Is it all just chance? Carthage was at the height of its power at about the time Romulus and Remus began suckling at the teat of the wolf. And so it goes.

The laden ships, the Inland Sea
Mighty Baal, thy kingdom be
Bestride the world, thy ships for hire
Adventurers who left old Tyre
To start anew in western lands
And carve a city with bare hands
And now you call the west your home
Still knowing not the infant Rome
The Punic language spoke by all
The Latin still an infant’s squall
And yet the scales were trembling now
The Carthage gods with troubled brow
For they foresaw the future clear
The end of Carthage drawing near
The universe is never still
Who climbs the mountain, crests the hill
Will find that on the other side
The slope is steeper, and the ride
From top to bottom’s but a blink
No time to act, no time to think
And so it is with tide and time
The world doth speak, and speak in rhyme
To tell of others who before
Laid up their riches, filled their store
With goods and gold and heady wine
And saw each day as good and fine
That all must end, the circle made
And time to rest in blessed shade

Ben Rhodes was the principal advisor to President Obama during the negotiations on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, the deal that gave Iran everything it wanted up front, including permission to build nuclear weapons as soon as the deal ran out and 150 billion dollars in cash which it promptly used to fund Hezbollah, its terrorist partner in the Middle East. The deal was so one sided, so favorable to Iran, that even the Mullahs were astonished at how easily they had conned the naïve Americans. But with the current anti-Mullah, anti-government protests in Iran, the American media and the Obama sycophants are claiming that political unrest in Iran and revolution against the government was what Ben Rhodes and Barack Obama had planned for the deal to accomplish all along. Yeah, right. Any plan or deal that Obama made that turned out to favor the United States was purely accidental, and not at all desired or intended.

I think that we can all agree
That planning by Obama
Would always turn out not to be
As good as what yo’ mama
Had told you back in second grade
That tying your shoelaces
And never thinking club a spade
Would likely take you places
That being careful what you say
And being nice to others
And working hard for honest pay
And honoring your mothers
Obama scorned such good advice
For chosen Rhodes less traveled
In consequence we paid the price
When all of it unraveled

My friend Og sat in front of his cave, chewing on a piece of a large hairy beast slowly burning on the fire.

Why not, I said, use forks and knives
To help your many kids and wives
Consume yon hairy beast with some dispatch?
He grunted as he turned to stare
Into the flames as burning hair
Produced a stink that’s awfully tough to match
He said he had no use for those
And had contempt for folks who chose
To elevate themselves to what they’re not
There’s nothing wrong with using hands
To rip a carcass, veins and glands
And eat it even when it starts to rot
Technology will be the end
Of everything, now hear me friend
And listen when I say the old way’s best
At first we start with knives and spoons
And then after a few short moons
There’s dinner parties, place cards and the rest
And then I’ll have to wash my hands
And we’ll invite the other bands
With small talk sipping something on the rocks
Then candlesticks and table cloths
And bread bowls filled herby broths
And wifey will insist I change my socks
Where will it end, if once we start
For once we and the old ways part
Our lives will never be the way we were
I left him there on seeing that
The fire blazed with flaring fat
And the large smoking beast began to stir