№ 787.1: EXTRA! I Have Seen The Future (it's for jerks)

THE WEEK

Trump officially opens formerly protected Utah national monuments for business
The Interior Department released final plans Thursday for two national monuments in Utah that President Trump moved to radically shrink two years ago. Under the final plans, about 2 million acres that were once part of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments would be open to mineral extraction and ranching. Public lands advocates, Native American groups, and conservationists whose lawsuits to prevent the downsizing of the national monuments are still being litigated in court, called foul.

TOMORROWLAND (February 7)

Who will own all the garbage

when that’s all that’s left of the world?

The swirl of plastics and carcasses

where blue-green oceans once whirled?

The deserted sun-blasted inland

now remarkably close to the coast?

The poisonous air and brown waters

which will be supporting at most

hearty one-cell extremophiles

who find such conditions divine

and with Donald still POTUS

will anyone notice

the Koch Brothers’ name on the sign?

№ 787: Western Sieve 101 (or Fermi's question answered)

REALLY (February 6)

Our ancestors did not know they were primitive.

They thought they were right up-to-date.

They had sticks and stones

and they could crack bones

and suck out the marrow

of whatever they ate.

They extincted mammoths

and other large herbivores

which, we assume, were delicious,

meanwhile escaping the powerful carnivores

who would have found them nutritious. 

They did weaving and pottery,

winning the lottery,

farming and taming animals

and, in large part, 

after many false starts,

some stopped being actual cannibals.

They invented rafts (and later boats)

which allowed them to travel to places remote

spreading chaos and causing contagion.

(Even before becoming Caucasian.)

They built canals, erected storehouses,

coming up with both bows and arrows,

increasing efficiency in hunting and war.

(Which latter they found they were well-suited for.)

When they progressed (blundered?) into “modernity”,

thinking they’d found the key to eternity,

the environment collapsed, setting the brake.

Whole damned thing had been a mistake. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

№ 786: A Very Stable Genius Contemplates Next Steps

IMPERIAL PALACE (February 5)

Everyone knows I am so germaphobic,

I don’t ever breathe when near the Potomac,

an Indian river which unlike Liz Warren

has “native” blood — by which I mean foreign,

not North European like you and like me and

not Latin or Asian or even Korean

like dear leader Kim, my nuclear friend,

and Putin and Bibi (he-manly men

like me and President Xi)

and the Turkish guy whose name I forget

and Bolsonaro and the Philippine whosis

and my murdering Prince, MBS,

who Jarred assures me can do Middle East peace

if the price is right and Bibi’s convinced

before he’s convicted, jailed and evicted

from whatever they call their White House.

AND Boris Johnson — Johnson! lovin’ that name —

who’s a bigger liar than I am . . .

My phone call was “perfect”,

no smoking gun, no quid pro quo, 

and as you know Bolton’s a jerk,

an Obama guy who should be locked up

whoever appointed him is bigly corrupt.

And so it's admitted, I am acquitted.

It's finally attested. And now I can have

late night “comics” arrested.

Cancel election.
I am perfection.
(Time for new wife?)

I am forever.
I am for life.

№ 785: Whose Revolution Was It, Anyway?

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LOOKIN' BADDER (February 4)

(With apologies to Graham Nash.)

We are in a royal mess,

we are swirling down the drain

with this presidential Fascist 

It's a slide

While the HAP-less Dem-o-crats

indulge their stupid spats

instead of unifying ‘round

a single gal or guy

They can’t change a thing

with their bic-ker-ing

We're dying
Dems don't get it

Fuzzy thinking id-i-ots,

heads buried in the sand,

they're ig-nor-ing all re-al-it-y,

thereby guar-an-tee-ing that 

this dis-gust-ing lump

will remain in office

in-DEF-IN-at-ly

They can’t change a thing

with their sim-per-ing

We’re dying. They say they believe in justice

We’re dying. They say they believe in freedom
We're dying. This was an Ayn Rand line

We’re dying. Rules and regulations . . . we need ‘em

We’re dying on the floor

Trump believes that he can rule

entirely by decree

Roberts and the cohort courts agree

From the plastic-poisoned oceans

to our trash left on the moon

the only thing they think about:

cash ar-IS-toc-racy,

which has changed the world,

rearranged the world

Dems let them. They say they believe in justice

Dems let them. They say they believe in freedom
Dems let them. This was an Ayn Rand line

Dems let them. Rules and regulations . . . we need ‘em

We’re dying on the floor

№ 784.1: EXTRA! Die Away, Ioway?

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THE  TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY ZONE (February 4)

(with apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II)

What a blow,

way to go,

no way Ioway

You were not supposed to make us cry

I can’t get out of bed

and I wish that I was dead

we might as well kiss our ass good-bye

In elections the vote count

is extremely paramount

such a mess you can not justify

So let me be perfectly clear,

forget Des Moines

let's get to New Hampsheer.

[Think Anthony and corn field. That was, of course, Ohio, but as a New Yorker, I do distinguish between these places. — Proprietor]

№ 784: On Mortality

CRYSTAL METH BALLS (February 3)

What are “acceptable losses”
when it comes to THE PLAGUE?
Something providing a leg up
(however trivial)
would, I assume,
be seen as convivial.

The dead will be missed.
And then dismissed
by those who remain
getting properly pissed
in commemoration, 
pouring libations
celebrating escaping cessation.

Then, 
when the asteroid hits,
we'll be blown to bits
proving, I guess,
survival, while stressful,
may not (in the end)
be all that successful.

№ 783: Coronavirus Or Bust

What the Stock Market May Be Missing About the Coronavirus (Paywall)

So far the impact on U.S. assets has been muted, but there are reasons to fear that investors are being complacent

The trouble is the assumptions underlying the market reaction. The first is that the effects of the virus will be short-lived, and so can be (mostly) ignored. 

Unfortunately, we have little idea whether this is true. If people can pass on the virus before they show symptoms, or if it turns out to be easier to catch than first thought, it may spread rapidly outside China.

TOLLED BY AN IDIOT (February 2)

Is this the end of life as we know it?

Can we keep on keeping on?

For some, undoubtedly, it will prove fatal

and they (very soon) will be gone

to whatever reward (or punishment)

they mistakenly think they have earned,

while those “left behind” (for the present)

will tidy up after, asking “What have we learned?”

Which, truth to tell, will not be much.

Learning is not what we do.

That we survive (I wouldn't say thrive)

is down to luck and muddling through.

Most of the time, we're less right than wrong

yet (somehow) we manage to stumble along.