Law Abiding Immigrants?

Now someone claims that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans. At least in California.

Hey, I resent that. I was born here. The police may start profiling people like me. All because of where I was born!

I hope the study has a flaw
Otherwise I fear the Law
Is going to question me
Every time there's a burglary spree.

Deadline Pressure Blues

Maxim magazine recently published a negative review of the new Black Crowes CD.

There was a problem. The CD was so new that advance copies had not yet been sent out when the review was written.

The Crowes' manager, Pete Angelus, said the magazine explained that its review was an "educated guess."

That's a valuable skill.

They had the deadline pressure blues
And sadly they got busted.
Now their guesstimate reviews
Will nevermore be trusted.

Antidepressants vs. Placebos

Someone just did a study of antidepressants claiming that "placebos work just as well, except in severe cases".

Of course, we could have reframed that claim: "placebos useless in severe cases." Shows you there are limits to the power of deceit and suggestion.

I also wonder if the placebos and meds actually work on the exact same people. Did they try to sort by suggestibility?

And how sure are we, anyway, that moderate "depression" and severe "depression" are really the same thing? One is feeling blue, and the other is staying in bed all day consumed by hopelessness.

Anyway, if you're feeling depressed,
Ask your doctor to suggest
A sugar pill to cheer your brain.

They're cheaper than Prozac, so don't complain.

The Fickle Faithful

According to a new study, Americans change religious affiliation at a high rate.

28% of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another one. And that does not even include those who switched from one Protestant denomination to another; if it did, the number would jump to 44%

And guess who the biggest net recipient is?

The single biggest "winner," in terms of number gained versus number lost, was not a religious group at all, but the "unaffiliated" category. About 16% of those polled defined their religious affiliation that way (including people who regarded themselves as religious, along with atheists and agnostics); only 7% had been brought up that way.

But lots of people stop being "unaffiliated" too, and go back to various forms of religious belief.

The researchers emphasize the constantly churning membership of these groups. The most extreme case of "churn" seems to be the Jehovah's Witnesses...

...with a turnover rate of about two-thirds. That means that two-thirds of the people who told Pew they were raised Jehovah's Witnesses no longer are - yet the group attracts roughly the same number of converts. Notes Lugo, "No wonder they have to keep on knocking on doors."

At least we can rejoice
That we even have the choice
To chase our spiritual yearnings
Through a multitude of churnings.

Rambo Banned

The ruling generals of Burma/Myanmar have banned the new Rambo movie.

But it's a hot underground commodity among the locals.

So in addition to banning it, the government also ordered that negative reviews be published.

You see, the movie does not paint a pretty picture of the country or its government.

Do they fear that their junta might be overthrown
By Rambo, acting alone?

Awkward Questioning

The other night, Chris Matthews on NBC demanded to know what Obama's legislative accomplishments were. He was specifically asking State Senator Kirk Watson, of Texas, and the poor man couldn't come up with anything. Youtube has this awkward moment in television.

Since then, Mr. Watson has explained his failure to come up with anything:

And my mind went blank. I expected to be asked about the primary that night, or the big one coming up in Texas on March 4, or just about anything else in the news. When the subject changed so emphatically, I reached for information that millions of my fellow Obama supporters could recite by heart, and I couldn't summon it.

To be perfectly frank,
I do believe his mind went blank.

But I'm betting it's a rare supporter
Who could answer the reporter.

That's because legislative accomplishments do not matter. He's like young Arthur, the magical boy king. He doesn't need any stinking legislative accomplishments!

Why bother with all this technical stuff?
He pulled the sword from out the stone,
And speaks in a soothing baritone.
Isn't that enough?

Nader Returns

Ralph Nader is running for president again!

Nader won just 0.3 percent as an independent in 2004, when he appeared on the ballot in only 34 states.

That sounds low, I know.

But running for president is a good way to show off his warmth, wit, and personality.

Oh, wait.

Before I vote for Nader,
I'm writing in Darth Vader.

International Crime

Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal, ran an article attacking the "poaching" of African medical personnel.

No, it's not real poaching. No one is shooting or trapping these folks. But they are... offering them jobs, with better pay and working conditions, in other countries.

This creates a problem for the people who live in these countries. So where does the fault lie? With the African countries themselves and their disastrous economies? Not according to this article, which claims that the fault lies with the rich countries that "lure" these folks away:

"The practice should therefore, be viewed as an international crime."

Chain those African doctors down!
They can't be allowed to roam around
From place to place however they please.

Surely everyone agrees
As a moral matter beyond debate,
That they are the property of the state.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has now weighed in about the Lancet article:

Once you take the view that it's an "international crime" to urge or to help someone exercise his rights, you've undermined his practical ability to exercise his rights, and you've also gone a long way towards denying his moral entitlement to those rights. That is the road to serfdom, with each medical professional being the property of the lord of his manor (the local government, though of course speaking on behalf of the people).

Flu

I thought I had a cold, at first,
But now I think it was something worse.

Last night I came down with the chills - I couldn't walk around my own house without shivering uncontrollably. I needed a winter coat or an electric blanket to stop the shivers.

Marsha says that was a fever, which is typical of the flu.

Well, the flu vaccine was in plentiful supply this year, and I got a shot. But every year they have to guess which flu varieties will run wild, and this year they did not guess correctly. I hope they do better next year.

The scientists are desirous
Of anticipating
This ever-mutating
Virus.

Flirt Free Zone

Name that country:

The newspaper report said the men who were arrested Thursday could be released if they could prove they did not flirt with any women.

It's our friends, the Saudis. Here's what I want to know: once you're arrested, how do you prove you weren't flirting?

You think you can flirt
And not get hurt?

Jail awaits
You reprobates!

A Movable Feast

In high school I once filled out a form that asked for my specific ethnic identity. I could have picked Irish, which would have been close enough, but instead I wrote in Mixed Western European. I was only 3/8 Irish, as far as I could figure out.

My father, who is 3/4 Irish, was outraged, or at least pretended to be, and has been harassing me about it ever since. Just tonight, in an email, he told my extended family that if anyone needed to know the date for St. Patrick's Day, they could try asking me.

Well... I showed him. It turns out the Irish are celebrating it on a different day this year. March 15th instead of 17th.

Under the Church's rules, the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, the saint's feast day does not rank as high as the Monday before Easter and has to be moved.

Spoilsport priests
Have moved the feast,
But beer consumption will not decrease.

