Friday, May 24, 2019

Press Forward



Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.
2 Nephi. 31:20

The charge has been given
and with glowing hope
I step forward as steady as I can.
But can I love all and be all
that the Lord commands?
Like Peter's tentative watery steps,
the boisterous waves of doubt
sometimes drag me down;
Lord, save me! 
Buoy me and steady me
to love bravely in thy name.

Thursday, May 23, 2019

The President Has No Secrets



For three years, Donald J. Trump has treated the details of his personal and business finances as a closely guarded secret.
On Wednesday, those secrets moved two steps closer to becoming public.
A federal judge in Manhattan ruled against a request from President Trump to block his longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, from complying with congressional subpoenas seeking his detailed financial records. In Albany, New York lawmakers approved a bill that would allow Congress to obtain Mr. Trump’s state tax returns.    NYT

Transparency is not a thing
that presidents are apt to fling
into the public forum, since
to tell the truth doth make them wince.

Especially a tax return
gives office holders great heartburn.
The twists and turns of what they file
would make the very Devil smile.

I think since all this trouble started
over documents uncharted
those who want this stuff revealed
should have their own returns so peeled.

Stocks on Wall Street Plummet Fast



Stocks on Wall Street were set to slide Thursday and U.S. government bond yields reached a 52-week low as disappointing economic data and worries over a protracted U.S.-China trade dispute added to a gloomy outlook for global growth.
WSJ

Stocks on Wall Street plummet fast;
bonds are melting and won't last.
Bankers fret; the Fed repines --
are we headed for Bread Lines?

Economic forecasts wail
the S&P is gonna fail.
Investors tremble in their Guccis,
and they fear becoming moochies.

Who's to blame for this debacle,
raging like some streptococcal?
Pin it on old Trump, of course;
the enemy of trade and bourse!


and as many as shall believe in Christ shall also become a delightsome people.



. . .  and as many as shall believe in Christ shall also become a delightsome people.
2 Nephi. 30:7

The springtime of the world is upon us.
The cold pale hail, the sleet of despair,
drifts away like a bad dream
as the Son sheds his light stronger and stronger.
And our beauty is great because it is pure.
Make me to believe, oh Lord, and come to love thee more!



Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Rats!



So many rats regularly lurk on a sidewalk in Brooklyn that it is the humans who avoid the rats, not the other way around. Not even cars are safe: Rats have chewed clean through engine wires.
NYT


Rats are such a common fact
in cities that they don't attract
attention like a litterbug --
most people see 'em and just shrug.

But rats should never be pooh-poohed
because of plague they are prelude.
They gnaw through anything at all --
your engine wires, paisley shawl.

The mayor of New York has said
he wants those filthy rats all dead.
Yet somehow I don't think he'll win;
the rats that hear him simply grin.



The Eruption of Mount Trump



WASHINGTON — President Trump abruptly blew up a scheduled meeting with Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday, lashing out at Speaker Nancy Pelosi for accusing him of a cover-up and declaring that he could not work with them until they stopped investigating him.
NYT

Twas in a peaceful valley, where the legislators played;
green and fruitful lobbyists in soothing breezes swayed.
Above this lovely valley towered one enormous cone
that rumbled in the nighttime and where nothing much was grown.

Mount Trump the natives called it, and they thought it wouldn't blow.
For many years it huffed and puffed to produce a hot air flow.
But never had it sent out flames or belched a sulfur cloud;
it kept itself wrapped up in a bombastic sullen shroud.

Those unwary inhabitants were blinded by the thought
that their volcano never could do anything too hot.
And so they frolicked in its shade, and quibbled once a while;
sitting on their keysters with a lawmaker's broad smile.

But one sad day the murmur of the mountain changed its tune;
it rumbled and rocks tumbled to begin the valley's ruin.
Vast geysers of hot rhetoric were vomited out fast,
burning all the people in the valley as it passed.

The Democrats, especially, were taken by surprise;
having ventured far too close, they turned into french fries.
Republicans were better off, since they were far away
(they seemed to think Mount Trump could not be trusted any day.)

And now that quiet valley, that had once been mild and green,
is nothing but a boneyard and a carbonized latrine.
Beware, then; I beseech you -- when a blowhard starts to spout,
don't be optimistic but immediately get out!

Make Love, Not Blacklists



Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Many More Students, Especially the Wealthy, Get Extra Time to Take the SAT



Across the country, the number of public high-school students getting special allowances for test-taking, such as extra time, has surged in recent years, federal data show.
And students in affluent areas such as Scarsdale, Weston and Newton are more likely than students elsewhere to get the fastest-growing type of these special allowances, known as “504” designations, a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 9,000 public schools found.
WSJ
If you've got the money then your SAT is jake;
it will be touched up so good they might suspect a fake.
Or else that golden shower that your parents like to fling
will give you extra hours for to sit and do your thing.

To get the proper college is to be set up for life.
If you miss this gravy train you're in for money strife.
And tests are all-important, more important than a brain.
Cuz scholars are a dime apiece, but pencil pushers reign.

So take your time with answers, and perhaps a little drool
showing you are struggling will get you the right school.
Yes, life can be delicious if you take the proper view --
and always carry with you a sharp pencil number two.


How Trump Is Outspending Every 2020 Democrat on Social Media






President Trump’s re-election campaign has spent far more than any single Democratic presidential candidate on Facebook advertising, reprising a strategy that was central to his 2016 victory.    NYT

It takes a lot of moolah to go run for president/however if the voters have expressed their discontent/by voting in a blowhard to combat their bugaboos/they'll keep him snug in office long as he will stroke their views/so why he needs a war chest that is bursting at the seams/most likely has to do with Kushner and investment schemes . . . 



Das gutherzige deutsche Volk