Western civilization is crumbling all around us, and the fearful cry it may soon be extinguished by the barbarians. If it be our fate to join the dodo and the passenger pigeon I propose we take the time to see and appreciate the incredible beauty of the universe before the barbarians close it down to us. The universe is beautiful beyond imagining, from the dimmest galaxies at the farthest red shift edges to the deepest ocean canyon on planet Earth; from the scream of a hawk to the fragile beating of a butterfly’s wings; from a Beethoven sonata to a sad and wistful Gaelic folksong; to the majestic arc of an upper deck home run to the hysterical laughter of a small child as dad pushes the swing ever higher. We are surrounded by beauty, and yet most see it not, living their lives in blinkered loneliness, unaware of the stars and the subtle music of the passing seasons, to cry out, at the end of life, that all was in vain, as yet unaware that an unimaginably greater beauty awaits, should they choose to see it. As for the murderous Muslim barbarians, they neither appreciate the beauty of the universe nor will they live long enough to notice it.

A lonely rock strewn shoreline’s end
The smiling face of an old friend
Twin fawns safe by their mama’s side
A laughing child’s first horseback ride
A summer night with stars so low
That woodlands shimmer with their glow
A dusty, winding country road
Past fields that recently been sowed
With seed that burst to life the land
As joyous as a high school band
The gleam of distant Saturn’s rings
The star filled spheres where music sings
Of beauty nested in the folds
Of new mown fields and ancient wolds
When all seems lost, at darkest night
It’s then that strong men rise to fight
Barbarians have come before
And felt the Western way of war
We’ve been bequeathed this land we trod
Where God is beauty, beauty God

The world is a wicked place, the cynic would say, with corruption and debauchery at every turn. But there has always been corruption and debauchery, and always will be. The problem with being cynical is that the cynic never looks in the right places, for if he did he would find that corruption and debauchery are trumped by goodness and laughter. It all depends on where you look.

The world is such a wicked place
The cynics smugly say
The leadership is a disgrace
Corruption rules the day
Our leaders have a hidden face
We see not the decay
And willingly we just grimace
And let them have their way
But cynicism is, at base
A death wish on delay
A loser’s game in any case
Though cynics may say nay
In truth this world is full of grace
With flowered fields in May
And little girls dressed all in lace
As children laugh and play

The terrorist outfit ISIS has conquered parts of Iraq and declares itself a nation, the new Caliphate. You do not become a nation just by saying you are. You do not become a nation until you’ve won. Prussia was a city state, first among equals of the string of German city states along the Baltic, until Bismarck united them into a new German nation. The Confederacy was never a nation, but had they won they would have been. Iraq was never a nation, but a monstrosity cobbled together by the British and French after WW1 from the stinking corpse of the Ottoman Empire. ISIS will not be a nation no matter how much of Iraq it conquers, and to believe otherwise is delusional. One might as well call the Mafia a nation.

A nation has history, and culture and art
And science and rivers and streams
And people who work on the land from the start
And reach for impossible dreams
A nation has industry, cities and towns
And wheat fields uncut by the knife
And millions of kids in their caps and their gowns
All bursting to get on with life
A nation is hard working mothers and dads
Who bring up their children to care
For country and family eschewing the fads
That promise that life will be fair
That nation is ours, yes the home of the brave
Where scoundrels may sometimes take hold
We sometimes elect a slick con man or knave
And sometimes a man of pure gold
It matters not though to a nation like ours
For presidents come and they go
If followed by curses or candy and flowers
No wonder we’re loving her so

Ring around a rosey
Pocket full of posey
All fall down
A deadly strain of Ebola is ravaging West Africa. People don’t trust hospitals, don’t trust the European doctors who risk their lives to care for them, and throw the bodies in the street where they infect others. The UN has responded to the crisis by holding a meeting. During the bubonic plague in Europe in the Middle Ages, people thought holding a bouquet of flowers to the nose would keep you alive. It didn’t. They all fell down. And neither will throwing bodies into the street or holding meetings keep you alive. The gods care not for posies or meetings, it all ends in the fire of the stars.

