Verses from Stories in Today's New York Times -- Turkey Launches Offensive Against U.S.-Backed Syrian Militia -- PG&E Outage Darkens Northern California Amid Wildfire Threat -- Scandalized by Ali Wong’s Stand-Up? Brace Yourself for Her Book.

The Turks are a warrior race

who think of mere peace as disgrace.

They're always on hand

to grab someone's land

and bayonet them in the face.

@NYTBen  @carlottagall

******************************************

When PG&E says "lights out!"

they happen to have enough clout

to turn off the juice

amidst the tall spruce --

by candlelight we can all pout.

@thomasfullerNYT

***************************************************

The public will always be putty

for books it considers quite smutty.

But too much raw stuff

can lead to rebuff --

her book may light Ms Wong's own suttee.

@xanalter

The King of Thailand

When I lived in Thailand you weren't allowed to own a thermometer. I guess they figured that if people could see how hot it really was each day they'd never go out and nothing would get done. Only the King of Thailand was allowed to have a thermometer, but he never told the people what the temperature was. And that's why he was so beloved. I don't think even the Queen knew what the real temperature was. She probably used to complain to the King "It's hotter than blazes today" and he'd probably respond "If you only knew!"

I don't have any thermometers in my apartment. I have two clocks; one on my microwave and a radio/clock in my bedroom. But no thermometers. Wait, I take that back. I've got a sort of thermometer in my bathroom. I got it at the thrift store for a dollar. It's actually a small framed photo called "Winter Idyll." It's a photo of a farmstead in the winter, probably up in New England. All the buildings are painted red and there's a split rail zigzag fence covered in snow in the foreground. On the side of the frame is a small glass thermometer. But since the thermometer has come unglued, it's slid down in its metal bands so the printed markings on each side of it don't make any sense. For instance, right now it reads 40 degrees Fahrenheit. But I'm in shorts and a t-shirt. Not cold at all. If I push the glass thermometer up to where the tip is even with the top of the markings, then it reads 70 degrees. Which is about right. I guess I could glue the thermometer in place, but really who cares what the temp is in the bathroom? I bought it just for the photo, but now it really doesn't fit the decor anymore. I'm moving into a tropical seaside motif, so I'll probably toss it. For historical purposes, and to set the record straight, if it ever needs straightening, the small framed winter photo has "Broadmoor Cleaners. We own our own plant" printed on the bottom of the light brown frame. It gives an address, too: "4116 E. Madison Street. Seattle 2, Wash."    And a phone number, of sorts: EAst 4-1313. I googled the company name with the address, but the place apparently is long gone. Cum ludus Tiberes, as the ancient Romans would say.

In high school real thermometers held a deadly fascination for me. That's because in the science lab we had several expensive thermometers with real silver-colored mercury in them, not that cheap red alcohol that most thermometers use. One of the thermometers cracked one day, and the mercury leaked out onto a metal tray. When no one was looking I tipped the tray to one side and poured the mercury into a glass test tube, which I stoppered and put in my pocket. At home I uncorked it on the cheap oilcloth of our kitchen table and pushed the silver beads around with my fingers, fascinated by how they would break apart and then recombine in a seemingly random sequence. After a while the mercury picked up the dirt and crumbs on the oilcloth, so I herded most of it back into the test tube. Some of it fell on the floor. I left it there. I figured my mom would clean it up. A few days later, when my mercury stash was really getting filthy from me rolling it around all the time, I decided to break another one of the science lab thermometers to get some fresh mercury. I took better care of that second batch -- did you know that mercury is not water soluble? It adheres together and you can make it act like a blob monster by jiggling the container a bit. It rises up, then settles back down again, glittering in a sinister manner. I tried doing the same thing in some rubbing alcohol I took out of our medicine chest, but the mercury dissolved. It gave off stinging fumes, too. That's when I learned from one of our science teachers at high school, who, I think, suspected me of stealing the mercury in the first place, that mercury poisoning is a real bad thing. It's what drove the Mad Hatter mad in Alice in Wonderland. After I found that out I dumped all the mercury I had into the garbage at home, and prayed that I wasn't going to start sounding like Ed Wynn. 