Le Rouge et le Noir

I finally read Stendhal's The Red and The Black. I enjoyed reading it, but it was more an intellectual than an emotional pleasure. He's writing in the time of the Romantics, but he's quite different that, say, Victor Hugo.

Stendhal's characters are often in the dark about their own motivations, particularly when it comes to matters of the heart, where they seem to be more motivated by competition than by true attraction.

The book is centered on Julien Sorel, a young man of low social standing but high ability. France in the 1830's is not big on upward social mobility. Nonetheless, Julien pursues high ambitions and well-bred women.

But he loses his head
And winds up dead.

Symbols with Teeth

Someone at the Associated Press is surprised:

The polar bear can be found in just one place in United States — Alaska — and is perhaps as much a symbol of the state as alligators are of Florida. So you might think Alaska's politicians would be pounding on doors in Washington to protect it. You would be wrong.

I'm not surprised. Most people who live near dangerous predators don't see them as symbols. They see them as threats.

I like cats. But I'm not especially happy to hear that cougars are working their way back into the Midwest.

Nice kitty,
So pretty,
With such fine and powerful paws!

Pad on by.
Don't stop to try
How my head fits in your jaws.

The Daily Guilt Trip

Blogoloquaciousness challenges Chicago's daily guilt trip:

Now let's return to the not-so-glamorous, yet brilliant, marketing campaign the homeless man was taking part in. His catch phrase was a question, "Help the homeless today, sir?" This synecdochical phrasing leads you to believe that there is such a thing as an entity called "The Homeless." Perhaps they are a "community?" I'm not sure, but what we are told is that by giving this man our money, we are helping "The Homeless."

When I was a kid, they were just called bums.
This is the way that progress comes.

Lobbyist Qua Blonde

So is this "blonde lobbyist" story bad for McCain... or good?

Since the Times went public without anything solid - assuming they don't have more - does McCain just gain sympathy as a victim of a smear?

Be careful of making attacks
With airy gossipy facts.

No Going Back

Michelle Obama:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

My comfort zone
Is my own.

Leave it alone.

Ka Blam Oh

We just shot down one of our own spy satellites. From a ship. On the first try.

The missile cost 10 million dollars. I guess I paid a few cents of it. I feel it was money well spent. And I'm glad to have contributed to the cause.

It can't be all that easy to erase
A satellite spinning in space.

I keep thinking about the "proud to be an American" thing. I don't usually say it that way. Usually I think of it as loving what this nation stands for. But, it's true, I am proud. I will even admit to liking that country song with that catch phrase in the chorus.

I'm not proud of every single thing we do. No one is. We disagree among ourselves too much to all be proud of everything all the time.

But though we loudly disagree
We're mostly fiercely proud... to be free.

Live Astronomy Report

Over the moon
Earth's shadow slowly slips.

Coming up soon:
A full eclipse.

Proud At Last

"For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change." - Michelle Obama, yesterday, Feb. 18, 2008.

Some people want to stress the "really". But the "really" can cut either way. It can either mean "intensely" or it can mean "actually".

So is this the first time that she, as an adult, was intensely proud or actually proud of her country? Just wondering.

I started thinking about what that means, to be proud of your country. I guess it could mean a lot of things, especially when you consider that a country is a huge conglomeration of people, laws, geography, customs, etc.

But I'm glad she's finally really truly proud
Now that her husband's got a crowd
Of people hungry for change.

Still I think it's strange.

At the Aquarium on Washington's Birthday

We went to see the Komodo Dragon, the world's largest lizard. This one was at least 6 feet long.

The dragon's diet is wide-ranging, and includes invertebrates, other reptiles (including smaller Komodo Dragons), birds, bird eggs, small mammals, monkeys, wild boars, goats, deer, horses, and water buffalos.

He looked at me and gave me a blink.
I looked right back and started to think
That if weren't for the wall of glass,
He might crawl over and bite my... body mass.

House on Self Sacrifice

A recent episode of House M.D., featured this interchange:

Dr. James Wilson: Are you being self-sacrificing?

Dr. Gregory House: I'll sacrifice a lab rat, I'll sacrifice a fly, I'll sacrifice $200 on a mudder at Monmouth Park. I don't sacrifice self. Shabbat shalom, Wilson.

Dr. James Wilson: Shabbat shalom, House.

That's a complicated reply they gave House, and it took me a while to unpack it.

Animal researchers, when killing lab rats to examine their tissues, do call it "sacrificing". The fly refers not to the insect but to a "sacrifice fly" in baseball. A mudder is a horse that runs well in the mud, and Monmouth Park is a racetrack in New Jersey, so he's talking about blowing 200 bucks on a bet. Finally, as to sacrificing self he does sometimes sound like he read Ayn Rand in his youth.

It's still a shock to me
To hear this on TV.

Nixon Day

In 1971 President Richard Nixon proclaimed one single federal holiday, the Presidents' Day, to be observed on the third Monday of February, honoring all past presidents of the United States of America.

I think we should have been more hesitant
Before designating this day as being for every president.

I suspect Nixon
Of putting the fix in

So he'd sort of be remembered on this day,
Because otherwise - no way!

Unfree Verse

I went Googling for "rhymed free verse" and got some hits.

The idea seems to be that the verse in question is rhythmically irregular, but rhymed. Some of what I write is like that.

To me, such verse is not really "free", since it is still confined by rhyme. Partly it's merely semantics, I suppose.

But isn't it funny that there's no set phrase for verse that is not free?

To write unfree verse
Is my daily curse.

But isn't binding words with rhyme
A kind of crime?

Don't they deserve to be chosen on meaning alone
Without attention to accidents such as tone?

Orator

Listen to the rolling words of mighty hope!
He's polling well, but do I trust him? Sorry, nope.

A Game of Philosophy

The President of the Ayn Rand Institute speaks up in favor of video games:

"I don't see a problem with the medium," he said. "I think it is potentially a very exciting medium with which to introduce people to ideas. I think video games replaces much of literature's impact. The literature today is dull and boring and video games allow kids to experience the heroism that the books don't provide them."

If William Shakespeare were alive today,
Perhaps he'd say that all the world's a game;
No wonder that the young folk wish to play
Heroically pursuing high-score fame.

Off His Meds

"He was the most gentle, even guy."

Hmm. Or is it just possible that he was a seething cauldron of hidden rage?

