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.