It occurs to me that I should go around and say to complete strangers: "Pardon me, but do you know what the temperature is?" Chances are they will glance at their wristwatch out of habit, then do a double take, and finally tell me to get lost. I'll probably never actually do it, although I certainly would do it if I was with the right set of friends, but nowadays I'm never with the right set of friends, the old friends I had when I worked for the circus. Back then we had some great times playing goofballs wherever we happened to be. One of my pals fell all the way down the grand staircase at Radio City Music Hall in New York on purpose, just for laughs. All those kind of friends are gone, gone, gone. Now I'm stuck with college professors and middle management types and guys getting laid off from their long time jobs. I live in a seniors housing complex full of old ladies who sit in the lobby and suck on their dentures. They're all nice enough, I guess, but they'd never stick french fries up their nose like my old friends would. Just for a laugh. Maybe I'll buy a scientific thermometer on Amazon and crack it open for the mercury, just so I can go a little Mad Hatter crazy. Or I could team up with George Clooney and Brad Pitt to plan a caper to heist the King of Thailand's thermometer . . .  
  

Thine ear, O Lord, bow down to me

"Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me; for I am poor and needy."
Psalms 86:1

Thine ear, O Lord, bow down to me,

and hear my plaints most earnestly.

I rise betimes to earn my bread

but poverty has been my stead.

My brow is dripping with salt sweat

yet all my days I am in debt.

Come swiftly to my aid, I plead,

thou only knowest all my need.

In thee I'll trust and lay my hand

in thine to reach the promised land!

Verses from Stories in Today's Washington Post -- A Mexico mayor failed to fix roads as promised, so angry townspeople dragged him through the streets -- ‘At a certain point, you just lose it:’ Passengers revolt and riot aboard Norwegian Spirit cruise ship -- The famously secluded Amish are the target of a Republican campaign to drum up Pennsylvania votes for Trump.

When public officials refuse

to listen to citizen's views,

ignoring their will

will serve them but ill --

they're dragged off right out of their shoes.

@lateshiabeachum

********************************************************

When passengers mutiny use

to protest a captain's abuse,

the crew shouldn't spank

or say 'Walk the plank!' --

Instead they should just serve more booze.

@hannahbsampson

*****************************************

The Amish conservative be.

They don't even watch the TV.

The bribe of a goat

may get one to vote --

but he would be shunned by decree.

@JulieZauzmer

The Chinese are so Polite.