In 20/20 hindsight:

1) He had chosen to study suicide and self-injury among prisoners.
2) He had been discharged from the armed services for psychological reasons.
3) He had flunked a couple of classes at NIU before leaving for U of I.
4) He had left an Indiana prison guard job abruptly.
5) He had gone off his meds and had been acting erratically.

He should have said yes to whatever drug
Kept him from being a murderous thug.

Murderous Jerk at NIU

Some jerk with a shotgun and 2 pistols shot up a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University Thursday afternoon. The Trib says he was a former grad student.

He ended by shooting himself. Typical.

They want to make a name,
But they're scared to face the shame.

I'm just waiting, with a vaguely sick stomach, to find out if anyone I knew was touched by this.

Update: 6 victims dead so far.

From the irony department, here's a profile on the murderous jerk:

In a recent posting on an Internet site, he wrote about his interest in getting elected to a national association, saying he was committed to social justice. In a scholarly paper he co-authored two years ago, the man described himself as being interested in social justice, corrections, political violence and peace.

Abuzz in the Penumbra

Thank you, 14th amendment. Thank you, penumbra of privacy. The Texas ban on selling sex toys has been overturned by a federal court.

In liberal Illinois
Every sort of toy
Is for sale.

Way down south in Texas,
Where the law sometimes perplexes,
Sellers go to jail.

But this interfering Fed
Says privacy in bed
Must prevail!

Today's Results

The word is Huck
Is out of luck.

As for Hill
She's not
Feeling hot
But may still
Have a shot.

Naked at Duke

Not long ago, Duke University, in the wake of its big false-rape-charge case, banned strippers from school-related events.

But on Super Bowl Sunday they sponsored a "Sex Workers Art Show".

Anyway, this sounds charming:

"A transvestite, naked except for some strategically placed tape, with the words 'F___ Bush' painted on his chest, kneeled on all fours and lit a sparkler protruding out of his rectum with 'America the Beautiful' playing...

When it's artistic and and leftist and hip,
Then it's permitted to strip.

Gen LaGreca on Glenn Beck on CNN

My friend, Gen LaGreca, was on the air yesterday on the Glenn Beck show on CNN. Seems he was raving about her article in the latest issue of The New Individualist. I thought she did very well, comfortable on camera, looking great and sounding smart. I haven't seen any videos up yet, but the transcript for this show with Gen LaGreca is here. She's toward the end.

Here's a snippet:

LAGRECA: Well, the self-help guide talks about how the welfare state is really destroying us, not just politically, which is bad enough, it`s bringing us to Socialism, but it`s destroying us psychologically and that`s important for everyone to realize, because if we don`t control our own lives and expect the government to do everything for us, then where`s our independence, where is our self-esteem? We`re replacing the American eagle flying proud and free with a chicken penned in a coop waiting to be fed.

BECK: You ain`t kidding. Gen, I appreciate it. Thank you very much, it`s a great article. I tell you, I have had a problem with Ayn Rand for a long time because of her godlessness. But I have to tell you, lately I`ve been thinking about "Atlas Shrugged" a lot. I`d like to go find a place where I could just go live with other people who are like-minded.

Ah, to be a chicken in a coop,
Reliably fed!

But soon you lose your head
And wind up in the soup.

Light's Iliad

I recently acquired a little book by Frederick Light, O Goddess Chant It Out, which is a translation of Book One of Homer's Iliad. It's an ambitious project, put out by Rapid Traffic Press, in New York. I'm not quite sure how you would buy a copy at this point, but I expect it will become available soon.

Looking into it, I was once again startled by the way Apollo takes the Trojan's side against the Greeks (a.k.a. the Achaians). The following takes place after a Trojan priest prays to Apollo to kill some Greeks:

Phoibos Apollo laid to heart his prayer.
From mountain-dome Olympos down in quick
Descent he sprang, downright indignantly
To shoot the camp and make Achaians sick.

Note also that we think of Apollo as a god of healing, but here he is spreading a killing illness. The Greek gods were not of the all-benevolent variety!

In correspondence, Light pointed out that the plot of the Iliad bears a curious resemblance to the plot of Atlas Shrugged: both involve a man of tremendous talent going "on strike." I don't think we should make too much of it, but I like to joke that Atlas is "the men of mind on strike" but that the Iliad is "the man of muscle on strike." In a way that's unfair to Achilles. He's more than just "a man of muscle." But strong, fast, and deadly he certainly is.

Light translates the Iliad into sequences of sonnets, each consisting of 3 quatrains and a couplet. The quatrains, as you see above, usually only have the even lines rhymed. I'm not sure I think this schema is a good idea, but it's certainly an interesting one!

The verse often turns heavily alliterative, reminding me a bit of Old English:

"The man's possessed whose mind is poisonous.
Not fore and after in purveyance will
Atreyedes take heed to save his horde
Beside the ships, who mandates would fulfill
With madness."

Anyway, it's a very interesting and idiosyncratic effort. Sometimes it loses me, but there are places where it flashes some real power.

In the story, most of the gods
Choose one or the other side.

Who can calculate the odds
When divinities collide?

Hillary's Daughter Complains

Chelsea Clinton, who works for a hedge fund, complained publicly about her health care coverage:

"If you have health care and you're not happy with it -- like me who has employer provided health care, but I'm not happy with it -- and if you are one of the 100 million who are uninsured at some point throughout the year... you'll be able to buy into a Congressional health plan," Chelsea Clinton said in a Milwaukee appearance broadcast, in part, on MSNBC today, in which she described her mother's healthcare plan.

Your mom just loaned herself 5 million dollars. You're working at a hedge fund. Quit complaining about your own health care. You can afford to pay for everything out of pocket.

If you think it's bureaucratic
And doesn't pay enough
But you think you'll be ecstatic
When your mother's plan gets in...

I'd ask you, please, to think again.
Eventually they'll start to ration stuff
And that's when the going gets rough.

Alinsky's Legacy

Saul Alinsky was a Chicago "organizer" who was influential for his theories of how to effect change.

He may become more influential yet! Both of the major Democratic candidates are mentioned in the Wikipedia article about Alinsky:

Alinsky was the subject of Hillary Rodham's senior honors thesis at Wellesley College, "There Is Only The Fight...": An Analysis of the Alinsky Model. Rodham commented on Alinsky's "charm," but rejected grassroots community organizing as outdated. Once Hillary Rodham Clinton became First Lady of the United States, the thesis was suppressed by the White House for fear of being associated too closely with Alinsky's ideas.

