Verse-afire

Cass Sunstein is President Obama’s Regulatory Czar, and as such supports the Fairness Doctrine, which states that any opinion on the airwaves must be balanced by an opposite opinion. The Fairness Doctrine is a little disguised attempt to shut down free speech, something the Democrats have tried to do for years. Glenn Beck has recently called Cass Sunstein the most dangerous man in America, for, among other things, maintaining that freedom cannot exist without government, that people with rights, such as people on welfare, are entitled to a piece of the taxes we all pay as a right not to be denied, that property rights are dependent on the whole of the community, to be managed by the government, and, most insidiously, that there is no freedom without dependency.

 

This, in my view, has it backward: people do not exist for the government, government exists for the people, something we learned in school, at home and in the Boyscouts. Evidently Mr. Sunstein was never in the Boyscouts, else he would never have formed such opinions. Had he been in the Scouts, he would have sat around the campfire singing You Are My Sunshine.  The following must be sung to make any sense at all.

 

 

You are my Sunstein, my only Sunstein

I make you happy when tax I pay

You’ll never know dear how much I love you

Please come take my Sunstein away

The other night dear as I lay sleeping

I dreamed that welfare rights were gone

When I awoke dear I was mistaken

Please come take my Sunstein away

Big Brother Chavez says airwaves closing

He says opposing him no way

Cass show affection for Chavez doing

Please come take my Sunstein away

Of course Obama plan something like that

He put Mark Lloyd in FCC

Mark Lloyd say Limbaugh off air be taken

Please come take Obama away

These liberal lawyers say we’re dependent

That slavery is our highest goal

And Mr. Sunstein say he will guide us

Please come take my Sunstein away

 

 

Detroit has been in the news lately, what with the Northwest Airlines terrorist incident, but what is and was Detroit, and how has Detroit fared in relation to other one industry towns? Pittsburgh for example? In 1859 Charles Dickens published A Tale Of Two Cities. The two cities were London and Paris. One hundred and fifty years later the tale of two cities is Pittsburgh and Detroit. Both lost their reason for existence, Pittsburgh lost its steel mills and Detroit lost its auto plants. Yet Pittsburgh seems to have survived while Detroit is down the drain, never, probably, to recover. In Pittsburgh the government is no worse than municipal government has historically ever been, while in Detroit municipal government has been taken over by thugs and criminals. Why have things turned out reasonably well for Pittsburgh but disastrously for Detroit? Beats me. Nobody knows. The fact that Detroit is 81.6% black and 10.5% white while Pittsburgh is 27.5% black and 66.9% white undoubtedly has nothing to do with it. 

 

 

Who now remembers Al Kaline

A stadium named Briggs

The brand new Ford assembly line

With shiny tools and jigs

After the war when car was king

And Reuther was the man

He made the deals, they kissed his ring

And for a while it ran

But came the city’s vacant nights

As crime and violence grew

And politicians chased the whites

Till there were very few

Today Detroit is at a loss

And ruled by thieves and crooks

Where racial politics is boss

And schoolkids have no books

All our great cities ‘cross the land

Are headed Detroit’s way

As whites flee crime to suburbs and

 Who’s left in town fall prey

To crooks and thieves and racial groups

Black Panthers and the like

Who strip the cities bare while dupes

Demand whites take a hike

Where now Kaline and Tigertown

Big Gordy and the Cup

Assembly lines are now run down

And all the jigs are up

 

 

Marc Ambinder, in the Atlantic, has spun a virtuous angle around President Obama’s failure to say anything about the thwarted bomb attack on the Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit the other day. According to Ambinder, it was a very clever plan on the part of the president: by continuing with his vacation in Hawaii he did not dignify the attack by commenting on it, did not give al Qaeda the satisfaction of knowing the Great One had so much as noticed them. Of course these were the same kinds of people who heaped calumny and contempt upon President Bush when he was caught reading to some kindergartners when the Twin Towers were attacked on 11 September 2001. To those of us not bent over in adoration of the Obama the Great, the clever plan takes on a somewhat more sinister aspect. We suspect that the president of the United States, who spent twenty years in the pews of a church that preached hatred of the United States in general and white men in particular might not be wholeheartedly on our side.  

