A Most Precious Land

And may the Lord consecrate also unto thee this land, which is a most precious land . . .
2 Nephi 3:2

On this consecrated ground, preserved by Deity,

I struggle to possess my soul in perfect harmony.

I'm pulled by innuendo and the falsehoods of great men;

I'm pushed into a corner like a child in a playpen.

I know this land is precious, for the Lord has made it so --

I yearn to keep it treasured and protected from skid row.

Please give me strength, O Lord of Hosts, to battle ever on

until I've conquered all my doubts and see in thee the dawn!

The Feather Merchants

I come from a long line of feather merchants.
My name is David Camoes.
We have always dealt in feathers. One way or another.
One of my ancestors invented the quill pen while imprisoned in a grotto for lese majeste against Charlemagne. That same ancestor lost the use of his left eye during the Albigensian Crusade. Ironically, he came to find out that the fletching on the arrow that took his eye out came from his own stock of goose feathers sold to an armorer years before.

In the Armenian culture a 'feather merchant' was someone untrustworthy and flighty. In Bohemia during the Reformation feather merchants were often soaked in brine and left out to pucker during the harsh winter. Feather merchants were forbidden to enter Peiping in Imperial China, on penalty of death by mongoose.      But the first Prince of Rus, Svalbarg the Beardless, kept at least one feather merchant by his side at all times as a trusted counselor, and fed them fish roe and musk ox tongue.

My great great grandfather, Charles Camoes, came to America in 1884, on board the S.S. Josiah Nitt, accompanying a large shipment of Guinea fowl feathers destined for the International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington DC. While getting his boots blacked outside an oyster bar on the shores of the Potomac, he spotted Ysibel Minx-Vaux -- the daughter of the French ambassador. Like many a young man before and after him, Charles lost his heart at first sight and found it again several months later when he married Ysibel on the island of Goree -- where he was pursuing the plumage concession for the Senegal coucal. The coucal's feathers were mixed with certain types of seaweed to make artificial guano, which was much in demand as a fertilizer and in manufacturing munitions prior to World War One.
Sadly, shortly after obtaining the plumage concession Charles came down with Blackwater Fever. He lingered for nearly two years before succumbing, leaving his grieving wife Ysibel a widow with twin boys. She was inveigled into selling the valuable coucal concession for next to nothing to a scheming Parisian upstart in the feather trade, Georges Clemenceau, and used her meager funds to return to America -- which she rightly concluded would be a Land of Opportunity for her little twins -- Alphonse and Michael.
Settling in New York City, Ysibel quickly displayed a mastery of feathership that astounded her male competitors, who for the most part were content to sit in their offices and natter away about the price of eider down for pillows. Ysibel convinced the famous entertainer Eva Tanguay to load her broad-brimmed hats with stuffed pheasants, coots, and lyre birds, with their rainbow feathers, for a boisterous theatrical effect -- which soon caught on around the world. No woman who considered herself a part of the bourgeoisie dared to leave her home without at least a dozen passenger pigeon or rusty tinamou feathers protruding from the crown of her floppy chapeau. And Ysibel was the one providing all that fashionable plumage from her little shop on Eighth Avenue.   
Perhaps it is as well to interrupt my narrative here to explain in some detail the mechanics of the feather trade. As noted above, it has not always been a respected vocation. In the ancient world, while birds themselves were considered to be lucky, their feathers were not. Pretty to look at, and pleasurable to feel, feathers were nevertheless held to be lethal harbingers of doom in classical Greece and Rome. Some historians have even gone so far as to revise the assassination of Julius Caesar, claiming that his murderers tickled him to death with peacock plumes instead of turning him into a sieve with daggers.
But an enlightened minority throughout the ages have recognized the utility, as well as the beauty, of bird feathers. Lucretia Borgia created the first feather boa -- not for evening wear initially, but as an efficient means of silently garroting her enemies. 
Collecting and marketing feathers requires a steady hand and a cool head. Eider ducks do not just hand over their valuable pin feathers for the asking. Hunters must track them to their lairs along the Arctic coasts of Norway, braving icebergs and narwhals along the way. Ostriches are loathe to give up their huge white plumes, and have sent many an unwary featherman to his grave with a well-placed punt.
It should be noted that the feather trade has never dealt in owl feathers. Druids are the only ones to ever touch an owl feather. If you want to start a fight, just ask a feather merchant how many owl feathers he's got for sale.
Once the feathers of any bird are collected they are cured in sheds by being hung upside down and salted with powdered talcum. This kills off the feather mites and prevents fire damp. Then the feathers are transported to a central godown, where they are continually turned over to prevent mildew. In the old days a feather merchant would sign a chit for a sack of feathers and then go door to door,  selling his lightweight wares to writers who needed a quill or housewives contemplating a quilt. The more ambitious feather merchants would take several tons of feathers on consignment, and then sail off to faraway lands to barter with the natives, trading feathers for glass beads and little tin hatchets. These, in turn, were traded to other natives further inland for rare spices, ivory, and unsaturated ambergris. Thus certain feather merchant families grew great and prosperous. These included the House of Calamus, the Clan of Pinion, and, of course, my own Camoes Family Corporation. 

