Photo Essay: Postcards to my President. Vol. 30

Photo Essay: Koan Stones. "Misplaced caution is as fatal as misplaced confidence.:

Two men went up a mountain trail that became very narrow. When there was only room to continue single file the first man said to the second man "I will go first, in case the path ends abruptly. That way both of us need not perish."
The second man said "Oh no you don't; being ahead of me, you may dislodge a stone that will fall on my head and kill me. I will go first!"
And so the second man went first, and, indeed, fell off when the narrow path ended abruptly. The first man turned back and found another way up the mountain.
Misplaced caution is as fatal as misplaced confidence.

A servant was given an arid piece of ground to cultivate by his cruel master.

"If you can't produce lush green food on this plot by the end of the summer I will know you are a worthless servant, and will toss you out to the pigs!" he said spitefully.

The servant tried his best, but nothing would come out of that sterile plot, no matter how many buckets of water he carried to it. The field seemed to grow only stones. 

One day he was sitting under a shade tree, reviewing his troubles and wondering how to get out of them when another man joined him under the tree, who also looked worried.

"What is thy problem, friend?" asked the servant kindly.

"My garden plot will produce a goodly crop this year" said the man, "yet I know the beasts of the field and forest will come nibble it all up ere I can harvest it. This is what grieves me." 

"Perhaps a stone wall would help?" offered the servant.

"Most certainly it would -- but I have neither the time nor materials to build one" replied the man.

"Let us help each other, then" said the servant briskly.

And so the servant toiled all summer on the man's garden wall, taking the stones from his own dismal plot. When the harvest was in, the man gratefully gave the servant several bushels of ripe green produce for his help.

When the servant showed his master the bushels of fine foodstuffs, and truthfully told him they were the result of that miserable piece of ground, the master was so enraged he burst his seams and collapsed, a dead man. His servant continued to harvest stones from his little plot and build stone walls for his neighbors, and did very well for himself indeed.

Help another to help yourself.

A crafty merchant told a foolish young man he had a magic pine cone that could turn stones into gold. Eager to obtain such a miraculous object, the foolish young man paid the merchant all of his carefully saved up wages for the past year, then took the pine cone home to his parents.

When they heard his story they roundly berated him as a gullible fool. His father took the pine cone from him and tossed it on a pile of stones in a cart out in the street that the father sold for paving roads.

"See!" he shouted at his son. "Nothing happens!"

 Then he covered the cart with a blanket and the whole family had supper and went to bed.

That night the king's treasurer, driving a load of gold bars in a cart covered with a blanket to the treasury, stopped next to the foolish young man's house for a whet at a nearby tavern. He returned some hours later made careless by drink and accidentally took the cart with the paving stones instead of his own cart full of gold.
The next morning when the father took the blanket off what he supposed was his own cart, he was astonished to find dozens of gleaming gold bars. He rushed back into the house and congratulated his son on his wonderful actions the day before. Now they would all be rich and never lack for anything.
And so it was. The young man, who had spent the night repenting of his arrant foolishness, had vowed to never be taken in again. So he loaned out all that great wealth to those who had good surety at reasonable interest rates and continued to make money until the day he died.
As for the drunken treasurer, when he discovered he had stones instead of gold for the treasury, he quickly made up a tale about imps who had transformed the gold into stone overnight to tell to the king. The king, more of a fool than the young man who had bought the pine cone, quickly had all the gold in the treasury dumped into the river.
"There" said the king smugly to himself. "Let those accursed imps try to transform my gold into stones now!"
When one fool departs, another takes his place.

Verses from stories by Robert D. McFadden, Becky Krystal, and Katie Shepherd.

Roy Horn,Who Dazzled Audiences as Half of Siegfried & Roy, Dies at 75

When magicians dissipate/

we are very apt to prate/

that their skillful misdirection/
could not baffle death's detection/
Now upon the River Styx/
Mr. Horn will do card tricks.

Have breakfast for dinner, because time has no meaning anymore

@BeckyKrystal

Just to give my day some legs/

I will start with ham and eggs/

And for a delightful brunch/

there's a bowl of Cap'n Crunch/

Lunch will be a slice of scrapple/

(and for balance one red apple)/

Dinner will not be too awful/

if I have a great big waffle/

Late at night, ignoring clocks/

there's a bagel with some lox/

When I'm in this lonely mood/

there is naught but breakfast food!

