I Mean, Why Not?

I'm letting my hair grow out curly,
Fostering an attitude that's surly,
And celebrating April Fool's Day early.

I’m Not Quite Jewish, But...

A favorite Passover dish
Is known as gefilte fish.
I buy by the pound
From a deli I found
That sells me as much as I wish!

Arms And The Man

The second amendment - strangely it's still around,
Annoying opponents who claim it isn't sound.
Mere words on paper - oops, somehow it's the law.
Let's read it again - there must be a fatal flaw!

Infrequent

Rain in the desert:
Cactuses dripping,
Thirsty young lizards
Warily sipping.

Unusual Pool

A chance to swim in the sky.
Is this what it feels like to fly?
Would you want to give it a try?

After All, It Is The Perfect Shape

Why doesn't Excel show more deference
When I try to make a circular reference?

Data, Data, Everywhere

I hope my Facebook data is used
To further world peace.
But mostly I pray my rhymes are excused
By the new thought police.

Rescue Pups

'Colorado Springs firefighters said they were surprised to learn that the littler of "puppies" they rescued from a storm drain were actually baby foxes.... The "puppies" were taken to Powers Pet Emergency & Specialty, where veterinarians said they weren't actually dogs at all, but rather newborn red fox kits.'

Those vets. They know the secret signs whereby a canid is revealed to not be a domestic dog.

Baby dogs are pups.
Baby foxes are kits.
I'm not sure why this is
Or how they got mixed up.

Cosmic Daze

He thought he had been gifted by the gods.
She was as perfect as a work of art,
But warm and loving. What fantastic odds
Had brought them close? He felt his beating heart
Had somehow recognized her secret spirit,
A rhythm of her blood, a coursing rush
Of music too abstruse for ears to hear it.
He knew it was his brain that spawned this crush,
That spun the spell of leaping into love,
As if her soul were something made to order
To mesh with his. Not so much hand in glove
As hand in hand, toward a golden border.
Unsure if it was chance or hidden laws,
He uttered thanks unto the unknown cause.

Creepy Illinois State Voter Program

It comes in an envelope that looks like it might be official. The envelope has big red letters "Important Taxpayer Information Enclosed". But that's a falsehood, a trick to get you to open the envelope. The information isn't to do with taxes. It's to do with voting. And, strangely enough, it's a chart of whether I and some of my neighbors voted in elections in 2014 and 2016.

This is public information - not how you voted - but whether you voted.

Gateway Pundit says the "shady" group behind it is liberal. There's nothing explicitly liberal about the verbiage, except its creepy Cass-Sunstein nudge-like wording:

"Dear John,

What if your friends, your neighbors, and your community knew whether you voted?"

It goes on in that vein. And ends with a promise/threat to mail out an updated chart soon:

"You and your friends, your neighbors, and other people you know will all know who voted and who did not vote. DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY---VOTE!"

Dear Voter Program, please carefully note:
Freedom includes the right not to vote.
I wish you had told me whom YOU endorse -
I'd vote for his opponent, of course.

Standards

Person happy to go outside:
Let’s all get a whiff of fresh air!
Dog happy to go outside:
Hey someone peed over there!

Heard on the Street

Heard a bird
While on my walk.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
No song or squawk.
A woodpecker busy -
Pounding away.
I would get dizzy
Doing THAT all day!

NG

I was talking with someone whose native language is not English. Her English is generally excellent, but somewhat accented. Anyway, I was talking about the fact that German and Yiddish speakers tend to over-pronounce the "g" in our "ng" words. So, Long Island sounds a big like Lawn Guyland. Or singer is pronounced to rhyme with finger.

At this point, my friend stopped me and quizzed me. She didn't actually know that singer doesn't rhyme perfectly with finger. She says them the same way. And I listened carefully to her speech, and sure enough, she has the "hard version" of our "ng" sound, and doesn't actually say the soft version. Or, maybe she has one in-between sound. But I could definitely here the "explosive" "g" when she said singer.