 

 

My name is Ambinder

And if I can find her

I’ll ask the DHS to tell

What happened at Schipol

That almost took wee toll

Of airplane and people as well

There’s nothing to see here

The president will be here

As soon as he’s finished his game

In meantime the gap in

Our intel may happen

But we know that Bush is to blame

The problems we’re fixin’

Go back to Dick Nixon

We’ve no time for terrorist plans

The prez will not notice

No matter they goad us

Because they know just where he stands

He stands square with free men

And knows that to be men

Al Qaeda and Taliban must fight

The wars George Bush gave them

And this prez will save them

By leading them into the light

They would not attack us

Instead they would back us

And join us in health care reform

And praise our decisions

On carbon emissions

And Islam would soon be the norm

 

 

Pictures of the CIA’s latest drone flying in daylight over Afghanistan has raised some serious questions. Why was this top secret airplane flying in daylight and at low altitude for everyone to see and photograph? Did President Obama deliberately and with forethought expose an indispensable CIA asset that caught top level Al Qaeda in places they thought they were safe? Did he do it to mollify Pakistan’s ISI, who objected to our taking out high value targets? Or did he do it to ingratiate himself with the Taliban who he rightly believes will resume power in Afghanistan after he leaves? The evidence that he deliberately dropped a dime on the CIA’s wonder UAV is unclear, but who else had the authority or motive, the motive being what has driven his foreign policy since taking office, which is to be nice to our enemies in the hope they will one day embrace Barack Obama in return.  

 

 

And now it seems Barack Hussein

Has stepped into the brambles

His humble bowing now in vain

His policy a shambles

He showed the Paks our UAV

That caught Al Qaeda big shots

In daylight for the world to see

Just setting up for MiG shots

One wonders what Obama thinks

When lying late abed

I fear when crisis comes he blinks

And we will all be dead

 

 

The Australian government recently asked the United States government if there were a plan to bribe, buy, hire or otherwise convert Afghan warlords to our side in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, much as the Sunni sheikhs in Anbar were brought over to our side in Iraq. The question was a reasonable one, since turning your enemies into friends is the first rule of counter-insurgency warfare. When told there was no plan to bribe or hire Afghan warlords since to do so was contrary to our ideals and ethics, the Australians just shook their heads and walked away.

 

 

The Aussies looked a bit askance

When told there was no plan

They asked if there might be by chance

A savvy old Afghan

Who knew the countryside quite well

And who if pressed could say

The price the warlords need to sell

The price we need to pay

To get the locals on our side

To fight the Tal’ban vice

We said we reasoned with their pride

But money is the price

With that the Aussies put the ball

Into the US court

And said that you must make the call

But O is not the sort

Of guy who takes advice and such

From guys who like as not

Are really asking not too much

For the best allies we’ve got

 

 

Every Christmas my Norwegian grandmother baked a wonderful sweetened Christmas bread she called sestakake (ses ta kah kah), and that some call Julekaga. Baked in a loaf pan, it was filled with candied fruit and spiced with cardamom. There was no better Christmas morning than to cut and butter a slice of sestakake and have it with your morning coffee. Not everyone is familiar with sestakake, or the story of how it came to be, and so verse-afire now tells the true tale of the birth of that wonderful Christmas time treat, sestakake. 

 

 

Once upon a time, they say, in a kitchen bright and gladsome,

A Viking boy looked up and said, “I really wish I had some.”

“Had some of what?” his mother asked, while reading from the saga.

“A sweet, a treat,” the young man said, “a slice of Julekaga.”

 

“I know from Jule,” his mother said, “I also know from kaga,

But I don’t know from both combined, sometimes you drive me gaga.”

“I’m sorry mom,” the boy replied, “it’s something I invented,

A Christmas bread, with candied fruit, and aromatic scented.”

 

“Sounds good,” the Viking mom replied, “but right now I am reading,

“’Bout Thor and all those Viking guys, and don’t have time for kneading.

Besides,” his mother said aloud, a frown upon her features,

“You should be thinking Viking thoughts, like maiming fellow creatures.”

 

“I do that all the time,” he sulked, “it’s just that when I’m finished,

I put my sword and shield away with cravings undiminished.”
She put her saga book away and led him to the kitchen,

“I’ll make your Julekag,” she said, “if just to stop your bitchin’.”

 

“You’ll need some pans and flour too,” the boy said all aquiver,

“Plus candied fruit and yeast and salt, and naturally a siever.

We need some sugar too, of course, as well as lots of butter.

I’ll clear the table off so you can work without the clutter.”

 

And that’s how, many years ago, a Viking son and momma,

Produced what we now all recall as seasonable drama.

