For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Psalm 84:10
his servants are near
ever near to his glory
and numb to soft seats
Monday, December 31, 2018
Sunday, December 30, 2018
WSJ Reporter Erich Schwartzel Goes to the Movies
Erich Schwartzel, film industry reporter for the Wall Street Journal
Young Erich Schwartzel knew he would grow up to write about Hollywood and the movies. From a very tender age, when he was still on all fours, he began lisping the names of character actors from Hollywood's Golden Age:
"Fwankwin Pangborn"
"Hoo Herby"
"Hobart Cavanaughty"
"Zasu Patty-cake"
He won a full scholarship to the Mickey Rooney Acting Academy at the age of fifteen, and never looked back.
His penetrating critiques of blockbusters, Leonard Maltin mashups, and the occasional Bollywood foofaraw, have not gone unnoticed by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, who calls Schwartzel "Just Another Tax ID Number."
His work is often reprinted in prestigious scholastic journals, such as the Muncie Indiana Star Press and the L.L. Bean catalog.
A very private person, Schwartzel refuses to divulge his marital status, his alma mater, his shoe size, or even the name of his barber. But journalism experts speculate that Schwartzel is the former Hunarian architect Erno Rubik who has used plastic surgery and goat gland injections to alter his appearance and voice -- although his love of Ben & Jerry's Grand Goulash ice cream should be a dead giveaway.
Paparazzi often catch Schwartzel playing Parcheesi with Cate Blanchett or reading tea leaves alongside Cameron Diaz, but the handsome reporter insists he is not in a relationship with anyone except his personal shopper.
When asked his opinion of the future of the movie industry, Schwartzel is quick to opine that "Everyone likes the movies except the public."
He is co-author, along with Tom Cruise, of 'The Gourmet's Guide to Cooking with Bosco,' which is now in its eleventh printing.
*******************************
The Muslim Tax in Germany
So far, practicing Muslims have been excluded from that rule, but some leading members of the German government’s coalition parties appear determined to change that. Despite criticism from some Muslim communities, they maintain that a state-collected tax for all Muslims would help to boost moderate interpretations of Islam and counter the appeal of wealthy foreign donors who promote more radical interpretations.
by Rick Noack for the Washington Post
Religion, when taxed, sure would show
who has got faith with their dough.
What most folks would do --
Turn atheist, nu?
Or ask for tax credits to sow.
Great peace have they which love thy law
"Great peace have they which love thy law; and nothing shall offend them."
Psalm 119. Verse 165.
Great peace resides in all thy law;
to walk thy ways is rest.
Obedience brings happiness
and promise that I'm blessed.
With unoffending vigor will I
ponder all thy writ --
and seek thy mercy, strength, and help
as I learn to submit.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Reporter Rolfe Winkler and the Golden Gate Bridge
Wall Street Journal Reporter Rolfe Winkler
Wall Street Journal reporter Rolfe Winkler has a special bond with the famous Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, you might almost say he has adopted it. That's because he likes to sell it to unsuspecting tourists on weekends -- to supplement his journalist's meager income.
Being a technology reporter in San Francisco is like being a showgirl in Las Vegas -- they are a dime a dozen, a drug on the market, and as such are paid mostly in Starbucks gift coupons and bus tokens. With an occasional jar of naval jelly thrown in for good measure.
But Winkler was not always a weekend cozener. Before he began his technology beat for the Wall Street Journal he developed a thriving business selling vinyl carpeting to Carthusian monasteries throughout Italy and Croatia. But when Prime Minister Primo Carnera set up a steep vinyl tariff in 2009, Winkler's empire went flatter than a roadkill snake. Penniless and prematurely hirsute, he gravitated to the newspaper trade because, he said, it was better than sailing gunboats up the Yangtze River -- the only other profession open to him during the Recession years. Recently Winkler claims that he was misquoted, and that what he really said was that it was better than sailing gumboots up the Yalu River. Either way, deep water is what he is wont to tread.
His alma mater is unknown, although word on the street is that he went to night school for a degree in woodworking.
He likes to relax with a wax effigy of Spalding Gray, which he takes to parties and introduces as Rupert Murdoch. So far, no one has been able to tell the difference.
He will reach perihelion on July 16th, 2021.
*******************************
Farewell to Poetry.
Dr. Eisenberg, who died on Tuesday at 99, was for more than a decade one of the most prolific contributors of reader comments on nytimes.com — and, by extension, on the internet as a whole.
But what distinguished him even more than his prodigious output (more than 13,000 comments since 2008) was the form those comments took: verse — mostly limericks — perfectly rhymed, (usually) metrically impeccable and always germane to whatever recent news item had caught his eye.
Dr. Eisenberg’s verse made him a cult figure in the lively, atomized, fiercely opinionated parallel universe of The New York Times’s online commenters. As Andrew Rosenthal, then the editorial page editor of The Times, wrote in 2012, Dr. Eisenberg was “the closest thing this paper has to a poet in residence.”
from the New York Times
The time has now come to decree
I'm done with this darn poetry.
The visual arts
will now be my darts
to skewer all iniquity.
*********************
New York Times Reporter Scott Shane is "The Man Who Knows Just Enough."
Scott Shane, of the New York Times
A native of Augusta, Georgia, Scott Shane has made a solid reputation for himself as the "Man Who Knows Just Enough." Just enough about himself to be modest yet confident. Just enough about National Security to have trouble sleeping at night. Just enough about global warming to sell his beach home in Pismo Cove for a song. And just enough about the fictional Inspector Denis Nayland Smith to keep an abacus with him at all times.
Shane has authored a dozen spy novels under the nom de plume of Ricardo Klopstock, featuring protagonist Jack Jackson, born without pinky fingers and with an aversion to peppermint. Four of the novels have been turned into starring vehicles for Dame Judi Dench. The other eight are still up for grabs.
While at the Baltimore Sun Shane was sent to Russia to look into the adulterated caviar racket and to interview the last known Crimean War veteran. With a nose for news that would put Pinocchio to shame, Shane ignored his editor's orders and instead produced a series of brilliant essays on how to make the perfect blini. For this journalistic coup he was awarded the Green Bay Municipal Contract for Waste Disposal two years in a row.
His many other awards are equally as pretentious.
Since 2004 Shane has reported on National Security issues for the New York Times. His life has been threatened so many times in the course of his reporting that he routinely disguises himself as a defrocked sommelier when on assignment.
Shane likes to tell young reporters who are just starting out that "You can't fry an egg without breaking a sweat." He also likes to remind editors that "Your mother wore a fanny pack."
He divides his time between a mountain cabin in Omaha, Nebraska, and a refurbished herring barrel on Mott Street in New York City.
He is available for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and vegan barbecues.
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