[Brian Allgar]

Some scholars believe that the “seventy-two virgins” that these barbarians believe await them in paradise should actually be “seventy-two white raisins.” I like to imagine the exchange when they get there:

“Right, here we are, in keen anticipation
Of our reward, six dozen virgin rapes.”
“I’m sorry, lads, there’s been a mistranslation,
But here’s the promised seventy-two white grapes.”

[RCL]

The Crux of Cruz

His mouth movin’
and brain snoozin’

Cruz’s taskin’
Prez and askin’

if Prez’s cruisin’
for a bruisin’

when accusin’
Cruz of sinnin'

by bullyin’
moms and kin

if Syrian
and not Christian.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016...y-face-n465576

http://suindependent.com/cartoon-ted-cruz-debate-obama/

[Erik Olson]

Houston, Where's The Apollo 11 Tapes?

Most parents keep the tapes that catch their child
Take his first steps, yet NASA's lost, misfiled
Their first moonwalk—even those brains lost track!
Thus Man takes giant leaps, then stumbles back.


http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog...-footage-.html

[RCL]

Extremely Pinged Poem Sighted!

Poem Pong

I post and wait
And wait and wait

You post a crit
You think is fit

I read your words
think some are turds

You think it’s weak
I think you reek

I craft new rhymes
You call them crimes

You fault the measure
I think is treasure

I post a rant
You say recant

I find your crit
Is all legit!!

I then revise
Revise revise

Five versions strong
That ping and pong

From crit to draft
To me gone daft

I know it’s best
To let it rest

I love the game:
Always the same

It’s just a poem
Not yet my totem

Note: The Ojibway scholar Basil H. Johnston defines dodaem, or totem, as "that from which I draw my purpose, meaning, and being."

[Douglas G. Brown]

Sexton of Mt. Repose Cemetery Battles Severe Ant Infestation - Local newspaper item

The mouse grows old in winter's cold
And thirsts in summer's heat;
But graveyard ants lead lives that can't
Be beat by man nor beast;
Beyond the graveyard gate they wait
For another human feast.

The junkyard dog treads a starving slog
Through the life that's dealt to him;
But the graveyard queen's as epicurean
As Farouk or Diamond Jim;
When a stiff's interred, she gets the word,
And moves her fam'ly in.

To end his toils, the lobster boils
To grace a diner's plate;
But the graveyard ant knows the diner can't
Avoid his final date
With destiny ... and you and me
Will share his grisly fate.

[Nigel Mace]

On Thursday night Hilary Benn, son of the radical Tony Benn who had eloquently opposed the bombing of Iraq, led sixty six Labour MPs into voting against their party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the opinions of their party's members in a vote for the Tory government's policy of bombing Syria.
The Tory dominated media have deluged his 'performance' with praise - others are less happy. Many have seen it as a pitch to unseat Corbyn and claim his job; other party members are beginning to call for the de-selection of the sixty six as Labour candidates at the next election and have been accused of bullying and undue pressure.
57 of 59 Scottish MPs, including all the 56 members of the Scottish National Party voted against. The following is with apologies to Burns, who penned the original in 1785 as a letter to Rev Tom McMath enclosing a copy of Holy Willy's Prayer.

WORDS WELL WEIGHED?

It was, perhaps, a might too trusting
That folk, far from Westminster’s bustling,
Should tangle with a Party lusting,
Still, for lost power
And think Benn’s son, on Corbyn’s husting,
Would not turn sour.

But we’re made sick while his grimaces,
His pop-eyed canting, slip-shod phrases,
Self-praising ‘ham’ and practised faces,
Prate pseudo-conscience
And greed for place and pelf disgraces
Wisdom with nonsense.

Benns past, abused worse than a beast,
Retained more honour, at the least,
Than turncoats, surplus as this ‘priest’
Of blood-borne humbug,
Whose party’s faith’s now lies deceased,
A Tory hearth-rug.

Mind him? All good folks’ friend in need,
A decent man in word and deed?
Let not his name and honour bleed
In issue scurvy,
And let’s recall his humane creed
Not this unworthy.

Had we Aneurin’s scathing words,
We’d cast this carrion to such birds
As prey on these expiring herds
Of mindless cattle,
Tracked not but truths, but simply turds
Of lying prattle.

Though Corbyn’s not the man he should be,
Nor can he, now, be what he could be,
By sixty six, I’d rather that we
Stood firm in defeat,
Than under butcher colours hid be
By such a cheat.

When honest folk betrayal claim,
In honest anger taking aim
At those, whose bomb strikes soon will maim
And spread despair,
Bombasts complain, quite without shame,
“Pressure’s unfair”.

Such claim to raise the people’s flag
And talk democracy, yet drag
Far peoples through the mire and brag
They’ll, “Do their bit”;
Yet when the dying comes, they’ll lag -
Oh, how unfit!

All hail the anti-fascist cause,
But let it not be claimed by ‘blaws’
Whose wind-bag rectitude applauds
George Orwell’s Spain,
But failed to save their own fourth clause -
And would again.

Though foully smeared and falsely stained
I’d rather stand with those defamed
To hear my nation’s voice proclaimed
’Gainst pointless slaughter.
My nation’s party not ashamed
Of what we fought for.

In spite of Blair, despite this Benn,
(What awful sentence that’s to pen)
Let’s strive that hearts and minds open
To change of course;
Then, when our nation’s free again,
There’s still remorse.

[John Whitworth]

The media are not Tory-dominated. About half the newspapers are Tory and the other half not. It is true that no-one reads the leftist ones but that's how it goes.

The Broadcast media are all left-leaning. Leaning jolly far I would say. Name me Tory among that bunch.

[Matt Q]

John, the BBC news has a right-wing bias. It consistently gives proportionately more air-time to Tories. I can find you studies if you like, but I've shown you those before.

EDIT: Apparently, in the run up to the election, most TV news channels (BBC, Sky, Channel 4 & Channel 5) gave more time to the Tories than to Labour. This disparity was strongest with Channel 4 & Channel 5. ITV was the exception, where Labour got a fraction more time. (Source: based on study by Cardiff University)

[Nigel Mace]

Last time I looked John there were no - zero - "leftist" mass circulation newspapers in Britain.

The Daily Record tends towards the Labour Party, but not as much as at one time; the Guardian is sometimes pro-Labour and sometimes pro-LibDem but publishes a number of right-wing commentators as well; the Indy is 'indy' and sometimes backs Labour; and in Scotland The National supports the SNP; and er.... that's it.

That leaves firmly in the Tory column - The Times, The Telegraph, the Financial Times, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Express, the Star, the Metro, the London Evening Standard and the main Scottish papers (The Herald, Scotsman, Glasgow Evening Times), the main regional papers such as the Yorkshire Post, Western Morning News, Aberdeen Press and Journal etc. plus all the Sundays, - the Sunday Times, The Observer (though occasionally critical is more Tory than not), The Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Mail, Sunday Express, the Sun on Sunday (son of the unlamented News of the World) and Scotland on Sunday with the sole exception of The Sunday Herald (broadly pro-SNP). The list isn't exhaustive but the point is clear. If the latest figures from the industry on readership (print and web-based) are consulted the figures for the Tory leaning press are more than 350% of all the rest combined - and that is without taking into account the lesser regional and local papers.

The Tories do dominate the mass-media in the UK.... and Matt is also, academically, perfectly correct about the BBC. Only Channel 4 News comes anywhere near a 'balance'. Of course, how all this looks through Kentish lenses I couldn't say.

[Ann Drysdale]

Should this argument not be taking place in verse?