Maine Bans Styrofoam Cups

Maine became the first U.S. state to
ban single-use foam containers this week,
a major legislative
victory meant to curb the flow
of plastic pollution.

Huffington Post

In the rustic state of Maine

legislators make it plain

they don't want no styrofoam

messing up their backwoods home.

Coffee must be served in mugs

made of bark and leaves and bugs.

Takeout soup or chili beans

must be served in old blue jeans.

Should you use such contraband

they will slap you on the hand --

or perhaps lock you in jail,

and feed you on but bread and kale.

I have not spoken in secret

. . . I have not spoken in secret . . .

1 Nephi. Chapter 20. Verse 16

The Lord has made it very clear

that His own time is very near.

Though veiled in mists we cannot tear,

we still can feel His tender care.

And all his servants have proclaimed

that none need feel the blood and shame

of sin and error if they trust

in God alone, and not man's dust.

All secrets does our God reveal

to those who worship Him with zeal!

Roundup Sellers Boost Advertising as Lawsuits Sprout for Weedkiller

Roundup is getting an advertising boost after thousands of plaintiffs have alleged that the world’s most widely used weedkiller causes cancer.

Bayer AG, the manufacturer of Roundup, and Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. , which markets it to home-and-garden retailers in the U.S., have spent millions of dollars this year on expanded marketing for the weedkiller, Scotts executives said.    WSJ

Roundup is a wonder drug that kills not only weeds

but also tells the diff'rence tween the Persians and the Medes.

Pour a little on your hair and it will sprout anew.

Give your cat a little taste and it will roar, not mew.

Brush your teeth with just a dab for whiteness, glory be!

Spray it on your PC and your Netflix will be free.

Put some in your gas tank and your Nissan will ignite,

passing ev'ry cop car and then running each red light.

Of course exposure, if prolonged, can eat away your nose;

but by then you'd better start in counting all your toes . . . 

Postcard to the President

My Boss is now a robot

Millions of low-paid workers’ lives are increasingly governed by software and algorithms. This was starkly illustrated by a report last week that Amazon.com tracks the productivity of its employees and regularly fires those who underperform, with little human intervention.  Amazon employees have complained of being monitored continuously—even having bathroom breaks measured—and being held to ever-rising productivity benchmarks.   WSJ

My boss is now a robot, a machine that keeps an eye

on all my daily labors and will never tell me 'hi.'

It knows when I come in to work; it knows about my breaks;

it measures toilet water when I go into the jakes.

At meetings if I start to nod, a drone will buzz my ear.

No matter where I gossip my new boss can overhear.

And if I check my Facebook page a siren just may sound,

and all my desktop pics and plants some robot will impound.

If I try for promotion in this crazy mixed up place,

it means I'll be a cyborg and forget the human race.

Algorithms hound me; they are passionless and smug.

(I think it's time we all arose and pulled their cursed plug!)

I went in for a blood test

It’s one of the most common tests in medicine, and it is performed millions of times a year around the country. Should a metabolic blood panel test cost $11 or $952?

Both of these are real, negotiated prices, paid by health insurance companies to laboratories in Jackson, Miss., and El Paso in 2016. New data, analyzing the health insurance claims of 34 million Americans covered by large commercial insurance companies, shows that enormous swings in price for identical services are common in health care.    NYT

I went in for a blood test on a warm and sunny day.

The doctors and the nurses poked me without much delay.

They pumped it out like gasoline, but bothered I was not;

I figured they could tell me all the bugs that I had caught.

I tipped my hat and left them with a song upon my lips,

thinking modern medicine my ills would soon eclipse.

But came the clinic bill another day without sunshine;

for all that simple blood work I was charged amounts malign!

I couldn't pay it off if I would live a hundred years;

my faith in modern medicine has turned to shaken fears.

The bill collectors call me, and my car now has a lien;

I suffer from insomnia, and think I burst my spleen.

I do not know the cure for debt, I doubt there's really any.

