Archive for the In the News Category

Welcome to Venezuela

February 10, 2009 by fbk.

Welcome to Nueva Venezuela!

I continue to watch as President Obama and his followers turn the US into the next Banana Republic.  We have probably passed the point of no return.  The Constitution doesn’t matter.  The law doesn’t matter.  All that matters is, “What has the federal government given me lately?”  For those who watched it happen in Cuba, China, Venezuela, and other places, the pattern is very familiar.  Or should I compare it to Zimbabwe?  The current so-called “stimulus” actions are only going to promote runaway inflation.

 Cod help us!

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Barry, Barry

December 13, 2007 by Les Smart.

Barry, Barry

Big and hairy

How did your muscles grow?

What’s your excuse

For steroid use?

Don’t tell us you just didn’t know.

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Hilary

December 11, 2007 by Les Smart.

You may talk o’ wrong an’ right

When you’re out there in the fight

An’ you’re doin’ all you can to be selected,

But lyin’ comes so rote

When you’re tryin’ to get the vote

An’ you’ll say what people want to get elected.

Now in this election time

When all candidates are slime

An’ desperate pleas for cash may seem like pillary,

Of all the foulest crew

The worst one that I knew

Was a one-time White House lady name of Hilary.     

           Hil! Hil! Hil!    

           You White House wench you Hilary!    

           Tho’ you done naught to qualify ya    

           And you’re married to a liar    

           You’re a better man than Barack, Hilary. 

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Politics and Poetry

November 3, 2007 by fbk.

Reading back in the blog, I saw one of my first posts and the reference to Lyn Nofziger.  I used to read his wonderful blog wherein he often had silly doggerel poetry about politics and events of the day.  It wasn’t meant to be serious.  He certainly never considered himself a serious poet with those bits and pieces.  But I think that kind of thing is more likely to be remembered and appreciated than most of the serious poets working, just as Ogden Nash is a bigger part of the popular poetic culture than many who took themselves more seriously.

There aren’t many like Lyn that I know of.  I have seen poems in National Review.  And of course, there is the incomparable F. R. Duplantier with his Politickles.  But there aren’t too many out there who seem to be having fun with light verse at the expense of their political opponents, at least not on the Republican and Libertarian side.  Since we at the Attila the Hun School of Political Science do not bother reading the liberal magazines too much anymore, we may be missing a new trend there.  But traditionally, combining liberal politics and poetry comes out more earnest than fun.  So, where have all of the light verse artists gone?  Have they all gotten serious?  Are they just in the deadly drought of media attention deficit?

I think I’d welcome a candidate who had a twinkle in his eye and a limerick on his lips to counter some opponent’s windy gustations.  Maybe it’s even time we had a Poetry Party of America?  Maybe that would get more people engaged in politics if the candidates would have to frame all of their debates in verse, preferably limericks?  It could start a whole trend with new parties representing different streams and subgenres in poetry.  Someone might have the next Presidential nomination all “rapped” up.  Maybe we could put the stress in the language and get it out of the politics?

This started to be a post about politics alone and how I seem to feel less engaged with politics this year.  It migrated and twisted and turned, but in a sense, it did get there.  Would a metrist get me more engaged this year?  Perhaps not.  But it might give us all a bit more levity and leavening in this extended political season to make it more bearable.

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