I am sometimes asked why I write verse. The answer is because I can’t sing, or play the piano. A three chord country song on the ukulele stretches my talent. And so I am left with words.

Let me tell you, I say, let me tell you, you hear

How it all died aborning, my music career

I played Die Walkure, but was rudely thrown out

I played it in English, without the umlaut

Figaro I sang with sore throat and much heart

But they said not to put the hoarse before Mozart

I sang Massenet standing next to piano

And was yanked off the stage, I was not a soprano

Sick unto death, disappointed, I curse

The notes are the problem, I’ll stick to the verse

So that’s why you see me alone in the night

Writing rhymes till all hours, praying only for light

My tombstone is written, my full epitaph

My life in a nutshell, I’ll cry if not laugh

For chiseled in stone, to be seen for all time

Are the words Only fault was he just liked to rhyme

The scam that was and is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was the root cause of the financial meltdown of 2008, and the root cause of the Fannie and Freddie scam was liberal congressmen like Bahney Fwank, who routinely assured everyone that everything was going swimmingly. While the Democrats in charge of the program were voting themselves tens of millions of dollars in bonuses based on phony claims of profits, and banks were selling packages of worthless mortgages to all and sundry, Barney and friends assuredly knew what was up. How could they not? Fannie and Freddie were giving mortgages to people who could not afford them, and so the crisis was built in. Not that it mattered. The important thing was that it wasn’t fair that some people could afford a house and others couldn’t. And now the Obama administration is preparing to restructure the financial industry, and the problem is, how do you do that without getting involved? The answer is, you don’t. Any restructuring the government does will necessarily involve the politicians, and that means guys like Barney Frank will again be in charge, and will no doubt do with the banks as they did with the mortgage industry. I talked this over with a five year old I know and she said, “I love Barney.”

She said if I were a designer kid

I’d want Barney for a daddy

I’d love him for the things he did

Though some say he’s a baddy

So what he’s played the Congress game

‘Cause so do many others

What ever he’s done it’s just the same

As his Congressional brothers

I love him for his winning smile

I love him for his color

You can see purple for a mile

It never gets no duller

When I pointed out we weren’t talking about Barney the purple dinosaur but Barney the congressperson, a man who wants to help President Obama turn the country into a socialist paradise, a man who somehow forgot to declare all his income come tax time, a man who never saw a socialist program he didn’t like, she thought a moment before replying.

She said they’re just like robbers who

Just want to steal our freedom

There is no difference ‘tween the two

Just tweedledee and deedum

I like my country like it is

Why do they have to change it

They want to take away the fizz

And really re-arrange it

You say that Barney’s not a star?

He’s not what people think?

He’s not a purple dinosaur

He looks so cute in pink?

Well just for that I take it back

We’ll fit him for some nooses

If I’da known he’s just a hack

From lib’ral Massachoosses

Moral: You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can only fool a five year old once.

The world is changing, and with it the United States. Where once was stability and shared values, there now is bitter divide. Where once was rule of law, there now is judicial fiat. Where once we knew who we were, we now question who we are. Where once we were proud, we now are told we must be ashamed. The world has changed, and so have we. We are no longer who we were. It is an open question as to whether we will ever again be proud and confident. Or is this a passing phase, a moment of inattention, to be remedied by a future generation more sure of themselves and their place in the world?

Here there be tygers

The olde mappes once said

Then came the British

Who painted them red

All that is gone now

That world is no more

We’ve come to the place

Where there’s no welcome shore

The currents won’t take us

Where we want to go

The winds that once shapened

The world that we know

No longer blow fairly

But fitful and wild

We recognize barely

The world that we’ve styled

Can we recapture

That time and that way

I guess that’s the question

Before us today