Alinsky also had a significant influence on Barack Obama, who is a United States Senator and candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Obama particularly used Alinsky's techniques while participating in Chicago community organizations in the 1980s.

This essay by Kyle-Anne Shiver tries to cast the conflict between them as a fight between users of Alinsky's techniques.

Here is a summary of Alinsky's famous Rules for Radicals. I like #1 a lot:

Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Like a blowfish, puff up your appearance.
Let them believe you have countless adherents.

Survival of the Stablest?

A letter of mine is printed in the new, not yet online, issue of The New Individualist. My letter is a reply to an article Roger Donway wrote about that free-wheeling, free-loving Romantic, Percy Shelley. My letter mentions that Roger's viewpoint reminded me of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Burke's essay is often considered to be the founding document of modern conservatism.

Roger's latest column, in this new issue, looks a bit like a reply to my letter. He titles it "Reflections of a Tory Individualist," and makes a case that a free society will embrace a stable form of virtue:

If ever we get a free society, I believe, the morality of its citizens will most closely resemble the morality of the freest societies we have so far known: the morality of mid-nineteenth-century England and America, which is to say, Victorian morality.

Roger writes a good essay, but even I am not quite convinced, despite the fact that my current mode of life would stand up pretty well under those standards.

I'm trying but failing to work up euphoria
For morality under Victoria.

Overheard at the Gallery

I was standing in the Art Institute the other day. Near where American Gothic hangs. You've seen it:


A docent was lecturing a group of schoolchildren about the work. She started off with, "This is a very sexist painting."

I had put this incident out of my mind, but today I was looking at Amazon reviews of Roger Kimball's book, The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art.

The first reviewer said: "Kimball skewers the current trend of viewing all Western art (as well as Western literature) solely through the prism of sex, gender, and class. What results is a ludicrous but scary disfigurement of Western art."

Of course I flashed back to the docent
And her gender-colored prism.
One should be careful approaching
Art through the shades of an Ism.

2/9

On this day, in 1973, I took the elevated to Northwestern University, to see a certain film.


That's where I met my wife. This poem is for her.

From the calendar, it appears
(and I don't suppose it lies)
that it's been - unbelievably - 35 years
since I first laid eyes

on yours.

The years flash by
but love endures

not like a hard unchanging stone
more like a vine that's groped and grown
through cold and hot and dry and wet.

My darling, oh my dear,
my heart's not over you yet.

You Seize, We Freeze

You may remember that Venezuela "took over" some assets belonging to Exxon last June.

Exxon has now gone to court and has frozen Venezuela's international assets in return, to the tune of 12 billion dollars.

One Venezuelan official calls it "judicial terrorism."

Yeah, right.
Shoe's on the other foot - and it's feeling kind of tight.

The victim fights back, uncowed.
As Jordan writes, "Ragnar would be proud!"

Solidarity

Yesterday Ergo posted a moving vignette about eating at a roadside food stall in India. As Ergo stands there, the vendor has to pay out protection money 3 times - to a different "protector" each time!

After I had finished eating, I paid the money I owed the man for my sandwich, and then gave him an extra 10 Rupees. It is a very small amount of money–both to him and to me; it was not intended for him to use it to survive the night or some such thing. I gave him the extra money to convey a sense of hope –my hope that he chooses to continue his business and be productive, instead of quitting and joining the thugs, or becoming a leech, or giving up on life entirely and stagnating.

I offered my money in response to his struggle to attain values and live life. I was proud of it.

As well he should be.

He thinks, therefore he feels
And acts on his ideals.

Bad Luck for Huck?

There was some talk that McCain, to beat Romney, would offer the V.P. slot to Huckabee.

Now that Romney's gone,
I hope the offer's withdrawn.

I do not heart the Huckabee.
I do not heart him in a tree.
I do not heart him as V.P.
O do not give the Huck to me!

Tornado Survivor

Baby in the field, how did you fly
Tossed about by winds across the sky?

You will not tell us, nor will you recall
Your wild ride when you grow strong and tall.

Death in the Mall

Over the weekend a robber killed 5 women in a Chicago-area clothing store.

There was a 6th woman who was shot in the neck, who survived. She has now issued a statement describing the murder victims as: "five of the bravest women I have ever met."

As far as I can make out, the women were bound with duct tape and then shot execution style. I'm wondering what they did that was especially brave. I'm guessing it was just that they faced their deaths bravely.

I know the standard advice is to cooperate with robbers. And Illinois doesn't allow its citizens to carry guns, so none of these poor women were in a position to turn the tables and shoot the robber first.

But here's a vital footnote to the standard advice. As soon as you get the idea that the robber's going to kill you, stop cooperating.

As a matter of fact, the story floating around is that the survivor moved her head just when he went to shoot her, and that's why he failed to kill her.

If he's going to end your existence,
You owe him some resistance.

Oops

Did you ever stumble on an old posting on the internet... and mistakenly think it was from today?
I just did it, and blogged about it, but now I've made it go away.

And if I confused you too, sorry!

Unsettled

Originally Tsunami Tuesday was when everything would be settled.

Wrong.

Mardi Gras is just about gone
And even the Huckster is still holding on!

I'd Like Some Salt With That Zell

Amusing video of Sam Zell, who recently bought Tribune Corp., F-bombing a journalist from the Orlando Sentinel.

He's trying to explain that they need to make money in order to afford journalists.

He reportedly is spreading a "question authority" motto at his new acquisitions. But he does have a reputation for salty language.

The company's recently revised handbook instructs employee-owners to ask questions of those above them and should "push back if you do not like the answer. You will not get into trouble for asking tough questions."

You may not get in trouble at first,
But if you persist, you may get cursed.

That said, the journalist seems to have trouble with the concept that she is a provider in a market for information. I understand Zell's frustration.

If no one will buy,
The paper will die.

Of course, if by any chance she is an environmentalist who is worried about the clear-cutting of forests, there is some consolation:

Your job will be shaved,
But trees will be saved!

Donkeys R Us

I'll be voting in the Democratic Primary tomorrow. For local offices around here, the primary is the election that counts.

In Chicago, it's a truism that
The winner is always a Democrat.

Of course, sometimes I vote for candidates in the Democratic primary, then turn around and vote for the other bunch in the general election.

