Sunday, February 4, 2018

Ledes & Limericks. Sunday February 4 2018

Wells Fargo’s Growth Will Be Limited,

Directors to Be Replaced After

Fed Cites ‘Abuses’

from the Wall Street Journal.

Bankers paying heavy fines

For ignoring Fed guidelines

Shed a tear that’s crocodilian --

Since they’ve made a couple billian . . .

Memo’s Release Escalates

Clash Over Russia Probe;

Trump Says It ‘Totally

Vindicates’ Him

from the Wall Street Journal

Memos are a funny deal --

First they hide and then they squeal.

Still, they’re often so opaque,

You don’t know if they’re real or fake.

(Edward Holman, in the Wall Street Journal, replied to the above ditty with this line: "Smirking alone is what delivered you to this place in time.)

(James Beard, also in the Wall Street Journal, also had a reply to my poem: "Members of the FBI have told us repeatedly that this memo contains no inaccuracies.
They are unhappy that things that could have been said to make them look better were not said.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is hard to come by in a court of law. I would say the record on this memo is pretty good.")

‘The American Dilemma’:

Why Do We Still Watch Football?

From the NYTimes

The reason that the Super Bowl

Is hotter still than burning coal

Is not because of darksome fads --

It’s all about the nifty ads!

The politics and brutal play

Are not what makes us stay and stay --

We want to see how cars and beer

Can tickle us this coming year.

So viewership to Nth degree

You’d get for any spelling bee

If commercials nonpareil

You guaranteed without a fail.

‘Bitcoin is my potential pension’:

What’s driving people in Kentucky

to join the craze

There was an old man in Kentucky

Who thought that he just might be lucky

With bitcoin affairs --

But the bulls and the bears

Left his accounts rather mucky.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Ledes & Limericks. Thursday February 1 2018

“As an industry, we’ve written [undercover reporting] off because of
the ethical challenges it poses, and frankly it’s a cost issue,”
Sun-Times editor-in-chief Chris Fusco, a longtime investigative
reporter himself, tells CJR*. “To be able to pull this off today
would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, insurance,
liability.” from the Columbia Journalism Review

When journalists go undercover

Accountants around them must hover

To see they don’t pad

A single doodad

As a hard-working truth lover.

The country has come to a halt

With Super Bowl-focused gestalt.

The ads and the team

Cause millions to dream

And turn their brain pans to basalt.

I think that I shall never see

Volcanoes belching ash and scree

Without a tremor in my soul

That they pollute much more than coal.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

wood and sand and time

melded into faint pathways

leading to stillness

Ledes & Limericks. Tuesday January 30 2018

The Chicago Sun-Times will not publish columns or reviews
authored by Richard Roeper as the newspaper investigates the legitimacy
of Roeper’s sizable Twitter following. From the Chicago Sun Times.

A twitter account that is broad

Is probably terribly flawed.

Reporters who boast

That they have the most

Real followers may be a fraud.

To Get Anything Done,

Georgia Politicians Say,

‘Do It for Amazon’

Atlanta’s an Amazon town;

They want it so bad they will clown

Or vote in all ways

That Amazon says --

It seems like a fiscal shakedown.

How to Get a Wiretap to Spy

on Americans, and Why

That Matters Now

I think that my neighbor’s a spy;

He looks like the type that would lie.

I just need a judge

Who’s likely to fudge

And let me eavesdrop on the sly.

Goodbye, Goofy Hats:

Extreme Balloon Twisters

Inflate the Art Form

There was an artistic young guy

Who blew up balloons in black tie.

But at the event

A strange accident

With helium made too high.

Monday, January 29, 2018

Charlie Chaplin

Pen & ink by the Thai artist Nan

he went long ago

ageless and agile by turns

he left us life

Email from my missionary daughter in San Clemente

Hello everyone!!

It's been a great week here in the California Irvine Mission :) Thank you for all of your positive uplifting thoughts and prayers, I definitely felt them this week. I truly love being able to be a servant of God and have a front row seat in watching how He works in other people's lives. I don't really believe in coincidences anymore, but I do believe in divine design. I am able to see everyday that God has a plan for each and every one of us, and He wants to help us in our goals and desires as long as they are pure, honest, and in line with His will. He puts people in our lives that help us learn certain things, and I think that's the biggest way that I know He's there. We do have to ask, seek and knock - which isn't easy all the time- but we're promised that he'll answer us and never leave us without direction as long as we're keeping our promises we've made to him. We're just ordinary people, but we are also children of God, who is the most powerful being ever. But He chooses us to do His work, and I feel humbled by that. He has given me so much strength and faith and hope, that I cannot ever deny His existence.

God also has quite a sense of humor haha. Last week I had an experience at the gym where Sister Aebischer and I go to work out . We get up every day at 6:30 and go straight to the gym and usually there aren't very many people there, maybe one sometimes. But that day there were 5 or 6 people and so I was sitting on a bench reading the Book of Mormon waiting for a machine to open up, when this lady walks past and starts to use a weight machine behind me. I can hear her working pretty hard, when all of a sudden she puffs out between breaths: "Give me a verse!"

And I was like...." What?...." I think i was still trying to wake up, and then on top of that realize that someone was actually requesting that I read them a scripture haha. She repeated her question and I mildly panicked for a few seconds while I tried to find a good verse that would give her motivation, as she had requested. I flipped back a couple pages from where I was reading and read her Alma 26:12 which says:

"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak;

therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles

we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name

forever"

And then there was silence for a second while she absorbed what I had read, and then she asked if that was in the Bible, to which I readily replied that it was from another book of scripture called the Book of Mormon and that we read the Bible as well. She took the news well and so I asked her if I could give her a copy of the Book of Mormon, and she said yes! She was just visiting a friend who lives in our apartment complex, so I would never see her again, but we dropped by later and gave her a copy. I don't really know if she'll ever read it, but I hope she will. You never know when or where you'll be able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with someone, so be prepared haha!

Something that I've been thinking about the past couple of weeks is the hymn "Where Can I Turn for Peace". I love the last verse of this beautiful hymn which says:

He answers privately,

Reaches my reaching

In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.

Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.

Constant he is and kind,

Love without end.

I am always amazed at how much Jesus loves us all and how much he went through for each of us individually. His pain and suffering was for all mankind, but also very individual. I take great comfort in the fact that he knows how I feel in my best and worst moments. Sometimes I wonder why so many awful things happen in the world, but I am comforted in the knowledge that All that is unfair can be made right through Jesus Christ and his Atonement.

I love the people here, even though they are very different than what I'm used to. I love being a missionary and I love having fun and finding joy in my service! I promise that in the next few weeks I will attach pictures! I love you all so much, thank you for being you and never be afraid to share the gospel with someone and how it has blessed your life. Everybody needs it, whether or not they know it ;)

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Torkildson