Discredit Default Swaps

Mayumi and Richard Heene,
Fittingly which rhymes with meanie,
Had good cause to fear the sheriff
When their young son quit the attic.
That’s when we all got a rank whiff:
Their balloon might be one sick trick.

Some of his Best Friends use Toilets

Louisianans ought to hate
Their throwback of a magistrate
Who won’t wed couples white and black,
A rebuff that has drawn attack
From people all around globe
Who think he’s some HighYellar-phobe.

Nothing to Fear but Flu Itself

How on earth do parents reason
Kids should skip swine-flu vaccines?
H1N1’s now in season,
Relative of 1918’s.

U.S. stats have reached a million;
Last six months, a thousand died.
Cousin, granted, not outdone
Left 40 million killed worldwide.

Opting Out

If there’s no public-option plan
To constitute health-care reform,
To be consistent as we can
And do without one more such storm,
I say the Postal Service goes
And gladdens all commercial foes.

Zero Sum

The term Ground Zero tries my soul
Because it’s where the liners struck,
And also since, a gaping hole
Recalls that plans have run amok
To build a soaring tower where
The Twins stood. Zero progress there.

Chill, Chaps!

Sub par, the Congressman’s IQ
For whom You lie! is repartée.
He needs to joust as M.P.s do
In wry but Jolly Old U.K.

In the Subprime of Their Lives

Remember all those subprime loans
Investment banks securitized?
That’s Wall Street slang the world bemoans
For marketing them, ill-advised,
As bundled, junk-filled mortgage bonds.
Now hear what’s next that corresponds.

Solidarity Whenever

I wonder if it still makes sense
To celebrate a Labor Day,
Proclaimed to honor trades from whence
The workers struck for decent pay,
Then health-care policies acquired,
And pensions, too, when they retired.

No Child Left Bereft

They worried first of Grandma’s plug,
How pulling it would cause her end.
They give health-care reform a shrug.
They're nuts, if truth, they just pretend.

So much for elders, now the kids
These whackos want to use as ploys
To foil Obama, though it rids
Our dialogue of all but noise.

Allah Helps Those

As nasty world events arise
And we respond with flag unfurled,
When will we ever realize,
Not always can we change the world?

No More Mister Civil Guy

The President, let’s hope he thought,
While waiting for his time to come,
This Mission Church, superbly wrought,
Yet in a place that’s troublesome,
In Boston’s dodgy Roxbury,
Though where Ted wished the eulogy.

That the Roar may Never Die

When first his public life began
With household name and well-known look,
I thought for such a sinner man
Inheritance was all it took
To get himself a Senate seat
Though tossed from Harvard as a cheat.

Payback Time!

Back as far as Alexander
Afghans proved themselves unruly,
Crushed, perhaps, but in all candor
Even we can’t rule them truly.
Mongols, Arabs, Russians, NATO,
No one’s made a go that I know.

Scottish Rights

Disgusting how in Tripoli
A man who bombed Flight 103
And brought the Pan Am liner down
Is welcomed home with such renown
It makes one think that he is not
The only Libyan in the plot,
A fall guy. Others, too, it’s said,
Ensured two-hundred seventy dead.

Silence that Speaks

Troy Davis has another chance,
For eighteen years, his home death row.
Eyewitnesses have changed their stance.
So did he kill? Most now say no.

Protecting the Protectors

The VA and the Pentagon
Have fused compassion, smarts and cure
To focus clinically upon
An ill as long as wars endure:
Post-traumatic stress disorder,
Cleaned-up term for age-old horror.

Look Who's Talking

How can we blame him? Think of it!
His Doubl’ya recalcitrant,
Determining as he saw fit
Affairs of state as president,
Although in doing so he snubbed
And, boss Dick Cheney, wrongly rubbed.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver 1921-2009

For those who haven’t all their wits
Through not one failing of their own,
Delight can come in little bits.
To have it all’s a goal unknown.