So here's my stratagem,
Slightly condensed:
I plan to vote for them,
And then vote against.

Missing the Superbowl

We drove out to hear the Elgin Symphony Orchestra do Saint-Saën's Organ Symphony. I love that piece. I don't think I'd ever heard it in person before. The organ played such low rumbling notes that it seemed to shake the hall.

One of symphony's melodies became a song that was featured in Babe, a cute 1995 movie about a pig.

That might have your normal serious composer turning over in his grave. But Saint-Saëns did write The Carnival of the Animals. So my guess is that he'd be okay with it.

The farmer sings and does a jig
For the little suckling pig.

Silenced!

Here's a woman law professor at Georgetown who is battling the latest political correctness. The problem? She supports Hillary!

'I have been quite surprised to learn how "silenced" I feel by my many colleagues who are enthusiastically supporting Obama...'

One must keep up with the current shout.
Obama's in. Hillary's out.

Beauty and the Beast, Rebooted

How did I miss this before? Meredith L. Patterson wrote the funniest rhymed "part ye first" for Beauty and the Beast.

Perhaps you could go taint his food,
Or teleport him in the nude
Into some granny's living room,
Or show him dressed like Molly Bloom
On every channel's nightly news?"

She also manages to rhyme "D.H. Lawrence" with "Health Insurance".

There's also a short prologue to Beauty and the Beast, and a couple of other poems at the same site.

I actually got to meet Meredith once. She was on a cross-country drive, coming through Chicago, so we met for lunch, and talked poetry and programming. As you can tell from this video, she is deep into tech.

As long as I've got her on my mind, I should mention that I've long admired a bunch of her other poems, like those here and here. I particularly like Deja Interpretation, which opens like this:

I cannot be postmodern. I'm too old.
Too old — at twenty — to accept the thought
Of words — and words alone, however bold —
Replacing things that are with what is not.

I don't know that she's written much poetry lately, but I do hope she returns to it someday.

For now, perhaps, she's in a mode
Of writing pure and sparkling code.

The Struggle For Poetry's Soul

Walter Donway has an excellent article up on The Atlasphere: The Struggle For Poetry's Soul. He asks:

What, then, is the post-modernist contribution to the art of poetry? Virtually all so-called serious poetry, today, is written in free verse. In other words, it dispenses with meter — dispenses with it as a matter of principle — and so attacks the very essence of what makes poetry poetry.

I have a few quibbles with that, but I think his thrust his dead on. And, as he indicates, much the same holds true across the "serious" modern art forms.

Practitioners often start
By "pushing the limits" of art.
But the limits are long since crossed,
And the path to progress is lost.

Muhammad Never Approved This

You run out of volunteer suicide bombers.

So you trick women with Downs syndrome into carrying remote control bombs.

No more "suicide mystique,"
No more "dying for a cause,"
Just murder of the weak
Without benefit of laws.

Monstrous Monument

In the capital of North Korea stands a 105 story hotel. You can't book a room, because it's permanently empty, with no hope of completion.

Esquire Magazine has nominated it as the worst building in the history of mankind:

A picture doesn't lie -- the one-hundred-and-five-story Ryugyong Hotel is hideous, dominating the Pyongyang skyline like some twisted North Korean version of Cinderella's castle.

The article says that the North Koreans poured 2% of their pitiful communist GDP into this concrete pyramid. They took 20 years to not finish it.

This hotel of doom
Hasn't one bed.

It looms like a tomb
In the land of the dead.

Biting The Hand That Feeds

"I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy. And I did it out of patriotism, not for profit."

That was Senator McCain last night, talking about his qualifications for leadership. He almost sounds as if he doesn't care for the profit motive.

Mr. McCain, if you want my vote:
Don't scorn the motive that keeps us afloat.

Unracy Race

A good friend sent me a link to the Urban Dictionary definition of "electile dysfunction," which is the inability to get excited about any of the presidential candidates.

No little blue pill
Will cure this ill.

Moody Over Rudy

Rudy Giuliani was the original Republican front-runner for this election. But he didn't bother with those early primaries. He waited for the Florida primary. All those transplanted New Yorkers in Florida were sure to vote for him!

Oh well.

If he'd won, he would have looked stunningly bright.
But, since he lost, he's washed up tonight.

Foreclosing on Our Furry Friends

USA Today reports that cats and dogs are the true victims of the rise in foreclosures.

Basically, the idea is that people who lose their houses are not always able to keep their pets.

I await the calls for federal reform
To make sure pets are always housed and warm.

First Man In Space, Revisited

Yuri Gagarin has always been honored as the first man in space. Now Pravda reports that he had 3 predecessors who got up there too, in suborbital flights. But they died along the way.

So the Soviets kept that quiet. Typical.

In the early days of the Soviet space program, they didn't pre-announce their flights. They just told you about them once they were successful. We were always kind of suspicious about this.

Gagarin eventually died in a training flight of a jet aircraft, a MiG-15UTI.

Of course, this new report takes nothing away from Gagarin.

He was a brave and able man
Shot into space in a thin metal can.

Revisiting SIDS

If you are a younger parent, you've probably been exposed to the "Back To Sleep" campaign, which recommends putting infants to sleep on their backs.

This campaign has been hugely successful at reducing the incidence of SIDS - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

You might ask - why were parents putting infants to sleep on their tummies? Is that a traditional folk-way or something? No. It was modern medical advice, circa the 1950's:

Believers in stomach sleeping, including Dr. Benjamin Spock, preached that prone sleeping could prevent babies from choking on their own vomit or developing pneumonia caused by inhalation of vomit or foreign objects.

The reporter now casts this advice in religious terms: "believers" listened to one who "preached". But at the time, mothers thought they were acting according to sound scientific principles.

I lost an infant brother to SIDS. Francis was his name. He was sleeping on his stomach when he died. He had another major risk factor - he was a twin. So perhaps he would have died anyway.

Note that Dr. Spock & co. had a reasonable hypothesis. But should they really have been so definite in their advice giving?

I think when he preached,
He over-reached.

I suppose that susceptibility to fads is part of human nature. It has certainly been a part of human science. In the long run, it's self-correcting. But in the short-run, it can sometimes cut off your long-run.

Keep up your defenses
In the face of faddish consensus.

Nukes in the News

Pakistan says its nuclear weapons will NOT be allowed to drop into the hands of religious terrorists.

How reassuring.

