Religious Americans less likely to believe intelligent life exists on other planets. (Becka A. Alper, for the Pew Research Center.)

 

"Religious and secular thinkers alike have long discussed what the implications for religion would be if humans discovered intelligent life on other planets. In the United States, highly religious adults are much more skeptical about the possibility of extraterrestrial life compared with those who are less religious, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey."

When an Episcopalian

meets outer space alien

what's the reaction to be?

Perhaps a strict dubiety.

*

A Baptist is likely to lecture

and tell the poor thing it's conjecture.

*

An Anglican parson might shake its green hand

but tell it from services it will be banned.

*

The Methodists a hymn will sing

then tie it up with heavy string.

*

The Pope could welcome it to Rome,

then say it's just a garden gnome.

*

A Lutheran, no doubt, would fear

to bring one home to drink some beer.

*

 If Unitarians saw a flying saucer

they'd quote a line from Geoffrey Chaucer.

*

Mennonites would keep concealed

a moon man working in their field.

*

Now Mormons, who have funny ways,

already think that planets blaze

with souls like us  -- so they don't care

if Earth's a cosmic thoroughfare.

Wellington 'clown' murder trial pushed back to 2022 at defense's request. (Hannah Winston, for the Palm Beach Post.)

 

"On May 26, 1990, Marlene Warren was shot in the doorway of her Wellington Aero Club home and died several days later. Witnesses, including her son, said someone dressed as a clown came to the door, presented her with flowers and balloons, then shot her in the face." 

The clown assassin is a trope

that's had its day, I really hope.

*

Too often in the recent past

have clowns brought forth the fatal blast.

*

Their killing sprees no longer thrill;

you might say it is overkill.

*

And when the amateur attempts

to settle some old contretemps

*

by putting on cheap makeup and

bumping off a gal or man

*

I hope Grimaldi and his heirs

do not yank out their orange hairs!

*

I'm sorry that this poem stinks so;

but what d'yer expect from an old Bozo?

Religious leaders weigh reinstating mask mandates and whether they could upset some members. (Sarah Pulliam Bailey for the WaPo.)

 

Did Moses wear a mask at all,

or Joshua or Job?

*

Or had they faith enough

to check each heathenish microbe?

*

Would Peter, James, and John agree

to veil their faces instantly

*

or would they be desirous

to exorcise the virus?

*

Today beliefs are vague

when it comes to the plague.

*

Perhaps the epilogue

to God's own Decalogue

*

Should now include the task

of keeping on your mask!

CDC renewal of indoor masking prompts experts to ask, ‘Where’s the data?’ (WaPo)

 

The CDC cannot decide

which way it wants to ever ride.

Like a bumptious child do they

first come close, then run away.

A diff'rent drummer is just fine;

but they have got to show some spine.

Should we wear a mask or not?

Indoors? Outdoors? Afterthought?

How about while having sex?

Or going to the Multiplex?

Give me concrete guidance please

(so I can claim conspiracies!)

Ominous Summer Season

 

The ominous summer season

is giving me a good reason

to stay in my bed

and cover my head

to avoid Nature's red treason.

He Tried to Walk on Water From Florida to New York. It Didn’t Go So Well. (Neil Vigdor for the NYT.)

 

"Reza Baluchi washed ashore on Saturday near St. Augustine, Fla., in a ‘‘hydro pod,” startling beachgoers with a homemade contraption that resembles a hamster wheel."

Edward Morton Stuzzlefield

invented fruit already peeled;

banana bunches he created

that of their skin had been castrated.

But the public did not feel

that his invention had appeal.

In poverty he did remain,

without so much as quiche lorraine.

*

But Edward could not be defeated;

he turned his thoughts to lands depleted.

Organic fertilizer, cheap,

came to him one night in sleep.

To Washington he traveled quick

with burlap sacks both strong and thick

to capture all the rich bs

that came straight from our own Congress.

He spread it on a test field bare

and clover grew like teenage hair.

But once again the public sank

his hopes, because the bs stank --

no farmer wanted Edward's mix;

they said it reeked of politics.

*

Now Stuzzlefield was in a bind;

on all his bills he fell behind.

