Uber Doesn't Want Your Kids to Ride in Their Cars

This is the state of parenthood today: overbooked children and overworked parents scrambling to get places.

Driven mad by the child-chauffeuring dilemma, parents are naturally looking to outsource the job to ride-hailing services. Unfortunately, the biggest companies, Uber and Lyft, forbid drivers from picking up any unaccompanied riders under 18.    WSJ

Whether you're a toff or goober

your kids cannot ride with Uber

if they are alone -- no ride

is provided them curbside.

Send them off on skateboard, dude.

Or a pogo stick (though rude.)

Bicycles are good for heart.

What about their own go kart?

Strap 'em on to one big drone.

(Just make sure you've got a clone.)

Hiking in the good fresh air

helps keep children's dermis fair.

There are options by the ton --

shoot 'em out of Bofors gun!

Best of all, just keep them home.

Why go bankrupt while they roam?

With the internet today,

hermit kids are here to stay.

How Great Things

. . .  and rehearsed unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them . . . 
2 Nephi. 1:1

Debit and credit is hard to maintain

when in the service of God I remain.

What have I done, or could possibly do,

that balances to my account could accrue?

Do I give sunshine or laughter or health?

Can I take credit for earth's candid wealth?

No! All the great things and small things as well

come to me when with my God I do dwell.

Cut from the Vine, I would wither and die.

His debtor I am til the oceans run dry!

William Barr

WASHINGTON—The House Judiciary Committee said it would vote Wednesday on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, escalating a dispute with the Trump administration after Mr. Barr missed lawmakers’ deadline to turn over an unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The contempt measure refers Mr. Barr for possible federal criminal prosecution while also opening more legal avenues for House Democrats to try to force the release of the full report on President Trump and Russian election interference through a civil lawsuit.

WSJ

A snowball in Blazes has got better chances

than Barr has with Congress by telling romances.

The AG is certainly out of the pan

and into the fire with his latest plan.

His scorn for a deadline is rather patrician;

twill lead to a blow up like nuclear fission.

It's likely the hot air released by both factions

will scorch Mr. Mueller and all his redactions.

Our Congress is burning, yet Mr. Trump fiddles

with horse races on his insane tweets and twiddles.

Each day a new crisis spouts up like a geyser,

and Washington seems to be never the wiser. 

To be a diplomat today

DAKAR, Senegal—The U.S. State Department is opening new, military-style training facilities around the world, expanding plans to prop up local forces battling terrorism as the Trump administration seeks cutbacks in conventional diplomacy and development programs.

WSJ

To be a diplomat today for good ol' Uncle Sam

you gotta shoot a rifle and perform a body slam.

Negotiation is old hat; our allies need to learn

that if they don't kowtow to us their cities we will burn.

Our britches are capacious, we can fit in them with ease.

And all the world will soon begin to grovel and say 'please.'

Cuz if they don't we've got a drone that visits them at night

and drops a little present right upon their naked site.

It's not that we won't talk at all, or quarrels like to pick;

we only want the world to know we carry a Big Stick.

Twould be a very naughty thing to label us a 'brutes.'

(We just might have to break your neck with one of our jackboots.)

Nai Gai Cha

SHANGHAI—They say 1.4 billion customers can’t be wrong. But what if those customers are putting cream cheese in their tea?

Known as “nai gai cha” (“milk-lidded tea”) in Chinese, the drink is made using a base of tea topped with a cap of cream and cream cheese that is whipped together until it forms a light, fluffy texture. Tea houses encourage drinkers to sip it at a 45-degree angle for the ideal mouthful. And it’s become a bona fide phenomenon.  WSJ

I do not want tea with cream cheese.

I do not want it full of fleas.

I do not want it here or there;

make your thickened dairy rare!

I do not like cream cheese in tea.

I'd rather drown in vats of ghee,

or yak butter in old Tibet --

Away with such a dismal wet!

Could I, would I want cream cheese

in my oolong as a tease?

I do not want it, Ms. Barista;

tis worse than being Sandanista! 

There is safety in repentence

But, behold, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely in the Holy One of Israel if it so be that they will repent.
1 Nephi. 22:28

There is safety in repentance for each member of mankind.

Creed and color matter not, to gain real peace of mind.

The Holy One of Israel has pledged to take our grief

and turn it into nothing but the joy of sure relief.

Sins are chains and shackles that we forge ourselves each day.

But when we dwell with Jesus Christ such bonds will melt away.

The nations of the world must bow before his loving strength

to know he keeps no penitent away at cold arm's length.

Concert Ticket Prices

Superstars have long dominated sales of recorded music, but streaming has made that less lucrative. Performers’ royalties—for acts big and small—are generally much smaller on streaming than on records, CDs or download sales, so artists have to turn to concert revenue for more of their income. And it’s only the superstars who have the ability to charge significantly more for tickets than their predecessors did a generation ago.    WSJ

Concert ticket prices have shot up like rocket ships.

You cannot hear Beyonce unless you are in the chips.

When the Rolling Stones go out on tour, although senile,

you'll need the ransom of a king to get past the turnstile.

And yet these big name venues garner millions for each show;

are people really that careless about their hard-earned dough?

I wouldn't pay a nickel to see Taylor Swift -- what's more,

I think that Justin Bieber is an overrated bore.

If kids would save their money and all concerts so proscribe,

they might get into Harvard without any kind of bribe.

Blessed when he shall make bare his arm

And I would, my brethren, that ye should know that all the kindreds of the earth cannot be blessed unless he shall make bare his arm in the eyes of the nations.
1 Nephi. 22:10

Blessed shall the nations be

when the Lord reveals that he

with his arm shall free mankind

from their ignorance so blind.

Superstitious creeds shall melt

as around the earth is felt

light and spirit unrestrained

and the devil now is chained.

Hasten, Lord, that day sublime

when to heaven we shall climb!

Major Louisiana Newspaper Lays Off Entire Reporter Staff

The Newhouse family sold the 182-year-old daily The Times-Picayune and its website, nola.com, to a scrappy New Orleans competitor, and the entire staff is being laid off. That has stirred worries across the other papers in the family’s Advance Publications empire.

A total of 161 staff members are being laid off, according to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notice filed with the Louisiana Workforce Commission, which listed 65 reporter and editor jobs in the bloodbath.

New York Post

Reporters have an awful time maintaining their vocation.

They turn around to find themselves on permanent vacation.

Secure employment for a scribe is getting just as rare

as reduction of the New York Subway System fare.

They need to have a second job, if writing comes a cropper.

I suggest they look into the job of common pauper. 

I like to comment on the news

I like to comment on the news;

to make a poem to spread my views.

But newspapers don't often care

to publish my stuff anywhere.

The New York Times is awful mum

when on my golden lyre I strum.

The Boston Globe turns up its nose

at even my most sprightly prose.

The Wall Street Journal wouldn't dream

of posting anything I scheme.

And USA Today won't hear

of letting my best verses near.

The hell with them and their gulag;

I'll just keep posting on my blog!