Herself from birth she lacked for naught,
Which gave her luxury of means
To help these folks who’d never sought
To rise above confined routines.

This is the Captain Snoozing

Why didn’t Sully get a call?
He used the Hudson, after all
To ditch his US Airways plane
And well-deserved prestige attain.
He herded passengers out first;
As last man out, he risked the worst.

Marion the Licensarian

So sad when people start out well
And cavalierly think success
Can license them the capital
To make their life a public mess.

A champion of civil rights
And marcher throughout Southern states,
A black man vexing violent whites,
He placed his life in dangerous straits.

August of the Fourth Reich

Reform of health care might be near
If lots of those who fight reform
Must shout so others cannot hear
Debate within the civil norm.
In beer halls, Brown Shirts used this ploy,
Too dumb to reason, just annoy.

Pillow Talk in Chappaqua

Don’t forget South Carolina.

Don’t bring back my damn angina!

The Petty New Party

Though not important on its own,
Near one in four of us declare
Hawaii hasn’t fully shown
Barack Obama’s birthplace there
Is certified beyond a doubt.
State records clearly bear it out.

2009: An NYSE Odyssey

On Wall Street, nine financial firms and banks
That Washington (read you and I) bailed out,
Are five billion dollars into old pranks,
For five thousand dealers, but please don’t shout.
Those million-dollar bonuses are through.
I’ve found a remedy (for me and you).

As Good as New

Uncle Sam as new-car salesman
Struck a chord with old-car owners,
Doling funds to get some action,
Cash for Clunkers, no more loaners
During tenth-year check-up service.
Rather, some more showroom business.

Wanna Buy a Battleship? Spaceship?

Defense suppliers advertise
Their job’s to plan, to build, to arm,
Especially the gals and guys
Who fight to keep us free from harm.

You’d think they’d worry most of needs
In Iraq and Afghanistan
To shield our troops from IEDs,
Those roadside bombs that fry a man.

Down the Gold Brick Road

Janet A. Napolitano,
Guardian Of our nation’s homeland,
Knocked Unconscious by Tornado,
Screams the Kansas City Star and,
Searching for a site to test germs,
Makes new friends although on odd terms.

Shut Up, Joe

Okay, okay, we’ve slugged it out.
One time we almost went to war,
Their missiles, Cuban-based, about
One step from world-destruction’s door.

Caw-u!

In Tokyo, Hitchcock Isn't Around
But He Seems to Have Sent the Birds
(Washington Post headline)

Crows in Tokyo
Irk tourists in The Ginza
Shutting stores and bars

Crows in Tokyo
Desecrate the Meiji Shrine
Taunting deities

Here's Looking at Harmony

Cambridge lawman highly rated;
Harvard icon agitated.
Maybe burglar, former’s thinking;
Latter: I‘m home. This is stinking!
President Obama: See here!
Can’t we three just get a cold beer?

Mum's Not The Answer

National Highway Traffic Safety,
DOT’s administration
Sworn to make the drivers’ duty
Keeping traffic free of friction
Such as when they bash each other.
Maybe slur each other’s mother.

The Way it Won't Be

What made him so unusual
Was that he seemed like no such thing.
While rivals grew theatrical,
He’d say it straight, not make it sing,
Without their flippant winks and nods
As though all-knowing demigods.

When Vague is in Vogue

How odd it is her questioners
Who’ve fretted over empathy,
So much suspect beliefs of hers
Might hinder her ability
To judge according just to fact
A case before our highest court
And, more, to let her past distract
Her thoughts, say, whether to abort.

And the Winner Is . . . .

How to better reach the Afghans?
Nothing like it holds a candle.
Neither we nor Talibans.
Rather, call it Afghan Idol.

If the Shoe Fits

Republicans fear empathy,
Which means to walk in others’ shoes
And not to offer sympathy—
Compassion for another’s blues.