I went to China for a bottle of powdered pangolin horn, because I had been feeling lopsided of late and it was affecting my business. I refurbish fountain pens. 
So I landed in Shanghai and took a green bus way out into the country, per directions, and found an old man in a hovel surrounded by a pig sty. He was grinding away with a mortar and pestle, and whatever he was smooshing up did not have a reassuring aroma; it reeked of nettles fried in rancid tallow. I gave him the slip of paper with Chinese characters on it that my contact in Shanghai had given me, and five thousand American dollars. He smiled and bowed, then went into the back of his hovel and returned with a small blue bottle. He indicated, using pantomime, that I should mix a spoonful of the powder in a glass of water each day and drink it down in one gulp. Then he bowed again and ushered me out past the rooting pigs to the road, where I only had to wait ten minutes for a bus to pick me up and take me back into Shanghai, right to the door of my hotel. It was very convenient. I took a dose of the powder and went to bed, feeling more level already.
The next morning I went down to the business office they have reserved for tourists and went online. Out of some perverse curiosity I looked up pangolins and discovered they do not have horns -- only scales. I was livid at such deceit practiced on me, and at the loss of five thousand yankee dollars, too! I went to the hotel manager to ask where to go to complain about this scam.
He seemed genuinely concerned about my predicament and directed me to go across the street to a building that had some English on it reading Ministry of Conflict Resolution. 
I didn't have to cool my heels at all -- the minute I walked into the place a polite young woman led me into a nicely furnished office where a distinguished gentleman behind a mahogany desk arose at my entrance, came around the desk to shake my hand enthusiastically, and invited me to sit in a red leather chair that somehow fit the contours of my back perfectly. He offered me a Tic Tac wrapped in gold leaf, which I politely declined, and then told him my story.
He became very indignant as I talked, and by the end of my tale he was weeping with rage and embarrassment. 
"To think that such an outrage should be committed upon one of our dear comrades from the United States!" he wailed, pulling out thatches of his thick black hair. "I will have it attended to at once!"
Saying which, he catapulted out of the room and was back in a minute with a bundle of American greenbacks.
"Please accept this small token of our sincere regret at your tragedy" he said, handing me the money. It was over ten thousand dollars, but when I protested that it was way too much he held up his hand to silence me and said I must take it to redeem the honor of the People's Republic of China. I wasn't going to argue with ten thousand dollars, so I pocketed it, shook his hand with enthusiasm, and went back to my hotel. I ordered two dozen different kinds of dumplings from room service and made a pig of myself. 
The next day I went down to the hotel gift shop to find something for my receptionist back at the fountain pen refurbishing shop. I was feeling much better, walking as straight as a razor. I looked at jade-ribbed fans, a box of chocolate-covered locusts, and a mechanical box with a key in it -- when you wound up the key and set the box down it did absolutely nothing. I thought that was pretty funny, so I bought it for Margie back home. She'd get a kick out of it. 
I decided to have a broiled steak wrapped in tea leaves for lunch, but before I could order the man from the Conflict Resolution Ministry shimmered up to my table, gave a deep bow, and asked if I would like to meet Xi Jinping, who was landing by helicopter on top of the hotel right then and there. I said sure, so we took the elevator up to the roof just in time to watch the copter set down. Mr. Jinping bounced out of it, jabbered with my Ministry friend in Chinese for a moment, and then enthusiastically shook my hand.
"Please tell the American people, when you get home, that we think very highly of their Bingo religion and Ms. Betty Crocker" he said with a big smile. I thanked him for his kind sentiments and said that the American people would like to see China take glorious flight like a big red dragon. Hey, what was I supposed to say? I'm no diplomat.
He bowed low to me, so I bowed low to him. He got back in the copter and took off.
"Where's he going now?" I asked my Ministry friend.
"Oh, he just flies all over the country like that all the time, just to shake hands and say good things to good people" he replied. Then he bowed low to me, so I bowed low to him, and he escorted me back to my room. I was now too excited to eat a broiled steak wrapped in tea leaves. So I ordered dumplings again from room service. 
The next day I boarded my flight back home without incident, but when I got to the shop I was in for a terrific shock. Margie had quit in my absence and gone to work as a Bic ball point pen distributor. 
I just couldn't understand her treachery. It made me wish I could go back to live in China, where everybody is so nice and kind. 

Prehistoric Parents Used Baby Bottles Made of Pottery. (NYT) @jimgorman

I was at home, reading chicken entrails, when the Ceramic Revolution finally arrived in our town. One minute I was quietly piecing together the future from the liver and lights of a stewing hen, and the next minute people were running down the street yelling at the top of their lungs. I went out to see what all the racket was about, but no one would stop until a young woman actually ran up to me to plant a big kiss on my lips.
"Isn't it wonderful?" she exclaimed. "The tyranny of metal is over! We're all going back to ceramics!" Then she continued running on down the street, freely giving out kisses to complete strangers in a very promiscuous fashion.
I had heard rumors about the growing revulsion to metal by certain groups and creeds. Several state governors and a handful of senators had been elected on an anti-metal/pro-ceramic platform -- but I thought it was just another Luddite fad that would fade with time. 
That shows how little I knew of the modern world and its discontents. Apparently open pit mines, the ore itself, and the smelting process were the real culprits in global warming, leaving behind a gigantic and poisonous footprint that led to the extinction of many species of animal and plant life -- such as kangaroos and edelweiss. 
Such, at least, was the information I was forced to memorize from a pamphlet brought to my door later that week by a policeman.
"Read this thoroughly and get it memorized" he told me sternly. "There will be pop quizzes throughout the next two months to make sure you understand the blessings of the Ceramic Revolution."
I and my neighbors were forced to turn in our metal utensils, our metal toasters and microwaves, and even our metal belt buckles, to a reclamation center -- where we were issued ceramic knives and forks and spoons and such like things to take back home. You ever try to carve a roast with a ceramic knife? Not a pretty sight. 
Next they came for our metal cars. Now that wasn't so bad, really. The young people who knocked on my door were singing and laughing. I thought I recognized the young lady who had planted such a big smack on my lips, and was hoping she'd give me another one. She didn't -- but she held my hand for a long moment, squeezing it with emotion as she gave me a beatific smile. And in return for our metal cars we got small ceramic cars that looked like Cinderella's carriage on the night of the ball. I have no idea what they ran on, and you could only do twenty miles an hour top speed, but since everyone else had the same limitations there was hardly any confusion or hard feelings. Of course, fender benders could be quite grisly. I saw one where the parties involved were sliced to ribbons by the shattered ceramic shards of their own vehicles. 
Mothers were issued ceramic baby bottles. Terracotta guns and rifles were everywhere, firing clay bullets. Kilns popped overnight like mushrooms after a rain shower.
Up in Canada they didn't have a Ceramic Revolution. They had a Wood Revolution. Everything had to be made out of wood, not metal nor glass nor plastic nor ceramics. 
And just as I feared (and as the chicken intestines had foretold)  a few years later Canada declared war on the United States, invading with wooden rifles and pitchforks. We fought back gallantly with our ceramic bazookas and china missiles, but in the end Wood  proved mightier than Pottery, and all the enthusiastic young people who had given the Ceramic Revolution such pizazz  were rounded up and sent to concentration camps in the Yukon. Most were never heard from again. Us older folks, considered harmless and pretty useless, were issued wooden bowls and spoons and told to go forage for our own food and drink wherever we wanted. Our homes were commandeered for lumberjacks and whittlers. 
I myself managed to weather the chaos better than most of my contemporaries. That's because I know how to turn out hardwood toothpicks by the hundreds to sell on the black market. So I didn't starve, and the authorities looked the other way as long as I greased their palms with a few exotic bamboo samples. In times like these it's every man for himself, and devil take the splinters . . .    

