An Apt Description In Verse

This acrostic sonnet says it all!

___ To a Pencil-Necked Prick ___

Foul, redolent of Insincerity ––
Unctuous fabricator of Tall Tales ––
Coldly, calculating smothering Verity ––
Killing Honesty, –– he’s hard as nails.

A calm and mellow baritone belies
Deadly partisan Ambition bold ––
A Bastard eager to destroy with Lies ––
Mild mannered Malice dished up cold.

Smug with balding, pop-eyed, purse-lipped head
Creepily he stares without a smile ––
Haughty, humorless, with Bug Eyes dead ––
Initiating Treachery in bland Style ––

Fomenting foul Fiction to berate
Frustrates Decency as it spreads Hate.

~ FreeThinke

Bonus graphic below the fold (hat tip to and more graphics @ Powerline's The Week in Pictures: Epicycle Edition).

For Memorial Day Weekend 2016

About this observance — a time for reflection and patriotism...

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The poem "In Flanders Fields" set to music:


Commentary from my friend Stogie:

Red poppies are flowers whose seeds can remain dormant for years, and are activated into germination when the earth is broken or turned. When the soldiers in Belgium began burying their dead, there was a lot of freshly turned earth. In a few days the fresh graves were ablaze with the red poppies, as if God Himself had decorated the graves.

Because of this, the red poppy became a symbol of Memorial Day and for many years was worn by many to remember the war Dead. This is an old tradition we should work to revive.

Independence Day Weekend 2015

Hillsdale College's choir singing "America the Beautiful":

O Ship Of State by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882):

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
’Tis of the wave and not the rock;
’Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

The Remarkable Helen Keller (Weekend Blog Post)

(This blog post will remain here until Monday. For politics, please scroll down to the Open Thread just below)

Please take a few moments to watch Helen Keller With Famous People:


"Autumn" by Helen Keller:

Happy New Year!

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy (1902):

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

If an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small can find something to sing about in the growing gloom, we should try to do the same — at least from time to time.

Additional reading from one of my former students of decades ago: Thank God We Get Another Year.  Worth your time and consideration.  Well said, Becky!

[Note to readers of this blog: "Nincompoopery Poll," a regular feature here at this blog, will return on Saturday, January 3]

Columbus Day 2014

(If you must have contemporary politics, please scroll down)

Unlike the Seattle School Board, I won't replace the Columbus Day holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day. Besides, since 2008, Native American Heritage Day has already been designated as the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Short video about Christopher Columbus:


Why did Columbus set sail in the first place? Not mentioned in the above video:

...Every schoolchild knows, or used to know, that in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America while searching for a new, westward sea route to Asia. But why was he searching for a new route to Asia? Because the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453 closed the trade routes to the East. This was devastating for European tradesmen, who had until then traveled to Asia for spices and other goods by land. Columbus’s voyage was trying to ease the plight of these merchants by bypassing the Muslims altogether and making it possible for Europeans to reach India by sea.

Some poetry for today:

Columbus

BEHIND him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' "

"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day,
'Sail on! sail on! and on!' "

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dead seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say" --
He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows his teeth tonight.
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck --
A light! a light! at last a light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"
— Joaquin Miller

Poetry Corner (Columbus Day)

(If you must have politics, please scroll down)

Columbus by Joaquin Miller (1837 – 1913)

BEHIND him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"