When Judge Sonia Sotomayor,
The wise Latina, self-described,
Becomes a Justice, they’ll deplore
Her bringing baggage, as they’ve gibed.

First Save All the Doctors

It’s not redundancy or price
That jeopardize health care’s reform.
It’s that these issues can’t suffice
To scope out what should be the norm:
What helps three hundred million Yanks
And not what feeds the lobbies’ ranks.

Time to Roll the Dice

No longer have I any doubt
Of whom they mainly hold in awe,
Who holds the Grand Old Party’s clout
He’s schadenfreude’s Rush Limbaugh.

Deadly Silence

The U.S. dwelt on dominoes
In years that followed World War II.
In sequence, Communists depose
Regimes knocked down by war or coup.
At least that’s how the theory went,
And Robert McNamara gave assent.

Golden-Rule Debasers

Enhanced interrogation skills,
(Translation: torture) give me chills
If practiced by the other side
Specifically as we’ve applied.

It's Monday-through-Friday Live!

On Fox, O’Reilly, sly or not,
Reporting on the drawn-out run
For Minnesota’s Senate slot
Announced that Stuart Smalley won
And not Al Franken. What the hell.
Al played the role on SNL.

Catching Z's Instead of Bernie

So Bernie Madoff’s gone for good
Though not his cleaned-out clients’ rage.
I wish that also Judge Chin could
Cram SEC’s staff in a cage
And let them rot for years as well,
As shameless sloths for what befell.

No Kidding?

How quick they take the grandkids’ side
Those penny-wise conservatives,
When health-care talk they can’t abide
Or that on climate change which gives
Our children and ourselves a pass
Before—one warns of—cash morass.

Reflections

If we ignore the private lives
Of key but boring businessmen,
Why is it public interest thrives
On entertainers’ errors, then?

Take a Hike

The question isn’t if he’s cruel
Or insincere that bothers me.
Since time began, those fit to rule
Have often proved ability
As multitaskers on the job
Who make the hearts of lovers throb.

Balancing Act

Not only must he talk the talk,
He’s had to learn to walk the walk
Across a tightrope strung between
Tehran’s complaints we intervene
And cries at home for more support
Of marchers whom militias thwart.

No-Men

Ahmadinejad wants a break
From all the gripes, for goodness’ sake.
Like Huey Long, who spread the wealth
To boost the economic health
With oil giants’ revenue
Throughout Louisiana, too,
Mahmoud controls largess to strut
As president, no matter what.

Roll Over, Tobacco

TO: FDA Commissioner
FROM: Cyanide Incorporated
RE: Bona fide petitioner
DATE: Hate to say, so long we’ve waited

A Blow Against Banality

Josef Stalin justified
The reason hordes of Russians died.
One death, he allowed, is tragic,
But one million’s a statistic.

Iraqiprop

A monthly journal, Baghdad Now,
Extols recovery in Iraq.
Accounts and photographs allow
How comforts gone six years are back.

Iraqis, though, would like to see
Some bylines, ads or backers named,
And fear such anonymity
Means, of this stuff, someone’s ashamed.

Those Who Were Ours

I learned to mass-produce paper airplanes
In Manhattan sixty-five years ago.
Mine bore the U.S. bars and circled stars;
Aunt Marion’s the German black crosses.
For hours we threw them at each other.
My parents stayed glued to the radio
And kept six-year old me from listening.
Due to heavy censorhip, the broadcasts
Made them suspect that a lot had gone wrong.
Twenty-five hundred Americans died
Before the breakouts from the French beaches.

The Truth Comes Out

Hat’s off to you! As president,
I often think you’re heaven sent.
The speech in Cairo helped repair
Our bonds with Muslims everywhere.
Though, quoth you, sometimes out of sync,
We’ve shared much more than people think.

Wichita Madman

Pro-life is such an awful term
Implying her abortion rights
Are horrors that, alone, confirm
Indifference to most heinous frights.

