When the Iranians announced that on the anniversary of the Iranian revolution they would “Punch the world”, there was much speculation as to just what form the punch would take. Announce they had the bomb? A surprise nuclear attack on Israel? An attack on the US Navy in the Persian Gulf? An increase in the price of pistachios? No one knew. We now know the “Punch” was the announcement that they had enriched their uranium to 20%, a critical step, for the next step to 80% enrichment is a walk in the park compared to getting to the first 20%, and 80% is what they need to build a Hiroshima type bomb. I for one was unafraid, and remain so, for it has been truly said that God looks after drunks, fools and the United States of America.

 

 

‘Tis said that God looks after fools

And the United States

I surely hope He does and that we’re

Not left to the Fates

The danger to this country now

Comes swift on marching feet

Cronyism, soaring debt

The Middle East drum beat

The war to come, the slow sad smile

The teleprompter speech

That promises to meet them at

Each landing field and beach

Incompetence at every hand

Vile treason some would say

Mirandize terrorists who try

To kill us Christmas day

The radicals have shown their hand

The cult of Che and Mao

Are pushing their agenda hard

They have the votes for now

But come November they will find

That two can play at Fates

For God looks after drunks and fools

And the United States

 

 

Amy Bishop, a biology professor at the University of Alabama, shot and killed three fellow professors and wounded six others because she had been denied tenure. Her actions were more or less immediately excused on the grounds of Intermittent Explosive Disorder, or IED, the symptoms of which include chest tightness, palpitations, sweating and twitching. I had those symptoms recently, but don’t think they’re from Intermittent Explosive Disorder. I think it had more to do with the delivery of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, with cover girl Brooklyn Decker.

 

 

The other day I suffered from

Chest tightness, palpitations

Followed by the twitching sweats

And similar sensations

An IED attack I feared

Would surely be a wrecker

Then realized it only was

Swimsuited Brooklyn Decker

 

 

I wrote this for my daughter a few years ago, and offer it now to all fathers fortunate enough to have a daughter.

 

TO A DAUGHTER, ON SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY

 

The dawning paints the night sky pink

With rose and amber hue

To look at it I have to think

The morning loves you too.

The rising sun climbs in the sky

Too bright for us to view

Another reason I know why

The noontime loves you too.

As sunset draws the curtain low

And sky turns dusk from blue

I ken full well that this I know

The evening loves you too.

And as I trundle off to bed

I think always of you

And count the thousand times I’ve said

Your father loves you too.

 

—-

 

This is a valentine to the one you cannot forget after all these years, the one you think about late at night, when all is still, wondering where she is, what she is doing, where would you be had you not said goodbye that fateful day so long, long ago.

 

TO THE MEMORY OF A YOUTHFUL LOVE

 

I saw her yet again last night

As radiant as then

With flowing hair and red red lips

And eyes that whispered when

She smiled a smile that stopped my heart

I tried to speak but no

So long it’s been, why did we part?

I whispered please don’t go

Those golden days when we were young

And loved each other so

All gone, for us the song unsung

The why I’ll never know

She smiled again and turned away

I called but she was gone

I lay awake and prayed for day

Just hoping that the dawn

Would find me still in blessed sleep

To dream and dream again

Of flowing hair and red red lips

And eyes that whispered when

 

—-

 

The third valentine is an assay into rhyme, how one rhyme word can lead to another, and change completely the tone and meaning of the poem. In the poem above, the end word in line 5, heart, leads to a poem about a long lost youthful love, a dream of regret, and the whispered word when means when will we see each other again. In this poem, the end word in line 5, breath, leads to a completely different loss, a bitter loss, and the word when, spoken to the dreamer, now means when will you join me.    

 

TO THE MEMORY OF A LOVING WIFE, TAKEN MUCH TOO SOON

 

I saw her yet again last night

As radiant as then

With flowing hair and red red lips

And eyes that whispered when

She smiled a smile that took my breath

I tried to speak but no

I knew that love transcended death

I whispered please don’t go

She smiled again and turned away

I cried but she was gone

I lay awake and prayed for day

Just hoping that the dawn

Would find me still in blessed sleep

To dream and dream again

Of flowing hair and red red lips

And eyes that whispered when

 

 

Andrew Sullivan, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, former editor of The New Republic, gay activist, liberal, wrote that the United States was being run by a two man Jewish cabal, one of them being the noted conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer. A brief one or two day flurry erupted after Sullivan was answered by Leon Wieseltier, and then died peacefully. But the question remains, who is Andrew Sullivan, and why should anyone take seriously anything he says or writes or publishes?

 

 

Just who is Andrew Sullivan?

He asked with inattention

What has he done or hasn’t done

That rates him all this mention?

He has a blog, the other said

And heads up The Atlantic

He advertises for gay sex

And sometimes seems quite antic

Right now he claims two Jewish guys

Are running this here nation

That Wieseltier and Krauthammer

Are causing him frustration

Because he thinks progressive thoughts

Should be their daily diet

That right wing thought should never be

For Jewish guys to try it

I see, the first man said at last

If gay sex is his fancy

I’d say his mama named him wrong

She should have called him Nancy

 

 

Greece has taken advantage of its membership in the European Union to borrow heavily to expand its public spending, thus increasing its debt to unsustainable levels, all the while concealing from the EU inspectors the real condition of the Greek economy. The EU (read France and Germany) have now said no more bailouts, so the government has promised to cut spending, meaning lopping people off the public payroll. This, of course, has occasioned rioting in Athens and other cities, as people can’t understand why the gravy train cannot continue forever. Is Greece the canary in the coal mine? How far behind Greece is Italy and Spain? How far behind Greece is the United States in its year long spiral under the Obama administration into unsustainable debt?