Who is Judy Mikovits in ‘Plandemic,’ the coronavirus conspiracy video just banned from social media?

@katemshepherd

There was an old woman/

who put out a flick/

it was so absurd/

that it made people sick/

She ladled out lies/

that were swallowed by those/

 who can't count past ten/

without using their toes.

But as oft as they repented

But as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness, with real intent, they were forgiven.

Moroni 6:8

If I'm forgiven of the Lord

how then can I not afford

to pardon others constantly

and live with them in harmony?

Let judges judge; I'll just relax

and lift my cup, not look for cracks!

Photo Essay: Koan Stones. "A stone can be cracked but not broken."

A stone can be cracked

but not broken.

Even when it is opened

it is still shut.

Put one stone on top of another.

Then another stone on top of that.

Then another one on top of that.

This is not wisdom;

it is piling up stones. 

A man picked up a stone.

He looked at it long enough

to know it could give him

everything.

Then he picked up another stone.

So he had nothing.

Light Verse Inspired from stories by Ben Casselman, Nelson D. Schwartz, Julie Cresswell, and Heather Long.

How Bad Is Unemployment? ‘Literally Off the Charts’
@bencasselman  @NelsonSchwartz  

Lost your job? Come join the club!

No use in settin' round to blub.

The Great Deepreshun's here again;

nobody's got the gelt or yen.

So pull your belt in one notch tighter

and do like me -- become a writer!

Staying at home has caused many people to

 change their makeup,

 hair-care and skin-care routines. 

Companies are feeling the effects.

@julie_creswell

Who needs lipstick when there ain't

anyone to see your paint?

Goodbye Revlon, Estee Lauder;

I'll just use a paper blotter

and allow my hair to spring

up like some ferocious thing.

Maybelline can kiss my spine;

I'll spend my coin on good French wine.

The coronavirus economy is exposing how easy 

it is to fall from the middle class into 

poverty

@byHeatherLong

Welcome to my world, you guys --

hope it's not a big surprise

that you can't afford new cars

and must lunch on candy bars.

I've been doing so for years;

still I'm deeply in arrears.

Poverty is not so bad

if you label it a fad.

Photo Essay: Postcards to my President. Vol 29

The Wondrous Story

"The Restoration belongs to the world, and its message is especially urgent today."

D. Todd Christofferson

There is no other message

efficacious yet benign

to heal the wounded planet

and reveal God's one design;

a boy in rustic garments

was commanded to restore

the true and living gospel

that would last forevermore.

We bear our testimony

that that boy was Joseph Smith.

God the Father and the Son

were not to him a myth.

He saw Them and he heard Them,

and the time is now at hand

to take this wondrous story

to each nation and each land!

Photo Essay: Koan Stones. "there is a purpose for everything, but not an explanation."

There is a purpose

for everything,

but not

an explanation.

What is time to a stone?

A sigh in a hurricane.

The wing of a fly.

Fading essence.

Kick a stone

in your bare feet

to find out how

insignificant they are.

Verses from stories by reporters Abha Bhattarai, Robyn Dixon, Patricia Cohen, and Tiffany Hsu.

Neiman Marcus files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

@abhabhattarai

another great department store/has gone and dropped right through the floor/I never shopped there anyways/I didn't need to buy a chaise/or monocle or cloth of gold/so moth eaten is my billfold/But it was fun to dream awhile/that Neiman Marcus was my style.

Putin knows how to rule Russia as an autocrat. But he seems on the sidelines amid coronavirus crisis.

@RobynDixon__

Putin never acts too odd/

when around a firing squad/

He will bare his chest with ease/

but doesn't do well with disease/

He remains a bit too vague/

when it comes to treating plague/

The only virus he can grasp/

are the ones his hackers clasp.

For Workers, No Sign of ‘What Normal Is Going

 to Look Like’

@PatcohenNYT   @tiffkhsu

What good's a mask upon my face/

when there's no work around the place?/

I'd shine my shoes, but what's the use?/

I feel just like an old caboose/

No Zoom for me; computer screens/

are empty -- I eat pork & beans.

So don't tell me we're on the mend/

(but could a few bucks you please lend?)