Triolets for Trying Times

Step right up to the fiscal cliff

And take a leap of faith

Fly or fall, it makes no diff

Step right up to the fiscal cliff

As all can see and Krugman saith

The GOP  knows just one riff

Step right up to the fiscal cliff

And take a leap of faith. 

Hark!  It's hard to be Bard in a digital age

With no pen and no paper, it hastens my end 

Who cares 'bout a Dane in a dark vengeful rage?

Hark, it's hard to be Bard in a digital age.

My Scottish king's wife just can't contend

with a jersey shore bimbo or fight in a cage

Hark! It's hard to be Bard in a digital age 

With no pen and no paper, it hastens my end

The Holy Land is full of holes

 from guns and missiles, punks and asses

It no longer matters for whom the bell tolls

The Holy Land is full of holes.

Each day, each year, each century passes

And still  no peace just opposite poles

The Holy Land is full of holes

from guns and missiles, punks and asses

So I can win whatever the game
And never taste defeat
As banker I will make my name
So I can win whatever the game
With someone else's money, sweet
I"ll find my fortune and fame
So I can win whatever the game
And never taste defeat

X is for: 

xyloglyphy	wood-carving
xenagogue	guide; someone who conducts strangers
xenocracy	government by a body of foreigners
xenodocheionology	love of hotels
xenogenous	due to an outside cause
xenoglossia	person’s knowledge of a language never studied

Marton Mauskop. 

 Rest in Peace

Another Thanksgiving come and gone and another chance to try and remember for next time that Stuffing is a verb...

And that for children, Manhattan is still a place where danger lurks  around every corner. 

To call the response for oxymoronic submissions underwhelming would be an overstatement. But I never really tried that hard to get the word out. Microsoft Works is declared winner by default, though I was tempted to consider Brilliant Blogger, but I'm not as objective and non-partisan as I may appear.  And instead of trying to rally my troops (most of whom are AWOL) I've decided instead to search for a like minded digital Diogenes who can assist this semantical pathologist during a lunch hour autopsy on the body of rhetorical sophistry known as The Euphemism. 

After many a click, I came across...

"Last year, rather than call the conflict in Libya a war,  a new phrase entered into the popular lexicon. 

'The way I like to put it is, from our standpoint at the Pentagon, we're involved in a limited kinetic operation,' says Secretary of Defense Robert Gates."

Bingo!

I thought "non-hostile military engagement" was pretty funny when I first heard it, and was pretty sure we'd soon be hearing live ammunition off-base multi-national training exercise--but Limited Kinetic Operation was beyond my wildest dreams.  And the entire sentence is worth diagramming cause it's just too perfect a specimen to leave lying there with so much to savor. 

Gates begins with: "The way I like to put it..."   Well, there's an honest guy for you.  Right off the bat he's letting us know that he's found his own personal way of thinking about this topic--and hinting at the fact that the topic itself  is in need of some interpretive softening in order to make it more palatable for public consumption. 

" ...is, from our Standpoint at the Pentagon".  Ah, so it's both the way you like to put it, and the way the Pentagon likes to see it, which of course is one and the same--cause you're (were) the boss.   So we can all rest assured that whatever you're about to say has been agreed upon by all relevant parties.  I feel better already .

"we're involved..."  Okay, I gotcha.  It's not like "We initiated"  or "We're undertaking" , but rather "we're involved." Nice to know we just kinda stumbled into this thing.  Wouldn't want anyone to think we made a choice or decided to act unilaterally.  That would sound aggressive.  And we're not aggressive, we're...

"...in a limited kinetic operation."  Oh, I just love it.  It's inspired.  Stupid yes, meaningless, certainly.  But inspired.  Wonder who said it first?  I can just see them all sitting around a big conference room table tossing out ideas.  "Limited" was probably a unanimous choice as a supporting actor , but who would play the lead? ?  Containment has been used too much,Peace-keeping has no real credibility, and damage control has been co-opted by Public Relations people.  

Site of U.S. Libyan Military Mission.  Codename: Mousetrap.  

But "Kinetic" is so...fresh and new.  

And hey, look it up!  It means active, lively, dynamic, energizing.  

Kinda like one of those Rube Goldberg contraptions. 

W is for:

Wayzgoose:  Annual employees' dinner or outing

Witzelsucht:   A set of rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations.   

Whiskerine:  A beard growing contest

Waqf:  charitable donation for Islamic religious purposes

And….