With this variation
Of English pronunciation
You won't be misunderstood
But you won't sound perfectly good.

Fake Space News

"Is Chinese space station falling toward Michigan? Chances minuscule"

That's from the Detroit Free Pres. In one headline, they try to scare the locals and reassure them.

What goes up,
Must come down,
But Michigan?
Exactly which town?

City of

When you visit Chicago, remember to eat
More than you normally would.
We have big shoulders and huge appetites,
So kindly join in if you could!

Unsmooth Transition

March, I hear your name and think of Spring,
But then you send cold breezes just to bring
A blast of snow for Winter’s final fling.

First World Problem

I don’t suppose you care if
I can’t find a rhyme for tariff.

Harvey Casting

Instead of being cast as a silent invisible rabbit,
I’ve been cast as the judge.
When there’s a part with no lines I like to grab it,
But the director wouldn’t budge.

Through the Historical Looking Glass

This is a photo I snapped from an exhibit at Chicago's central public library. That's the cover of the first issue of a lesbian newspaper. The illustration shows Alice kissing the Red Queen.

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." And one of the things they did in the early 70s, was represent children as having sort of proto-sexual interests. At that point, the Freudian establishment was still constantly hitting the drumbeat that children were sexual beings. The Freudians had some fairly dark views on this.

How old is Alice, you ask? Well, Wikipedia says:

"Alice is a fictional child living during the middle of the Victorian era. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), which takes place on 4 May, the character is widely assumed to be seven years old; Alice gives her age as seven and a half in the sequel, which takes place on 4 November."

So, anyway, what really struck me was that the curators at the library went ahead and put this up on the wall. I'm surprised they weren't more concerned about the whole child-sexual-abuse thing! Is that girl old enough to consent to that kiss?

Perhaps the curators would agree
That even recent history
Already looks quite strange
After the flood of change.

Dogged

I was trying to stall my dog
Since I had some things to do.
I told her just to wait,
But then she brought my shoe.
I think she wants a walk
And this is her helpful clue.

Forbidden Fable

"China bans George Orwell's Animal Farm and letter 'N' as censors bolster Xi Jinping's plan to keep power indefinitely"

Call it the the sequel
To Orwell's bad dream.
Some are more equal,
And one reigns supreme.

No Go

My flight to Boston, canceled.
No, not once, but twice.
I want to see my grandson,
But the weather was not nice!

In Absentia

If I can get the title role
In this Harvey show,
I’m going for the title role
In Waiting for Godot!

White Rabbit

I auditioned tonight for Harvey.
I asked for the title role.
He’s never seen or heard from,
But I’d play him with lots of soul.

Suffrage the Children

I heard that people were all in a rage
To change the minimum voting age.
I thought they were saying sixty at first.
A little bit high, but perhaps not the worst.
And then I thought they were saying six.
That was my ears, just playing old tricks.
It’s really sixteen that is being proposed,
But six makes more sense, so my case is now closed.
What’s more, I think that the office of president
Should be open to every six year old resident.
Once you’re smart enough to read
Aren’t you ready to vote and lead?

Poet Nonlaureate

As poets go, in point of fact,
I’m anything but famous.
If you don’t know who I am,
You’re not an ignoramus.

Merely Rare

They say perfection’s impossible.
They say the world is glitched.
But baseball’s a counter example.
Perfect games have been pitched.

Month Two

February, you go so soon,
Leaving without leaping.
Sometimes you stay an extra day
For calendar housekeeping.
I dreamed we’d have more time but now
Your exit caught me sleeping.