So small they seem, so distant far
Some call them Stella, others Star
And while they seem but points of light
They fill the sky of darkest night
Along the vast ecliptic plane
The stars as dense as summer rain
Galactic center bright as snow
Beckon us with fire glow
The gods look down on tiny man
From heights that only god can scan
Infinity as some would say
And all constructed in a day
The gods of man so small in size
Claim all we see is but a prize
Created thus despite the odds
Bequeathed to us by they the gods
And yet the stars so fiercely burn
That man in time will surely learn
That right is right and wrong is wrong
And heed them all the psalmist’s song

The troubles in Gaza continue apace, despite the occasional cease fire, cease fires Barack Obama claims are the result of his super smooth diplomacy. Barack Hussein Obama believes he is Master of the Game, and that, as Master, the world spins clockwise or counterclockwise as he desires. Barack Hussein Obama is indeed Master of the Game, and the game is one I played as a ten year old. It is called Go Fish.

Cards close to his vest, the Obama then said
“Please sir, do you have any 2s?”
The well armed young Muslim just smiled, shook his head
And said, “Sir, you surely amuse.
I’ve missiles and car bombs, machine guns as well
And tunnels we’re certain to use
To kill all the Jews and despised Infidel
And yes sir, I have but no 2s.”
With squinted shut eyes and a harsh wire beard
The Muslim said, “Now it’s my turn
And now my good sir it is just as you feared
Your 8s now I surely shall earn.”
“An 8 I do have, and a knave is to blame!
An ingr8, yes!” O fairly cried
And Ben Netanyahu is surely his name!
A small man I have cast aside!”
Within the dead calm came the harsh words so vile
Obama’s eyes turned into glass
“I win,” smiled the Muslim, “I’ll watch all the while
You kiss wet the Prophet’s smooth ass.”
And so the game came to its well destined close
Obama had gotten his wish
To lose to the Muslims is just why he chose
To play a nice game of Go Fish

The Yezhidi, an ancient Christian sect, are trapped in their tens of thousands on a mountain in Kurdistan, and every man, woman and child will die as soon as the murderous Muslim ISIS reaches them. I have long wondered where and when the tipping point would arrive, the point where the elephant tires of the ants biting his ankles and stomps on them. That point, I believe, will come when a nuclear device or bomb takes out London or Paris or Tel Aviv and not before. The Yezhidi will die, despite Obama’s targeted air strikes. Without Special Forces on the ground and B-52s overhead the Yezhidi will die. Without massive heavy equipment rushed to the Peshmerga, the Yezhidi will die. Without the 82^nd and the 101^st and the 10^th Mountain division holding the mountains, the Yezhidi and the Peshmerga will die. None of this will happen under the Valerie Jarrett administration. And so it will come down to the elephant enduring the bites of the ants until the tipping point is reached, after which the Middle East will be returned to the seventh century. The sorrow is it all could have been avoided.

At dusk the distant mountains loom
Against a darkling sky of doom
Yezhidi women softly weep
As hungry children try to sleep
Below them monsters climb the hills
Intent upon the easy kills
In Washington Obama speaks
And bravely claims he rules the peaks
That ISIS will now rue the day
They put the USA in play
He says that soon UN will rule
That ISIS build the kids a school
And feed the older girls and boys
And turn in guns for baby toys
When that day comes, Obama claims
The history books will take the names
Of all, like him, who made the peace
A world where violence will cease
We’ve come to help our Kurdish friends
As soon as we define the ends
In meantime we sit idly by
And watch the brave Yezhidi die

Sherlock Holmes, standing at the window of 221B, looks down at the intense activity along Baker Street, trying to identify the factor that connects all the many Obama catastrophes.