When floured pans and baking bread smell permeate the kitchen,

That Sestakake urge begins and Vikings start to itchin’.

 

We slice it thick, we slice it thin, we slice it down the middle,

We butter once, we butter twice, we toast it on a griddle.

We dunk it in our coffee or we eat it while we’re walking.

We eat it while we drive the car, we eat it while we’re talking.

 

And all because a Viking boy dreamed dreams of baking wonders,

And taught to all the little Arnes and all the little Gundars,

The joys of making Christmas bread, and rounding out the story,

The secret’s handed down to us in all its Christmas glory

 

 

The most important battle ever fought on planet Earth may very well have been the battle of Milvian Bridge, on October 28, 312 AD, between the forces of two Roman Emperors, Constantine and Maxentius. Though outnumbered, Constantine won, and by winning assumed sole control of the government of Rome. Legend has it he saw a sign in the sky the night before the battle, a sign that said In Hoc Signe Vincit, In This Sign You Shall Conquer. The sign was the Christian sign of the Chi-ro, the first three letters of the name of Christ. Constantine had his men paint the sign on their shields, won the battle, and later made Christianity the state religion of Rome. Europe therefore was Christian when the Arab invasions began five centuries later, and a Christian Europe united in defeating the Muslim armies. It is difficult to see how a non-united non-Christian Europe, with many differing religions, could have resisted the sword of Islam any more than the Middle East, North Africa and the eastern lands stretching from Persia to India had been able to resist. Had Constantine not won the battle of Milvian Bridge, Europe would not have been Christian, and we would all be Muslims now. There would have been no Enlightenment, no science, no Western culture, no democracy and no United States.  

 

 

IN HOC SIGNE VINCIT

or

HOW CONSTANTINE PUT THE X IN XMAS

 

 

We wish you a merry X-Mas

A sentiment just fine

But did you know that Xmas

Has its roots in Constantine?

 

Back in the day of Roman clout

When Legions reigned supreme

 A couple emperors duked it out

To see who owned the dream

 

Old Connie told his soldiers he

Had seen in the night sky

A sign proclaiming victory

And gave the reason why

 

He said the sign did light the night

The sign of the Chi-Ro

That promised he would win the fight

If allegiance he would show

 

The sign proclaimed the Christian King

Whom they would recognize

To rule the earth and everything

From seas to shining skies

 

Thus Constantine did give the word

“The sign upon each shield!”

The morning saw his army gird

For battle they’d not yield

 

The Christian god now on their side

The troops were confident

That no defeat would God abide

And into battle went

 

 You know the rest, they passed the test

And Constantine emerged

A Christian king, one of the best

The pagans they were scourged

 

What was that fiery sign you ask

That flared in bold relief

That gave to Constantine the task

Of changing men’s belief

 

From many gods to the one True

I’ll tell you so you know

The sign that flared up in the blue

Was the old Greek Chi-Ro

 

The letter X, that sounds the same

As Ch, then with Ro,

The letter R, becomes the name

Of Christ, to those who know

 

And still today the letter X

Stands for the risen one

And not a slight designed to vex

Adherents of the Son

 

Had Constantine not climbed the ridge

And to the sign did bow

He’d have lost that day at Milvian Bridge

And we’d all be muslims now

 

So Merry X-Mas as we dine

On this fine Christmas Day

And drink a toast to Constantine

Who showed us all the way

 

 

MERRY XMAS!

 

 

Bound by Reason, man sees the stars but touches them not; his instruments measure their brightness and composition, but knowing the brightness and composition of a star brings us no closer to an understanding of what they are and who made them. To those of Reason, the stars are inanimate balls of fire born at the singularity; to those of faith, the stars are the eyes of God.

 

 

In the deep dark, in the vastness of the plain

The fires gleamed, winking clear and bright

In the wild field where a lion’s cubs had lain

A family band was settled for the night

What are those lights there, a tiny voice was heard

Why they are sparks, son, from fires keeping warm

Why do they fly, like a tiny little bird

They fly to keep you well and safe from harm

Where do they go, for I see them climb the sky

Do they join the stars that I see far above

They do, for the sparks are the life that will not die

As we are the fire, and the stars that shine their love

Why are stars love, do they love us even though

We are here far away, where they surely cannot see

The stars are the eyes, son, of a God we cannot know

And so He sees the world and you and me

He sees us and loves us, and guides us in our ways

He gives us his love and asks nothing in return

He asks not for wealth nor for fame or hollow praise

He asks only that our fires burn

I see, said the child, both the fire and the sky

Are gifts to us from God, but God is where

He lives in our hearts, son, and will ‘til day we die

We only need to know that He is there

 

 

Asleep in my warm winter bed, I dreamed of an ACLU Christmas. In my dream the American Civil Liberties Union had opened an office in Bethlehem, PA, and immediately sued the town, demanding it change its name. And then, in my dream, on Christmas Eve the ACLU gathered to stamp out any show of the vile and hated Christmas. And were shown why they will never win.

