too much sleaze.

Arizona’s G.O.P.

Senators Assail Trump

for His Attacks on

the Press

The next endangered species is the journalist, I fear;

She isn’t very likely to survive another year.

Slaughtered by the dozens and detested by most folk,

There’s no one wants to listen to Cassandra's like her croak.

Presidents and dictators revile her occupation,

While penny pinching publishers do plan for her castration.

Bison made a comeback on the brink of their extinction,

But journalists will probably not have such a distinction.

If you’d like to save one in the wild, I recommend

A newspaper subscription for yourself and for a friend.

Otherwise reporters, like the aurochs and the dodo,

Will fold their tents and steal away, and ever be a no show.

Ledes & Limericks. Tuesday January 16 2018

A veteran reporter for the Daily Beast
has resigned after it was revealed that
she plagiarized large portions of a recent
article from the Weekly Standard.  From the NYPost

There once was a writer named Lizzie

Who found she was getting so busy

She swiped what appears

To be copy from peers --

Putting her boss in a tizzy.

White House Calls Immigration

System Risky as Funding

Deadline Looms

The White House is willing to bet

That Congress is in such a sweat

That they won’t be frisky,

But label as risky

Poor immigrants who aren’t a threat.

The Last Place on Earth Where Everyone Still Loves Kmart

North Korea will invade

Guam as its next escapade.

Their soldiers on the beaches pour --

And head straight to the Kmart store.

It’s not that they hate Uncle Sam --

They just are crazy about Spam!

Missionary Email from San Clemente, California.

Dad,

Paula is about 6 ft, very slim, with long brown hair. I think she's from Madrid, but I can't be too sure about that....She does have quite a thick spanish accent when she speaks english, and is so kind to everyone. She's in high school right now, living with members and will go back to Spain at the end of the school year. She loves the young women's organization and is so excited about being baptized. Her family actually came to visit from Spain a few weeks ago, and everyone in the ward talked to them! It was great to see. They felt very welcomed, even though they didn't speak a lot of English. They sent an email to the family that Paula is staying with, who are members, saying how grateful they were that she was part of such a wonderful church. They are so supportive and I have high hopes that someday they will want to learn more and be baptized. They will be skyping in to watch her baptism, which is so awesome! 

I hope you continue to take care of yourself as much as you can. Thanks for your poems and stories; they keep me smiling :) 

Hello everyone!!

What a wonderful week it has been; filled with sunshine, and lots of rain, and an awesome baptism on Saturday where Elder Clayton of the 70 attended.... I could go on and on about all the miracles that I've seen this week, but I don't have a lot of time, so I'll just summarize. 

Lisa- a 55 year old spearfisher who has been learning about the church for 30 years- got baptized on Saturday, and a friend who had originally introduced her to the church 30 years ago came to baptize her! Then we had Elder Clayton of the 70 as a special surprise guest; he was the physician who delivered all three of Lisa's children and just so happened to be in the area on an assignment, so he popped down to San Clemente to attend the baptism and give a few remarks at the end. When Lisa saw him, she was so excited that she cried haha. My mind is still buzzing from that experience. I was just so overjoyed to see Lisa take that next step in her life. It brought back all the warm fuzzy feelings I felt when I got baptized at 8 years old :) 

We had a funny moment the other day where we were just walking on the street and saying hello to people, and there was this man in his garage and we were walking over to say hello, but right as we did it, he looked at us with a frown and held eye contact while pushing a button somewhere on the wall next to him that proceeded to shut the garage door in our faces. Haha that's maybe the hardest rejection I've received thus far, but as rejections go it's better than having a dog chase you. 

I have so much more to say and I never have enough time, but I want you all to know that I love you, I love God, and I love being a missionary :) Please don't ever be afraid to open your mouth and share what you know with your friends and family. We have so many blessings and we want others to receive those blessings too :) 

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Torkildson

Disability Benefits to Die For

(Editor's Note: The following histories are from the files of the Great Northern Insurance Company, formerly of Minneapolis, MN -- now located on Saint Kitts.)

