“Potty-mouthed parrots rehoused to clean up their language” —The Times
This is Tyson, an African Grey,
And perpetual cause of dismay.
It is hard not to scowl
At this foulest of fowl
Squawking smut every hour of the day.
So we’ve put him with birds better bred,
In the hope they’ll get into his head.
Though today they were shocked,
When he told them, “Get flocked!”
(And that wasn’t the worst thing he said.)
We regret he’s just one of a group
That loves swooping around talking poop.
The same fate now awaits
These disorderly mates—
Though we’re thinking about parrot soup!
“There was very little free speech at Harvard—the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ranked it last of all colleges last year. …” —The Wall Street Journal
“A Florida school district is pulling nearly 2,000 books from its shelves— including some dictionaries and encyclopedias” —Axios
Right and left can’t seem to see
There’s a way that they agree:
From the classroom to the dorm,
All opinion must conform.
“’We wouldn’t have civilizations if we didn’t create groups. We are designed to form groups,
and the only way to define a group is there has to be someone who’s not in it,’…” —The Washington Post
“It’s Us or Them, you idiot! Of course
we hate that Other, since he is the source
of Every Evil. As, no doubt, are you,
who tries to tell us this. We hate you too!”
“Amateur archaeologist discovers bizarre Roman object that has baffled for centuries” —Independent
“12 sides, 100 theories: what was the Roman dodecahedron really for?” —The Times
Our forebears, who had impish Roman minds, Left old dodecahedra in the ground. Dig experts, who seek purpose in such finds, Doubt any known hypothesis is sound: Old candleholders? No. Old Rome used oil. Dice made for gambling? No. They wouldn’t roll. Et cetera … These objects, rife in soil, Could earn no mention in a Roman scroll. An oversight of scholars? Maybe. Or, Had Romans pranked posterity instead, Endowing it with objects solely for Discreetly messing with an expert’s head, Repaying nosy future diggers well Ahead of time? There’s just no way to tell!
“Chemists Have Just Tied The Tightest Knot Ever, Made of Just 54 Atoms” —ScienceAlert
The latest news in chemistry
Brings Boy Scout knots straight back to me.
Though Brobdignagian in size,
The trusty Boy Scout square knot ties
Most things, and for what gaps there are
Scouts have a hefty repertoire
Of bowlines, hitches, and sheepshanks.
Dear chemists, for these memories: Thanks!
Your microscopic knot, drawn tight,
Unloosed free ends long lost to sight.
“Towns in England with crumbling water infrastructure are being ‘besieged’ by hundreds of trucks full of sewage.” —i
Now the pipelines have started to fray
I expect we shall soon see the day
When we do what we do
In a travelling loo
And the garbage truck tows it away.
“Patrick Mahomes’ broken helmet ‘did its job’ [the manufacturer says. When the helmets clashed] a fist-sized chunk went flying from Mahomes’ helmet just above the facemask… ‘It’s something that’s cool,’ [he said…] ‘I was perfectly fine after.’” —NBC News
Crackily, whackily,
helmet technology
clearly succeeds when it
fails, say reports.
Though it seems logically
self-contradictory,
surely the news is a
breakthrough of sorts.
“It’s Larry the Cat’s Seventeenth Birthday” —YouTube
Downing Street, associated
Usually with poorly-rated
Statesmen blathering or snarling,
Fêtes this week its feline darling:
Larry, prince of impassivity,
Marks his seventeenth nativity.
Since age three (so most consider),
He has served as rodent-ridder;
Civil to our budget-wrecker
Chancellor of the Exchequer;
Stepping past policemen neatly;
Checking up, but most discreetly,
On the resident Prime Minister,
Howsoever dumb or sinister,
Slick or slacker, bland or blust’rous,
Lettuce-like or still less lustrous.
Five of them he’s duly greeted,
Four seen slope away, defeated;
Though they fill his bowl, or flavor it,
Never has he owned a favorite.
Larry, model politician,
Credit to your high position!
By your admirable labors,
You have made, for all your neighbors
And myself, mere out-of-towner,
Downing Street a lesser downer.
“Hertz is selling 20,000 electric vehicles to buy gasoline cars… [EVs] have been hurting Hertz’s financials… Hertz expects to take a loss of about $245 million due to depreciation on the EVs…” —CNN
Fillable, fuelable
gas-powered vehicles
bolster financials, a
spokesman asserts;
EVs are harming their
profitability.
Who can be faulted? The
company hurtz.
Fiscally riskily,
EVs as rental cars
sometimes depreciate,
analysts learn.
Now it appears that the
company’s managers
underappreciate
them in return.
“Brits left baffled by Brexit’s ‘not for EU’ food labels.” —Politico
We’re compelled to dismiss all these labels
As babble in bureaucrats’ Babels
For if “Not for EU”
Translates “Not for me/you”
We’ll be dining at very bare tables.
“Do You Have ‘Bookshelf Wealth’? A TikTok Home Décor Trend Has Irked Some Bibliophiles” —The New York Times
My look is lived-in, always understated: A vase, a painting, placed with utmost care.
The books, of course, have all been hand-curated, With no pulp fiction titles anywhere.
There’s Huck Finn, Moby Dick (about a sailor), The works of Shakespeare, Steinbeck for my friends,
And also Roth and Updike, Irving, Mailer, Plus Zadie Smith to show I’m up on trends.
A paperback looks cheap, in my opinion; Collector sets add class here to my shelf,
Projecting airs of scholarly dominion (Though I flunked out of English Lit myself).
I choose them by the lovely leather binding; I’m keenly conscious of each luscious hue
Which color-matches. I don’t need reminding That books are there to read, you pedant, you!