Today real feathers, like real fur, provoke much controversy. PETA has stepped up their campaign against the use of real feathers for any purpose, claiming that plucking even one feather from an innocent bird is just as cruel and painful as pulling out a human fingernail. But others pooh pooh such undocumented anthropomorphic claims, and continue to demand real pheasant tail feathers for their fly fishing lures and iridescent humming bird primary wing feathers for lightweight earrings. 
Our corporation tries to stay out of the fight altogether by offering both artificial feathers and real, range-free, feathers. One thing the PETA folks don't seem to realize, however, is that artificial feathers are made out of plastic, which of course does not decompose like an organic feather. This means that eventually landfills, and possibly the ocean as well, will be choked with colorful but ultimately noxious feathers for centuries to come. 
I hope you've enjoyed this modest chronicle of the life and times of a feather merchant. And please remember:
"IF IT'S A FEATHER IN YOUR CAP, IT'S A CAMOES FEATHER!"

Let us follow peace

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
Romans 14:19

Let us follow peace for keeps

and pray that o'er the earth it sweeps.

For men and devils do conspire

to set the anguished world on fire.

Armies march, the heavens rain

nothing but great shock and pain.

Our leaders, do they look to God

or by their fears are overawed?

O Lord of Hosts, help us to cease

our warlike ways and work for peace!

Verses from stories by Jennifer Medina, Maggie Haberman, Lateshia Beachum, and Heather Long.

Jennifer Medina. NYT.

TRUMP BOASTS 'GOD IS ON OUR SIDE.'

@jennymedina  @maggieNYT

When the Lord heard Donald Trump

talking like a pious chump,

on the Hotline He did tell

Mr. Scratch way down in Hell

to prepare a special seat

for someone to feel the heat.

Then an angel he did send

down to Earth to make an end

of the President's career --

now the chump craves but cold beer.

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

SMOKERS GET THE HEAVE-HO

IN THE WORKPLACE

@lateshiabeachum

If you like to take a puff

you will find it very tough

to find work most anyplace;

nicotine's a big disgrace.

Switch to pot; it's legal now --

and no one cares much anyhow.

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

AMERICAN RAILROADS CONTINUE

MASSIVE LAYOFFS

@byHeatherLong

Casey Jones would sure be floored

if he tried to get aboard

any train that's run today --

he would weep and shout 'Oy vey!'

Automation intervenes,

and the doughty men in jeans

that in olden days did toil

coupling cars and squirting oil

now are but a memory --

with roundhouse run by absentee.

Even hobos shun the rails;

they'd rather hitchhike on some snails.

And they did fellowship one with another

And they did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another, and did have great joy.
Helaman 6:3

We are fellow citizens when worshiping the Lord.

On the good ship Zion we are snugly brought aboard.

Smiling and rejoicing at the blessings we enjoy,

we have no time for critics -- we just yell at them 'ahoy!'

Our voyage to the Promised Land, the company we keep,

are treasures of the harvest we most naturally reap!

So sour looks and feelings are tossed overboard today.

We sail with naught but comrades and well-wishers all the way!

Verses from Stories by Justin Jouvenal, Robin Givhan, and Sarah Mervosh.

THIS KENTUCKY GOVERNOR PARDONED 

HUNDREDS OF FELONS HIS LAST

WEEK IN OFFICE.

@jjouvenal

Matt Bevin was the Governor

of hilly Kentucky.

He suffered for the felon

locked in penitentiary.

So he released a hundred,

then a hundred more, or so,

until the hills and valleys

with tough criminals did flow.

They robbed the banks and stole the cars

of honest folk, and then

when cops began to track them down

they shouted out "Amen!"

These crooks all got religion

and were baptized in a lake

(and so the cops relented,

even though twas all a fake.)

So if you're in the pokey

and you yearn for some fresh air,

just look up Mathew Bevin

and say that you rely on prayer.

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

WHAT CAN YOU WEAR THAT DOESN'T

IMPACT THE PLANET?

@RobinGivhan

Robin Givhan. WaPo.

I guess I'll wear some fig leaves

so the planet is preserved.

Although I'd need a lot of 'em,

the way that I am curved.

Plastic will not decompose

and linen needs child labor;

wool is way too scratchy

and hemp feels like a saber.

I could wear my birthday suit,

but somehow I do think

the cops would soon surround me

and then toss me in the clink!

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

WILD TURKEYS GIVE HUNTERS

THE BIRD

@smervosh

When hunting the wild turkey

one should always keep in mind

that when it comes to martyrdom

they're strongly disinclined.

Chances are when stalking one

you'll come home empty-handed;

and then a poor provider

you will certainly be branded.

So when you're hunting turkey

get a Butterball, Nimrod --

then spin a tail as tall as those

by sly Scheherazade.