Postcard to President Trump

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.

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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. 

California Beaches for All -- Burn That Coal! -- Our Cashless Society -- Screams for Ellen DeGeneres

The California Coastal Act proclaimed in 1976 that the beach is for everyone — not just for those fortunate enough to own an oceanfront home. The state over the years has chipped away at locked gates, private roads and neighborhoods that try to keep out the public. What’s left are access battles against those with the means to fight back in court in perpetuity.

by Rosanna Xia for the LATimes 

A beach is a place full of sand,

where sunshine and water do stand;

they start out pristine

but public routine

soon turns them into an oil gland.

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In a statement, the E.P.A. said the cost of cutting mercury from power plants “dwarfs” the monetary benefits and argued that the current limits can no longer be justified as “appropriate and necessary” under the law.

by Lisa Friedman for the NYT

The EPA has got new bosses;

in midstream they're changing hosses.

Now the agency contends

dirty means support the ends.

Soon we'll be just like Mumbai

and cough our dreary lives away.

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Although U.S. bills feature the words, “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private,” there’s no federal law that says businesses have to accept cash, according to the Federal Reserve’s website.

By Katie Bindley for the WSJ

Paper money's so passe I cannot stand the thought

of using it for anything that I have ever bought.

Full of germs and other filth, a greenback is a tomb

of probable infection that will lead me to my doom.

Give me plastic or smartphone -- anything that's clean.

No coin was ever minted that could maintain good hygiene.

If I should find a treasure trove of pirate gold someday,

I'd leave it in the ground untouched and primly walk away.

(And that is why they put in a padded cell to stay . . . )

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But there’s one particularly distracting audience response that I’ve noticed in watching DeGeneres and comics of her caliber perform: the random, wild screaming.
by Elahe Izadi for the Washington Post.

I don't care what comics might dream;
I never will give them a scream.
A chuckle or two
is what they are due;
I save my shrieks for scalding steam.

You, too, can get a big Russian Loan! -- The People Existing in Debt -- U.S. Allies Left Hanging High and Dry -- Old Clowns are the Best Clowns.

PARIS — When French politician Marine Le Pen needed cash for her far-right party, an obscure Russian bank agreed to help.

Four years later, the bank has gone bust. The owner is facing a warrant for his arrest. Former Russian military officers are demanding money. And the party’s treasurer is sending off some $165,000 every few months to a woman in Moscow, unsure of where the payments ultimately will go.

by Paul Sonne for the Washington Post.

If you need some money there are Russian banks galore

that open up their coffers for your use -- and what is more,

they'll back you to the limit of your daydreams and your greed;

of course, the int'rest payments do start growing like a weed.

And Russian mafioso come a-callin' for their cut;

but while the money lasts just think how you can smugly strut.

I think I'll get a million from them, just to have the cash

to lobby in the Senate so I make a great big splash.

And when the jig is up and I am called to testify

before my Senate buddies -- I can plausibly deny!

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By some measures, consumers are stretching more to afford their debt payments. Americans are paying 5.6% of their disposable personal income to stay current on nonmortgage debt . . . 

by AnnaMaria Andriotis for the WSJ

The people existing in debt

are never allowed to forget

that payment is due

each month, with a view

of keeping them in a tense sweat.

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The call was notable in that a United States ally, the Kurds, was calling on an enemy of the United States to protect it against another United States ally

by Ben Hubbard for the NYT

I think 'Great Satan' was the name

they used to call us in the game

of Middle Eastern politics

because of all our twists and tricks.

And now the Kurds do feel betrayed

because our promises do fade

and those who Uncle Sam do follow

find his promises are hollow.

Never trust a White House gent

who made his fortune from rack rent.

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The film’s director, Jon S. Baird, elaborated on this idea. “We didn’t want to do a story about Laurel & Hardy,” he said in a recent interview. “We wanted to do a story of friends who just happen to be Laurel and Hardy.”

by Susan King for the LATimes

The old clowns are the best clowns,

are the best clowns most of all.

They sit on stools of plastic

and have ceased the raw pratfall.

Their mellow reminiscence of 

old slapstick jamborees

is redolent with relish

of the world's absurdities.

Yes, old clowns are the best clowns,

are the best clowns indeed.

Their balm of laughter once did spread

across our world in need.

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Postcard to President Trump

The Most Forgiving City in the Western Hemisphere -- The Unnamed Candidate -- How Almanacs Predict the Weather -- Lawmakers Go Crazy in California

Another Der Spiegel reporter, who visited Minnesota in recent days to chronicle Mr. Relotius’s missteps, suggested that Fergus Falls might be “the most forgiving city in the Western Hemisphere.”
by Matt Furber & Mitch Smith for the NYT.

