Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Postcard to the President

Monday, July 8, 2019

Turkey’s Painfully Long Economic Crisis Grinds On

Turkey has avoided the meltdown that seemed possible last summer when the lira plunged precipitously, but safety is remote. The palpable threat of imminent collapse has given way to a sense of muddling through as the government unleashes credit to defer an inevitable reckoning. Meanwhile, anyone with money stashes it away in the face of gnawing fears, depriving the economy of vitality.

NYT

Turkey is a country on the Venezuela path;

it cannot stop an economic lira-led bloodbath.

Erdogan may posture and claim money is not tight;

but Turkish bankers to a man have knuckles that are white.

It's the same old story of an autocratic twit

who has to have it his way or he's gonna throw a fit.

Companies are closing and the stores lack basic stuff;

the IMF is getting set to call Recep's long bluff.

If I lived in Turkey I would stash my cash away

underneath a mattress for the coming rainy day.

Then I'd eat some dolma with a cup of yogurt drink

while I watched old Erdogan make the country sink.

As the World Heats Up, the Climate for News Reporting Is Getting Warmer, Too

As Europe heats up, Greenland melts and the Midwest floods, many news organizations are devoting more resources to climate change as they cover the topic with more urgency.

NYT

Reporters cover glaciers and the heat wave in Paree

instead of murder or the crooks in Washington DC.

With thermometers and graphics they are trying for a scoop

to be the first to show that Iceland's turning into soup.

Never mind the president or war with dull Iran;

journalists are writing bout the driftwood in Spokane.

The permafrost's releasing greenhouse gases, so the Times

is sending ten reporters out to chronicle these crimes.

After crying 'wolf' so long, the fourth estate at last

has convinced its readers that we all are being gassed.

Papers have tapped into all our guilt and dim unease,

as circulation climbs and they begin to pulp more trees.

Postcard to the President

Iran Says It Has Surpassed Critical Nuclear Enrichment Level from 2015 Agreement

LONDON — Iran has breached a crucial limit on the level of uranium enrichment set out in the 2015 nuclear deal, the country’s atomic energy agency said on Monday, as China, another signatory to the deal, accused the United States of “bullying” Tehran with crippling economic sanctions.

NYT

Soon the world will tremble at

mullahs in a funny hat.

Dropping A bombs left and right;

Iran likes to pick a fight.

Can we stop 'em from such things

with our economic slings?

And does China have our back

from a sneaking nuke attack?

One more country mad with lust

to make all the world go bust.

Mars is looking more and more

like a new home I'll adore.

Your Comment on ICE Used Facial Recognition to Mine State Driver’s License Databases

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tim torkildson | utah

Driver's license facial scans/face no kind of legal bans/so your mug is analyzed/Should you need to be chastised/agents will come swooping down/and you're taken out of town/to a camp for refugees/full of fun and joy and fleas/Soon deported, you'll look back/knowing Uncle Sam's a quack.

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Sunday, July 7, 2019

Sex, Drugs, and Emails (only the last one is true -- the rest is clickbait)

Nobody writes letters anymore, including me. I just send out emails to family and friends. Here's the latest one to go out, today:

I wrote a very nice haiku today, which I sent to the precednet of the new nited snakes of amackula. (I’ve decided not to correct anything in this letter. It’s Sunday -- day of rest -- day of slacking off and letting serendipity run its course -- day of soaking my feet in a tub of brine scented with lavender.) Anywho -- here’s the haiku:

Melted golden light

Poured over the green chestnuts

Finches are panting

Now I gotta go down the hall to the mail slot in the lobby and drop it in. I’ll be right back . . .

Hey, you’ll never guess what I saw in the lobby just now --

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

This place is so dead on a Sunday it makes a cemetery look like the World Cup soccer game.