The Promenade.

We love to look down on other people, and we love it even more when they look up at us. The architect Morris Lapidus understood this when he designed the grand staircase of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. He called it the “Stairs to Nowhere” because they led only to a coat closet, where the beautiful people could leave their jackets and then swan down the stairs, catching the eye of everyone below.

Sixty-five years later, the new stairs-to-nowhere are “stepped seating” — though it may look like the thing in high school you called “bleachers” — and it’s become one of the most Instagrammable and possibly the most overused architectural features of the decade.

(Maura Judkis, writing in the Washington Post)

"This Promenade doesn't go anywhere" the man next to me complained, as we walked past a field of young tea bushes on fire but never being consumed. The smell was very pleasant. 

"Why should it go anywhere at all?" I asked languidly. I enjoyed strolling on the Promenade; I had been doing it for many years.  "We're all here just to see and be seen. And you, my good man, are not quite the thing -- not with your mussed hair, rumpled yellow shirt, fanny pack, and brown shoes!"

He gazed at me in alarm, then dropped behind me -- muttering, no doubt, so I wouldn't hear him: "He looks like butter but tastes like margarine."

I continued to walk at a leisurely pace, unperturbed at the man's lack of dash and form. You meet many kinds on the Promenade, and not all of them are of a glamorous or interesting nature. 

Just ahead of me I spotted an old man, very distinguished looking. His hoary locks and furrowed brow told me of a great intellect long at work on some worthy project, so I nimbly came up to his right side and told him good day.

"Good day to you, as well" he replied, chewing on his lower lip.

"May I inquire what you are thinking about?" I asked him after a while.

"Not at all. I am a sculptor who has ransacked the worlds, looking for just the right substance in which to carve my first work" he replied pleasantly, readjusting his maroon beret.

"Ah, an artist! How I honor the creation of beauty" I told him sincerely. We stopped briefly to watch an iceberg sail majestically overhead.

"You do not wish to use marble or some other noble stone?" I quizzed him.

"No. I must have an unconditionally unique medium to carve -- one that has never been used before" he told me firmly. "I am waiting for scientists to create an absolutely brand new element, one that I can carve into a vision of esteemed elegance. Until then, I walk on the Promenade. Just walk and plan . . . "

I bowed to him slightly, then sped up to overtake a group of women blowing on cardboard tubes. They pursed their lips as they blew to simulate some kind of musical sound -- the result was not repulsive, especially since they dressed in blue culotte pants with loose white blouses tied at the waist. I stayed with them for a long time, learning their strange language and teaching them how to whistle. 