Once upon a time in Fergus Falls, of Minnesota,

a journalist wrote vicious lies -- of truth not one iota.

I guess he thought the simple truth would not provide click bait,

instead he wrote with poison pen like some exotic krait.

He got his just desserts at last, and now is a pariah

who cannot earn a living with his pen -- not one rupiah.

The folks of Fergus Falls at first did not know what to do --

hire a good lawyer or move en masse to far Baku?

At last they took the higher road, the path of blithe forgiving;

eschewing all acerbity, they happy now are living.

If only other cities and their citizens could learn

that no one ever prospers from a grudge and slow heartburn!

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As of right now, they’re most excited about An Unnamed Candidate. More than half of Democrats pick “someone else” as the person about whom they’re most enthusiastic . . . 

by Philip Bump for the Washington Post

The Democrats will nominate

someone who will demonstrate

firm resolve on issues that

they can talk on through their hat.

And the winning nominee

should be vague and absentee.

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The Farmers’ Almanac, which distributes 1.7 million copies and has about 1.3 million social-media followers, says it does its forecast two years ahead of its release using a secret mathematical formula applied to sunspot activity, planet positions and the moon’s effect on the Earth.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which distributes 3.3 million print copies and has about 1.8 million followers on social media, makes predictions as much as 18 months out using formulas based on solar activity, astronomy cycles and historical weather conditions. Both almanacs claim about 80% accuracy rates.

by Jennifer Levitz for the WSJ 

Predicting weather patterns is a goose chase that is wild;

no one but the Lord himself knows whether rough or mild.

The elements combine in systems algorithms dread;

even statisticians do not like to make a spread.

But since mankind insists that they just have to play at God,

 there has to be a gimmick for the weather by some fraud.

As for me, I often find that whether rain or shine

as long as I am breakfasted the weather's always fine.

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Hundreds of new California laws take effect on Jan. 1, imposing a raft of new mandates on scores of issues, including rules dictating when plastic straws will be handed out at restaurants, that workplace sexual harassment settlements are disclosed and that set new limits on the ownership of guns.

by John Meyers for the LATimes 

The Golden State has made so many laws this passing year,

as numberless as sparkles from a classic chandelier,

that how to keep firm track of 'em would puzzle Faraday,

and cause the wits of Isaac Newton to go far astray.

I guess the only thing to do is stay at home and cease

dealing with the outside world, lest I disturb the peace.

And when they find my carcass, on which rats begin to gnaw,

at least they can inter me as "One Who Obeys the Law." 

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Postcard to President Trump

Andrew Ackerman, the Reporter Who Uncovered Something or Other

Andrew Ackerman, of the Wall Street Journal

Mr. Ackerman comes from a long line of people. Some were tall; some were short; some were skinny; some were stout; some were male; and some were female. But all of them, every single one, was a human being. This remarkable fact has led sociologists to label his pedigree as "commensurate." In fact, in 1998 Mr. Ackerman was awarded the Peabody Wurlitzer Medal for Disinclination. His many other awards are mentioned somewhere else that only his Aunt Janice knows about.

He began life as a shoe shine boy and quickly worked his way up to penury by inventing a shoe polish that smelled like an anchovy pizza (but unfortunately still tasted like shoe polish.)

Working his way through college as an Inuit, he graduated magna cum loudly with a degree in pluralism. He also majored in the antecedents of the Decembrist Revolt. 

Today Mr. Acker is both feared and fleared by the banking industry in America for his unflinching examination of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and its impact on President Grant's infamous Pinochle Ring. Some say that without Mr. Ackerman's astute interpretation, our banking system today would consist of nothing more than a nitpicking collection of Green Stamps. And others insist that his encyclopedic knowledge of the zloty exchange rate inspired the invention of cryptocurrency. Or Charlie Weaver -- the point is debatable. 

Mr. Ackerman's advice to aspiring journalists is simple and direct: "A before E, except after C."  

Well said, Mr. Ackerman -- well said! 

Japan Wants Whale Meat -- The Crypto Con --

TOKYO — Japan announced Wednesday that it is withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission and will resume commercial whale hunting next year, sparking swift condemnation from other governments and conservation groups.

by Simon Denyer for the Washington Post

Lusting for blubber can lead

to selfish and arrogant greed.

When whales are all gone

they'll go after prawn;

with gluttony their only creed.

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The SEC and state regulators have brought more than 90 crypto cases over the past two years, as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies swung from highs to recent lows. So far, the regulators have only managed to claw back about $36 million for duped investors, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.

by Jean Eaglesham & Dave Michaels for the WSJ

With people determined to throw

away all their personal dough,

the cryptocoin fraud

is sent by some god

who likes to see all fools brought low.

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