by Chris O’Carroll
“Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe Movie Gets Rare NC-17 Rating for Sexual Content”
—The Hollywood Reporter
The rating NC-17
Is lipstick on an X.
This skin-flick biopic knows green
Accrues to bombshell sex.
Her bare breasts launched a magazine
That launched a thousand wanks,
So now she’s NC-17,
A rating Netflix banks.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“[S]ex and relationships education has changed in Scottish primary schools”
—The Scotsman
Sex education when I was at school
Was utterly useless to kids on the pull.
Lots about gametes and fertilization;
Nothing on hormones and sexual frustration.
We’d fidget through endless biology lessons,
Impatient for answers to pricklier questions:
A sperm and an ovum engender a brat—
But how do you get to the bit before that?
by Bruce Bennett
WTF! My NFT
now is worthless. Woe is me!
Blockchain blocked this fool I am.
Shoulda stuck with Uncle Sam!
by Chris O’Carroll
“I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat.
Stakes are Ukraine.”
—Elon Musk
Musk sees the future—auto-driving cars,
Spaceships, a human settlement on Mars,
And one thing more. En route to conquer space,
He’s set his sights on breaking Putin’s face.
Is this the hip new righteous rich boy thing?
Will Gates or Bezos punch out Xi Jinping?
Will Kim Jong-un be told he’s going down
As soon as Richard Branson gets to town?
by Alex Steelsmith
Sting “is ‘appalled’ at the Ukraine invasion and will not play any shows
for anyone connected to the Putin regime.”
—The World News
Willfully-nillfully
Russia’s kleptocracy,
boycotted even by
people who sing,
now has to add to the
oligarch-punishing
sting of the sanctions the
sanctions of Sting.
by Nora Jay
“‘No more switching clocks’: Senate passes act to make daylight saving time permanent:
Sunshine Protection Act needs approval from the House, and the signature of Joe Biden,
to become law”
—The Guardian
We can’t protect Afghanistan,
We can’t protect Ukraine,
But needy Sunshine? That we can!
Protect, protect again!
We can’t protect the Capitol,
We can’t protect the Earth,
But, Congress, when it comes to Sol,
Protect for all you’re worth!
We can’t protect our youth from guns,
We can’t protect the poor,
But when the crisis is the Sun’s,
Protect and damn the score!
by Steven Kent
“Green Credentials of World’s Largest Investor Questioned Over Oil Industry Emails”
—The Guardian
We said We’re all about the green,
The greenest firm you’ve ever seen.
You didn’t ask us what we mean
And now you try to shame us?
The corporate meaning of a word
Will rarely be the one you’ve heard,
And while I’m sure it sounds absurd,
For this we’re fairly famous.
Our claims might be just empty rot,
But green we have, and quite a lot!
Green’s money-colored—you forgot?
Hey, that’s on you; don’t blame us.
by Julia Griffin
“Companies that divest from fossil fuel could face a state boycott in Texas”
—NPR
(with apologies to The Beatles)
Ah, look at all the phony people!
Ah, look at all the phony people!
Governor Abbott,
Wouldn’t know ozone depletion from holes in his head—
Here’s what he said:
“Boycott divesters!
Earth’s getting sultrier? a) it’s a fiction, and b)
Run your AC!”
All the phony people,
Where do they all come from?
Dumb and mean and greedy,
And lethal as a bomb.
Fossils in Texas,
Spewing out unctuous garbage that poisons the air:
What could they care?
Solar’s for losers,
Let the New Yorkers disfigure their roofs with tin foil:
Texas likes oil!
All the phony people,
So brash and loud and wrong;
Voters, learn (be speedy!)
Just where they all belong.
by Iris Herriot
“Mississippi teacher fired for reading I Need a New Butt! to children”
—The Guardian
A school board banned this book for smut
(This tale is not a hoax),
And thus became the brand new butt
Of everybody’s jokes.
by Scot Slaby
“Hong Kong is to close government-managed beaches again … after photos
of busy Hong Kong beaches went viral on Chinese social media.”
—Hong Kong Free Press
Higgledy-piggledy
Hong Kong’s new policy
kowtows to Mainlanders:
beaches are closed.
Meanwhile most revelers
frolic in eateries
two per each table with
faces exposed.
by Steve Bremner
Inflation “jumped 7.9 percent over the [past year], the sharpest spike since 1982.
That means Pennsylvania residents paid more than 17 percent more for meat, poultry and eggs,
10.9 percent more for cereals, and 5.4 percent more for fruits and vegetables.”
—Patch.com
Ethical schmethical
Fine Philadelphians
Turn vegetarian,
Vegan, and lean,
Shunning the cheesesteak and
Hyperobesity:
Saving our Gaia? No,
Saving their Green.
by Julia Griffin
“Giant potato is not actually a potato, says Guinness World Records…
A New Zealand couple who believed they had dug up the world’s largest potato
in the garden of their small farm near Hamilton have had their dreams turned to mash.”
—The Irish Times
The giant tuber known as Doug
Has left New Zealand less than smug:
He’s lost his claim (it seemed so good!)
To Guinness-class potatohood.
What can we learn from this? It’s moot;
Perhaps don’t root for every root?
What’s excavated from the mud
Will sometimes fail to be a spud.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
A white rhino named Queenie “is the latest in a series of animals at the park to be named after
members of the royal family.”
—The Independent
The precious arrivals are given the names
Of persons of royal distinction.
They’re part of a program of breeding which aims
To counter the threat of extinction.
But too small a gene pool can make itself felt,
If suitable partners are few.
There’s always the risk of compounding a fault—
It happens in animals, too.
by Ruth S. Baker
“‘Quantum hair’ could resolve Hawking’s black hole paradox, say scientists”
—The Guardian
That paradox I don’t condemn
(I lack the brains to doubt it)
But as to this new theorem,
I’m quite enthused about it.
That spacetime gaps are bald and bare
Has never had me spitting,
But when I think of Einstein, hair
Does seem a lot more fitting.
by Alex Steelsmith
“Cold War-style chill settles over Russia…”
—The Los Angeles Times
Seven Russian oligarchs “are barred from conducting any financial transaction in the UK.”
—The Guardian
Jiggery-pokery,
Russia’s top oligarchs
shiver to learn what a
Cold War can do:
Chill their transactions and
unsympathetically
freeze their gargantuan
assets off too.