I grew up contemplating the possibility of a full-scale thermo-nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. So the idea of one or two nuclear bombs going off in the U.S. seems almost minor in comparison.

But I'd be upset, if by some fluke
I got blown away by terrorist nuke.

Perils of Playing Umpire

I hate it when friends are fighting with each other
In ways I regard as unreasonable,
But I know that anything I say to try to mediate
Will appear to both as treasonable.

High School Cell Phone "Porn" Scandal

At Parkland High, in Allentown, PA, students are in trouble. Why? For using their cell phones to send and receive illegal pictures of fellow students:

The two Parkland students shown exposing themselves are 14 and 17, said Matthew S. Falk, Lehigh County's chief deputy district attorney. Both girls took the pictures of themselves.

The girls also transmitted the pictures to others, but apparently didn't expect them to spread like wildfire through the school.

So the authorities are threatening to charge everyone with possession of "child pornography". Unless they erase the photos.

Somehow I don't think this is what people had in mind when they passed our draconian child porn laws. But the law is the law.

Underage people must be warned:
Undressed pictures of yourself are porn!

City Snow

Over the empty lot,
Where shattered glass
And plastic bags
Lie scattered,

The flakes come
Tumbling down, unasked,
Masking the scene in soft clean white,
Gleaming with incandescent light.

Stimulating Question of Usage

So they're going to stimulate the economy with tax rebates. Among those getting the "rebates"...

Workers who make at least $3,000 but don't pay taxes would get $300 rebates.

I would have thought it was undebatable
That what's not paid is unrebatable.

Invasion Miscalculation

One of the enduring puzzles of the Iraq War is: Why didn't Saddam nip it in the bud?

All he had to do was let the inspectors have a good look around his country - let them look at everything - let the world know that Iraq really wasn't WMD-R-Us.

Bidinotto rhymingly points to someone with an answer - a U.S. interrogator who spent a lot of time talking with Saddam.

On this account, Saddam was too worried about the Iranians, and not worried enough about the Americans. He wanted the Iranians to think that he was loaded up with WMD - so they wouldn't attack him.

He tried to bluff
To seem scary and tough,
But he got burned.

And it turned out rough
For all concerned.

Snitch!

I hadn't really been aware of the "Stop Snitching" campaign in black neighborhoods. But it's going strong, printed on T-shirts, and scrawled on asphalt.

Apparently the campaign is going strong in rap. Here are some lyrics from Ice Cube:

Don’t say s***, boy that’s basic
They want to send a n***** back to the slave ship
Stop snitchin’.

One problem:

Police don't solve crimes
On their own, most times.

Maybe some day, when we're all loaded with RFID chips (shudder), police will be able to solve crimes on their own. But for now, it takes witnesses.

In the mean time, to keep your neighborhood from going to hell,
Do tell.

Touched By Its Rays, by Walter Donway

Walter Donway has a new book of poetry, Touched By Its Rays, that's just about out.

I've got a sneak-preview copy.

I'm almost done with my first quick read. There are some really lovely, striking things here, that took my breath away.

His Empire of the Earth, in driving blank verse, tells the story of an early builder of a cross-continental railroad. This comes near the end:

I mean to have my way in this fair land:
Traveling to the ocean shore on trains
That roar like Odin through the forest pines;
Dispatching swaying boxcars full of wheat
To hungry millions for their daily bread;

His shorter poems are often rhymed, like this snippet from An Ayn Rand Centennial:

The altar of our age is politics:
For heaven, power; for sanctity, the plan
To end all plans; and prayerful edicts
To fashion forth the perfect good of man.

While many of his poems are on topics of history or politics, many others are on very personal matters - such as worrying over the well-being of a son, or pondering the perils of love.

Anyway, I'm not done reading. I do feel the urge to re-read carefully, which, to my way of thinking, is always a good sign for poetry.

His verse has a fine rhythmic drive -
Pulsing as if alive.
And after their first attack
His words keep calling you back.

No "Necessarily" Needed

Iowa State University researchers were looking into why poor children in America are a bit on the heavy side.

Here is their brilliant conclusion: "a lack of food isn't necessarily to blame".

Did it occur to them that the opposite circumstance might be operative?

This country is wealthy and awash in food. Even if you are poor, really poor, there are food stamps, food pantries, food banks, school breakfasts, school lunches, and so on.

It's hard to lose weight here.
We fill up your plate here.

How Strict Were They?

Her parents were so strict - no fooling -
She had to take an entrance exam to get into home-schooling.

Better Never To Have Been

Thanks to the alert eyes of Stephen Hicks, I see there's a new book out from Oxford University Press: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, by David Benatar.

His thesis is that your parents did harm to you by giving birth to you.

If this thesis becomes popularly accepted, I expect to see some lawsuits.

Against your parents, file a tort!
Why, oh why, did they fail to abort?

Since he took time to write the book, I guess the author has not yet reached the stage of: "Better Not To Be: Say Goodbye to Me".

Nope, he's lingering on here, trying to depress the rest of us.

Thanks so much,
Don't stay in touch.

Pop Goes The Weasel

So a former gang member, whose nickname is Big Weasel, started up an anti-gun group, called "No Guns" - which received 1.5 million dollars from the City of the Angels.

But now he has entered a plea of guilty for... drumroll... federal weapons violations.

It's a case of the ironic
Going supersonic.

But that nick
Is sick.

Packers Smacked

I'm not much of a football fan. But I have a brother-in-law who's a huge Green Bay fan, so I was rooting for them tonight against the Giants. It was a good game that went into overtime.

But... it wasn't a normal game of football. It was too cold. It was more like Subzero-Ball. Towards the end, players kept falling over with cramps from the cold.

It's hard to find your groove
When it's too cold to move.

From Folly To Philosophy

David Ramsay Steele gave Marsha an early copy of his new book, Atheism Explained: From Folly To Philosophy.

I haven't really looked at it yet. But I looked at the back cover, and there was a quote from a Catholic priest:

"Atheism Explained is a much better defense of atheism than the recent works by Dawkins and Hitchens." —James Sadowsky, S.J., Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University

It's some kind of coup
When a priest says that you
Deserve the nod
For your case against God.

Pyrrhic Victory

Hillary "won" Nevada. For this she picked up 12 delegates.

Obama "lost" Nevada. For this he picked up 13 delegates.

It's strange to be called "the winner"
When your delegate count is thinner.