My fantasy -- the one I most often think about when going to sleep -- is that the New York Times editors contact me to offer a fantastic salary for a daily topical poem, and once the mazuma is rolling in I move out of this dump, not to Hawaii, not to Thailand, but to a nice 2 bedroom condo here in Utah Valley with an indoor swimming pool -- and then Sarah and Adam and their kids will come over all the time for pool parties and I’ll treat ‘em all to Costco Pizza -- and I start collecting Italian glass clown sculptures to display on my mahogany shelves -- so at last I’ll have a classy place and I’ll dress classy with clothes not from DI and I’ll get a smartphone and use Uber to take me places. But then I get to thinking about how good poverty and slovenliness have been to me these past twenty years -- why shake the hammock when I’m already so comfortable in it? I just wish there was a little life in the lobby -- some interesting people to talk to or listen to. The old buzzards in this building tell each other news that was stale when the pharaohs built the Pyramids and repeat the same old dreary axioms and diatribes inherited from their interbreeding ancestors. Thank goodness for Bruce & Margaret Young, teachers at BYU, who I got to know from swimming at the Rec Center -- they come over for dinner about once a month and are always learning me stuff about Shakespeare and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I really need to seek out more college professors to pal around with -- the only problem being why would any of them want anything to do with a guy who eats canned beans for breakfast and is growing a luxuriant crop of nose hair? Besides, I’m beginning to suspect that my own conversational skills are so decayed that all anyone hears from me is ‘winner winner chicken dinner’ and ‘it’s hotter than a Texas pistol.’ Original thought has fled me like a cat flees a bath. And if I had classier smarter companionship I wouldn’t have such a good excuse to complain -- and there’s nothing half as fun as complaining. Except eating.

Which reminds me of today’s Sacrament meeting here in the building. In the Community Room right off the lobby. Actually, there’s no reason eating should remind me of what happened except that I’m starting to think about a late lunch, and -- oh, bother . . . here’s what happened today:

So we meet at 11 a.m. in the Community Room to take the Sacrament. It’s not really a meeting at all; it only lasts 20 minutes. There’s usually about a dozen old ladies attending and one old guy, Johnny, and me. Today several of the old ladies walked in and immediately smelled perfume in the air. I couldn’t smell anything. But they claimed it was very strong and cloying and they couldn’t stay in the room because of it. So they went out in the lobby to sit. So when the bishop showed up we did the Sacrament with just 3 people in the room -- the rest were out in the lobby, because a few old ladies said they were allergic to perfume in the air and the other old ladies had to troop along with them. Must be peer pressure or something. Anyway, that was a strange thing -- I took the Sacrament out to them at the direction of the bishop, but I could tell he was coming to a slow boil with such foolishness. He’ll probably take it out on his tithing clerk later today.

I plan a vegetarian lunch today, cuz I had some pork sausage with my butter beans this morning (which I ate with green onions and a dill pickle.)

I stopped writing for a minute to look out my patio window at the birds feeding on sunflower seeds and black thistles, and I began to wonder if animals know when it’s Sunday. I don’t think they do. I also wonder why the heck my fount size just went from 10 to 12. I didn’t do anything that I know of. Oh well, heck with it. Too lazy to change it back. It’s probably an artistic touch that will garner admiring remarks in the years to come when all my emails are published by Harvard Press.

2:33 p.m. So I took a break to have lunch -- I had microwave basmati rice and microwave Indian vegetable curry. Tasted pretty dang good. I can’t ever seem to make a good pot of rice myself anymore -- it always comes out either mushy or grainy. But the microwave kind, though expensive, always comes out just the way I like it, like at a restaurant. The curry was only so-so, so I splashed it with Tabasco sauce and fish sauce. That did the trick. and now I’ve room enough left for a good hearty snack this evening when I watch Netflix. I’ll fix up a bowl of Slim Jims, mozzarella sticks, mixed nuts (no peanuts), Chicken in a Biscuit crackers, and a handful of green olives stuffed with pimentos. Washed down with club soda.