 

 

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

Beware of gifts baring Greeks

Have fun while the rising tide lifts

Later cry when your rising boat leaks

The socialist gift’s a charade

Borrowed money can last for a while

But eventually the piper is paid

And the bubbly wine turns into bile

We speak of canaries in mines

We parse what the wise men have said

We listen to wind in the pines

No matter, the canary is dead

 

 

A recent Belmont Club post discusses Ben McCarthy’s New Yorker article on the rise of the Tea Party movement, and finds that McCarthy thinks it is just another of the many cultural movements that have taken place in American history – that it’s just one of those things. But it isn’t just one of those things. The country has never been in such perilous economic condition before, with over 30 trillion dollars in debt facing our children and grandchildren, and the Congress and the Executive, of both parties, committed to distributing more and more of the wealth we no longer have to more and more outstretched palms. No, the Tea Party movement is not just one of those things. The Tea Party movement is composed of ordinary patriotic, tax-paying citizens who are frightened at the direction the country is taking, and are determined to reverse that course and reintroduce the forgotten concept of sanity. 

 

 

It was just one of those things

Just one of those crazy flings

One of those yells that now and then brings

Just one of those things

It was just one of those nights

Just one of those fabulous flights

A trip to jejune

On gossamer wings

Just one of those things

If we thought a bit of the end of it

When we started bagging the tea

We’d have been aware that this whole affair

Would result in setting us free

So goodbye Barack and amen

Here’s hoping you’re never again

You’ve been great fun

But you’ve been just one of those things

 

 

In May 1945, the war in Europe almost over, the Nazis converted a minelaying Type DX sub, the U-234, to a cargo carrier, loaded it with uranium oxide encased in lead, a crated Me 262 jet fighter, and various other advanced weapons technology, and sent it off to Japan. At sea, the crew heard of the surrender and turned the boat around and headed for the United States, ending up in New Hampshire. Fortunately for us, the advanced German weapons did not include atomic bombs. Heisenberg tried, but failed, principally because the German industrial plant was unable to undertake the enormous effort the US put into the Manhattan project. Had the Nazis been able to develop the atomic bomb earlier than we, the U-234, with Moscow now a smoking ruin, might well have sailed into New York harbor and delivered an ultimatum – agree to terms or lose the city. 

 

 

In the silence of the ocean deeps

Her mines now stored ashore

The last of Hitler’s U-boats creeps

The U-234

With two enigmas now aboard

One for the messaged code

The other cased in lead and stored

Inside the precious load

Their destination the Far East

They never did arrive

For war in Europe had now ceased

While crew was still alive

Relieved, they turned their boat around

New Hampshire bound they were

With crated Swallows soon aground

Creating quite a stir

But think about it if you will

The U-234

Was just a boat, of course, but still

It could have been much more

Had Heisenberg been there the first

But no, he was too late

And 234 the flaring burst

Of U-238

 

 

The small science of Do-It-Yourself biology has enjoyed a partial resurgence of late, with one and two person basement and garage labs conducting cloning experiments and the like. Open source software is available at the click of a mouse. The question is – is this good or bad? Will these small science do-it-yourselfers produce benign results, like Thomas Edison, or malign, like Dr. Frankenstein?  

 

 

In basement labs throughout the world

Test tubes and Bunsen burners

Are boiling stuff both mixed and swirled

By fast and slower learners

There’s nothing here at least at first

But failure does not daunt them

They do not see for which they thirst

May come one day to haunt them

Who knows what evil substance lurks

In Petri dishes hidden

In basements or in attic works

Just waiting to be bidden

To spread disease and red raw death

To those quite unsuspecting

That drawing in with every breath

In trachea collecting

Are spores and horrid looking germs

Just grinning as they kill us

Let’s leave this stuff to bigger firms

Where Medicare can bill us

 

 

The Chinese claim to have developed new technology that enables them to shoot down incoming missiles in mid-air. The Chinese are now producing their own jet fighters, and energetically building a blue-water navy, complete with aircraft carriers. It has been reported that China has surpassed the United States as the number one car buying country, and we all know that everything we buy these days is made in China. Is the 21^st the Chinese century? They seem to think so. Me, I’m not so sure. They have a ways to go. They, and other second and third world countries have been able to leapfrog the copper wire age and jump directly into the digital wireless age, all thanks to western technology. And there is much smug punditry about the next man on the moon will be Chinese. But there’s a lot of cultural and institutional experience they leaped over, and must be made up somehow. Right now China is driving a Maserati down a gravel road.

 

 

So the Laundrymen have conquered space

At least that’s what they say

They claim that they have won the race

The prize is to Cathay

They claim they’ll shoot our missiles down

They boast A S A T

A bank in every US town

To them A S A P

A billion people buying cars

A billion workers slave

But the road they’re on to distant stars

Still have signs for Burma Shave

 

 

With all the talk of Chinese credit bubbles and collapsing economies in Greece, it is time to put your money in a safe place by betting on Nostradamus. It is time once again for Nostradamus’s mysteriously unerring predictions about the coming sport season. For those of you who bet on line, you can put your money where your mouse is.

 

 

The Super Bowl is not for dolts

The betting’s not for those with nightly faints

The smart guys give the points and take the Colts

The smarter guys lay down and take the Saints

 

The Final Four this year includes Kentucky

While Kansas has a shot to take it all

Though Villanova or the ‘Cuse just might get lucky

Don’t put your money down on Seton Hall

 

The baseball season surely is a long one

The Phillies seem the class of senior league

The Red Sox seem this year to be the wrong one

The Phillies trump the Yanks and win it big

 

The BCS is surely not the right way

To crown the champ of college football’s year

A playoff’s what we need is what the fan’s say

The winner is – dang my Chinese crystal ball’s unclear