Raccoon - It's What's For Dinner

The Chicago Tribune just ran an article about raccoon consumption here in Illinois.

Customers turn their purchases into barbecue, stews and other dishes, updating a tradition that began with Native Americans and was adopted by pioneers.

I'm living a terribly sheltered life.
I've never tasted raccoon.
I need to ask my talented wife
To cook some up real soon.

You know, my dogs have an interest in raccoons. Periodically they try to climb a tree to catch one.

Dogs are bad at climbing trees,
Raccoons, on the other hand, do it with ease.

My dogs did kill a raccoon once. A small one. In my back yard. But I missed my opportunity. Instead of bringing the carcass into the kitchen, I just plopped it in the garbage can.

I didn't know these ring-tailed critters
Made such tasty never-fail fritters.

I do know a lady who grew up in a family where the dinner table routinely featured raccoon, squirrel, and possum. But she was squeamish about eating varmints. So they stopped telling her what kind of meat was on the table. In response, she adopted a policy of only eating meat that she had watched being prepared.

She just refused to eat
Mystery meat.

Reagan 2008

You may have heard that the Republican presidential candidates were all proclaiming the virtues of Ronald Reagan.

But now Obama's doing it. And Hillary and Edwards are attacking him for it.

Maybe with he's saying those pro-Reagan quotes
In a bold play for Republican votes.

Semper Fi

A Chicago lawyer got arrested last month for purposely scratching a car belonging to Marine Sgt Mike McNulty. The lawyer had a novel defense, when first confronted:

After caught in the process, the man told Mike, "you think you can do whatever you want with Department of Defense license plates and tags". (In Illinois you can purchase veteran, Marine, or medal plates. Mike has Illinois Marine Corps license plates.) During the exchange, he made additional anti-military comments.

Mike was scheduled to ship back to Iraq for his second tour. So it looked like he wouldn't be around to testify against the lawyer. But then the news got out on the web, and a ruckus got raised.

Today the lawyer pleaded guilty to vandalism charges:

"The Judge then, in as angry a voice as I have ever heard him use, scolded the defendant, saying that the Marine license plates the complaining witness had were not vanity plates or about ego, but the proceeds go toward the Marine and Navy scholarship fund for the children of fallen soldiers, sailors and marines. These Marines protect his very existence "so people like you can enjoy their freedom."

After the lawyer scratched the paint
And maligned the military,
I think the sergeant showed restraint
In merely making a complaint
To the constabulary.

UPDATE: John Kass, of the Chicago Tribune, has a full report here of the court action.

Free Range Tiger Taunting

Police are saying that the Free Range Tiger at the San Francisco Zoo was taunted by drunken pot-smoking teens who deserved what they got.

Okay, they aren't really saying those italicized words. But sometimes subtext is the best way get your point across.

During the attack, Zoo employees were quick to go with the drug angle:

"I don't know if they are on drugs or not," the woman employee is overheard saying over a colleague's walkie-talkie. "They are screaming about an animal that has attacked them and there isn't an animal out."

They were slower to go with the escaped feline angle. After all, as one employee reasoned, that was "virtually impossible."

You know what "virtually" means in front of "impossible". It means "not quite".

The tiger cannot change his stripes.
Taunting, sadly, does not please him.
In order to escape his swipes,
Check his moat before you tease him.

Grilled Cheese

A favorite food
Recalls the mood
Of eating with you long ago.

I'll take a bite
For you tonight
And smile at how I loved you so.

Counterintuitive Expectations

Protecting our rights:

In a legal effort to help a U.S. senator, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy.

I knew there was a reason they had condom machines in men's rooms!

So have a ball
Inside the stall -
No one will notice that at all.

Homeless Chimp Needs Help

In Austria, a judge just ruled that a chimp is not a person.

Of course it was an animal rights group had brought the issue to court. Here's the funny part:

The rights group said it would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

That name, "Human Rights,"
Should give them a fright.

The Slightest Philosphy - Review Up

I have a habit of writing here about books I'm half way through.
But I like to finish them before publishing an actual review.

Doug Rasmussen commented that he liked the book too.
And he packs more scholarly weight than I do!

Prof. Rasmussen added these words of wisdom in the comments:

Most in my department hold that though post-modernism was fully developed by Kant, its "father" was Descartes. Post-modernism is the epistemological result of the modern approach to cognition. It seeks to replace existence with "our" consciousness. As Aristotle said: "An initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand-fold."

Forget about stuff that exists!
Soon it will barely be missed,
Sunk in inward consciousness.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Pants!

The "no pants" transit movement has come to Chicago. Photo here.

So far it seems to involve only young people.

But what if all those free-riding old folks decide to join this new movement?

The good news is that when you get old
You lose your tolerance for the cold
And therefore are less likely to bare
Your aged derriere
In the January air.

It's Not A Phobia If It's Rational

The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry warns that the U.S. is spreading Irano-phobia.

Hey, aren't these the folks who call the U.S. "the great Satan"?

Sounds like USphobia to me.

Of course, you can see where they'd be nervous about now. The U.S. armed forces are camped on 2 of their borders. And the U.S. President just called them "the world's leading state sponsor of terror".

After getting an earful of that
I'd be fearful of getting bombed flat.

Harsh Words

Now Mayor Daley is lambasting our governor's demand that trains and buses provide free rides for old folks.

“Any politician can give things for free, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Daley said at a news conference.

They call it free, but the bill comes due,
And soon your lunch is eating you.

Perfecting the Persona

Interesting NYT article on the way Fred Thompson suddenly emerged as electric during the South Carolina Republican debate..

Apparently before he was "distinguishing himself" by being "almost invisible." Heh. That's more like extinguishing yourself when it comes to getting votes.

“But then last night — we hadn’t even been thinking about him — all of a sudden it was clear he was the one,” said Mr. Berenberk, a retired teacher. “The bluntness, the forcefulness. He was really impressive.”

Here's the part I really liked:

Mr. Thompson has made all the same points during campaign events throughout the state, aides said. But many voters who flocked to his rallies on Friday had never heard him make them until they heard him in the latest debate on the Fox News Channel.

So they didn't even hear what he said before?! Part of what he did was criticize his opponents with an air of self-confidence.

He got juiced up
And ruled the roost
And boosted his campaign.

Maybe a Lemon Tree in My Backyard?

It snowed today in Baghdad.

First time in a hundred years.

