Today's Timericks: North Koreans 'heartbroken' by Kim's purported weight loss, Pyongyang resident tells state media. (CNN)

 

When your leader's Santa Clause/fat and jolly, there is cause/to be mournful when his weight/has begun to dissipate/Maybe it is meant to show/that their leader won't eat crow.

Why Young Adults Are Among the Biggest Barriers to Mass Immunity.

(NYT)

Young adults don't want a poke/to them it is just a joke/When will callow goslings learn/Mother Nature can be stern/She don't care about your age/when she's on a grim rampage.

Crossing the Red Line: Behind China’s Takeover of Hong Kong.

(NYT)

Beijing always thought it wrong/there was freedom in Hong Kong/so with smiles and vows of peace/Hong Kong's people they did fleece/Now in Hong Kong if you clash/with them all your dreams they smash.

Yankees Can’t Keep Taking the Weekends Off.

(NYT)

Abner Doubleday is spinning/cuz the Yanks have stopped their winning/Fans begin to doubt their prowess/when the team seems such a mou-ese/Casey at the Bat it seems/has become more than bad dreams.

Today's Timericks: How Deceptive Campaign Fund-Raising Ensnares Older People. (NYT)

 

Old folks have a giving heart/That is how the scammers start/They will squeeze out ev'ry dime/working seniors overtime/When I'm asked to next donate/I'll tell 'em to go replicate!

Where Jobless Benefits Were Cut, Jobs Are Still Hard to Fill.

(NYT)

Stopping unemployment checks/hasn't helped the bottlenecks/that employers now do fear/as their workers disappear/With replacements nonexistent/empty shops remain persistent. 

Housing crisis poses crucial test for Biden administration’s economic plans.

(WaPo)

There's no place to live and no place to buy/So out on the street we will freeze or we'll fry/The answer is simple, and basically sound/Move ev'rybody to some nice campground.

Today's Timericks: They Seemed Like Democratic Activists. They Were Secretly Conservative Spies. (NYT)

 

SPY vs SPY.

Remember that?

New politics

have same format.

The Young Fall for Scams More Than Seniors Do. Time for a Warning.

(NYT)

My kids warn me

of balderdash,

then they invest

in cyber-cash.

Confident in Its Impunity, the Myanmar Junta Ignores Diplomacy.

(NYT)

In Rangoon,

with bodies strewn,

the junta grins --

admits no sins.

Today's Timericks: Why Police Have Been Quitting in Droves in the Last Year. (NYT)

 

Policemen have got a hard job/Messes they constantly swab/They don't get much thanks/keep little in banks/No wonder they quit in a mob.

Britney Spears: ‘I Just Want My Life Back’

(NYT)

Poor Britney Spears wants control/of a life that her guardians stole/She wants to be free/not as parolee/But unfettered, messy, yet whole.

A Culture War Between Hungary and Europe Escalates Over L.G.B.T. Bill.

(NYT)

Hungarians have passed a law/that sticks in the E.U.'s wide craw/Hungarians prate/you'd better be straight/or we'll turn you into scrimshaw. 

Members of Congress from states hit hardest by planned Postal Service delivery slowdowns say the agency should restore service and look elsewhere for cost savings.

(WaPo)

The Post Office wants to go slow/It's already glacial in flow/To save a few cents/they now will dispense/with anything like allegro.

Today's Timericks: We Are Very Free. How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang. (NYT)

 

China free?

Of course it's true!

If you think that 

white is blue.

Tech Giants, Fearful of Proposals to Curb Them, Blitz Washington With Lobbying.

(NYT)

Deck the halls

with lots of calls

from lobbyist

who do insist

with cash in hand

that Tech is grand.

So get in line;

the money's fine!

Kim Jong Un, fearing loss of control, has grooming and parenting advice for North Korean women.

(WaPo)

Kim Jong Un,

the stylish one,

tells comrades fair

to brush their hair.

He also sez

don't wear a fez.

His words are sweet,

though folk can't eat.

Today's Timericks: Tucker Carlson Calls Journalists ‘Animals.’ He’s Also Their Best Source. (NYT)

 

Writer's block

does not constrain

reporters from

their old refrain:

Call us any

name you choose,

as long as we

 can get some news!

The economy isn’t going back to February 2020. Fundamental shifts have occurred.

(WaPo)

Economies

are frenemies;

first they hug

and then they squeeze.

Unmasking the far right: An extremist paid a price when his identity was exposed online after a violent clash in Washington.

