Politickles

Feel free to publish, post, or pass on Your Weekly Politickle by F.R. Duplantier:

BULLIES
In the 50s our fathers knew best,
But back then they could scarcely have guessed
That a mere three percent
Who are sexually bent
Would intimidate all of the rest.

From the archive:

CEREALISM
“Here’s a great idea, what do you think:
The Trix Rabbit ‘comes out’ with a wink,
While Count Chocula warms
To the Leprechaun’s charms
And the Jolly Green Giant wears pink?”
(2012)

CZARDOM & GOMORRAH
“We are in your schools now and polluting
All the innocent minds we’re rebooting:
There’ll be total immersion
In every perversion
And the schools will be safe for recruiting.”
(2011)

TWISTED
As the lavender lobby engages
To subvert Christian culture in stages,
They accuse us of hate
If we dare validate
Common sense and the wisdom of ages.
(2010)

BENT ON MARRIAGE
“We are undermining resistance
With our carefully plotted persistence:
Rather than disparage
The institution of marriage,
We’re defining it out of existence.”
(2009)

LAWRENCE V. TEXAS
The evil with which men are ridden
In normal times hardly is hidden,
But no era’s more awful
Than when vice is made lawful
And propriety, then, is forbidden.
(2003)

NOVEL IDEA
In The Wanting Seed, Anthony Burgess
Prophesied the preposterous purges
He knew surely would come
When the righteous play dumb
And the vicious give vent to their urges.
(2003)

Last week’s limerick:

EVERYONE’S BUSINESS
Though our work be a labor of love,
Still, we have to have help from above:
Yes, we have to depend
On that one special friend
Whom we pray to at whitehouse.gov.

Mass times and readings

Feel free to publish, post, or pass on Your Weekly Politickle by F.R. Duplantier:

EVERYONE’S BUSINESS
Though our work be a labor of love,
Still, we have to have help from above:
Yes, we have to depend
On that one special friend
Whom we pray to at whitehouse.gov.

From the archive:

SOLARCENY
Barry’s Bandits have found a new way
To get rich without working a day:
They’ve no need for a gun,
‘Cause they just use the sun
To get ‘loans’ that they’ll never repay.
(2011)

EXPERIENCE
This economy sure is a sad one
And it looks like we’re in for a bad run,
‘Cause we can’t expect gobs
Of legitimate jobs
From a guy who has never once had one.
(2011)

BASIC ECONOMICS
You’ve got thousands in debt to repay,
But you can’t make that debt go away
If you keep on defending
Your gross overspending
Or you cut back just pennies a day.
(2011)

ARTIFICIAL FAMINE
There’s no benefit to coal
If you cannot dig a hole,
And the value is nil
Of oil you can’t drill.
Who would favor such control?
(2011)

THE WEALTH OF RATIONS
If you want to show that you care,
Then you have to learn how to share
And surrender to me
Half your property:
What could possibly be more fair?
(2010)

CRY FOWL!
If it looks like a duck, it’s a duck!
If it swims like a duck, it’s a duck!
Is the question instead,
Is Obama a Red?
If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck!
(2010)

Last week’s limerick:

NOT SOON ENOUGH
“There is nothing to fret about, friend:
My one term will soon come to an end.
Don’t be down in the dumps:
I’ll be gone in six months.
How much harm can I do before then?”

Mass times and readings

Obama’s “Pop”

There were hundreds of thousands of American communists like Frank [Marshall Davis] who agitated throughout the twentieth century. They chose the wrong side of history, a horrendously bloody side that left a wake of more than 100 million corpses from the streets of the Bolshevik Revolution to the base of the Berlin Wall — double the combined dead of the century’s two world wars. And they never apologized. Quite the contrary, they cursed their accusers for daring to charge (correctly) that they were communists whose ideology threatened the American way and the greater world and all of humanity. They took their denials to the grave, and still today their liberal/progressive dupes continue to conceal their crimes and curse their accusers for them. We need hundreds and thousands of more books on American communists like Frank, so we can finally start to get this history right — and, more so, learn its vital lessons. To fail to do so is a great historical injustice. – Paul Kengor, The Communist

The mainstream media refused to tell this story in 2008, but the majority of the American people didn’t want to hear it anyway, and they still don’t. Unfortunately, what they don’t want to know is going to hurt all of us.