A bit like calling innocent,Civilians wrongly killed in war
As if all troops had cruel intent.
The uninvolved says so much more.

Instructions Not Included

Barack Obama, auto czar,
Would like a smaller GM car
That burns less fuel. He’s got his way.
The bankrupt giant’s ours today.

What, Us Worry?

Hail! Judge Sonia Sotomayor,
A High Court twofer when confirmed:
Hispanic woman, skilled and more,
Methodical but free, she’s termed.

He Had His Chance

Dick Cheney says we’re less secure:
Barack Obama’s too naïve
To guard the country. What manure!
The ex-veep would that we believe
That in the end as president,
His Doub’ya’s views were different.

When Virtue is More than its Reward

Hey chump— yeah you!— who zeros out
The balance on your MasterCard
Each month, so cloyingly devout,
Avoiding interest. Be en garde.

Is There Another Place at This Table?

This week and next, their ruling chiefs—
Israeli and the PLO’s—
In Washington with well-worn briefs
Will play their role as civil foes.
They’re quick to say the other’s wrong.
If only they could get along.

Flip-Flops Not Allowed Inside

Obama, does he flip and flop?
On second thought he wants a stop
To photos showing all the world
More shame that leaves our hair re-curled:
Some troops afflicting detainees
With torture that he now foresees
As grounds for anti-GI hate
And reason to retaliate.

The Groves of Claptrap

Obama’s May in academe
Is nuts enough to make one scream.
At Arizona State, they say:
Address the grads and go away.
No LL.D. degree you get.
You’re not enough accomplished yet.
Two books? The Harvard Law Review?
A party school is ASU.
An aloe-vera maker, we
Awarded honorarily.
He smoothed our skin to large extent,
And you are only president.

Your Money or Your Life

U.S. health care’s plain barbaric.
Pay or die if you get real sick.
Un- and undercovered panic.
Would our system looked more Gallic.
France’s system—socialistic—
U.N. figures rate terrific,
First in line, to be specific.

The Power of No

In Kenya, women sick of strife
That disarranges public life
For one whole week held back from sex
In hopes their abstinence corrects
Division in the nation’s rule.
It seems they’ve found a useful tool.

Already one man’s filed suit.
He mentioned back pains I’d dispute.
A lack of them results, I’d guess,
In what he cites, but I digress.
The boycott’s gained robust applause.
The P.M.’s wife has joined the cause.

But why stop there? Reflect worldwide.
Imagine having on our side
Subservient wives of Talibans
Desiring power like a man’s?
Al-Qaeda women, frayed galore,
Who’d give the choice of love not war?

The gift today, would it were so,
Is mothers’ sons without a foe.

— Mother’s Day

Un-American Activities

What a pain, Guantanamo,
Filled with guys we won’t let go.
Some perhaps we wrongly hold,
Guilt unknown or oversold.

Save the Fish Wrappers

Stormy cyber winds are blowing.
Journalism’s undergoing
Advertising slumps at papers,
Many running lean on vapors,
Risking fiscal detonations
While the younger generations
Rather watch TV and websites
For their news in speedy sound bytes.

What We Don't Know

For weeks it’s overshadowed other news.
The press, some feel, have overplayed swine flu
To sell more papers, reach more viewers whose
Obsessive worries, heightened fears accrue.

But how can mainstream media ignore
The Centers for Disease Control’s advice
To play it safe and think the worst-case more,
Instead of laying back and rolling dice?

F--- This S---!

The U.S. f---ing Supreme Court
Upheld a ban on words like s---
If broadcast even once. In short,
George Carlin’s list stays illeg--.

Dense Fog over Lower Manhattan

Dumb and dumber doesn’t say it.
Dumbest, neither, does it justice.
Air Force One, knows any dimwit,
Has agendas plain as Kansas.