(WaPo)

It's called 'doxing'

and it's poxing

ultra-right

to lose their fight

by online outing --

but still they're shouting.

Laughing, clapping, cheering/the circus came to town/showing skill and pity/with acrobat and clown/No more those days of wonder/no blending of a crowd/as we sit home a-brooding/the TV on too loud.

A Compliment from a Friend

 

I received the following in an email today and thought I'd share it . . . because I am a flaming egomaniac.

I mean that at least partly seriously. One of the reasons you are as you are and do what you do is that your peculiar gifts contribute something important to the kaleidoscope of human existence. I suspect that at least part of that contribution is to keep things from getting too rigid, to keep reminding us and inspiring us to value and even indulge in whimsy and tomfoolery. There's value in structure, but there's also value in shaking up the structure a bit, making it more fluid and alive, allowing space for creativity, enjoyment, and surprise--even allowing space for the Spirit.

Today's Timericks: McConnell vows to block voting legislation, spurning Manchin’s compromise offer.

 

Old McConnell had a farm/where he did a lot of harm/blocking legislation aimed/at injustice to be tamed/A Senator who slops the hogs/while we're going to the dogs.

Record-setting heat blasts the West: ‘Your skin is almost sizzling.'

(WaPo)

It's so hot in western states/there's a law against ice skates/Temperatures have gone so high/that the lakes do ossify/Even Mr. Scratch won't stay/but tucks his tail and runs away/This is global warming writ/large enough to make us . . . um, sit up and take notice.

Bitcoin miners exit China, beat a path to the U.S. as crypto climate shifts.

(WaPo)

From their humble little cottage/bitcoin miners use much wattage/They consume entire grids/putting climate on the skids/What that means to you and me/is we won't have much a.c./Rolling brownouts soon will start/showing miners have no heart.

Some states are cutting off emergency food-assistance programs and making it harder to qualify.

(WaPo)

20 million people in the good ol' USA/go hungry on occasion -- not from diets, anyway/State governments are cutting aid to those who need it most/and think they're saving money -- so, at least, is what they boast/Just remember, governors, that starving people vote/maybe at the ballot, or perhaps with creosote. 

Prose Poem: A strange new world.

 

After the war/there was no one left/I signed the peace treaty/all by myself/then marched away/to start/a strange new world/Homo sapiens/were obviously out of the running/So I started with rabbits/Very efficient breeders/Too efficient/as it turned out/They soon went to war/with each other/over Lebensraum/hiring weasel mercenaries/to do the dirty work/So I tried tortoises/slow and steady/never lose their tempers/and very hesitant breeders/They liked to eat/only prickly pear cactus/and tried to turn the entire planet/into a desert/the perfect environment/for prickly pear/I turned from them to iguanas/After all, look at Godzilla/an iguana who made good in Tokyo/They sat on rocks/and sunned themselves/Never argued or pushed an agenda/Of course, their tendency to blow sea water out of their nostrils/was disconcerting/but I figured/Hey, if that's the worst thing/about them/they can become the dominant species/no problem/But then the space aliens/landed/and were in cahoots/with the weasels/and everything/went to hell/in a hand basket/The upshot/is that planet Earth/is now nothing/but a parking lot/for spaceships/managed by/Cleverciti Systems/out of Beta Centauri/And me?/I run a gazpacho stand next to the veeblefetzer works/It's a living.

Prose Poem: The World Ran out of Heart.

 

When the world ran out of soap/it ran out of heart/It all happened this year/when the algorithms for/soap manufacturing were /hacked and held for ransom/Nobody/thought it important/enough to pay anything/so the ability to make soap disappeared/Do you know how to make/soap?/No one does/Not even Bill Nye the Science Guy/He tried/ and came up with pink gelatin/Me personally/I ran out of soap/on May 15th/and now smell like a dead carp/I have dirt blisters/and my hair hangs down lankly/like Severus Snape's/Without personal hygiene/the social fabric/becomes rank and filthy/Bulldozers level homeless camps/Old baseball cards are burned in public squares/Every third person/in Vermont/has joined an amateur clown club/Billboards are up with movie spoiler alerts/Hasbro taks over Bitcoin/and turns it into Monopoly money/The FDA bans dill pickles/Not to mention/spelling 'Albuquerque' correctly becomes/mandatory/in order to vote/Me/I've bought an olive press/in Italy/When I get there/I'll lather myself/with olive oil/and then scrape it off/and go lie in the sun/That's how the ancient Greeks kept clean/You can look it up in Ulysses.