I feel as if I've been impaled upon a spinning jenny!

I have released my tax returns

WASHINGTON—Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released 10 years of tax returns Tuesday, showing he earned a $30,000 advance in 2017 to write a book that was released ahead of his White House bid.

WSJ

I have released my tax returns; they go back quite a while.

They show that I am honest and live in a modest style.

I wrote a book of poetry about a year ago;

but no advance was paid to me by any kind of schmo.

I don't declare my food stamps, cuz I only get ten bucks;

ramen noodles, pork & beans, is what I eat -- not ducks.

I gave up driving my own car; insurance rates are daft;

but my accountant writes off mileage (using some witchcraft.)

All the world can plainly see just what I get and spend.

(I'm so tight that even my own ears I will not lend.)

So if I run for president the public can descry

the fact that I am just an ordinary tax-dodging kind of guy.

Facebook gets a Facelift

Facebook Inc. rolled out a substantial redesign of its website and mobile app, as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg seeks to address criticism of the social-media giant’s influence by nudging users toward different types of engagement and more private communication tools.

The end result is a platform with more emphasis on private groups and visual stories, and less on the News Feed where abusive content and polarization took root in recent years.   WSJ

Ubiquitous as air we breathe,

on Facebook all our infants teethe.

There's not a soul left on the earth

who doesn't know its woe and mirth.

But now great Zuckerberg proclaims

he won't be playing any games

with such false news and hate group posts

as used to haunt him like dark ghosts.

Facebook now has come of age

and breathes but tolerance each page;

a place where gentle people meet

to find respite from Trump and tweet. 

O won't you join us there as well,

from your Chromebook or your cell?

We would gladly take you in,

and demonstrate our brand new spin!

Bodegas Boycott the New York Post

“The very next day, I told everyone who works at my stores not to accept the paper.”

He was not alone, and a boycott of The New York Post began.

Over the last 20 years, Yemeni-Americans have established a foothold in New York’s network of bodegas — small convenience stores offering coffee, groceries and knickknacks.

The association asked Yemeni-American bodega owners in the city to stop selling The Post until it issues an apology to Ms. Omar and Muslim-Americans in New York. Of the roughly 10,000 bodegas in the city, YAMA estimated that between 4,000 and 6,000 are owned by Yemeni-Americans.   NYT

Though newspapers are not in bloom

and seem to face a creeping doom,

the New York Post is not among

those that have lost their biting tongue.

The Post likes nothing better than

to take its stories from bedpan

or other noisome point of view

to give its readers ballyhoo.

And so a boycott is arranged

because the Post is deemed deranged.

And that's how freedom of the press

continues all our lives to bless.

Hupana, Asics, and Me

Salomon is one of several niche running-shoe brands that are newly in vogue. To take another example, Hoka One One, based in Goleta, Calif., collaborated last year with New York label Engineered Garments on asymmetrically colored versions of its Hupana runner. Meanwhile, models at the New York Fashion Week show for Brooklyn designer Collina Strada wore tie-dyed sneakers with curvy soles made in collaboration with Bondi. And Japan’s Asics collaborates with avant-garde Bulgarian designer Kiko Kostadinov on shoes carried at bleeding-edge boutiques like Canada’s Ssense and Chicago’s Notre (a rare, lime-green pair from the collaboration’s early days now resells for nearly $1,000).  WSJ

Oh, I could tell you stories of the tennis shoes of yore.

The kind I bought for 7.50 at the Penney's store.

Sturdy yet elastic, with a high top laced up tight;

they came in red and black and for the girls they came in white.

Yes, I could tell you stories -- but who cares about the past?

Running shoes today have got my memories outclassed.

They are not made of rubber, and no canvas do they use;

they're made of polyethylene and often are chartreuse.

The cost of brand name running shoes would feed a family

in Ghana for a month or more, and keep them in Chablis.

But fashion is its own reward, like virtue in a way;

and like virtue it now seems to change from day to day.