Tag: Commentary

Biden’s Twelve Days of Christmas

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 2 Comments

For Christmas 2018 I wrote Trump’s 12 Days of Christmas. Now it is Joe Biden’s turn.

On the first day of Christmas Biden found inside his stocking
Joe Manchin’s lump of coal, not really shocking!

On the second day of Christmas Biden found inside his stocking
Two piqued Progressives
And Joe Manchin’s lump of coal.

On the third day of Christmas Biden found inside his stocking
Three obstructive Republicans
Two piqued Progressives
And Joe Manchin’s lump of coal.

On the fourth day of Christmas Biden found inside his stocking
Four Fox hosts a lying
Three obstructive Republicans
Two piqued Progressives
And Joe Manchin’s lump of coal.

On the fifth day of Christmas Biden found inside his stocking
Five COVID variants
Four Fox hosts a lying
Three obstructive Republicans
Two piqued Progressives
And Joe Manchin’s lump of coal.

Continue reading “Biden’s Twelve Days of Christmas” →

Silence is Golden

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 2 Comments

A blessed silence falls upon the land. All is calm, all is quiet. Actual birdsong can be heard again, and the murmurings of our own thoughts. Twitter has silenced our Dear Leader. Now he is the Former Dear Leader, banished to St. Helena (oh I mean Mar-a-Largo). His tweets were mercifully swallowed by the great maw of the past and a healing silence reigns.

Continue reading “Silence is Golden” →

Twas A White House Christmas

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 5 Comments

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the White House
Not an aide was stirring, not even Jared.
Don Jr. and Eric hung their stockings with care
In hopes that they’d soon find a pardon in there.

Ivanka tossed sleepless and scared in her bed
While visions of prison flashed through her head.
Melania in her kerchief and Trump in his Crown Continue reading “Twas A White House Christmas” →

Veritas – Book Review

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 3 Comments


The Dispatches have been quiet of late. During election season this observer of “the former new world” was consumed with anxiety. Would the new world go the way of the old, perhaps lapsing into mid twentieth century fascism or reenacting the Fall of the Republic in ancient Rome? My political writing style of light-hearted satire seemed inadequate, even inappropriate, for the enormity of the danger faced by this still relatively young Republic. The Roman Republic, after all, lasted almost 500 years before the Senate granted extraordinary powers to Augustus, first in a long line of Continue reading “Veritas – Book Review” →

An Impromptu Health Seminar

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 4 Comments

An unusual place for a health seminar

One recent morning I attended a health seminar. In the waiting room of a car service center in Gaithersburg. It was an impromptu kind of thing. Certainly not what I expected when I checked my car in for its 40,000 mile service, then settled down in the spacious lounge for the usual tedious wait. On the muted television CNN relayed the latest alarming news of the world but no-one paid attention. Vehicle anxiety and international crisis don’t mix well. We stared at our phones or worked on our laptops and avoided eye contact as strangers thrown together in public spaces tend to do. But we were about to be nudged out of our cocoons.

Continue reading “An Impromptu Health Seminar” →

A Good Guy With A Narwhal Tusk

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 3 Comments

Unidentified men use a narwhal tusk and a fire extinguisher against the London knife attacker

According to Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” But in London on November 29th a bad guy with a knife was stopped by a good guy with a narwhal whale tusk. And another with a fire extinguisher. And a few more with just their bare hands. The incident reveals much about the difference between the cultures on either side of the pond.

First, the attacker used a knife. He managed to kill two people and seriously injure three others before he was subdued. But here in America he would undoubtedly have been Continue reading “A Good Guy With A Narwhal Tusk” →

Water Water Everywhere

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 1 Comment

You could be forgiven for mistaking the network evening news for the Weather Channel these days. Night after night scenes of devastating flooding somewhere and everywhere. Hurricanes, cyclones, torrential rainfall, storm surges, rivers overflowing their banks, whole towns inundated, homes lost, islands disappearing, glaciers and polar ice melting. Here in Washington D.C. alarming scenes of stranded motorists crouching on the roofs of their submerged cars awaiting rescue. Dire warnings from climate scientists ignored, even suppressed, by our government.

I learned more about the watery world that awaits us in Robert Macfarlane’s marvelous new book Underland. The book is not specifically about climate change or rising seas. It is Continue reading “Water Water Everywhere” →

The Great Again Colossus

~ dispatchesfromtheformernewworld ~ 5 Comments

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The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus is a poem written in 1883 to help raise money for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. In 1903 it was mounted on the pedestal on a bronze plaque. Though beloved by Americans for over a century, the poem no longer reflects the America in which we live today.

I propose this new version as more in the spirit of the times:

The Great Again Colossus by Emma Mortifer

Not like the woman of New York harbor fame,
Who welcomed desperate migrants to our land;
Here at our brutal border wall shall stand
A bloated, boastful bigot, one whose flame
Is destroyer of truth and justice, and his name
Con-Man in Chief. From his puny hand
Tweet hate and lies; his heartless eyes command
This Land of Immigrants that twin oceans frame.
But “Keep, ancient lands, your worthless horde,” cries he
With pouting lips. “I banish your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
Your wretched refuse shall not infest our shore.
Send them, the suffering children, unto me,
And they shall rot in cages outside our golden door!”

Follow the Money

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“Follow the money,” the famous words whispered by Deep Throat in an underground garage during the Watergate scandal, can be usefully applied to any number of ills afflicting American society. To take just the two main scourges of the present day, gun violence and opioid addiction, you can be sure there are people somewhere raking in huge profits on the backs of the victims. Continue reading “Follow the Money” →