To Bits

David Mamet has written a new play, about Harvey Weinstein. He has been talking to reporters in recent days, I think as part of a book tour for his new novel. Anyway, I found this paragraph from the Chicago Tribune interesting:

'He long ago and powerfully explored the matter of sexual exploitation in his 1992 two-character play (later a movie) “Oleanna.” “I think about this a lot now. I have a bunch of daughters, a young son,” he says. “Every society has to confront the ungovernable genie of sexuality and tries various ways to deal with it and none of them work very well. There is great difficulty when you are switching modes, which we seem to be doing now. People go crazy. They start tearing each other to bits.”'

"Ungovernable genie" is a nice phrase, and it does seem like people are tearing each other to bits lately. And the joining of the 2 ideas in a sentence makes me wonder if he was thinking of The Bacchae, the ancient Greek play in which the god of wine inspires a mob of women to literally tear a man to bits.

It's just a jest to declare
That a genie is involved,
But there may be puzzles here
That really haven't been solved.

It's Hard To Stop A Spree Killer In Advance, But...

I'm just gobsmacked by the repeated failures of law enforcement to stop this guy in Florida. The FBI received 2 tips, one extremely detailed and credible. The local cops had had a lot of prior dealings with this young man. And finally, to top it off, the sheriff's people had multiple officers stationed outside the school, guns in hand, positioned behind their cars, while the shooting was going on inside the school.

Yes, I realize it's early in the reporting cycle, and facts could still change, but...

When things just drop out of joint,
Suddenly, tragically wrong,
You often find there were multiple points
Of failure all along.

Blarney

The world's smartest pig
Is Irish, that's no sham.
His brain is extra big,
And he is a Cunningham.

Aftereffect

Melting snow
And rain galore
Have made my yard
A pond once more.

No Place Like

After I’ve journeyed
Around for a while
It’s good to return
To my own domicile.

In the San Jacinto Range

I do indeed worry I’ll fail
To keep to the right mountain trail,
But with GPS as my buddy,
Along with a bit of map study,
I somehow got out and back
While staying mostly on track.

In Palm Springs

Hummingbird hovering over the green,
Dipping for nectar while I sit serene,
What are the words that your song does not say?
Something perhaps that I might take away?

Petrified Forest National Park

Freakishly fossilized logs
From fallen Triassic trees,
Cells replaced by silica
And streaks of manganese.

Keeping My Mouth Shut

If your tongue
Got stung
By a bee
Would you be
Unable to speak
For most of the week?

News from Saugatuck

I've spent a lot of time in Saugatuck, Michigan. But this was news to me:

Saugatuck dog mistakenly approved for unemployment benefits

Will work for food
And improve your mood.

After Nine Days of Snow

From the Chicago Tribune:

"Southwest Airlines runs out of de-icer, cancels all flights from Midway"

In retrospect, having more de-icer
Would have been nicer.

Probiotic

I went to the airport cafeteria
To acquire an emotional support bacteria.
I sneaked it in, inside my system.
TSA just kind of missed him.

Up In The Air

Americans are getting wider and taller
But airplane seat space is getting smaller.
I’m scared to predict what will be the case
If both of these trends continue apace.

My Annual Metsphysical

A universe without stuffing
Would be a show about nuffing.

Dreaming

We’ll launch and eat our lunches
In electric cars,
Cruising midst the comets
On our way to Mars.

Horsedogship

Here is a funny short video of a neighbor's corgi riding a "one-eyed pony". It's another one of those "friendship across species" videos, but I was really struck by the extent of the cooperation in apparent imitation of human riding, especially since they reportedly worked this out on their own.

It's a dog and pony show.
I'm not sure how the dog says "whoa!"

Hopium

A friend of mine assured me
That winter was nearly gone.
I didn’t bother to argue.
I’m not sure what he was on.

Wendy MacLeod Bows to Crowd

"Kenyon professor calls off original play about cultural insensitivity amid criticism that it's culturally insensitive."

The playwright is Wendy MacLeod, who is pretty well known. Not like David Mamet, but pretty well known. And she is the "playwright in residence" at Kenyon College.

