Professor Victor Davis Hanson, reflecting on the state of Europe, wonders if the world may one day soon be faced with yet again a German problem. But you cannot have an army without soldiers, you cannot have soldiers without men, and you cannot have men without boys. The women of Europe have chosen the pill over children, and pills do not make good soldiers. 

 

 

No more we’ll see the hob-nailed boots

The stuka screams, the panzer shoots

No more the crosses row on row

In flowered fields where poppies grow

The German wives are women still

But choose not children but the pill

For children interfere with fun

And thus they limit kids to one

Yes German wives are like the rest

Of womankind throughout the West

Who did collectively decide

That kin and nation suicide

Was better than a mother be

And so today the family tree

Has hit the rocks and hit the skids

With more grandparents than are kids

The hob-nailed boot has seen its last

Proud regiments are of the past

No stuka scream, no panzer roar

The West foreswore the art of war

 

 

Verse-afire’s Muslim friend Mahmoud was unhappy the Times Square bomber was incompetent, but he shrugged and said tomorrow was another day. He was pleased, though, with the reaction of the liberal press in declaring immediately that the attempted bombing was the work of the Tea Party, which is how he came to be the founder of the Muslim Tea Party.  

 

 

I love my Tea Party, Mahmoud said with glee

The muslim world loves us as well

We’ve signs in real English the whole world to see

We have a bright story to tell

You see we’re against everything you love dear

We wish that you rot long in hell

But that doesn’t mean you should all live in fear

We’re peaceful till god rings the bell

We like to make noises in Times Square New York

‘Cause that’s where our newspaper is

Car bombs don’t go off we don’t know how they work

But bombing’s not really our biz

Our brother Barack is in trouble you know

The bad guys might win in Novem

So now I’m Tea Party and when things go blow

The Times will blame all things on them

 

 

 

Much is made of the failure of America’s public schools, the failure of the schools to teach, the failure of the kids to learn. There is much that is wrong with some of the schools, but not all of them. My grandchildren are prime examples of what good schools and good teachers can do for good kids.

 

Mrs. Mandes’s 9^th grade class entered a contest sponsored by a local newspaper, the contestants to write a poem about a painting, in this case Orpheus #1 by Paul Keene. The contest was won by Matt Erickson, my grandson. I have tried repeatedly to paste the art into the post, without success, and so must give a brief word picture of the painting in question. It is not exactly The Scream, but close. So now you know where you are. The ‘She’ in the poem is Eurydice.

 

 

Inspirational Painting

Orpheus #1 by Paul Keene

Poem below was printed in the Wed. May 12, 2010 Issue of The Intelligencer

First Place Winner

 

Where She Belongs

By Matt Erickson, Holicong Middle School, Mrs. Mandes Grade 9

 

It was a mission

That I had to complete

Don’t look back, and I pass

Three stages she went through

From being a belonging of the underworld,

Blank, and soul-less

A crowd of underworld dwellers behind her

Urging her on to leave

The second stage, near completion

A face forming as she crosses the Styx

Bright colors show the world above,

A Parthenon, sun, blue skies

And then I failed, as I did look back,

Anticipating her to follow

Her face rages in the third stage

Eyes glaring at me, her one true love

She is no longer an earth dweller

Flames engulf her, bring her back down

It was fate that let her go

Fate decided, not me, not Orpheus, son of Apollo

She wasn’t meant to be here

Now I must walk alone

While she is in ownership to the underworld

It is forever and meant to be

It is,

Where she belongs.