Feel free to publish, post, or pass on Your Weekly Politickle by F.R. Duplantier:

NOT SOON ENOUGH
“There is nothing to fret about, friend:
My one term will soon come to an end.
Don’t be down in the dumps:
I’ll be gone in six months.
How much harm can I do before then?”

From the Bill Clinton archive (1996-2000):

CLINTONIAN DIPLOMACY
“We’ll supply whatsoever you need
To ensure your armed forces succeed,
And we won’t make a fuss
If you use them on us,
‘Cause our sole motivation is greed.

KING CLINTON
“I’m putting the Congress at ease
And giving the governors the breeze:
With executive orders,
I need no supporters
And can do pretty much as I please!”

INSIDE JOB
Having failed in a decades-long try,
An appreciative communist spy
Pays a due compliment
To our own President
For destroying the FBI.

SOLITARY ASSURED DESTRUCTION
Has Bill taken leave of his senses,
Dismantling all our defenses
And providing resources
To enemy forces
Regardless of consequences?

SORRY PERFORMANCE
Here’s the presidential line
On a penitential fine:
“I’ll gladly confess
And make redress
For everyone’s sin but mine!”

THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG
Our nation is destined for grief
If our leader has no fixed belief
And conclusions are drawn
As to whose side he’s on
When China plays “Hail to the Chief.”

TOUJOURS L’AUDACE!
The Prez has perfected the skill
To do whatsoever he will:
He just ignites
Our Bill of Rights
And claims the “rights” of Bill.

Last week’s limerick:

DREAMS FROM MY FUHRER
“You can laugh or dismiss me as mad,
But I knew from the first as a lad:
Though unlikely it seems,
I’ll make good on the dreams
Of my true, psychological dad.”

Mass times and readings

[T]he reporter is not a person, but a computer algorithm, honed to translate raw data such as corporate earnings reports and previews or sports statistics into readable prose. Algorithms are producing a growing number of articles for newspapers and websites . . . – Rob Lever, Yahoo! News

As Evelyn Waugh observed in Scoop, “News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read.” Even more so now that all personality has been removed from journalism. Not that the average journalist ever had much of that, what with publishers purposely drafting agreeably drab editors and writers.

The big question: Is Rob Lever a real person, or was this story about algorithmic “writing” created by an algorithm?

Putting a Spin on It

Feel free to publish, post, or pass on Your Weekly Politickle by F.R. Duplantier:

DREAMS FROM MY FUHRER
“You can laugh or dismiss me as mad,
But I knew from the first as a lad:
Though unlikely it seems,
I’ll make good on the dreams
Of my true, psychological dad.”

From the archive:

DREAMS FROM MY FEATHERBRAIN
“Like a Ninja, I crept ’til I’d gotten
To a spot I could get a good shot in,
Zeroed in on my game,
And then took a dead aim,
Singlehandedly killing bin Laden.”
2012

DREAMS FROM MY MOTHER
Though the leader in question was hesitant
To discuss where his parents were resident,
Still his mother was smitten
By a subject of Britain
And young Winston could never be president.
2011

DREAMS FROM MY FATHERLAND
“You may think that I haven’t a plan,
But from Libya it’s on to Sudan,
And from there to Nairobi
To quell kinsmen who know me
As a sly, native-born Kenyan man.”
2011

Last week’s limerick:

DEPENDENCE DAY
“I remember how some of us tried:
How we fought, how we failed, how we cried,
How we few knew the worth
Of this last hope on earth.
I was there when America died.”