I've always wondered about these writer-in-residence jobs. They sound sweet. Except, apparently, that the sensitivity kids can keep you from putting up your play.

"The play is inspired by a true story in which a group of Guatemalan minors were forced to work on an Ohio egg farm; three of their captors were convicted and a fourth was indicted last year. MacLeod’s play imagines what might happen if one of the youth escaped to a nearby liberal arts college and encountered a group of less-than-culturally-sensitive white undergraduates."

But it wasn't "white" students who complained. It was "Latin American" students. They didn't like the way the Guatemalan was portrayed. They didn't like that another character used the word "illegal" to describe him. They didn't like that he didn't have many lines - and no English lines at all. They didn't like that he was a "stereotype".

Of course MacLeod caved.
And the college administration
Issued congratulations
On how they all behaved.

Beware of Rhyming Foods

An adventurous antelope
Whose mood was mostly jolly
Consumed a bad cantaloupe
And came down with meloncholy.

Pretzels, Better for Eating than for Posing

I’m bad at pretzel poses.
It’s really not my fault.
It’s just I always try them
With a great big grain of salt.

In case you raise the question,
That picture isn’t me.
The closest pose that I can do
Is known as Tipping Tree.

Unlikely

I saw an article claiming that credible academic philosophers are trying to revive panpsychism, the idea that everything, including stones and spoons, is conscious.

This makes me very happy, you see -
If rocks are conscious, there's hope for me!

Signo de Exclamación

Is it an exclamation point,
Or an exclamation mark?
An explanation of this point
Would lift me from the dark!

Sotu

Please - no spoilers on the speech!
Don’t talk about it in public, I beseech!
I assume we’re going to make America greater,
But as for the speech, I plan to not watch it later.

Career Objective

I want to get the FBI to hire me,
So I can get the pension when they fire me!

Pet Language Peeve: Referring to the Living as Bodies

This quote comes from an NY Times op-ed, by way of Reason magazine:

"Death is the ultimate vulnerability. It is the moment when all of us must confront exactly what so many women have known all too well: You are a body, only a body, and nothing more."

No. You are not a body. Not if you are reading this. You have a body. You have a mind. You have a personality. Sure, they're connected. But they mean different things. And when we speak of something being "only a body"... we are typically talking about a corpse.

I'm not at all sure why women are supposed to have known that people are only bodies. My impression is the opposite.

I find most women distinctly think
That they are more than flesh alone
And are inclined to tightly link
Bodily love with a spiritual tone.

Tracinski on Kaur

A friend sent me a link to an article by Robert Tracinski, The Age of Didacticism. It starts off with something that was news to me, that there's a contemporary poet whose first book sold over a million copies. Her name is Rupi Kaur.

I also looked up an article by an NY Times critic, who sort of tiptoes around the topic of her talents, perhaps because she has millions of readers, perhaps because she is a young woman from India and he is an old white man. But I get the impression he doesn't care for her work at all. He pointedly includes this item:

"There's a parody meme on Twitter to break any banal statement or quote into short lower case lines and sign it '- rupi kaur.'"

Tracinski quotes her most famous poem:

if you are not enough for yourself
you will never be enough
for someone else

Tracinski comes right out and says of her works: "They're not really poetry."

I'm of two minds on this. Maybe most of her verse is just banal prose with line breaks. I haven't really read much of any of it. But I have a technical note on the lines above. Bear with me. It's my obsession. But please note that this "most famous" poem almost rhymes and has a lot of aural repetition. Let me move the line breaks just for fun:

if you are not enough
for yourself
you will never be enough
for someone else

I point this out only because it's my belief that when a piece of free verse turns out to be popular, it often, also, turns out to be hiding half rhymes and other "sound effects". Anyway, moving on to one of Trancinski's big thoughts:

"In the early 20th Century, highbrow Modern art was born in a frenzy of negation. The big new advances in poetry were the elimination of meter and rhyme. In music, it was the elimination of melody, harmony, and structure. In the visual arts, it was the elimination of realism and technical skill. In literature, you had novels without plots and exciting experiments like Beatniks writing long essays without using any punctuation. The things the Modernists negated were not unnecessary restrictions or dispensable conventions. They were the language through which works of art spoke to their audience. Without that language, art became incomprehensible and quickly disappeared from the public consciousness."

