The foolishness of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians  1:25

In this world of fun house mirrors,

full of windbags and of sneerers,

many think of God as weak;

that his wisdom none need seek.

Lowly as his sheep may seem,

captives of a peaceful dream,

he does lead them constantly

to amazing victory.

Doubters never can perceive

what believers can achieve;

unprepared, they must subside

when the Lord has turned the tide.

Verses from Today's Washington Post. ** A drunk man broke into her house. This 82-year-old bodybuilder ‘did a number’ on him, she says. ** Mired in trench warfare, Trump makes up poll numbers that show him winning handily. ** Mike Bloomberg just stabbed the journalistic heart of his news organization.

@kemettler

Ber-ger-lers, I warn you fair:

Don't break into my house and glare.

I ain't afeard of any creep

who thinks that he can make me weep.

Step one foot in, my foolish friend,

and you are bound to meet your end.

I'll bat you with my walking aid;

then smother you with some brocade.

My dentures will bite off your nose;

with prune juice I will douse your clothes.

And when you're down and out I'll tip

into you Super Poligrip.

So beat it, punk -- or you may be

subject to colonoscopy.

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

@pbump

No one figures polls are real,

despite apparent mass appeal.

So if the Prez decides to fudge,

who are we to really judge?

My polls show a steady trend

for candidates to all pretend.

A grain of salt will not suffice

to balance statements imprecise.

He who steals a poll steals trash,

not worth an ounce of balderdash.

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

@Sulliview

Bloomberg has more writers than

bed sheets at the Ku Klux Klan.

They've been told to choke their pens

when it comes to Mike and friends.

His reporters who rebel

and the truth attempt to tell

will find pink slips raining down

like confetti on a clown . . .

Postcards to my President.

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest.

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest . . . 

Ecclesiastes 9:9

Is there any greater cheer

than to have a wife that's near?

Near when trials come your way.

Near when sorrow wants to stay.

Near to celebrate relief.

Near when life is growing brief.

Marry young and then stay hitched,

if you want a life enriched.

Bachelors may think they're smart --

but we hide a broken heart.

My Grandfather's Beanbags.

My grandfather collected a complete set of 1899 beanbags, and our family still cherishes them.
He got them at the Columbian International Exposition in Cleveland when he was a boy -- or, actually, I think it was his father, my great grandfather, who got them when he was a young man courting Eleanor Roosevelt; when she threw him over for FDR he spent his entire fortune on the beanbags as a gesture of romantic despair. 
Grandfather, I guess, must have inherited them, being the oldest male child in the family at the time. Back in those benighted days the country was firmly in the hands of patriarchs and facial hair. A man who couldn't grow a mustache or learn how to treat women with a supercilious air was considered a traitor to the cause, and often sent overseas to eat German offal with sauerkraut until he developed some backbone. Horrible times; I'm glad I didn't live back then.
What I do know for sure about the provenance of those 1899 beanbags is that Grandfather threw them, one at a time, at J. Pierpont Morgan, back in 1931, just as Morgan was going into Congress to testify about the deepening Depression. One of the bags knocked off Morgan's black silk top hat, and another one hit him square in the beezer -- which eventually led to Morgan's death several years later from a nose clot. 
Grandfather was consequently arrested, tried, and convicted of assault with a deadly packet, and sentenced to ten years on Bloody Island, in the middle of the Mississippi River. The island soon washed away, all but several juniper bushes, and grandfather cut one of those bushes with his penknife and escaped downriver in the middle of the night.  Subsequently he refused to ever go near the Mississippi River for any reason, claiming that the bloodhounds were still tracking him along the river banks on both sides.

