Photo Essay: Postcard to my President. Vol. 36

Natalie Andrews' Large Black Mustache.

Reporter Natalie Andrews.  WSJ.

Natalie started her own cardboard fence company at the age of ten. She saw the need for cheap and fast fencing, and used her entire life savings of five dollars and fifty eight cents to invest in corrugated cardboard and a hundred business cards -- which she cleverly also had made of cardboard.
Her company was an outstanding success until the first heavy rains of autumn.
Then she had to flee to Honduras.
But she overcame this setback with grit and determination, and a large black mustache to disguise herself. She still wears it sometimes to frighten small children.
She decided to become a journalist because she was under the mistaken impression that they get to eat free at Wendy's. Plus she likes to pretend to write things down in small leather bound notebooks that she keeps filling with doodles and sending to the Smithsonian -- and which they keep returning to her, with notes on cream colored stationary imploring her to stop it.
Her dreams came true when she was asked to join the Wall Street Journal -- first as a lowly gofer, then as a comer, then as a candied prawn vendor, and finally as a full-fledged charwoman when she promised her bosses she would mop up the mess in Congress.
She owns a cottage in the Hamptons, a still in Tennessee, and a mailbox at her local UPS store.
Her passions include phrenology and collecting porcelain postage stamps, from Hungary, that are dated between the regimes of Mihaly Karolyi  and Miklos Horthy.
She likes to keep a jar of deracinated hairpins on her desk for emergencies.
She has a pet walrus, named 'Nuzzler.' 
Her many awards include the Veldhuisen Medal for her daring expose on the Halitosis Racket, and a blue ribbon from the Minnesota State Fair for her oyster pie.
Her advice to fledgling reporters is "Take a nap first."

The Sizan

The Sizan burst upon the world last month.
Welling up from a deep cultural hatred
of everything not edible,
they began cooking, not burning,
books.
They made fruit pies
from Huckleberry Finn.
Fish sticks from Moby Dick.
Bread from Catcher in the Rye.
They toasted their success with
a fine wine vinted from
The Grapes of Wrath.
Then they really went on a rampage.
They prepared a scandalous feast
of ortolan
from To Kill a Mockingbird.
A butcher shop they opened,
right in Times Square,
plentifully supplied by
The Animal Farm.
It was named --
you guessed it --
Slaughterhouse -Five.
And they started an orchard,
planting thousands of copies of
A Clockwork Orange.
People fought back, of course.
Books, they said,
should be food for thought,
not food for the belly.
But the Sizan kept on desecrating
the world's great literature,
until there was nothing left
but comic books.
Oh, and The Art of the Deal.

Timericks from stories by Anna Fifield, Mathew Cappucci, and Natasha Singer.

Two-husband strategy may be a remedy for China’s one-child policy, professor posits.
@annafifield

If at first you don't succeed/polyandry you may need/China's baby boom is bust/Sev'ral husbands is a must/I will happily go stud/(and now my name is surely Mud.)



Salt Lake City went from record heat to record cold in three days.
@MatthewCappucci

The jet stream -- mischievous breeze -- /has caused mountain passes to freeze/The record says June/but Utah is strewn/with sniffles and chilblains and sneeze.

Companies like Salesforce created workplaces with all the comforts of home. But now they may feel more like hospitals.
@natashanyt

Going to work nowadays/is more like a hospital maze/Your temperature took/no hands to be shook/and covered in chemical sprays.

Timericks from stories by Patrick Kingsley, Laura Vozella, and Phillip Bump.

From ‘Copenhell’ to ‘Copenheaven’: Danish Church Takes Over Heavy Metal Venue in Parking Lot
@PatrickKingsley

Honk your horn if love of God/reaches you in your hot rod/Drive-in worship is remote/but the spirit soon will float/into Audi and Peugeot/keeping drivers all aglow!



Richmond judge halts removal of Robert E. Lee statue for 10 days.
@LVozzella

Rob E. Lee is coming down/They don't want him in Richmond town/Incorrect in many ways/the poor old guy has numbered days/I think the reason folks are sore/is that he nearly won the war!


Trump sides with deranged conspiracy theories over Black Lives Matter protesters.
@pbump

Trump is into theories of conspiracies so hard/that he would never even trust the blokes at Scotland Yard/The world is out to get him, he is certain as can be/so he is striking at them first with great mendacity/When leaders are delusional, and led by mountebanks/it's time to put an end to their pipe dreams and harmful pranks!

Hunting the Wumben.

In the Glades of Marmalade a long long time ago

herds of wimpund browsed at ease, amidst the sun and snow.

Woomuds also ambled neath the shady pickle trees;

they had a double set of heads but lacked a set of knees.

Above them all the wumben strode; the queen of veldt and moor.

Her humps were fulsome and her head could shame a dollar store.

She strode among the daffodils and sniffed the sleeky air.

While butterbirds weaved mashed potatoes into her gleeky hair.

Then came the hunters, fierce and keen, to take her as a prize.

They dressed in poison ivy as their bibulous disguise.

The wumben saw them coming but ignored them patiently.

She was hanging crowbars on a blatant Christmas tree.

"Snish snash!" the hunters yelled, as calipers they hurled;

the wumben merely looked at them, her lips correctly curled.

She stepped upon them easily, until they were quite mute.

Then she raised her head up high and gave a questing hoot.

Now if you see a wumben and believe you can deceive

her into traps and pitfalls, you will soon begin to grieve --

for wumbens wear the smarty pants that give them great foresight

and there has never been a man to give them pause or fright!

(But if you treat them kindly they will let you fly a kite.) 

Timericks from stories by Terrence McCoy, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Jesse Drucker, and Ben Smith.

As coronavirus deaths in Brazil surge, Bolsonaro limits the release of data
@terrence_mccoy

When you live in old Brazil/you'd better not get very ill/The hospitals won't count you sick/To them it is impolitic/to tally up the daily score/It make their President quite sore/So if you cough up semolina/you'd better move to Argentina.

Hospitals Got Bailouts and Furloughed Thousands While Paying C.E.O.s Millions.

@jbsgreenberg  

Big hospitals are getting theirs/from Uncle Sam for their affairs/Execs get bonuses up front/but ev'ry bedpan cleaning grunt/suffers wages cut in half/or is laid off as excess staff/Pandemics come and go, I guess/but only fat cats get largesse.

Inside the Revolts Erupting in America’s Big Newsrooms

@benyt

To write the truth and be objective/makes reporters ineffective/if the truth is nauseating/and deserves a firm berating/When did conscience turn old-fashioned/with decency so baldly rationed?

Photo Essay: Postcards mailed to Sen. Mike Lee, columnist Mike Kirby, reporter Johnny Diaz, and reporter Paul Farhi.

To:  Sen. Mike Lee

To:  Robert Kirby

To:  Johnny Diaz  NYT

To:  Paul Farhi  WaPo

Photo Essay: Postcards to President Donald Trump, Hetman Rob Reed, Reporter John Schwartz, Senator Mitt Romney, Reporter Jennifer Graham, and Reporter Joseph Palazzolo

To:  @realDonaldTrump

To:  @joe_palazzolo

To:  @jswatz

To:  @grahamtoday

To:  @MittRomney

Photo Essay: Postcards to my President. Vol. 34