It’s been hot here, in the mid-90’s each day, and I notice the birds on my patio now keep their little beaks open all the time -- I guess they must be panting. I remember long ago when I was on the road I stopped at a motel in Missouri during one of their terrible heat spells; I was in the parking lot getting something out of the glove compartment of my car when I noticed a tiny bird sprawled on the asphalt, beak open wide and panting away in desperation. As I watched the poor creature it gave one last gasp and died in front of me. I felt so shaken that I vowed I would never let such a thing happen in front of me again, so anytime I see a bird on my patio that looks like it’s not going to make it I close the blinds and go get some ice cream out of the freezer -- and I feel much better. A cat or something always takes away the dead birds before I have to deal with them.

Isn’t that a spiritual and moving anecdote? I should send it to the Ensign.

Tomorrow I babysit for Sarah again. I’ll do it all week while she goes into some chiropractor's office and gets a fifty dollars an hour for bending a few arms and legs. Last week I set up a lemonade stand with Ohen, Lance, and Brooke -- providing the lemon juice, sugar, cups, and ice. They made twenty dollars in four hours -- the mailman came by 3 times, and brought other mailmen with him. We charged 25 cents per cup. And a neighbor drove by to give Ohen a five dollar bill but didn’t want any lemonade. So this time we’re going to make root beer. I have the extract and cups, so all we need on Monday will be the dry ice and sugar. I also bought a gallon thermos jug. If it works out we’ll keep selling cold drinks the rest of the week, so the grand kids can make some money for themselves. I don’t mind buying the stuff for them -- Adam has been real good to me this past week, giving me a ton of easy rewrite assignments, so there’s extra money in the bank. I’ll also probably buy a Winco chicken dinner for them at the deli tomorrow. It’s a good deal -- you get ten pieces of fried/baked chicken, eight King’s Hawaiin rolls, and a pound of fried potato wedges (which we always called them jo-jos when I was a kid.) All for 13 bucks. That way Sarah doesn't have to cook anything for lunch and the kids can snack on chicken and jo-jos for the rest of the day -- I’ve never seen creatures with such appetites before. They snarl over scraps of gristle and shards of bones like hyenas.

Well, I think I’ll end this literary folly and check Amazon Kindle for a good book to read the rest of this afternoon. I’ve got about twenty books on my Kindle right now. I just finished one about Norse Mythology; interesting and depressing. Those Swedes were a morbid bunch when it comes to their ancient gods. I could go for a good murder mystery . . .

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Marianne Williamson: 'Love Will Win."

Marianne Williamson

Ms. Williamson’s emergence as a Democratic candidate in the 2020 campaign already seemed lifted from supermarket tabloids: the motivational guru versus the reality TV president. Ms. Williamson’s start in the debates has been shaky, but there were some breakout moments. Then her dramatic closing. “Mr. President, if you’re listening, I want you to hear me, please: You have harnessed fear for political purposes, and only love can cast that out.”

She went on, building now: “I’m going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field. And, sir, love will win.”

NYT.

Alone above the discord floats a maiden fair and mild;

she isn't any dreamer and is not easily beguiled.

She comes to show the peaceful path of love and understanding;

her platform isn't strident (nor is it too demanding.)

She fights the wickedness of men with smiles and new age crystals;

her heart will power world-wide peace, deleting bombs and pistols.

Her guideposts are the tenets of a New York mystic swami,

who channeled gods and wrote a book that many have called balmy.

But Marianne the Earnest is not easily dismayed;

her soul is clad in platinum, her feet are shod in jade.

If angels don't attend her, it's because she has no need

for outside inspiration as to glory she does speed.

Her beads are made of sandalwood, her head is made of oak;

if you walk a mile with her you just might lose your cloak.

Miracles do pour from her, like mighty cataracts;

she never heeds false slander (and campaigns above the facts.)

Adherents march along with her; their numbers grow like weeds;

they think of her revival talk as blending many creeds.

And will she win, this shining star amidst the brooding gloom?

Do birds wear gloves, can trees jump rope, will skunks now squirt perfume?

Your Comment on Trump Considering an Executive Order to Allow Citizenship Question on Census