For those who serve

Recyle Alert!
(reworked limerick from a previous post)

I first posted the following image in April, 2004 under the headline "Is this picture worth a thousand lives?" - an unfortunately prophetic question. Common Ground magazine made it the cover of their July, 2004 issue and they were kind enough to post my comments on it there:

Art is art and should not have to justify itself. What the viewer brings to the experience always colors the experience. In the tradition of the best of art, your image is neither didactic nor easily interpreted. As a veteran myself, I find the images of my fellow servicemen and women to be both poignant and a tribute to their willingness to serve. What wartime leader would not acknowledge that their "image" is truly built on those that serve at the frontlines? I congratulate you on creating an image whose meaning and motive is not simply discerned, unlike the subject of that image.
- The Limerick Savant

I think it bears reposting on this Memorial Day and so long as our president is willing to risk American (and Iraqi) lives in a conflict of his own making.

The War President
courtesy of Joe Wezorek at American Leftist


Click image for enlarged view

So the nuns were right?

As the evidence quickly amasses
What a danger Cialis, alas, is;
I'm hoping they find
It won't make me blind
If I use it just 'til I need glasses.

[Thanks to the Woody that inspired this limerick; "Allen," that is!]

Viagra blindness fears prompt inquiry
The Guardian, 5/28/05

Creighton Lovelace = Loveless Cretin

The Koran next encountered a brush
With a pastor who'd give it the flush.
There's no use us treatin'
This new loveless cretin
As more than just Southern fried mush.

Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) interview with Creighton Lovelace
as viewed at onegoodmove

Biting the hand that feeds

To the yea-sayers (both of you):

It has been a little over a year since I started this blog and over 3 years since I began the Limerick Savant project, inspired by events of September 11, 2001 and their repercussions. So, this seems as good a time as any to reflect on why I'm still here and what I hope to accomplish.

Oh, who am I kidding? Consider the following as the Savant's special "thank you" to those of you who have supported him with you e-mails, comments, links, groans, outright hostility or utter neglect. None of it seems to have had any effect.

I carefully fashion my rhyme
To insult both profane and sublime.
You're not yet offended?
That wasn't intended;
You simply must give me more time!

15 Minutes of Irony

Judge Wars III: The New Hope

Disappointment for Senator Frist:
Filibuster got slapped on the wrist
Instead of the "nuke;"
When, like Vader and Luke,
Senate moderates made-up and kissed.

The Senate saves itself
By Scot Lehigh, The Boston Globe, 5/25/05

The 'Sith' hits the fans

Choose your review

George Lucas, it's time that you quit
Replicating the same sorry hit.
Could that title reveal
That the "Star Wars" appeal
Has morphed to "Revenge of the Sh*t?"

or

The likeness, we have to admit,
Is an ideological fit;
But our own tragic tale,
In which Bush doth prevail,
Is more aptly "Revenge of the ____."

Latest 'Star Wars' Movie Is Quickly Politicized
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER, The New York Times, 5/19/05

Wasn't that "nukyoolar?"

According to Senator Frist,
"We won't let our judges be 'dissed.'
If, votes, we can't muster
To kill filibuster;
We'll give it the nuclear twist."


Showdown in Senate on judicial filibusters
By Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
San Fransisco Chronicle, 5/18/05

Come, set a spell

Here's a site that is serving us well
On the way to typographer's hell.
You'll get there much quickr
By picking with flickr
And letting your words cast the spell

Reputation in the toilet

Seems NewsWeek was so in a rush
To play their Guantanamo flush
That the story they ran,
About the Koran,
Is giving them reason to blush.

Newsweek Apologizes
Inaccurate Report on Koran Led to Riots
By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, 5/16/05

Georgia on my mind

Was safety in Georgia waylaid?
And why was the news so delayed?
They felt no dismay:
If Bush was the prey,
Then it must be a "dummy" grenade.


What goes around, comes around?

White House: Grenade Was No Threat to Bush
The Guardian, 5/11/05

Real ID = Real Trouble

A public service message
from the Republican Congress:

Wherever you live on the globe,
Be prepared for our alien probe.
Cuz the Real ID
Is a license, you see,
For each Red, White & Blue xenophobe.

Act Now!

Suspicious license
The Boston Globe, 5/9/05

Questions of sanity

With insanity used as a ploy
His attorney called him a "sick boy."
Does showing free will,
Even though he was ill,
Make Charles the real McCoy?

Closing Argument in Highway Shooting Trial
The Guardian, 5/5/05

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Have we learned nothing?

Who measures the terrible cost
Of Sudanese lives that are lost?
Genocide in Darfur
Is a wolf at the door
That howls out a new Holocaust!

Nicholas D. Kristof: Day 114 of Bush's silence
International Herald Tribune, 5/4/05

Blushing bride

We will pity the runaway bride.
She can run but she clearly can't hide;
And the kidnapping hoax
Makes her butt of all jokes.
All to have wedding plans set aside?



Cold feet could land runaway bride in jail
The Guardian, 5/2/05