“Patience, dear Watson,” Holmes says, “now and then
the world is a quite complex place,
where only the very least clever of men
can see what is plain on its face.”
“I say Homes, old fellow,” says Watson at once,
“you seem to imply with your words
that only the densest of men, say a dunce,
comprise the once great Barack herds.”
“Exactly, dear fellow, those chaps at the Times,
who write the most exquisite bosh,
in praise of that fellow and write of his crimes
in grand tones of pish and of posh.
I speak of Obama, a man of small size,
a man without breadth, depth nor mass.
That he fails so badly can be no surprise,
except to the journalist class.”
“But they see no failure,” said Watson in scorn,
“they see not the complex nor faults.
They have no more sense than with which they were born;
they dance while the man plays a waltz.”
Holmes picks up a copy of Watson’s new book
Where Holmes sees the problem first glance
And sees that the Yanks have but only to look
Back home if they’d give it a chance
Holmes moves from the window and fills up his pipe,
says, “Watson, it’s here in this tome.
Americans know that the time is now ripe
to return to the Crown and come home,
to dwell in the land of Disraeli and Pitt
of Churchill and Marlowe and me.
There’s steps on the stair, my dear fellow, please sit,
Mrs. Hudson with afternoon tea.”

The sadness of the Middle East is that it has come down to a fight to the knife between the Israelis, who want only to live in peace, and the Arabs, who want only to die killing Jews. There can be no peace settlement when one side has no interest in peace. And so it comes down to this for Israel: kill or be killed.

The desert horsemen swept the land
From Mecca to Khartoum
The Christian cities of the coast
Were soon to meet their doom
The Caliphate extended to
The hills of Hindu Kush
And conquered Spain and then to France
Where close to Tour the push
To conquer Christian Europe paused
No doubt because the fates
Intended that the Turks would meet
Death at Vienna’s gates
Lepanto saw them off at last
Ascendant Europe grew
In science, arts and guns and ships
The many ruled by few
And so for many hundred years
The desert horsemen slept
To dream of conquest of the West
And Allah’s promise kept
Today it is the West that sleeps
While desert horsemen ride
Again to kill the infidel
On Islam’s rising tide
To those who cry give peace a chance
The Arab smiles, amused
He laughs as Western pundits rage
And Israel accused
For in the end it comes to this
A fight now to the knife
Between the Arab wish to die
And those who wish for life

Barack Obama has boasted that he has put the world on the path to tranquility. Of course he speaks of the tranquility of the grave. The house is white, but the people inside are red and green, Leninists and fanatic fascist environmentalists, and both have the same agenda – to destroy the current version of the United States.

The path to world tranquility
Is each to his ability
In order thus to meet the other’s needs
Marx and Lenin had their day
They had it right as some would say
Despite the ghastly nature of their deeds
And so Obama follows suit
He hopes to change us branch and root
With Jarret now our unelected queen
Where once there was the red and black
We now are under fierce attack
By forces flying flags of red and green

Muslim ferocity is coming to a head. In the Middle East the guns and the beheadings and the screams of the murdered children are never silent. We smile indulgently at the notion that a seventh century religion is again set upon conquering the world, and yet they believe their time has come, that Allah is with them, and that they shall prevail and put to the sword all who do not accept their rule. To read the blogs and watch the news one would think the world is coming to an end, and in a sense it is, at least in the northern hemisphere, for August is upon us, and summer is almost gone. But while it lasts summer makes us forget, at least for a time, that the wider world, the Islamic world, with its ferocity and undying hatred of all that we stand for, awaits. The murderous actions of ISIS, the latest iteration of murderous Islam, tells us that summer is over.

The fishing boats, outriggers high
That seem to touch the fragile sky
Small children just released from school
Play in the tepid swimming pool
The fishermen on boat or beach
Content if fish stay out of reach
Young women in their summer best
A sure sign that our lives are blest
The beaches cool with summer breeze
The wonder is that such as these
Are lent to us by gracious God
To whom we give a passing nod
Yes summer’s gone, it’s almost spent
So quick I don’t know where it went
And yet the August heat remains
As in the mountains and the plains
The guns of August gain their voice
And free men have a simple choice
To kill the vermin, kill them all
As August summer turns to Fall