Watermelon Triolet




Cousin to Cucumber, Pumpkin and Squash
Citrullus Lanatus you're my favorite treat
You're the sweetest and juiciest summer day nosh
Cousin to Cucumber, Pumpkin and Squash.
Though mostly water, that's not why you're neat
you've got goodness inside you, but never fancy or posh
Cousin to Cucumber, Pumpkin and Squash
Citrullus Lanatus you're my favorite treat

Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC said:

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC.  "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more 

than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible
for re-election."

BTW: (THANKS G.E. FOR PASSING THIS ALONG)

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

AND HERE'S THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION:

Congressional Reform Act of 2012 

1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social
Security.  All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the
Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and
participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the
American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void
effective 12/1/12. The American people did not make this
contract with Congressmen/women.

Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in
Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their
term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will
only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive
the message. 

V is for:
ventripotent	Big-bellied, gluttonous
vesthibitionism	The flirtatious display of undergarments by a woman
vigesimation	The act of killing every twentieth person
viraginity	Masculine qualities in a woman And for Jean Francois Voltaire who was born on this day in 1694. At age 65 wrote Candide in three days. And once said:  “I have only ever made one prayer to God,  a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’  And God granted it.”

enjoy your day of giving...

From random polling ... for best new oxymoron ... a list of all too familiar entries--however a few were new to me and after I collect all submissions by end of week I will post leading contenders for best of the bunch.  Till then, I'll let you know that current leader is:
Microsoft Works. 

From The New Yorker…

Article begins with:  “Pakistan has a way of cutting careers short…”  and goes on...

"Most recently, the U.S. Ambassador, Cameron Munter, retired prematurely because, according to a colleague quoted in the Times,  “he didn’t realize his main job was to kill people.”

Piece then recounts discussion he had with some students at Columbia Law School, where he now a visiting Professor. 

 “ He distinguished three types of drone attacks:  high-value targets (“Article Fifty-one of the U.N. charter gives us the right to go after these people…I don’t have a problem with that”); imminent threats, mostly to troops in Afghanistan (“Those, to, are fairly un-controversial, at least inside our government”); and signature strikes, firing a missle at guys who “look like they’re up to no good” (targeting based on behavior, rather than identity”).  This became a source of contention between Munter and the C.I.A. :  When you kill people and you don’t know who they are, what are you leaving yourself open to?”

Apparently, the CIA has learned something from Jewish Mothers by following the rule of…”you can never be too careful.”

A South Shore Clean up after the aptly named Storm.

From Sandy's Shores...

Was helping one of our new neighbors in The Springs who was digging up the beach to find the anchor to the raft he puts in the bay each summer (we managed to dig out about 40 feet of chain--but never found the anchor) and he told me he lost three cars...one a pick-up truck he uses for construction work.

Un-Real Ark that survived real flood.

From Hollywood land...Did you know that they are shooting a movie about 

Noah? And that the enormous 

Ark they built for it is in Oyster Bay Long Island? And that it was undamaged by Super Storm Sandy?  Nice to know that at least the fictional places and people were spared.

From Palestine...Trying to learn more about 20^th century history of middle-east, especially events preceding WWII.  Starting with The Balfour Declaration in 1917 and beginning of British Mandate in 1920 it sure starts to get dense with a crazy quilted pattern of promises made and broken, agreements signed and ignored, intentions stated and withdrawn and then continuing to repeat and intensify as anger and resentment mounts and gets passed along from one generation to the next until martyrdom and myth replace reason and reality.  I can easily imagine any direct inheritor of either of the opposing legacies born during the most violent chapters  of this history—having a helluva time being convinced to put his weapons down. 

Finding much at: 

http://mideastweb.org/

From Fran Leibowitz... our contemporary Oscar Wilde even resembles him (uncannily so) but the more compelling common thread is the irrepressible compulsion to amuse through clever contrarianism and undiluted disdain for dishonest decorum and political correctness.  Just heard her interviewed on the radio the other day, and she was in fine form as she railed against the hypocrisy, absurdity, banality, triviality, mediocrity, stupidity and ridiculousness of....everything.  I leave you with sampler of greatest hits.


Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word collectible as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.


If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater suggest that he wear a tail.


Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women it is merely a good excuse not to play football.


There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death.


Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.

The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance.

When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men — 15 of them are Saudis — and five minutes later the whole country thinks they’re from Iraq — how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O.J. Simpson jurors.

I doubt there’s ever been a true thing said on Fox. Maybe the weather report, maybe not.

I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not. 

Polite conversation is rarely either. 

U Is for:
ulotrichous	Having very wooly hair
ultracrepidarian	Offering opinions on matters beyond one's knowledge
usufructuary	One who enjoys use of something, especially property