Archive for 2012
Party Talk
conversation consumed by festive groans
Read MoreTires
twelve foot tires grind trucks into open pits
Read MoreGun Lover
Firepower’s important and guaranteed by Second Amendment because Founding Fathers wanted us free and would be proud how well we protect personal liberty. So don’t blame gun lovers for slaughter of twenty children at school in Newtown. That wasn’t our fault. We’re law-abiding parents who want kids safe. Trust me, laws restricting guns are already…
Read MoreWe Still Love Our Guns
Just off work early this gray Friday afternoon I sought escape and relaxation in sports talk radio but the hosts weren’t talking about sports. They were lamenting lost lives of children and the senselessness of random violence. Something pretty bad must’ve happened but I sensed these somber gentlemen weren’t going to reveal what so I…
Read MoreCable Wars
Ben loves war documentaries especially those with Alexander riding Bucephalus into hostile flanks, and Washington rousing frozen untrained troops, and photogenic Grant and Lee posing before ordering slaughter of several hundred thousand young men, and grainy Great War footage showing death in fetid trenches, and better films of proud performers Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Roosevelt, and…
Read MoreSupermarket Bulletins
In supermarket checkout headlines and color photos pronounce this star’s fatter than you, that one’s more wrinkled, both had botched plastic surgery, another’s anorexic, he’s drunk, they’re addicted, she’s in treatment, he’s in jail, she’s spendthrift, he’s abusive, she’s vain, he’s unfaithful, she’s gay, wonder what rag publishers are like.
Read MoreBlack Friday Binge
I love Black Friday, MY favorite event of year. After stuffing myself Thanksgiving Day I’m ready to stand in A crowd of cold shoppers. We feel like Christmas is about here, panting, pushing, and groaning, and finally cheer when through glass we see them coming to open THE store. I’m A pretty big guy, almost…
Read MoreFacebook Flash
here’s picture of my buttocks fifty facebook friends click they like it
Read MoreBlogger
I’m chief of Iranian Cyber-police but you don’t need name. You also don’t need names of three policemen I arrested and will detain while death of blogger Sattar Beheshti is investigated. You must, however, understand we won’t permit Iranian Revolution to be subverted by U.S.-fomented computer agitators. I guarantee Sattar Beheshti deserved to be imprisoned…
Read MoreJohn Wilkes Booth Today
We mustn’t permit deed of John Wilkes Booth to stand and therefore shall remove from time and place and raise today in theatrical family thriving in Manhattan and nod when Hollywood beckons splendid Booth who becomes movie star in early twenties making millions while he drinks and snorts and occasionally crashes cars but fires only…
Read MoreInterned American
I’m doing pretty well for old man. Twenty years ago I retired from gardening at seventy-five. I was in twenties when Pearl Harbor hit and things got bad in California for people like me. I was born here, you know. That didn’t matter. They sent wife, three kids, and me to internment camp up north…
Read MoreUpdate Martin Luther King Speech
a million die by 1966 day i deliver “beyond vietnam a time to break silence” declaring poverty inevitable in “society gone mad on war” and still i see america attacks to feed “giant triplets of racism materialism and militarism” Editorial Note: This is revised and reduced from the original post in January 2012.
Read MoreBerlin Jewish Cultural League
What wonderful idea is Berlin Jewish Cultural League that comfortably immerses in arts we hundred seventy-five thousand Jewish Berliners who shall relax until Nazism disappears which will surely be soon. In meantime we have music and other outlets here and around Germany. It’s unfortunate but tolerable only Jews perform in orchestra and only Jews attend…
Read MoreSyrian Military Headquarters Attacked
Please be responsible citizens of the world and ignore terrorists’ claims they killed about twenty men at our national military headquarters in downtown Damascus. I assure you none of my officers and soldiers died. Perhaps a few suffered minor injuries. The building itself did sustain some blasts and burns and had to be evacuated. That…
Read MorePanama City Squeeze
At the international airport in Panama City scores of designer stores form glittering hallways to tiny bathrooms where long lines point to few urinals and but two stalls each hosting a toilet sans seat. I tried several such places before asking an employee, “Don’t you have any larger bathrooms and with seats?” The man was…
Read MoreElegant Quito Home of Maria Augusta Urrutia
I tell the taxi driver I’m looking for a splendid residence in downtown Quito, and he drives me into the historical center and to the home of Maria Augusta Urrutia. From outside, the house, though two tall stories, looks rather small and narrow, cramped by contiguous buildings, but upon entering I see a courtyard and…
Read MoreThe Tourista Strikes in Quito
I don’t know which foods polluted, or at least agitated, my digestive tract, but I believe this misfortune began at one of Quito’s most beautiful hotels, a place graced with superb artwork and guarded by suave young men in suits. Downstairs, at a Thursday breakfast buffet before an early-morning conference about internet business opportunities, I…
Read MoreWomen in Television News
In the vast and luxurious clubhouse of Seven Oaks Country Club, the League of Women Voters of Kern County hosts three female veterans of television news broadcasting in Bakersfield. Prior to their appearance the audience is treated to cashews and cake and a political history lesson: eleven states allowed women’s suffrage before the Nineteenth Amendment…
Read MoreVladimir Putin Suppresses Pussy Riot
My Gods are no longer Lenin and Stalin and beautiful communist colossus crumbling during greatest geopolitical disaster of Twentieth Century. Higher power now is Russian Orthodox Church which supports me and ongoing recovery of nation I have rebuilt and led for many years and, God willing, will lead many more. It has thus been sacred…
Read MorePico y Placa in Quito
“I can’t drive tomorrow,” said an independent taxi driver in Quito, Ecuador. “Why not?” I asked. “Pico y placa.” “What’s that?” “Traffic control.” “Traffic’s pretty bad.” “Without pico y placa, it would be much worse.” “What’s the program?” “One day a week most people can’t drive. Public taxi drivers are an exception. It’s based on…
Read More