Tiffany Scrobble Reported the News

“When America’s most aggressive newspaper cost-cutter makes a run at the nation’s largest newspaper chain (Gannett), it is hardly a cause for cheer,” said Jim Friedlich, chief executive of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding sustainable business models for local journalism. “This is the lumber company trying to buy the national park.”
WSJ

Tiffany Scrobble reported the news

and didn't care whose reputation might bruise.

Like most of the other newspapering folk,

Tiffany Scrobble was terribly broke.

But though pinching pennies was her stock in trade,

she wouldn't change jobs for a mountain of jade.

She wrote with a will and she wrote with a way

that kept all her stories from being passe.

She worked for the Bulldog Diurnal Gazette,

a blazing good paper quite deeply in debt.

Founded by pioneer printers when Grant

marched into Vicksburg to make them recant.

The newsroom was frowzy from years going by,

leaving it fragrant with smoke and cheap rye.

Tiffany worked at a desk in that room

(and wished the accountants would spring for a broom.)

Reporters were given free rein to narrate

anything making the bigwigs deflate.

The place was a bedlam, a stew of wordplay;

where writers complained (but would not go away.)

It happened one day that the publisher caved

and sold the newspaper to bankers depraved.

They moved in and started to squeeze things real tight;

no light bulbs replaced -- writers worked in twilight.

Seniority was not a popular term;

pensions caused all of those bankers to squirm.

And so they ejected the old rank and file,

but that did not cause young Ms. Scrobble to smile.

Though she was promoted, twas not long before

summoned was she through new management's door.

They told her to sit, they examined her dress;

they hemmed and they hawed as they chewed watercress.

Told that her salary now was reduced

and that her byline away had been sluiced,

the management waited to see if she'd crack --

but she simply smiled like she'd taken Prozac.

Expense account gone; no fact checkers employed.

Free coffee and donuts were tossed in the void.

Allowance for gas was a nickel per mile.

Forget the smartphones -- back to rotary dial!

Tiffany Scrobble persevered like a champ;

nothing they did could her spirits long damp.

But then came the day when reporters were told

that current events had been way oversold.

The Bulldog Diurnal Gazette would retreat

from news to refocus on memories sweet --

using the morgue, all reporters would write

about Eisenhower or flying a kite.

This would increase circulation among

readers who hated the new and the young.

Tiffany Scrobble was given the beat

of Gentlemen's Sports -- mainly how to shoot skeet.

She worked and she slaved, but she couldn't produce

anything that wasn't very obtuse.

Her nerves became fractured, she bit off her nails.

I will not distress you with further details.

Suffice it to say that her health and her soul

suffered until she descended to sheol.

Jobless and homeless, she now walks the streets --

one of the many hedge fund obsoletes.

Postcards to President Trump

Millie the Monarch Butterfly

They arrive in California each winter, an undulating ribbon of orange and black. There, migrating western monarch butterflies nestle among the state’s coastal forests, traveling from as far away as Idaho and Utah only to return home in the spring.

This year, though, the monarchs’ flight seems more perilous than ever. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit group that conducts a yearly census of the western monarch, said the population reached historic lows in 2018, an estimated 86 percent decline from the previous year.

NYT

Millie was a butterfly, a Monarch of the sky.

Majestically she flew each day, on wings of double dye.

Her delicate antennae waved in happy cadency;

her patterns in the sultry air were wonderful to see.

She dined upon the milkweed and the downy thistle, too.

In shady nooks by hissing brooks she rested with her crew.

How often would the children smile to watch her actions coy;

her kind make life seem ample to each little girl and boy.

"Come, fellows" she would whisper to companions in the trees,

"let's shimmer and then glimmer just as much as we do please!"

Folding in and out their wings, the Monarchs beauty made

that put Venus de Milo in the ever-lovin' shade.

From vivid green chrysalis Millie came forth in the Spring,

with thousands of her kindred to be sunshine on the wing.

And when the wind was shifting and the air grew pallid cold

she fled with her companions to find sunsets warm and gold.

She floated back this summer to a backyard garden where

lilac and red clover and cone flowers were her care.

But she was all alone; there were no others of her kind.

The Monarchs had been poisoned and left homeless, and declined

until poor lonely Millie was the last one left to skim

the summer haze in silence like a discontinued hymn.

"Where have my companions gone?" the zephyrs heard her cry.

No answer was vouchsafed her, so she fell to earth to die.

Postcards to President Trump

Idle time and solitude are to be sought, not feared.

Idle time and solitude are to be sought, not feared. 

Jim Michaels 

I sit as morning sun streams through

my window, with a mountain view.

When glowering behind a peak

the sun appears too wan and weak

to be of any use to me --

I like to bask in full glory.

But then, now that my time is done

with working late and having 'fun,'

perhaps the obscure sun reveals

a modesty that my soul heals.

That hidden orb is telling me

that now I should contented be.

And so I scribble my thoughts down,

a pensioned warehoused bookish clown.

I didn't wish arthritic knees

or diverse minor surgeries.

Methought I'd save enough for jaunts

to Bali and still meet my wants;

but those dreams had to be cut short

(because, you see, of child support.)