On January 5, 1919, Mr. James Mulney was walking on his way to work, enjoying the fine thaw that had set in earlier in the day in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. He worked as a day supervisor at the Delaney Candy Factory, and was just crossing Kearny Square on Commercial Street when all sweet, sticky hell broke loose. A storage tank just off of Kearny Square containing over 25-thousand gallons of molasses collapsed, sending a wave ten feet high of molasses surging down Commercial Street, where the unfortunate Mr. Mulney was walking.  He was swept up in the tide of molasses, which carried him, half-suffocated, into the Back Bay of Boston Bay, where he was rescued by naval cadets from the training ship USS Nantucket.

After a few days of recuperating at home, Mr. Mulney attempted to go back to work, but the minute he walked into the candy factory he fainted.  When brought to by his concerned co-workers he immediately began screaming that he could not stand the smell of molasses (which was the common candy sweetener back in those days, not corn syrup).  He had to be restrained from jumping through a plate glass window to escape from the factory, and was escorted back home by several policemen, where he stayed for the next 25 years, a recluse who refused to have a single piece of toffee or taffy in his house.  He lived on a disability pension granted him by the state of Massachusetts.

Mary Livingston was a logging camp cook up in rural Vermont back in the 1870. She was known as an affectionate, good-humored woman who could cook up a storm for the hungry loggers that were sawing down the last of the old growth forests in Vermont.  During the winter of 1876 she and four hefty loggers were trapped by a blizzard in a small line shack as they were making their way back from a barn dance.  The blizzard raged for three days, and it was four more days before a rescue party could dig them out of the shack, which did not have any food. They found a scene of horror; Mary, hollow-eyed and laughing maniacally, presided over the half-eaten corpses of the four lumberjacks.  She claimed a bear had broken in to the shack, killed the lumberjacks, and taken bites out of each of them, while Mary cowered in the corner, covered by a blanket.  There were no bear tracks or scat, and it appeared as if the door and windows had not been broken by any forced entry.  A coroners inquest delivered a verdict of â??death by mischance and left it at that.  Mary went back to work as a cook, but she was no longer the jolly flirt of former days; instead, she muttered over the pots and pans, and started serving stews that had unidentifiable gobs of meat in them.  She claimed they were raccoon and squirrel, but the loggers began to think it might be something, or SOMEONE, else.  Several loggers disappeared mysteriously from the camps where she was working.  Finally the loggers took up a collection, which they presented to Mary, calling it a disability payment for her terrible ordeal in the cabin during the blizzard â?? with the stipulation that she discontinue her cooking and retire someplace far away from the forests of Vermont.  She took the money and left, never to be heard of again.  The loggers hired another cook and thankfully went back to their regular diet of flapjacks and fatback.

Joshuah Norton was a canny English businessman who decided to take advantage of the Gold Rush fever of 1849 by taking a stock of dry goods around Cape Horn by ship and setting up shop in San Francisco.  But when he arrived in San Francisco Bay his ship caught fire and burned to the water line; all his earthly goods were gone, and the maritime insurance company refused to pay off.  So Norton arrived on the beach with the singed clothes on his back and nothing more, a pauper.  For several years he attempted to recoup his losses by working for other mercantile establishments, but his run of bad luck was amazing.  He lost job after job, until he began losing his mind.  One day, in 1859, he promenaded through the notorious Barbary Coast section of town dressed in a dilapidated military uniform, complete with gold epaulets and a Napoleonic hat.  He handed out hand-printed business cards to one and all, that read:  NORTON THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF SAN FRANCISCO, PROTECTOR OF MEXICO.  Instead of locking him up, the citizens of San Francisco decided to humor him, and for the next 20 years he was respectfully addressed as your majesty, Emperor Norton. He was allowed to dine for free at the finest restaurants and occasionally sat in on a minor trial at the courthouse, dispensing imperial justice to pickpockets and drunks.  Towards the end of his life he asked for, and received, a disability payment for, in his own cockeyed words Years of unwearyingly serving my people of the Norton Empire  He died in 1880, and was given a huge funeral, attended by more than 30-thousand people.  The Mayor of San Francisco and the city council solemnly proclaimed that the â??Empire of Norton the First had now officially ceased.

All this was done with a straight face.