№ 627: Making Amends (Modern Library edition)

Melvil Dewey's name stripped from top librarian award

The American Library Association will rename the Melvil Dewey medal in recognition of their co-founder’s racial discrimination and sexual impropriety

MAKING IT BETTER, ASIF (June 27)

Must we demote Dewey Decimal?

Must his name be dismissed

simply because the man was a “racist” —

albeit “races” do not exist.

Let us call him “exclusionist”,

a term that seems more polite.

Although it means the same exact thing,

it does not sound quite so white.

As for his dealings with lady librarians —

who I presume were all of them Aryans:

while such behavior was entirely improper

a lady back then would not dare call a copper

if a hand strayed or a comment were made

for fear of how she’d be portrayed

in any resulting police report

and, heaven forfend, it end up in court.

Today men behave like meek little lambs

and Dorothy Parker is Queen of Siam*.

—————————————

*“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea, And love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope

№ 626: Worthless Thousand Words

Photo of Drowned Migrants Captures Pathos of Those Who Risk It All (Paywall)

The bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, were found in the Rio Grande on Monday. Credit Julia Le Duc/Associated Press

IZEENUTING, US (June 26)

Pictures of children

dead on the border

should be unlawful,

they make us feel awful.

Why can't they die

back in the jungle

or in the slum

where they come from?

If I had my wall

thirty feet tall

you'd never have to

see them at all.

[updated 6/27/2019, 1:30 am]
—————————
Tip of the hat to N.I.S. for (sort of) suggesting this subject.

№ 625.1: EXTRA! No Soft Soap (and a blanket denial)

Trump official: detained children do not need soap and blankets – video 

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DISNEYLAND (June 25)

Kids, we all know, love being dirty.

Especially if they are poor.

And if they’re poor

they are totally used

to having to sleep on the floor

which is usually dirt

and therefore concrete

to them must seem a holiday treat.

And as to blankets,

they don’t need those

in summer in Texas

they don’t even need clothes.

Providing tooth paste?

A total waste.

We're talking baby teeth

in the first place.

Food? They need some,

I get your gist.

We do give them gruel

like in Oliver Twist.

Really, good grief,

this “news” is fake.
If we cave on this
next thing they'll want cake!

№ 625: What's It All About

TELLME, WY (June 25)

We try to work out what it all means —

see Bogart in re “a hill of beans” —

get lost amidst the comings and goings,

interrupted incessantly by distressing hormones

which misdirect, confuse, confound and deceive

making it hard to even conceive

or discover a purpose for this damned circus

other than NATURE craves more of the same

and keeps all of us — everything! — playing her game.

The need to breed is a non compos mentity

and “love” is a case of mistaken identity.

№ 624: Donald And Bill (two of an unkind?)

QUESTION MARK, AR (June 24)

Why do our two political factions
have such decidedly different reactions

to Bill Clinton's and Trump's. . .“sexplorations”?
Some of Trump’s victims held high social position,

while Clinton’s targets were mostly down-market.

With Clinton some said (when not “huntin’ squirr’ls),

“Kip yer dang hans offa r gurls!”

With Donald, these same say, “I doan kere diddly-squat.

Rich snooty bitches disuved wot they got!”
Others who call Trump's behavior outrageous
see Clinton's as simply “somewhat disadvantageous”,
not at all relevant to who he is
and certainly none of Congress's business.

This difference, I think, gives us a dictum:

you don’t see a crime if you don't like the victim.

№ 623: I Read The News Today, Oh Boy

Is it true climate change will cause the end of civilisation by 2050? (Paywall)

In the worst case, “the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model, with a high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end.”

COMING TO (LEAVING?) YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD SOON (June 23)

Civilization, you say, is collapsing?

By which you must mean this thing

we are perfecting to expedite killing

every last living, ill-conceived being.

So, who — exactly? — thinks this a disaster?
Surely not those who expect a hereafter
on angel wings with God to sing to.
What — on Earth? — would THEY care to cling to?

We, creatures of clay in the image of God,

may have — finally! — this time shot our wad.

Five prior extinctions have kept the world pruned.

Details on sixth at six! Stay tuned.

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