Tim Torkildson's Clown Alley

Friday, December 13, 2019

Postcards to My President. Vol. 10

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Verses from stories by Hiroko Tabuchi, Michael Powell, and John Wagner.

Hiroko Tabuchi

METHANE GAS LEAKS IMPERIL THE PLANET

@HirokoTabuchi

The oil fields in west Texas,

leaking methane all the time,

are committing sabotage

and greenhouse gassing crime.

But regulations are too loose,

and bureaucrats don't care

that escaping methane

is polluting all the air.

With lobbyists in Congress

(where there's plenty gas already)

chances of reversal

are pretty doggone thready.

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

BUILD A BETTER FOOTBALL HELMET

AND THERE'S STILL BRAIN DAMAGE.

@powellnyt

Football is Big Bizness, and the players make good bread.

Too bad all that money can't repair a broken head.

Concussions, inflammation -- that's a player's pension plan.

He'll spend his golden years just waiting for a new CAT scan.

Spectators don't realize (or else don't want to know)

that football's more traumatic than old Larry, Curly, Moe.

I advise all players to protect their own soft goods

and still make money with a game of golf like Tiger Woods.

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

TRUMP BULLIES 16 YEAR OLD GRETA THUNBERG

VIA TWITTER.

@WPJohnWagner

If Donald Trump must waste his time

with hazing adolescents

I think it's time we all agree

to his true obsolescence.

Never mind impeachment trials

or other programs pale;

give him tar and feathers

and then ride him on a rail . . .

A covenant woman

Henry B. Eyring

"Becoming a covenant woman in partnership with God is how great and good daughters of God have always mothered, led, and ministered."

Henry B. Eyring

No man can lead a nation, or a fam'ly, or his own life,

without trustworthy, faithful, help from his own loving wife.

A man, for all his boasting and adventuring abroad,

is kept in line by covenants his wife has made with God.

I wish I had stayed married, so my helpmate pure and true

could help me in these lonely years my foibles to subdue.

Oh women of the covenant, remember that we men

need you like like good chili needs a seasoning of cayenne.

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Begin a new life in Christ

Dale G. Renlund

"God invites us to cast our old ways completely out of reach and begin a new life in Christ."

Dale G. Renlund

I'm always very lavish

when I give away my sins;

I've got so many of 'em

that I keep 'em in large bins.

I hope the Lord is patient

as I toss 'em far away,

cuz sometimes they creep back

and beg for room in which to stay.

And so I kick them out again,

and drown 'em good and deep,

and pray that virtue constantly

into my life can seep!

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Verses from stories by Christine Hauser, JoAnna Klein, and Chris Mooney

Christine Hauser

SOMEONE IS PUTTING COWBOY HATS

ON PIGEONS IN LAS VEGAS.

@christineNYT

We don't know who, we don't know why,

perhaps they drop out of the the sky;

but pigeons wearing cowboy hats

are strutting 'round like big fat cats.

The heavy rollers stop and stare;

the mob enforcers turn to prayer.

The cops don't see a broken law;

perhaps it's artwork gone Dada.

If I saw pigeons with a Stetson

I'd fly away like old George Jetson!

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

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER SPONGES SIP

SUGAR FROM THE OCEAN

@nonojojo

A sponge don't have to wear a shirt

or a necktie while inert.

Perched on coral reefs, this blob

has an awful easy job;

sipping sugar from debris

that the ocean gives it free.

Freeloading from dawn to dusk,

it has neither feet nor tusk.

No eyeballs and not an ear

to discover danger near.

But then, who'd want to eat a sponge?

A goat would not dare take that plunge!

Nothing causes it distraction

from its diligent inaction.

When one dies, I guess it goes

off to Congress -- there to doze.

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

GREENLAND IS MELTING

@chriscmooney

Like a summer ice cream cone

Greenland's melting to the bone.

All its ice is headed for

someplace on the ocean floor.

Soon the place will be as bare

as a baby's derriere.

Tides grow higher, flooding breeds

houses high on stilts and reeds.

Forget those snowballs down in hell;

the ones in Greenland aren't too well!

The Priesthood

President Russell M. Nelson

"How I yearn for you to understand that the restoration of the priesthood is just as relevant to you as a woman as it is to any man."

