to pull down their pride and their nobility and level them with the earth

to pull down their pride and their nobility and level them with the earth
Alma 51: 7


The fanfare and the pageantry, the ostentation grand;
the myth of royalty is seeping back into the land.
The haughty are increasing and the wealthy keep apart;
the judges and the bankers far too often have no heart.
Moroni, how we need you in these craven days of greed --
to level once again the prideful hate-mongering breed!

Cunning and Faith

. . we do not believe that it is God that has delivered us into your hands; but we believe that it is your cunning that has preserved you from our swords.

High cunning is a part of faith, when enemies abound.

Why should the Saints allow themselves to fall upon the ground?

The enmity of devils and of men has sweet facade,

but underneath they're planning to destroy the works of God.

But when the godless find they've been prevented from attack

by stratagems the Saints have had in place from ages back,

they pull a face that's long and sad, confessing their dismay

that such religious people deal so well with their horseplay.

Our God is at the helm and so no matter what the schemes

of our gnashing enemies they'll all dissolve like dreams.

cherubim and the flaming sword

. . . cherubim and the flaming sword . . .

Alma 42

Cherubim are guarding sacred places for the Lord;

they never sleep or wander, and they carry a sharp sword.

They gather round the temples and the homes of quiet saints,

defending all the good and pure from Satan's awful taints.

So let your head lay easy as you seek for rest tonight;

the God of fallen sparrows keeps you ever in His sight.

For Many, Retirement Now Means Bankruptcy

The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.

NYT

Tell me true, my grandfather; were you a rich man once?

Yes, my boy, I had it all until I played the dunce.

How did you play the dunce, old man; what caused your swift decay?

I forgot to save for when it turned a rainy day.

A rainy day -- what can that be? Please tell me, honored sire.

It is when you learn too late that Wall Street is a liar.

Oh no, that cannot be, granddad; their candor is a byword.

Lemme tell you something, boy; those people are a sly herd.

Your pension and investments were not handled very well?

With hidden fees and mergers, son, it all went straight to hell.

But you are not too old to work again, is that not true?

The only work I'm fit for is a bankruptcy review.

Where will you live, what will you eat, now that you are so poor?

I was hoping, beamish boy, you'd let me in your door.

Sorry, ancient person, but my girlfriend says thumbs down.

Then I will take a tin cup and sell pencils throughout town.

Good luck, grandpa; you've taught me an important lesson here.

My advice, for what it's worth, is always drink more beer! 

In the Drink -- Blue Devils on a Sunday Afternoon -- Sweaty Blind Dates

Given the known dangers and catastrophic consequences of binge drinking, the questions surrounding moderate drinking are arguably esoteric, or at least not an urgent public health issue.   Washington Post

The mania for studies on an esoteric scale
send scientists researching on the shoe size of the snail.
Each survey that's completed, ev'ry audit that's begun,
is just a waste of money and is rarely any fun.
But giant corporations and their lobbyists agree
that studies must be funded to promote their strategy.
So gimme lots of grant money and I will certify
that black is white and pigs have wings and what's the best french fry. 

The light of Sunday afternoon is truly melancholic;
it invites blue devils to appear and start to frolic.
It's hollow and dyspeptic, just a husk of true sunshine;
it makes me grate my teeth and twists my hopes into coarse twine. 

  

It’s summer in Washington, so no one smells all that great. But this night was different from your average gathering of sweaty bodies. I was about to enter a pheromone party, where strangers would be inhaling my scent via a T-shirt I’d been wearing.  Washington Post.

A young man who sweated profusely

bragged of his prowess quite loosely --

His pheromones bred

like rabbits, he said,

and gave him the charm of a Bruce Lee. 

A Slice of Mutton

It is the first Sunday in August -- known as Fast Sunday in the LDS Church. And I am thinking about, really lusting for, mutton.

I don't know why that should be, either. I've only had mutton once in my entire life. But before I get to that, I want to mention the awful childhood experience of a smalahove for Christmas.

Smalahove is Norwegian for 'sheep's head.' It is the head of a mature sheep, with the wool burned off and the brains removed. It is then either boiled or roasted. They used to eat a lot of those things in Norway a century ago, and it is a big tourist draw in places like Voss in Norway today. And somehow my dad got a hold of a smoked smalahove one Christmas season when I was still in Dr. Denton's. He got it at work.

He brought many strange and wonderful things home from Arone's Bar & Grill, where he worked as a bartender. People gave him things, or they just left them at the bar when they stumbled home. There was no Lost & Found at Aarone's -- everything left behind went to Tork. He brought us a mechanical Charlie Weaver doll, that blew smoke rings out the ears.

I lost count of the number of metal plate and neon beer signs he lugged in the door. The names sounded like the prelude to an ethnic joke about Germans: Blatz, Schlitz, Lienenkugel, Stroh's, Schmidt, and Rheingold. He often said, in a wistful kind of voice, that he'd like to put a few of 'em up in the living room, to make it more friendly -- but mom would have none of it. Each sign was immediately exiled to the garage, where my older brother Billy eventually nabbed them all for his cabin on Green Lake. 

I remember innumerable pen knives, tiny plastic baseball bat key chains with GO TWINS! stenciled on them, churchkeys (bottle openers), rabbit foot charms, detective paperbacks with a luscious blonde always on the cover, coasters, poker chips, Zippo lighters, ivory backscratchers . . .

