Rumble, a YouTube rival popular with conservatives, will pay creators who ‘challenge the status quo’ (Drew Harwell for the WaPo.)

 

Why take a vacation when a lobotomy is cheaper?

The video site has exploded during the pandemic as a home for anti-vaccine misinformation and conservative complaints about Big Tech censorship.

When you want to smash the truth

with the elderly and youth

there is nothing finer than

making truth the boogie man.

*

On the internet of things

talk of cabbages and kings

skewed to show statistics bent

throws the naive off the scent.

*

Extravagance of claims provides

conservatives with easy rides

into public thought and deed 

with amazing, dreadful, speed.

*

Reading their stuff, I suppose

it is time for UFO's

to invade our helpless nations

and to force rude vaccinations.

*

Or that microchips will be

in our french fries and chili

so that Big Tech will control

all our heart and mind and soul

*

Cranks and crackpots are well paid

for their mental Gatorade

posted on new platforms that

are just talking through their hat.

*

The public seems to eat it up,

and so let's give a loving cup

to those who know the truth but say

that black is white and night is day!

Prose Poem: Your $4.39 Latte From the Local Roaster Could Soon Cost More. (Coral Murphy Marcos, for the NYT.)

 

The author, in a deep funk.

If an addiction isn't expensive,

what's the fun of it?

That's why I love paying 

one hundred dollars

for a cup of coffee.

Didn't used to be that way.

For a few measly dollars

you could get a good cup

of coffee at any coffee shop.

But now that coffee beans are

worth their weight in gold

and baristas wallow in wealth --

well, a cup of coffee is the

ne plus ultra of the jet set addict.

To feed my appetite

I roll drunks

rob banks

embezzle funds

sell my own organs

resort to blackmail

vote Republican

and print my own money.

I've lost my family

my home

my job

my self respect

and my memory.

I don't have a name

or country of origin

anymore.

All I have is that warm

swirling black brew

in a cheap paper cup

and a barista supplier

who lets me lick her

apron.

Siberia’s wildfires are bigger than all the world’s other blazes combined. (Robyn Dixon, in the WaPo.)

 

Russia is currently fighting more than 170 forest fires in Siberia that have closed airports and roads, forced widespread evacuations, sent a pall of smoke across the North Pole. But it has abandoned dozens more fires covering thousands of square miles, with no effort to fight them.

Siberia is all aflame/ev'ry pine is now fair game/for a charcoal destiny/with drought now reaching apogee.

*

The temperature does naught but climb/Thermometers work overtime.

The permafrost evaporates/The taiga

has no advocates.

*

The air is greasy with wood smoke/It's making penguins gag and choke/far off in the bleak arctic wastes/where krill are dying as it bastes.

*

Poor Mother Russia grows more parched/as forests to their doom are marched/But when you ask an apparatchik/they say life there is a picnic.

*

I would not be a Gloomy Gus/and hope that if we make a fuss/our leaders East and West will vow/to save the earth, and not the Dow.

A Prayer.

 

Christ Jesus, Savior of all flesh,

my leaden soul deign to refresh.

Weak and weary, yet proud and thick,

my sin-bred burdens make me sick.

Oh may I speak with joy sincere

of having thy sweet spirit near! 

Sneaky Thieves Steal Hair From Foxes, Raccoons, Dogs, Even You. (Annie Roth for the NYT.)

 

Professor Torkildson has studied the wild life of Provo Utah for years. His conclusion: There isn't any.

"It’s simple: Mammals have hair or fur. Birds want it."

'Kleptotrichy' is the handle

used when birds begin to vandal

hair from off the human head

for their nesty comfy bed.

*

Titmice swoop down on the brow

of a blonde or any frau,

plucking strands with bold resolve

for an aerie to evolve.

*

And the black cap chickadee

will also do hair thievery.

From a dog or wild raccoon --

its heists are never picayune.

*

So beware when you're outdoors;

those little birds can be raptors.

Snatching such a hairy ration

just to have some insulation!

Woman left dead mom wrapped in newspaper while she sapped her bank account. (Mark Lungariello for the New York Post.)

 

"An Arkansas woman left her mother’s dead body wrapped in newspaper for months while she slept in the same house and sapped her mom’s bank account, authorities said."

In Arkansas when your are dead

no coffin do you get, instead

they have you all appareled

in the Pine Bluff Daily Herald.

*

Like the pharaohs of past ages

your hollowed corpse is stuffed with pages

of the local news and then

it's ready for the grand Amen.

*

Folk in Arkansas are canny;

 when it's time to take old Granny

to her final resting place

she's wrapped up like a chunk of plaice.

*

You might say stiffs in Arkansas

have joined the Fourth Estate -- haw! haw!

Eternal headlines they will read

while worms and bugs inside them breed.

*

Let's hope the news won't cause reflection

that makes them miss the Resurrection!

Prose Poem: Democracy dies in darkness. It turns out, foxes steal newspapers in darkness, too. (John Kelly for the WaPo.)

 

TIm Torkildson, otherwise known as 'Foxy Grandpa.'

"Every few years, I hear about foxes that are stealing newspapers. In 2009, it was happening in Alexandria’s Yacht Haven subdivision, where a fox (or foxes) unknown was plucking The Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Examiner and the Mount Vernon Gazette from in front of people’s houses."

I found a fox sitting on my front porch

reading my newspaper

this morning.

"Would you like some coffee?"

I asked it facetiously.

"Earl Grey tea, if you don't mind"

replied the fox.

Another fox strolled out

from the bushes and joined

the first one.

"Could I have the sports

section, please?" it asked

the first fox.

This was getting too much for me,

so I went back inside to make

vichyssoise to serve chilled at dinner --

that always calms me down.

When I came back out on the porch

the foxes were gone,

and so was my newspaper.

My dog Rufus came up to me;

it smelled like it had been rooting

around inside a dead skunk.

"Well" I said to it, "can you talk

now too? Where did those foxes

go with my newspaper?"

Rufus just barked at me, 

then went over to the corner

of the porch with direct sunlight

and lit up a meerschaum pipe.

So I decided that if animals can

act like humans,

humans can act like animals.

If you want me

I'll be hanging upside down

with my hands and feet

from a branch of the sycamore tree,

like a three-toed sloth.

I've left instructions for the 

newspaper to be delivered on

top of my stomach each morning.

Touring Trinity, the Birthplace of Nuclear Dread. (Dennis Overbye, for the NYT.)

 "A recent visit to the site of the first atomic bomb explosion offered desert vistas, (mildly) radioactive pebbles and troubling reflections."

Nuclear fission contains/the work of the world's finest brains/Whether a blessing/or menace distressing/depends on who's holding the reins. 

Photo Essay: A Letter to my Grand Daughter Ceci.

 

Former Clown Peggy Williams Looks Back on Her Decade in the Ringling Bros. Circus. (Stacey Althen, for Sarasota Magazine.)

 

Tim Torkildson, AKA Dusty the Clown. Long ago and far away . . . 

Long ago and far away

clowns did banish all the grey.

*

Raucous faces, wigs on fire;

they obeyed no staid umpire.

Whatever rules they might accept,

at bending them they were adept.

*

Shuffling in clown shoes which

gave the audience a stitch,

they took pratfalls and soap pies --

wore the most enormous ties.

*

All to make the world much brighter

for the average anklebiter.

*

They were savage sometimes, too;

slapstick is not cordon bleu.

*

Clowns created chaos, sure;

but their grins were clean and pure.

*

Where their like today might be

is a slighted mystery.

*

No one wants to give first aid

to the baggy pants brigade --

so the sly and silly clown

of yesteryear won't come to town . . .