I like his phrase, "a frenzy of negation".
They swept across the arts in highbrow fury,
With urgency that felt apocalyptic.

Suspicious of all clear communication
While posturing as careful judge and jury
Their standards somehow stayed forever cryptic.

Dial M

Dial M for Murder, in which I am briefly onstage as a cop, er, a bobby, opened tonight. It's a well-written thriller, which has stood the test of time surprisingly well. The director changed the chief inspector from a man to a woman, but otherwise we're playing it pretty much as written. The audience is quiet, even during the talkier parts, which is always a good sign, since it means they are interested and paying attention.

Our British accents are barely there,
But the audience doesn't seem to care,
Since their basic motivation
Doesn't include pronunciation.

Hush

I tried to achieve inner peace
By asking the secret police
If all of my thoughts were okay.
But they refused to say.

Ongoing Employment for Translators

Why did Homer choose to speak
An out-of-date language like Ancient Greek?
The people who knew it have mostly vanished.
I think he would have done better with Spanish!

Wishful Thinking

Now that the shutdown
Is in the past,
Do you think that a shut-up
Is too much to ask?

We Open Friday

We're working away
At Dial M for Murder,
A much better play
Than Dial F for Frankfurter.

Exit Blues

There is no 22nd Street in Chicago. We had such a street, but it was renamed to Cermak Road, many decades ago.

Even though there's no 22nd Street, there's a big exit on interstate 94 which is labeled... 22nd Street.

'“They’re misleading the public onto a street that’s not there,” said Bahnsen of the Dan Ryan signs. He said out-of-towners can get confused if they take the 22nd Street exit and find that they are on Cermak.
...
In response, IDOT spokeswoman Gianna Urgo said there are two exits from the northbound Dan Ryan to Cermak, and so two names are used.'

We have no 22nd street.
Just an exit with that name.
They have two exits for Cermak,
But don't want to call them the same.

If you're driving on I-94
It helps you know your history.
Otherwise this exit
Will lead you into mystery.

With Apologies to Joan Osborne

I’m kind of amused by a line I heard today, “Trump is not who we are.” It sounded so defensive, as if the real fear was that the speaker is more like Trump than they care to admit.

What if Trump was one of us
Like Jung’s shadow trailing us
Just a loud guy on the bus
With a tower for a home
Up in his bedroom all alone
Trolling on Twitter from his phone.

Gentlemen and Ladies in Hollywood

I was reading the Wall St. Journal this morning, and there's a set of mini-book reviews on child prodigies, the first being Child Star by Shirley Temple Black. So, here's real life Hollywood, circa 1940:

"When the MGM producer Arthur Freed exposed himself at their first meeting, Shirley, not yet 12, burst out laughing. 'Go on, get out!' he bellowed, and she promptly shared the story with Gertrude. Her mother's idea of comfort was to tell her preteen about her own experience parrying the gropes of MGM head Louis B. Mayer."

Peggy Noonan also had a column in today's WSJ, "America Needs More Gentlemen", which closes like this:

"For inspiration we end with Hollywood, with Jimmy Stewart in 'The Philadelphia Story.' The character played by Katharine Hepburn makes a pass at him, and he notes he could have taken advantage of the moment but she'd been drinking and 'there are rules about that.'"



When a lady has been drinking
And her self-control is sinking
And she makes a shocking pass,
It is worth your while to ask
Whether in cold morning's light
Such behavior will feel right
Or the source of much regret,
Which is why such rules get set.