 

 

‘Twas the night before the winter holiday,

And all through the town,

Vile creatures had gathered,

Demeanor afrown.

 

For earlier that day

An email arrived,

That told of a family

Depraved and deprived.

 

These people, it said,

Had the gall to declare,

They would hang up their stockings

By the chimney with care.

 

“We cannot permit,”

The ACLU cried,

“This unseemly act

Of bravado and pride!

 

“For where will it end

If we sanction such acts?

The fat man is dead,

The facts are the facts!”

 

“And so is the child!”

Yelled a voice from the rear,

“He never was born,

He never was here!”

 

So crying they ran

Through the streets of the town,

The family to find,

The threat to put down.

 

And find them they did,

In the poorest of shacks,

On the mean side of town,

And hard by the tracks.

 

On the front door there hung

A moth-eaten wreath,

The light from the window

Showed the snow underneath.

 

And peering inside

The vile creatures saw,

A sight that caused trembling

And quaking with awe.

 

For there round a table

Sat a fat man in red,

And a saintly young woman

Kissing her baby’s head.

 

Surrounding the tableau

Was a soft golden glow,

That lighted the window

And lighted the snow.

 

As the vile creatures stood there

They heard voices sing,

From inside the shack

They heard the word King.

 

The baby then smiled

And the fat man did grin,

And legions of angels

Filled the spaces within.

 

The CLU members

All groaned with despair,

And looked at the sky

And tore out their hair.

 

“We never shall win,”

They whispered in dread,

“We shall not prevail,

No matter what’s said.”

 

They turned on their heels

And slunk slowly away,

While far in the distance

Came the sound of a sleigh.

 

The door of the shack

Then opened quite wide,

And the fat man in red

Stepped quickly outside.

 

“Good night, little fella,”

He said with a grin,

He hopped to the sleigh,

And when he was in,

 

He turned to the crowd

That was slinking away,

“Do you know who that is?

Do you know what’s today?”

 

And with that he was off,

His night rounds to make,

While inside the shack

The infant did wake.

 

“Who were those men?”

The boy Jesus said,

“And sour-faced wenches

Who wanted me dead?

 

“And not only me,

But the fat man in red!

Who are these people

Who want us both dead?”

His mother then smiled

And with wave of her hand,

An archangel knelt

And explained the vile band.

 

“To some they’re the grinch,”

He said, “Real witches brew,

To others they’re simply

The ACLU.”

 

“Rest easy,” mom smiled,

“Rest east my son,

They never will win,

They could never have won.

 

“For thine is the kingdom,

Thy father says so,”

And from off in the distance

Came a hearty Ho Ho.

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

Well, Christmas is almost over for another year, and I was struck, as I have been for many years now, with how far we have come in de-linking Christmas with the birth of Christ. Kids don’t sing Christmas carols in school anymore lest someone be offended at the display of Christianity. There are no more Christmas pageants in our nation’s public schools, with little kids dressed as angels. No, all that is gone, and good riddance say he multi-culturalists. Gone and replaced with Winterfest, or Winter Festival, as if we were all a bunch of Druids. Merry Christmas has been replaced with Happy Holidays, and Christmas cards hardly mention the name of Christ. Then again, maybe we are all Druids now.      

 

 

Happy holidays! The children cry

As Winterfest begins

They’re off from school but don’t know why

Their faces shiny grins

They know snowmen and Santa Claus

And elves and presents too

They know of wide nutcracker jaws

And snowy landscape view

But they don’t know what it all meant

At least not many do

They think it’s all about the gent

Who with his reindeer flew

They’ve not been told of Jesus’ birth

To do so would offend

They’ve not been told He came to Earth

His mission to attend

Born this day so long ago

Two thousand years and more

In a dry land that saw no snow

A babe men did adore

He’s Christ the King men did avow

Sent to us by His father

And if he looked around Him now

He’d say Why did I bother?