Another brainstorm came at last,

and this one seemed quite unsurpassed!

In his garage he toiled away,

inventing hard both night and day.

And came up with a giant spoon

to catapult men to the Moon.

Put billionaires in outer space,

thought Ed, and I'll be Upper Case.

It had a giant spring and gear,

and Ed was first to volunteer.

He sprang into the stratosphere -- 

and ne'er was seen again, I fear.

*

His spirit, though, lives on in those

who want to challenge the cosmos;

those who dream and tinker when

the world is filled with lesser men

content to plod the daily rut

and think our hero was a nut.

To crackpot dreamers everywhere

I bow my head and wish you fair!

Give me a can of beans.

 

Give me a can of beans,

just any kind you please:

Kidney, Lima, red,

and especially black eye peas.

I eat 'em with eggs for breakfast.

Put 'em on toast for lunch.

Mash 'em with roasted peanuts

at dinner, for the crunch.

They're always on sale at the market;

forty-nine cents per can.

A pantry full of Goya,

and I'm feeling like a new man.

So what if they make me gassy?

So what if the foodies object?

I live by myself on fixed income;

don't need to be so circumspect!

Prose Poem: The Gulf of Thailand.

 

As a foolish and scared

middle aged man

fleeing heavy fees

for a failed marriage

I washed up on the beach

in Ban Phe.

Sure, I was a coward;

most men are

when it comes to money.

Rather than face the music

I faced the brightness of wild

cloud wrack over 

the Gulf of Thailand.

Taught a little English.

Ate a lot of shrimp fried rice

on banana leaves.

Knew a Thai woman my age

who drank her beer with ice in it.

She owned a black Toyota truck.

Imagined my kids

come to visit me 

on my coconut plantation.

I rented a bungalow

with a yard full of soursop trees

and a fish pond;

the spirit house was next to

the privy.

Toyota truck woman

hung orchids everywhere --

ten baht apiece. 

I felt whole on the surface;

underneath were my limestone caverns,

ready to collapse into sink holes

at the drop of a wide brimmed hat --

which you needed in that climate.

When my dreams began to fill with snow

I let my passport lapse

and borrowed money to go back.

Come back to canned mangoes.

Crumpled hundred baht notes

I mailed to my kids --

the letters were returned

'Address Unknown.'

And tall stringy bamboo plants

in the waiting rooms of government

agencies, 

waiting for them to take away . . . 

well, everything.

But I eventually found out

when they take away everything

from you

you grow new shoots

like the bamboo.

Although you're still

hollow

inside.

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

Theodore Freedman, of Camden NJ, analyzed the above poem thus:

"That was your best work my old friend. Your best work because I heard how honest and real this time was for you and how you were filled up and empty at the same time.  The Buddhists would aver that the empty space in you is the good part, the useful part. A coffee cup is only useful because of the empty space inside." 

Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming. (Max Fisher for the NYT.)

 

The truth is out of vogue, it seems.

With factories producing streams

of falsehoods for a tidy sum,

and workers stir the vilest scum

to mold opinions that will cause

humanity to show its claws.

No one knows the final price

of this booming cyber-vice.

Men have eyes for only wealth,

and so they work in techno-stealth

to rain deceit upon the globe

like acid precip's deadly robe.

Yet truth cannot be hid for long;

it sings an everlasting song

that rises over all the smut

of discord and foul scuttlebutt.

And those who deal in wholesale lies

will find they've won a tinsel prize.

Meanwhile guard the light within

and laugh at all the foolish din!

The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online. (Sheera Frenkel, for the NYT.)

 

Joseph Mercola, an osteopath,

doesn't know bupkis but he can do math.

Misinformation is his stock in trade;

he's pulling in money with his masquerade.

Facebook and Twitter have posted his trash

and viewers seem willing to give him their cash.

No vaccination! he endlessly posts.

They're unnecessary, he constantly boasts.

Eat plenty of yogurt, and mattresses shun,

and this, he does claim, is how health will be won.

A quack with some letters right after his name

is often believed by the mentally lame;

they lap up his products at prices immense

and show all the world how they lack common sense.

How sad that a market will always exist

for mountebank promises that turn to mist!