Folk Etymology

Workaholics call it Sadder-day.
Because there’s no work and they have to play.

Whatever Shall I Use?

Drowssap would make a bad password, I fear.
It’s sleepy and stumbles along from the rear.

Descended from Mutants

I thank an ancient ancestor
For the genetic mutation
That graciously has blessed me
With lactose toleration.

Insecurity

Post-its were invented
As an insidious means
So passwords could be presented
On all computer screens.

Panic Time

"Hawaii 'missile alert' sparks anger, demands for answers"

"This is not a drill,"
Makes folks feel pessimistic.
And when it's fake, they will
Likely go ballistic.

Someone Else's House

On weekdays, morning and evening, walking to and from the train, I pass by my father's huge Victorian house. Except it's not his house anymore. It was his house for fifty years, but he has moved to a senior living facility. He was 90, and it was time.

Anyhow, when I see the garbage cans empty at the curb, after their contents have been hauled away, I have a deep desire to pull those garbage cans up my father's driveway. I've been doing that for years. Except it's not his driveway anymore. I'd be trespassing!

I have to concede,
The feeling of ownership lingers
Long after the deed
Has passed to other fingers.

Cold Outside

Central heat,
You’re sweet.

Common Sense

According to John Reis,
One issue in philosophy of mind
Is how separate strands of experience
End up being combined.

Snoozing to the News

I don’t want to be impeached.
I don’t want to be impeared .
I wouldn’t mind being immangoed,
If some of those can be spared.

Unfitted

In that parallel-universe we call England:

'Rigby & Peller, a luxury underwear firm founded in London, had held the royal warrant since 1960. It was withdrawn after June Kenton, who fitted bras for the Queen, released a book called 'Storm in a D-Cup'... She said she was told by the Palace six months ago that they "didn't like the book" and she shouldn't have the royal warrant any more.'


Earn your customers’ loyalty.
Never fit and tell.
With commoners, as with royalty
It doesn’t play so well.

Orlando Might Have Been A Better Choice

I went to Minneapolis
In search of Minnie Mouse.
My efforts were quite hapless
And I failed to find her house.

She’s the Quiet Type

When you’re barking at the Moon,
Expect no answer soon.

Not That Marathon

I've been idly pondering what my main autumn marathon should be this year, and I was thinking about the Des Plaines River Trail marathon, which gets abbreviated as DPR Trail Marathon, and I googled DPR marathon, and I was wondering why the heck I was seeing ads for a marathon in PYONGYANG, wherever THAT was...

Oh, it's the capital of North Korea. And the search engine saw DPR and thought maybe I had in mind the DPRK - Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Yipes. They have a marathon in April.

Well, I've never been to that country.

I shall continue that trend.
I plan to not attend.

Weekend in the Twin Cities

I'm guessing I doubled or tripled my lifetime "driving over the Mississippi" tally.

Saw the art museum, which is worth a visit, particularly for all the Asian art they have out, including some rooms that give you a sense of what the architecture ends up feeling like on the inside.

Yes, it was colder than Chicago. It's about 400 miles northwest of here, so that figures.

I didn't see any really bad parts of town. I like the alliteration of "mean streets of Minneapolis," but I kept finding nice streets. Which I think goes along with the typical Chicagoan impression that Minneapolis is a more wholesome.

The Mississipi starts as a trickle
Flowing out of Lake Itasca.
But it's already at St. Paul.
So how is that, I ask ya?

NYD

I'm just hanging out at home for he first. The main flu symptom I have left is lethargy.

On the first, I'm usually wired,
But as for today, I'm tired.

Flu

Flu, flu, flu,
What have I ever done to you?
Are you mad ‘cuz I got the vax
To try to avoid your attacks?
Sad to say, I wasn’t immune,
But I hope you vanish soon!

Thanks Southwest

My son got a text that his family’s flight was canceled tomorrow. But then they put him on a slightly later flight that he actually thinks is better.

