Government is growing ever larger, taking over our lives, taking power where none was granted it by the Constitution of the United States. Government is a monster, and will kill us all, with kindness at first, with malice at the last, as a cancer kills with calm precision and stark inevitability. The government of the United States is fitfully restrained, for the moment, by the silvery silken strands of the Constitution, but even now, in the dim darkness of a barren room, the monster stirs, and wills his fingers to grow thousands of stiff, rasp-like hairs, which tug and saw at the silken strands of the Constitution. He lies quietly, unconcerned, knowing his imprisonment is temporary, and not even the silken strands of the Constitution can keep him bound forever

The monster stirred, and once let loose
He threw his tender arms
Around the poor with the excuse
That answering alarms
Was Government’s reason to be
It’s purpose here on Earth
To give the indigent for free
What others had at birth
And so he grew, this little lad
Loved by the old, the young
No longer good but never bad
It’s praises always sung
Until the world was in its hands
All at its beck and call
With chains replacing silken strands
Encasing one and all

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450, and says he has regretted it ever since. “Look what has come of it!” he cried. “Manuscripts put in print without a pfennig of royalty to the authors!  Newspapers! Yellow journalism! My invention released a thirst for information that has resulted in a biblical flood of information, mis and otherwise, truth sacrificed to the narrative, everyone a consumer of and creator of information!” His voice rose, and shaking me by the shoulders, he shouted, “If I had it to do over again I’d strangle myself with my very own umbilical cord! Not only that, but I never made a florin out of the damned printing press!” As I left him he was carving tiny letters on tiny blocks of wood, and muttering fiercely.

“I did my best, God knows I tried,”
He muttered in his beard,
“The social contract up and died
Exactly as I feared
Most people need not know the truth
About their masters’ lives
And certainly it’s past uncouth
To photograph their wives
With iPhones here and Twitter there
One’s privacy is gone
A fishbowl life where all may stare!
My printing press’s spawn!”

Well known and more or less conservative columnist Peggy Noonan changed political positions during the 2008 election campaign and endorsed Barack Obama, though endorsed might be too weak a word. She swooned, is what she did. She fell head over heels in love with Obama, seeing him as the Savior of the world, the handsome, cool black man who would erase the racism she felt was still rampant in this benighted country. Five years later she now sees the error of her ways, and sees Obama for what he is, a corrupt Chicago politician, an incompetent president, and a man whose political agenda does not include the preservation of the United States or its Constitution. Peggy now begs forgiveness, and I sent her this letter

Dear Peggy,
 
You sit and think strategic thought
So wise you are, so eas’ly bought
The charlatan you deemed so wise
The cool man with beguiling eyes
You took it in, you bought the lie
And now a mea culpa sigh
That won’t erase the ham you’ve done
You’ve foisted on the world the One
Who knew you for the fool you are
You hitched your wagon to a star
That guttered but to you seemed bright
That brought not dawn but lasting night
No, Peggy dear, we saw you swoon
You gave to us this darkened noon

I spoke to an elderly man recently, and he told me he was ready, his good suit was pressed and the organ music selected, but he worried he might not be remembered. He had written no books that someone might come across a hundred years hence and bring him to life again, however briefly. He had written no music, given no speeches, and even his children and grandchildren, he thought, might not remember him as he was, or remember him at all. He took a folded, well worn piece of paper from his wallet. “I read this every once in a while,” he said, handing it to me. “Know it by heart.” I began to read, but his quavering voice intruded, as he recited it from memory.

A thousand days, a thousand years
It matters not my friend
You’re gone when gone, despite the tears
But it is not the end
So long as one remembers you
So long that you shall live
A thousand years, a day or two
Whatever God shall give
Or if not God, the universe
Shall see that we survive
In truth, my friend, there’s nothing worse
Than being not alive

Beset by the daily ugliness of the Obama administration, with its scandals and incomprehensible incompetence, a pair of Border collie puppies set me straight as to just what was important. Their names were Ajax and Achilles, and they lay quietly in my lap, attentive, eyes bright, brothers, just off the puppy farm.  I told them I feared the NSA was recording my phone calls and reading my emails, and Ajax said they were aware of the angst and trauma besetting people these days. Achilles said the answer to stress is a Border collie pup. He languidly scratched an ear and said, let me tell you about Border collies, and what it means just to own one.

Just to own a Border collie
Makes your life that much more jolly
And to own a pair your joy must know no bounds
And in time when pups are older
And when winter comes on colder
Then it’s time to get some sheep to roam the grounds
For the collie is a worker
Nary one has been a shirker
And we just love bossing all those dumbass sheep
We will work until we drop and
When the sheep go down we’ll stop and
Only then we’ll try to grab a little sleep
Any pup is ten times smarter
Than Al Gore and Jimmy Carter
And what’s more we work for free and wag our tails
Border pups are just so playful
You will find you have a day full
Of the kind of medicine that cures what ails
Like us, Ajax and Achilles
They’ll run wild through fields of lilies
Blessed by God with speed and strength and smarts and grace
They will love you, they will try you
But they always will stand by you
And your greatest joy is when they lick your face

In Muslim tradition, the Mahdi will appear at the end of Time and make the whole world Muslim. Some believe the Mahdi is the missing twelfth Imam, who lives in a well and will appear as a result of chaos and war to install the new Caliphate. There are many Muslims who believe that the time of the Mahdi is near, and rejoice at the coming victory over the West. I slipped across the Turkish border just today and spoke to a Syran rebel who smiled and said things are going great, that the Mahdi would be here soon and all would be honey and rice cakes.

The Mahdi, he said, quickly turns the sky dark
With thunder and lightning and hail
That sign from above will give just us the spark
To fight and with God’s help prevail
I asked him just where now the Mahdi might be
He winked with a smile very sly
And looking around making sure none could see
He fastened his gaze on my eye
He’s here, he said softly, a bottle in hand
I fished him right out of the well
He’ll come to the rescue upon my demand
Now promise me you’ll never tell
But why, I inquired, you keep him corked up
When loosing him wins you the war
I’m open to offers, he cried, now worked up
The offers must needs be much more
Your Kerry made offers I could not refuse
McCain urged to him I must sell
They say when they have him there’s no time to lose
The Mahdi goes back in the well
He winked once again and said you in the West
Believe things a child disbelieves
This bottle of water I’m sure you have guessed
Is sacred to those one deceives

The world is coming apart and us with it, and yet the American public is to a large extent blissfully unaware of it. Television news anchors touch briefly if at all on the latest catastrophe, and front page news that would once have been on the front pages for days is now consigned to below the fold or page thirty-seven on day two, erased from the public mind by the latest Kardashian girls gossip. It’s as if nobody, not the newsmen, not the television news anchors, and certainly not the public, wants to hear about the world now crashing down upon our ears.

The bad news is there’s no good news
The good news is that now
The bad news is below the fold
And thus we can allow
Our daily lives to move along
A slower, gentler pace
Considering much simpler things
So we won’t have to face
The bad news coming down on us
And causing us dismay
We much prefer to tip our caps
And wish a happy day