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

Having spent some time in the Tilden Reserve Library after my catarrh relapse, studying the history of American beanbags, I can assert with complete confidence that grandfather's set was manufactured by Wyotte and Sons of New Haven just prior to the Spanish American War. The packet material is watered silk imported from Assam, hand-stitched together with hammock-grade jute fibers. And -- interesting fact! -- there are no 'beans' in those beanbags; each pouch is filled with yellow split peas, especially grown and harvested only for Wyotte and Sons from a bonanza farm in North Dakota. 
In the late nineteenth century most middle class families in America aspired to have at least one set of quality beanbags, like those manufactured by Wyotte and Sons. Not only were they highly ornamental when arranged on the parlor mantel, but they were essential for playing such standard family games as 'Cripple the Old Lady' and 'Waffles or Rats?' In a pinch, they could be dropped into the family stew pot to stretch out a meal when company dropped by unexpectedly at dinnertime.
Of course during World War Two most beanbags were requisitioned by the Army but grandfather was able to wangle a waiver for his beanbags, due to their lack of iodine. The set of six beanbags spent the war years on display in a glass cabinet in the lobby of AT&T's Atlanta headquarters -- in Jackson, Mississippi. Grandfather was employed by AT&T at the time as a crop duster and sub rosa factotum. He later bought the company and split it into bodegas.
As a very young child I remember being allowed to handle the beanbags while I sat on my grandfather's vestibule. They felt glossy and weevily. And they smelled of platitudinous vanilla. I felt a special bond with them, and with my grandfather -- made all the more poignant during the Butcher Rebellion, when he and I were trapped inside a Woolworths store on the outskirts of Lancashire. When the Vegans finally rescued us, he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said: "Surrender only to your passions, never to your enemies!"
 The beanbags are currently on loan to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. For tax purposes the family formed the Beanbag Charitable Trust several years ago, to handle the handling of the beanbags, with my father as Chairman. 
Grandfather, sadly, passed away last year from severe anthracnose. The family discussed burying the beanbags with him, but it was decided he would wish to share them with the world and not hide them in a crypt. Besides, his will stated he was to be buried with his entire desk blotter collection, amounting to over twenty thousand specimens, and there would not have been room for the beanbags anyways. Elon Musk has offered to place them permanently in orbit for us, and the family consensus seems to be to let him try it. 

As a little child

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
Mark 10:15

The bright shiny faith of a child is sublime;

it leaps over barriers, outfaces time.

Such innocent spirits, without any guile,

cause the Lord Jesus to weep and to smile.

I too must regain all that fine artless glee,

else Heaven remains naught but dim fantasy!

Verses from Today's New York Times. ** Juul Says Its Focus Was Smokers, but It Targeted Young Nonsmokers. ** Picassos in the Garage? Artist’s Handyman Is Convicted of Hiding Stolen Works. ** Afghan Vote Crawls Toward Crisis, With No Results After 2 Months.

@julie_creswell  @BySheilaKaplan

Vice is always guaranteed

profit margins large to breed.

And it doesn't hurt that Juul

knows each youngster is a fool,

willing to try anything

just to see what it will bring.

Juul may say they're innocent

as they charge a huge rack rent,

but someday a judge will flag

all their crimes with fines that gag.

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

@ElianPeltier

Sticky fingers had Pierre;

he nabbed Picassos without care.

But when he tried to sell 'em cheap,

the judge called him a darn black sheep.

Too old to go to jail, Pierre

wished there was more laissez faire. 

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

@MujMash

Stealing votes or gutting same

is an old Afghani game.

Rigged elections don't upset

those who yet more power get.

In Kabul democracy

can't defeat hypocrisy.

Not like in the USA --

where our votes we throw away

on buffoons, completely free

of restraint (and sanity.)

Verses from Today's Washington Post. ** Ivanka Trump cited de Tocqueville to condemn impeachment. The quote wasn’t his. ** Fred Cox, former Vikings kicker and Nerf football co-inventor, dies at 80. ** Don’t eat romaine lettuce from California’s Salinas Valley, CDC warns.

@KaylaEpstein

Anyone can quote things wrong,

from a book or from a song.

Even White House daughters err,

though they might be doctrinaire.

Tocqueville, being French, I bet

forgives her cuz she is brunette . . . 

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

@DesBieler

All the world's a Nerf, they say,

and we upon its foam do play.

Whether football or a dart,

eventually it falls apart.

And when a man has lost his Nerf,

they bury him beneath the turf . . . 

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

@bylenasun

My mother said that I should eat

raw veggies to stay strong and fleet.

But now I turn around to find

raw vegetables have been maligned.

They get infected with rough germs

or harbor parasitic worms.

On beer and pretzels I survive;

I'm drunk and fat -- but still alive!

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Numbers 6: 24 - 26.

Blessings from the Lord of Hosts

far surpass the idle boasts

of the arm of flesh, therefore

let us praise forevermore

the countenance of God alone

who gives us peace in heart and bone.

His face shall shine o'er all mankind

to heal our hurts and mend the blind.

O Lord, please keep us safe within

they tender gaze, and free from sin! 

Postcards to My President.