Once in a while
On a vacation
A flight cancellation
Ends in a smile.

Brr

The capital city of Chile
Is Santiago.
But if you like windy and chilly
Come to Chicago.

Qui Custodiet

Does the elf on the shelf
Spy on himself?

In Case I Get Distracted, Merry Christmas!

As for me, my goal
Is avoiding a lump of coal.

Hush Hush Help

A headline said that Apple slowed
My iPhone’s speed to help me out.
The story took too long to load,
So I don’t know what that’s about.

Characteristic Conditions

Athletes get athletes’ foot, and so...
What do astronauts have to show?
The answer, of course, is mistletoe.

AT

Who came up with avocado toast?
Suddenly I find it’s coast to coast.
I’m guessing it’s a temporary fad.
But as they go, I’d say it isn’t bad.

Catelli on Elided

Yesterday I was talking about how the word "elide" is used and how I had been puzzling over a sentence in the Wall St. Journal, where I thought it had been used in a sense of transitioning from one step to another.

It has a sense of joining things together, but by means of snipping out in-between steps.

Mary Catelli correctly commented:

"Which means it's not just transition."

So I went back to the original column just now:

"During 2016, the counterintelligence activities of the Obama administration elided, informally and erratically (and clumsily), into an attempt to protect Hillary Clinton and keep Mr. Trump out of the White House, then to delegitimize his election when these efforts all went absurdly and embarrassingly awry." ("Mueller Should Ask for Help", by Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Behind the WSJ paywall here.)

Well, I still find the usage a bit jarring, upon reflection. One sort of activities (counterintelligence) "elided" into another sort of activity (partisan politics). If we want to justify the extended use of "elided", something should be "dropped out" along the way. Well, in the author's version, what got dropped out to make this transition possible?

Maybe he thinks they accomplished this transition
By dropping what had been their original mission.

Elide

I saw the word "elide" in a WSJ column today, used in a sense of transitioning from one stage to another, and I puzzled over it, feeling the word was right, but also wrong.

I tend to think of the word in its more linguistic context, where it means to drop a sound out. So I looked it up just now:

omit (a sound or syllable) when speaking.
"the indication of elided consonants or vowels"
join together; merge.
"whole periods of time are elided into a few seconds of screen time"

So it can mean "omit" or "join", which might seem opposite, but really not, at least in a linguistic context, because when you omit something in the middle of an expression, you join the two ends.

"Do not" becomes "Don't". The second O gets omitted, and the newly adjacent consonants run together.

One that O has been purloined,
Then the N and T are joined,
Although it's true you still can see
In writing, at least, the apostrophe.

Better Late

Some say that I procrastinate
Because I put my lights up late.
I keep them lit till February.
Am I lazy? Very, very.

Etymology I Did Not Know

yule (n.)
...from Old Norse jol (plural), a heathen feast, later taken over by Christianity, of unknown origin.

That's the trouble with the study of word origins - as a rule they only go back so far. Sometimes they will go so far as to a suggest a root in proto-Indo-European or something for which we have no written record. But, even if that's right, what came before that? Something surely did.

Etymology ends in mist
For every word that ever was,
Except for the murmuring list
Of words like "buzz".

Motivation Mottos

I suspect this is mistitled:

The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

I like the guy's perspective, but it seems a bit overgeneralized. I think his perspective may be more individual than he realized. Still, it's an interesting article.

This is about a class at Stanford business school:

'Many of the students had worked for nonprofits or health care or tech companies, all of which had mottos about changing the world, saving lives, saving the planet, etc. The professor seemed to like these mottos. I told him that at Goldman our motto was “be long-term greedy.” The professor couldn’t understand this motto or why it was inspiring. I explained to him that everyone else in the market was short-term greedy and, as a result, we took all their money. Since traders like money, this was inspiring. He asked if perhaps there was another motto or logo that my other classmates might connect with. I told him about the black swan I kept on my desk as a reminder that low probability events happen with high frequency. He didn’t like that motto either and decided to call on another student, who had worked at Pfizer. Their motto was “all people deserve to live healthy lives.” The professor thought this was much better.'