At the fifth crumbling of the moon we ran across a troupe of acrobats. My girls, as I thought of them by then, immediately abandoned their cardboard tubes and began learning to tumble and leap high in the air. I saw there was no longer any place for me in their lives, so whistling a gay tune I strolled away from them down the wide Promenade and then stopped to admire myself in a looking glass mounted on the backs of armadillos. That is when a young man on a skateboard crashed into me, causing my Malacca walking stick to snap in half.

"Help, police!" I cried desperately. "There's a madman on a skateboard over here!" No form of transportation other than shanks mare is allowed on the Promenade. Ever. 

The Promenade Police did their usual admirable job of nabbing the culprit immediately, and I had the pleasure of watching them escort the defiantly grinning malefactor off to the Manufactory -- where he would be turned into a wind chime.

Adjusting my cravat, I continued on my eternal round to nowhere with the comely and divine crowd . . .  

Six wild elephants fell over a treacherous waterfall in Thailand and died after one of the herd, a 3-year-old, was swept away by the river and the others tried to save it, national park officials said on Sunday. (NYT)

It's difficult writing about elephants, because you need a permit to do so. And getting an elephant writing permit is no easy thing.
I went down to the Elephant Writing Permit Bureau last week, because I wanted to write something about elephants for my blog. You don't mess around with these people, not even online. If you don't get a permit they can come into your home and garnish your cheeses and meats. They can also have your car towed away and embarrass you at work by making you wear a bucket hat. They are serious people.
So first of all I had to wait in an outer office for three hours, just to get into an inner office to register for a Permit interview. After I registered (which costs twenty dollars, by the way) I was told to wait in Room 21 down the hallway. The clerk said this in such a peculiar way, his eyebrows raised and his pencil tapping nervously on the counter, that I asked if there was something about Room 21 that I should know.
"Well . . . " he began, looking around to make sure we were alone, "Room 21 is usually where they send the troublemakers. I had orders to send you there the minute you walked in -- have you been sticking your nose where it doesn't belong or anything?"
"Not I" I affirmed. "I just want to write about cute baby elephants on my blog, which doesn't even have much of a following. It's more of a hobby than anything else." 
He shook his head. 
"Well, it looks bad for you. Here's my advice -- tell the interviewer you really don't want to write about elephants at all. You just need permission to mention elephants while you rip members of Congress a new one. They may let you have a permit that way."
I followed his advice down in Room 21 and it worked like a charm. My interviewer, a withered old hag who could no longer even get her alarming red lipstick on straight, nodded her head in approval and stamped my Permit with a loud 'clang!' 
Then I went home and wrote my blog about cute baby elephants. I had barely pushed 'Publish' when there was a thunderous knocking on my front door. I answered it to find the old hag, her lipstick even more smeared than before, glaring at me. She stabbed me with a bony forefinger.
"You didn't attack Congress!" she snarled at me. "I'm revoking your permit and placing you on the Do Not Save From Zombies list!" As she walked down the front porch steps I noticed that one of her nylon stockings was falling down and that she wore a prosthetic. 
This was looking bad, so I applied for asylum to Norway. I talked to their ambassador a week ago and she is finding me a houseboat in Trondheim, where I can write my blogs in peace.
Of course in Norway you have to get a permit to write about walruses. But who ever writes about those big blubbery things? 