Well, I'm a bit worried. I was counting on global warming to improve the local climate here in Chicago. I figured we'd have palm trees lining State St. and orange groves in Grant Park.

Retirees would no longer move away to "somewhere warm."
Flamingos would arrive in a vast swarm.
Hurricanes, not blizzards, would be our chief form of storm.

Finally forever free of snow!
But, no.

In a news flash
My hopes were dashed.

Free Riders

Here in Illinois, as elsewhere, our mass transit finances are in a mess. But our governor demands that "seniors" be allowed to ride for free!

Of course, this will actually reduce the money coming into the transit agency. Brilliant.

When you decide to give away
All sorts of goodies to those with gray,
Someone, somewhere, has to pay.

Of course it's the young
Who end up stung.

Vote Early, Vote Often

If you want to vote in Indiana, you have to show a state-issued i.d., such as a driver's license.

Some believe this is an assault on the right to vote. They sued. The Supreme Court heard the case today.

So here's a funny story about a woman who wasn't allowed to vote in Hoosier Land. She has been complaining about this great injustice!

But it turns out she's also registered to vote in Florida, where she has a winter home.

I'm standing by her!

Why should I vote only once?
My home state is solidly Blue!
My ballot here barely counts.
Michigan needs me too!

Wouldn't it be great
When choosing Presidents
To vote in every state
Where you've got a residence?

It's probably out of my reach,
But it would be nifty
To rent a hotel room in each
And vote in all 50!

New Hampshire Results IN!

Democracy, you know,
For drama you can't beat it.

One side gets to crow,
The other gets to eat it.

Blackout

The town of Nampa, in Idaho, was blacked out yesterday by a cat. The poor kitty "entered an electrical substation, snuggled up to a warm transformer and contacted a live circuit." The cat did not survive.

To err is human, so they say,
But clearly,
Our fur-coated companions may
Also err, and sometimes pay
Severely.

The Windier City

The Windy City was living up to its nickname today.

There's a particular block in the Loop that seems to be a wind-tunnel of some kind - around Wabash and Jackson. Today, at lunch, we saw a woman there who was just holding onto a lamppost with both arms. She was actually afraid to cross the street. So my friend and I offered our arms.

I hope she got where she was going
Before the tornadoes started blowing.

"For The Girl Who Has Everything"

Found on ChicagoBoyz:

It's the cutest little weapon that you have ever seen:
The Hello Kitty AR-15.

Spelling to Go with the Rhyme

I've been reading Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" in Middle English. When I'm unsure of the meaning - often enough - I glance at the facing page for the Modern English version.

I was amused when I came across 2 different spellings of pain around line 461: peyne vs. pyne.

The spelling seems to change depending on what word it's being rhymed with.

Simplifying drastically, the rhymes are pain / complain, and pain / divine.

I don't know much about pronunciation back then. I'm guessing that there were 2 acceptable ways to pronounce "pain". Spelling wasn't standardized. So the spelling of a word changed to match the pronunciation.

I have to admit, I still do this once in a while. Usually with an apostrophe. Usually to indicate that I'm dropping the final "g" in a rhyme like this:

There was a high-schooler named Helen,
Who always won contests for spellin'.
She said: "Drop that G
In a real spelling bee,
And you'll be sent away as a felon."

Nevada Flood

A levee has broken after heavy rains in Nevada, stranding 3500 people.

In Nevada?

I thought it was supposed be dry there!
How did the water get so high there?

Shocked Or Not

I can't say I was shocked when Obama carried Iowa.

But one of my friends at work was. She's black, and a few years older than me. She was floored. In a good way. "I didn't think I'd see this in my lifetime." She kept saying that.

She grew up in the Jim Crow South. Separate water fountains for "colored." Imagine that.

There was an article in the Sun-Times today about how stunned many African-Americans feel.

"We were all just thinking that he would be third when they were showing the early returns on TV," said Betty Wilson, a 50-ish owner of Hairicons, a beauty salon and barber shop in the 6400 block of South Cottage Grove in Woodlawn. "But then they said he was in first. Who would have thought he would get so many votes?

I suspect this is bad for Mrs. Clinton. She had a lot of black support. But some of that support was premised on the idea that Obama couldn't possibly win among whites. Now the air is going out of that idea.

When racial bias became officially taboo, it did not vanish, but it went underground. This makes it hard to know how much of it there is.

Apparently there's less
Than a lot of people thought.
Sometimes it's hard to assess
The changes time has brought.

Thrill of the Bug Hunt

Exciting day at work!

Exciting mostly because I had to track down 2 mistakes I'd made... and fix them ASAP.

First you detect
The bug's effect,
Plain before your eyes.

But where the defect
Really lies
Arrives as a surprise.

Hocus Pocus, Caucus Focus

It's Huckabee and Obama! Assuming the projections hold.

Iowa is adjacent,
So I cannot be complacent.

The great thing about the 2 party system is that everyone is guaranteed at least one person to vote against!

Representative government
Can sometimes seem a curse.
That's when I remind myself
The other forms are worse.

Leaving the Land of Levees

New Orleans was a bit chilly on the last few days of our stay. Chilly by their standards, that is.

Well, I'm back. This morning I awoke to the announcement that it was zero degrees Fahrenheit here in Chicago.

We flew out of the Big Easy
And into the Deep Freezy!

Knowing When To Stop

This woman in Paw Paw, Michigan ran a stop sign. She hit a utility pole, making contact with electrical wires, setting her truck on fire.

She got back on the road and kept going.

Flames engulfed her vehicle and she had to jump out.

She's fine. She also set her dog on fire in the process, but he's fine too.

"Alcohol is believed to be a factor in the crash."

Talk about using the passive voice to obscure responsibility! I wonder how alcohol is a factor? Did she have a crate of rubbing alcohol in the truck bed and it caught on fire?

You might admire her drive
But she's lucky she's alive.

As for alcohol,
If you plan to knock down wires,
Be sure to store it all
Somewhere it can't catch fire!

For Lack of "The Lake"

The past 3 years I jumped in the lake for New Year's. It had turned into a tradition! But this morning I'm nowhere near my familiar Lake Michigan.

Fortunately, we're going on a swamp tour.

Since the Chicago River was reversed
Water from Lake Michigan has coursed
Down to the delta of the Mississippi.

So I plan to let my fingers dip
Into the dark and muddy water, knowing
Some of those molecules from my home came flowing.