Apparently corporate mottos need
Not to mention the motive of greed.

Time to Worry

By the way,
Did you hear the Russians hacked into Santa's sleigh?
My source is at the NSA,
And here is what he said:
They've got a mole
At the North Pole
Known as Rudolph the Red.

Two Books On China

For book club, we read CEO, China, about the current big boss, and Destined for War, about the ongoing geopolitical tension between us and them.

Neither book really dealt adequately with the current North Korean problem, since that has "evolved" rather quickly. I note that now that North Korea seems to be in a position to drop a missile on Washington D.C., our leaders seem to be paying extra attention.

They seem to have kicked the can
Pretty far down multiple roads.
I hope they come up with a plan
In which nothing near me explodes.

Viking Dash

Medal for half, which was hilly
And chilly.



The race was in Crystal Lake, IL, in a park called Veteran Acres. I think I was the only guy in the 65-69 age group running the half-marathon, but I don't show up in the age results online. Well, I've emailed the organizers and the timing people. Hopefully it's just a glitch. I mean, I ran 13 miles in the cold - I want to see my name in electrons!

I ran in some new shoes. I bought some Hoka trail shoes, and I went up one full size - to 14, to try to avoid the toe-bruising issue that I have bored you with before. Well, my toes were fine. But in 2 trail runs, I have now tripped twice in these shoes - once yesterday, once week ago in Massachusetts. I tripped on roots, the bane of trail runners, but I usually don't do this. Belatedly it occurred to me that running in 14s may be something my brain isn't accustomed to. I may be letting the extra size trip me up!

Whether you run in shoes or boots,
Do watch out for routes with roots!

Lizard People

"An armed Washington state man stopped in the middle of an intersection last month to fight “lizard people” because President Trump told him to, police said."

More proof that Trump is insane! Or maybe just that this guy is.

Lizard people deserve to be,
Like all people, safe and free.

Snedronningen

The year's first flakes
As they fall through the air
Make
Me stare.

Your eye can track
Each individual
Crystal's
Attack.

Slow motion invasion,
Spontaneous, unplanned,
Inundating
The land.

And as her brave troops
Tumble down,
Queen Winter swoops
Into town.

Miscalculation

In case you don't know, Waze is software you put on your smartphone that tells you how to drive from point A to point B. It's good at noticing which routes are currently fast or slow, and has a habit of sending you on shortcuts down side streets.

Anyway, from USA Today:

"Waze sent commuters toward California wildfires, drivers say"

Don't let Waze
Send you into a blaze.

Hygiene

They say you should only floss
The teeth you want to keep.
The rest... write them off as a loss.
Implants are getting cheap!

Do I Have To Believe This?

"A Florida bar owner opening up shop following the Thanksgiving holiday was met by a drunken opossum polishing off a bottle of bourbon. The sneaky critter made its way into Cash’s Liquor Store and had a festive celebration all her own, the Northwest Florida Daily News reported."

I have a wonderful sister-in-law who does possum rehab. But not this kind. More the "possum got a broken leg" kind of rehab. She loves possums. Thinks they are sweet as can be, and praises their insectivore ways.

But then a bad possum like this comes along. Insects? It doesn't need no stinking insects! It wants bourbon.

Marsupial advocates cringe
As opossum is busted on binge.

Better Yet, Wait For The Next Car

If you share an elevator
With a hungry alligator,
I suggest you exit early
Before his mood turns surly.

Prevaricators by Custom

Do we need to be more forgiving
With folks who lie for a living?
How strange it must seem to them
When a fibbing stratagem
Lands them in legal hot water.
I guess they know that they oughter
Stick to the truth on occasion...
But their habits lean hard toward evasion.