@RCPaddock  @bonimygi

The Magic Tackle Box

A guy went by playing a theremin in his motorboat while I was fishing on the riverbank, so I knew things were going to get strange. And they did. I caught a big perch, using canned corn for bait, and was about to smash it against a rock, since perch are too bony to fillet, when it began to plead for its life.
"Please don't kill me!" it said to me, clear as a bell.
"Why not?" I asked calmly.
"Oh, I can grant you three wishes if you spare my life!" it replied.
"No thanks. That three wishes gag never turns out good in stories, so it's a no sale" I replied as I lifted it up.
"Wait! Wait!" it screamed at me, its bulging eyes bulging even more. "I will get you anything you want. Anything! Just name it! I'm a powerful river perch, and I've got lots of connections." 
"Oh yeah?" I said, laying it down on the ground. "Well, there's not much I really want or need. I have achieved a modest but peaceful equilibrium in my life already. You, pal, are just a disturbance in the happy flow of my existence." I like to wax philosophical at times.
"Surely there is something you desire, something you have dreamed about?" it said anxiously to me, rolling its dead-looking eyes. Little did it know I had already decided to throw it back in the water to let someone else have the pleasure of catching it and arguing with it. Beating a screaming fish against a rock is not my idea of a good time.
"Well . . . " I considered. "My brother Billy used to have a big green tackle box with accordion shelves. I loved going through that thing, looking at all the lures and jigs and stuff. How about you get me a big ol' tackle box with lots of surprises in it -- and we'll call it square."
"Done!" cried the perch triumphantly, and up from the water by my feet rose a large Paris green tackle box. I fished it out, hefted it carefully, and tossed the talking perch back into the river.
Then I took my new tackle box back home and placed it on the work table in the basement. I gingerly opened it up and began pulling out the accordion trays; they were hinged together, so when you pulled one out you pulled out the entire side. Boy, was it loaded!  
There were latex worms in rainbow colors and a big dark green latex frog speckled all over in gray with a wicked hook sticking out of its belly. I could just imagine some old northern pike greedily sucking it in. I found an old hand-carved and hand-painted wooden minnow, segmented into three parts, with hooks dangling from its bottom like rows of deadly curved icicles on the eaves of a roof.  An orange plastic box held dozens of lead weights -- some as small as b-b shot and others shaped like pyramids and big enough almost to use as a paperweight. A jar of orange salmon eggs. Jigs gussied up with feathers and streamers and tin foil and bright colored beads. There was a slim silver whistle, engraved with the words "Sid's Canadian Fish Call." I blew on it; it made a sound like bubbles in an aquarium. 
And there was a Detroit phone book from 1942. The pages were brown and very brittle. It made for fascinating reading. I never saw so many strange names -- Wojcick, Kowalcyck, Svoboda, Nagy, Costaplente, Himmelfahrt. And there were ads for things like decoilers, crank discs, and wholesale rubber gaskets. I showed it to an old neighbor, who offered me ten dollars for it -- he grew up in Detroit. 
The next day, after work, I went down into my basement and opened up my wonderful tackle box again. This time I gloated over the spoon lures and casting lures. They were in such grand metallic hues that I felt like a king in his counting house, counting all his money. 
And there was a pimento loaf sandwich, on rye, wrapped in wax paper. I didn't hesitate a moment -- I ate it up to the last crumb with relish. Somehow, the wax paper gave it more flavor and panache than if it had been stuck in a mundane baggie.
My tackle box continued to amaze and please me for many more days. But one evening, with storm clouds rolling in and a sullen continuous thunder growling in the distance, I opened my tackle box to discover nothing but rust and cobwebs. As I was about to close it in dismay the perch I had saved at the river rose up out of the tackle box and hovered before me, with a fiendish look in its gelid eye.
"Hah!" it chortled at me. "You fool -- you have given me enough time to grow in my black magic arts -- and now I will summon my fish demons from their parallel realm to wreak havoc on your puny world! Soon I, and I alone, will rule this planet, and all will bow before me to lick my scales!"
I hate Indian givers -- especially when they smell like fish. So I grabbed the perch and beat its fishy brains out on my work table. I swept up the mess, buried it in the garden by the roses, and took the tackle box back to the river and threw it back in. 
The guy in the motorboat playing the theremin turned into shore near me to ask how the fishing was.
"Nothing but talking perch" I told him.
"This river has gone to the dogs ever since they put in that new coffer dam" he said in disgust, then motored away downstream. 

Rhymes from Stories in Today's Washington Post -- A man jumped from the bushes for a birthday surprise. His startled father-in-law fatally shot him. -- A teen pretended to be a cop. A real cop hauled him away. -- Trump takes vulgar swipe at Romney after senator criticizes president’s China, Ukraine appeals.

When jumping from bushes beware

your father-in-law you don't scare.

He might have a rod,

and send you to God,

without enough chance to prepare!

@britsham

**************************************************

There was a young man who did flop

when he tried to work as a cop.

An officer real

ignored his appeal

and tossed him into a sweatshop.

@lateshiabeachum

********************************************

When presidents want to be crude

they pick on an LDS prude.

So Romney gets cursed

by Trump at his worst --

knowing he'll never be sued.

@ColbyItkowitz

"There must be better ways to kill time . . . "