And the grisly smoked smalahove, which looked like something Bela Lugosi would find handy. It was wrapped in brown butcher's paper and deposited on the kitchen table, where it stared evilly at me. It did not smell very good, and not even my dad really wanted to try it. He said an old farmer had come into the bar that day and drank so much Schlitz that he grew weepy and generous and gave dad the sheep's head instead of taking it back to the farm as part of a yuletide feast. It hardly needs telling that mom whisked that abomination out into the garbage with screeching dispatch. But it had already lodged in my brain and gave me disturbing dreams where Santa came down the chimney with a grinning sheep head instead of his jolly old face and whiskers. 

That experience should have put me off eating sheep in any form for the rest of my life -- but years later when I hooked up with Ringling Brothers as a clown when the show was in Chicago, out by the Stockyards, there was a chophouse that featured a large mutton roast steaming on a brilliant copper platter in their picture window each day. I passed by it each day on my way to the arena, and eventually the aroma got to me. I had to try some mutton.  

I told Steve Smith, Chico Severinni, Tim Holst, and Kevin Bickford, all First of Mays like myself, what I planned to do -- and they decided to come along as well for a slice of mutton. None of them had ever had it before. 

The waiters gave each of us a smoking plate of mutton, with boiled red potatoes in their skins on the side. The mutton was fatty and gristly, but I enjoyed it. My companions gagged on it. Chico took one bite and spit it out as if he'd been poisoned.

"This is the worst sh*t I've ever had!" he exclaimed, pushing his plate as far away from him as possible. The consensus of the others was about the same. 

And get this: these fair weather friends blamed ME for inveigling them into wasting their money on such a lousy meal!

"You tricked us, Tork!" was the universal cry among them, the nitpicking pissants. It was Chico who suggested that they get up and leave all at once, sticking me with the bill. I objected vociferously, and the noise attracted the owner of the place -- a tall, imposing gentleman with a paunch the size of a medicine ball. When he heard about their disillusionment with the mutton he calmly said they could each have a grilled pork chop instead, at no extra cost. That settled things down. When he looked quizzically at me I shook my head; I liked my mutton just fine I told him. He beamed at me, patted me on the shoulder, and proclaimed that my meal was on the house. 

I guess I showed those guys something, huh?

But getting back to my current craving for mutton; there isn't a blessed place in Provo that serves mutton. But just as I was thinking of getting some lamb chops from Fresh Market down the street I got a Facebook message from my daughter-in-law, inviting me over for Sunday dinner. Since she's from Brazil, I imagine we'll have churrasco with arroz de coco. The lamb chops can wait until Monday, if I'm still in the mood.  

Enemy of the people -- a tweet from Dan Barry.

Dan Barry, of the New York Times

Dan Barry‏Verified account @DanBarryNYT 11m11 minutes ago

Enemy of the people wakes up. Enemy of the people reads that the President has again called him and his colleagues enemies of the people. Enemy of the people sips his Sunday morning coffee and wonders just where the hell he is - and where we are.

Labeling a person doesn't make them go away;

demonizing others is a cheapjack rondelay.

Mud won't stick forever -- and the hands that throw it find

the filth gets in their own eyes and eventually they're blind.

Use boldness, but not overbearance

Use boldness, but not overbearance

Alma 38

In frustration have I yearned for thunder in my voice

when a fellow being starts to make a foolish choice.

A blazing conduit of wrath direct from God's own throne,

I'd strike the sinner down to make him ponder and to groan.

But then clear memory appears of my own sinning ways,

and any preaching I might do would be a hollow phrase.

The boldest thing sometimes to do when sin makes others squirm

is to hold your ground and simply silently stand firm.

and that ye live in thanksgiving daily

. . . and that ye live in thanksgiving daily . . .

Alma Chapter Thirty-Four. Verse 38.

To give but thanks each day is hard

for me who often has been scarred;

but once I start to praise thy name

I find my sorrow not the same.

Instead it melts away in bliss

as I draw back from the abyss.

Black moods may come to me unbid,

and so I think of what Christ did.

And then at troubles I can laugh;

my gratitude turns them to chaff.

AT&T Persecutes Its Own Retired Employees -- Breach Fatigue -- Couch Potato Congress

The former programmer and human-resources worker is among potentially hundreds of ex-employees whom AT&T Inc. has dunned in recent years for what it calls pension “overpayments.” AT&T sometimes has enlisted a collection agency to recover the money, a move retiree advocates, pension lawyers and some former Treasury Department officials call unusual.   WSJ

The biggest corporations are the meanest ones when they

go after little people who they want to force to pay

for bookkeeping kerfuffles that were not the small fry's fault --

these giant corporations all have hearts made of basalt.

Never think an octopus has generosity;

what they give with one hand they take back eventually. 

“We may adjust to this being the ‘new normal,’” he said, adding that “digital natives and younger generations may perceive their personal data — in a distorted sense — to never have been private, so what’s the big deal with it leaking out on the web anyway?”  Experts call this behavior “breach fatigue.”    NYT

I guess my private data isn't private anymore.
It's public as a billboard and I don't feel very sore.
If someone opens up accounts in my name, that's okay;
my credit score is low enough that I won't have to pay.
And if they use my name and pix on dating apps, well then--
if the girl is pretty I can only say 'amen.' 
Someday I'm going off the grid, and then Big Data can
find out all about me only from my used bedpan . . . 

Veteran senators on both sides of the aisle are angry about the decision because it feeds the idea that they just want a long vacation and that Congress is a lazy institution that just needs to work harder.   Washington Post

A Congressman once was so slack
he liked to sleep in and not yak.
He figured the less
he did was success --
and voters kept sending him back.