The Lord has had his laugh with me:

Ambition breeds Obscurity --

is what my tombstone ought to read

when at long last I go to seed.

****************

But on reflection, given time,

this new old age is not a crime.

Let others now race out the door

to tilt with windmills evermore.

Me, I'll sit in silence jolly

(though I never got to Bali)

and so write odes and quatrains which

will not gain me a dime or stitch.

And when I tire of the news,

I simply lay down for a snooze.

My thoughts are still not very deep;

my hair I do not think I'll keep.

Without a car, I take the bus,

or walk a bit without a fuss.

And with a Kindle by my side

old Father Time I can deride.

And who'd a thunk that grand kids could

grant me something like sainthood.

And though the hike is downhill now,

I find I will not have a cow.

Rabbi Ben Ezra perhaps I'm not --

but my old age is Camelot . . . 

The Ballad of Thomas Otis Bigelow

Authenticity means there can be no moral imperative to deceive for selfish gains.
Deseret News

A file clerk, once in state employ,

a steady income did enjoy.

In Salt Lake City he did toil

(though never burning midnight oil.)

His name, if you must have it so,

was Thomas Otis Bigelow.

He shuffled papers into drawers,

along with other mundane chores.

Receipts and memos, bills and lists,

made up his normal workday trysts.

A lonely job, no other folk

to visit with or crack a joke.

So Thomas, in his reverie,

dreamt much of bigger things than he

could e'er accomplish at his job

(which sometimes made him give a sob.)

One day, just like a fairy tale,

he filed away a piece of mail --

but noticing its contents dire,

his soul began to catch on fire.

The letter was a stern rebuke

to someone by the name of Luke

who had exceeded budget curbs

in buying candy, nuts, and herbs.

"If I release this to the Press"

he thought "I'll be a big success!"

To make it even more intense

he added to the mild expense.

Then Thomas took his phony scoop

down to a wild newspaper group;

he waved the letter all about

and gave a mighty righteous shout:

"Corruption at the highest levels!

Taxpayer money spent on revels!"

Reporters ate it up with glee,

and Bigelow made history.

A whistle blower now supreme,

he carried on his faulty dream;

deceiving one and all with files

as phony as free flyer miles.

He reasoned that the good he did

outweighed the awful lies he hid.

Ruining lives, creating scandal --

he was now a media vandal.

But finally a journalist

began his stories to untwist

and found them all to be untrue

and thus exposed his ballyhoo.

Now Thomas Otis Bigelow

has naught for all his fame to show.

He lost his clerking job, of course,

and really has no income source.

But do not fear for his daft sake;

there's always someone loves a fake.

It won't be long before discussion

begins of his Talk Show -- in Russian.

Little Tommy Titter

Take heed of little Tommy Titter;

he spent his life involved with Twitter.

Before the morning sun was out

his smartphone got a real workout

with texting and such Instagramming

that all his brain cells started jamming.

He failed his tests and went to jail

for hacking other folk's email.

The moral of this story, friend,

is not one with a real bad end.

For once wee Tommy Titter learned

that hacking folk was to be spurned

he was pardoned and did sally

out to wealth in Silicon Valley.

Now his startups sell for more

than the annual budget of Ecuador. 

Way Up Where Polar Bears Cavort

WASHINGTON—The Navy is planning to expand its role in the Arctic as climate change opens up more ocean waterways and the U.S. vies with great-power rivals Russia and China for influence in the far north.

WSJ

Way up where polar bears cavort,

where ne'er has ever been a fort,

fierce climate change has opened wide

a route for jingoistic pride.

Our Navy, manned by sailors true,

is gliding o'er the icy blue,

and spoiling for a fight with those

who bar their way with haughty pose.

Suppose a raft of penguins takes

an attitude to be headaches;

our doughty ships will slice right through

their ineffective, mangy crew.

Or should a walrus rear its head

and bellow loudly with dire dread;

would our brave Navy run away?

Not them -- that beast they'd gladly flay!

Of course if Russian trawler seems

set to collide abaft the beams

our naval forces will respond

with sang froid like the French beau monde.

They'll tip their caps and want to see

if Russians will come drink some tea.

And if the surly Slavic foe

takes cream and sugar in combo.

Or should an oriental craft

from China ding propeller shaft,

our admiral will go "Tut tut,"

continuing his practice putt.

For so superior are we

upon the icy Arctic Sea

that confrontation ain't allowed

with others who are not our crowd.

But should Norwegians venture forth

and impinge upon the North,

you can bet our battle ships

would be on them like umpteen thrips.

Or should a freighter from Peru

presume to hove into our view

our naval guns will show 'em who

is running things all tried and true.

So fear naught, all you landsman weak;

our Navy's dancing cheek to cheek

with icebergs and the Arctic gale --

and never will they lower sail.

Unless, of course, the Treasury 

does come up short quite suddenly --

and then our lascars, all unpaid,

upon the Capital may raid.

And finding those who closed the Bank,

will make each one to walk the plank.

(But hardly can that come to pass

while sailors swab and polish brass.)

And so the Arctic Seas remain

a part of Uncle Sam's domain,

protected from the thieving mob

by our devoted, gallant gob.