President Russell M. Nelson

When God restored the priesthood

upon men on earth today,

He meant that it should bless us all,

in ev'ry sort of way.

A power that parts oceans

in the hands of righteous men,

flows into a woman when

she guides her own children.

The money shot of miracles

that gets publicity

is less important to the Lord

than sweet fidelity

that comes especial strong

from all the women of the world --

without their love and charity

priesthood power will stay furled.

Monday, December 9, 2019

A poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

My grandmother used to buck me up, after some terrible childhood tragedy like dropping an ice cream cone on the sidewalk, by saying "Well, it's better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick."

I guess the calico patch she wore over her left eye gave her the right to use that expression; she obviously had some experience in the matter.

But as I grew older I noticed there were more and more people using that expression, and not in a kindly, grandmotherly, or comforting fashion. More in a literal, threatening way.

As a teenager I went to work in a textbook store near the University campus. My job was to use a rubber mallet to bang apart metal snap-together shelves and store them in the back room until they were needed at the beginning of the next semester. It was dull, clanging, work, so sometimes I would step out into the alley to eat a pomegranate. My boss, who had a wart on his neck that he called his head, caught me at it one time and immediately began whittling a wooden dowel into a sharp stick.

"We'll see if eating a pomegranate on MY time is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" he muttered maniacally as he shaved the dowel. I didn't bother to stick around, or ask for my last paycheck. I got on my bike and pedaled away to a Wheeler & Woolsey film festival being held at the Varsity Theater in Dinky Town. They were no Laurel & Hardy, but at least they never poked each other in the eyes with anything more pointy than a banana.

Every spring the Spinifex came to town, telling fortunes and mending clothes pins. I fell in love with one of their young women, named Wilta, on a soft May night. We held hands and gazed at the gibbering moon -- which I afterwards learned should have been gibbous, not gibbering -- and I promised to join her tribe in its mysterious wanderings. The next day I showed up at their camp with my portmanteau packed with baseball cards and dozens of ketchup packets. But before I could become a member of the tribe I was informed I had to be initiated into the rituals of their Sharp Stick Dance.
I kicked Wilta goodbye and never looked back, until I was in the next county.

For a few years I was free from sharp and pointy sticks. I managed to marry and raise a family, until one dark day an old lady showed up on the front lawn, waving a sharp stick in the air and cackling like something out of Macbeth. I shooed her away, but in a few hours she was back with six more old crones, each waving a sharp stick and chanting in unison "Poke! Poke! Poke!"

I put on my snorkel and went out to confront them.

They chased me down the street so fast and so far that I never had the chance to say goodbye to my wife and kids. Or our pet rabbit. A belated farewell . . . my little bunny Foo-Foo . . .

As I wandered from town to town, doing odd jobs to keep body and soul together, I remembered that Robinson Crusoe had poked sharp sticks into the ground on his desert island, and then watched them grow into fruit trees. I began to obsess about sharp sticks being poked into my eye in order to start a mango plantation. It got to the point where I couldn't keep a regular odd job anymore, and was forced to humiliate myself by managing a hedge fund.
I prefer to forget those desperate times . . .

What I've learned is that there are sharp sticks everywhere in life. In closets; in bowling alleys; in museums; in factories, warehouses, and especially offices; on Wall Street; and even in the United States Botanic Garden. And they are all aimed at one of my eyes.

So I got in the habit of carrying my own sharp stick. It was very effective. Whenever someone came up to me asking if I knew anything better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick, I simply showed them my sharpened Popsicle stick, and they backed off. After several dozen people asked me how to make one themselves I realized this was an entrepreneurial bonanza. I started my own online pointy Popsicle stick company, called Popstickineye.com, and was recently featured on the cover of The Financial Times. Our first dividend was a quarter million dollars. Now I'm branching out, having funded Stickitwherethesundontshine.com last month with the backing of the Doug Collins Investment Group.

Oh, and I lied -- I did find my wife and kids again; they were living in Tampa, and had traded little bunny Foo-Foo for a pair of gerbils. Feeling betrayed, I gave them each a sharp Popsicle stick and left them to their own devices.