Why, then, keep New Yorkers clueless
As to why this massive airplane
Would, like those that overwhelmed us,
Buzz Manhattan? Who’s the lamebrain?

What Goes Around

Torture stinks in every state.
To stop it, detainees relate
A falsehood questioners don’t know,
Then pause to find out if it’s so.

And if they can’t, they’ve later found
The information got, unsound.
And so they did more harm than good
With bad intent misunderstood.

Bo's Mojo

Saccharine though the news bits are,
Overblown week after week,
Bo the White House dog is our
Icon more ideal than chic.

From Rocks to Nukes

“What, us worry?” Pakistanis
Counter fears of well-kicked fannies
Since the Taliban took over
Territories with a fervor.
Self-delusion all the while
By a country in denial.

Is Cold Fusion Getting Hot?

For decades deemed by scientists as junk
Cold fusion’s once more in the mainstream news.
On Sixty Minutes, rather than debunk,
Some scientists gave optimistic views
Of what could be the world’s most crucial find,
Which might be needed to maintain mankind.

Oink

This year’s Pig Book just made public,
Not delicious, more dyspeptic,
Full of chump chops aptly labeled,
Projects Congress should have tabled.
Earmarks keeping mum their authors
Given what the content offers.

How Does He Get Away with It?

Tragic are the North Koreans,
Living lives of hopeless peons,
Decade after decade whilst
Kim Jong Il, the very vilest
Whack-job if there ever was one,
Sinks them into deprivation.

What About the Gifts and Renovations?

No question that the prosecutors kept
The senator’s attorney in the dark
Regarding what their witness told, except,
Alone, the feds’ misdoings miss the mark
When trying to figure out what’s more to blame:
Omission’s sin or rank corruption’s shame.

It's About Time

Awful though he might have been,
Jailing dissidents for years,
Executing some as in
China, stoking people’s fears,
Fidel Castro, nonetheless,
Did he match Beijing’s excess?

Cold Comfort

Wondrous how the EPA’s opinions
Change as quickly as administrations.
Global warming? Bush considered asses
Anyone who thought that greenhouse gases
Caused the polar ice caps’ liquefying
Notwithstanding polar bears were dying,
Icebergs from their glacial mass were calving.
Doublya’s wit was ascertained by halving.

Guardians of Massacre

Enough already, talk of guarding health,
As though the Congress really gave a damn,
When looking after Big Tobacco’s wealth
Instead, it's making grants-in-aid a sham.

Reefer Madness

Hey let’s just wait a minute here.
For sure we need to make it clear:
From Mexico no jive? Say, huh?
It’s okay, though, from Canada,
From drugstores in Saskatchewan
Illicit meds, and so whereon:
Permitting Baja stuff on line
For shipping stateside should be fine!

Papal Bull

In Africa the Pope declares
That sorcery is nothing more
Than witchcraft, as though unawares
That exorcists have much rapport
With native doctors, who daresay
Their treatment evil drives away.

We Want Our Money Back

Insurance giant, A.I.G.
Rewards its worst egregiously,
With more than half a million bucks
From you and me, and how that sucks.

The Sandal on the Other Foot

Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao
Looks at us and wonders if,
Treasuries we sold them, now
Pass the test, should Beijing sniff.

Bernie's Got Company

Though Bernie Madoff is the worst,
He’s not the only one who’s cursed
For setting up a Ponzi scheme
That’s made our meltdown so extreme.

When mortgage brokers blithely loaned
To sub-prime buyers, they condoned
The risk that they would not get paid.
They sold the debt that banks ok’d.

Friends and Foes Alike

Friends are fine but keep foes closer,
Said an ancient Chinese general.
President Obama’s poser?
How to change the downward spiral.
In a world where GIs perish,
Dollars drain and others view us
Not as partners once to cherish,
Rather as a global doofus.

Life Under the New Administration

Professed pro-lifers like to spout
That stem-cell research is about
Immoral slaying of a soul
Albeit someone far from whole.