Monthly Archives: April 2025

Is RFK Sr. Spinning in His Grave?

5 Replies

Had to repost this cartoon sent to me by an old college friend. Thanks, Gunars!

Faces in a Crowd for Cellpic Sunday, Apr 6, 2025

2 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.

For  Cellpic Sunday

“Salve for a Damaged World” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 701 and Lens Artists Challenge, Apr 6, 2025

14 Replies

Salve for a Damaged World

Our bruised world’s in need of magic
to soften all its edges.
Sage words to dispense shadows
and draw jumpers off of ledges.
To bring moisture to our deserts
and return our skies to blue.
To rewrite horror stories
with endings that are new.
Our distressed minds need stretching
and action is the key
to snap us out of sorrow
and set our country free.

These pictures were taken at today’s rally to protest actions by the current U.S. administration. It was held in Ajijic, Mexico and was well-attended and peaceful. Most of the attendees were U.S. expats living in Mexico.

 

My outing is a bit different from everyone else’s but I hope it qualifies for the Lens Artists Challenge to share our last outing.

Words for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 701 are: magic shadows key stretch sage snaps bruise edges writing blue world desert

 

Rhymed Rants of an Expat in Mexico (for SOCS) Apr 5, 2025

18 Replies

Rhymed Rants of an Expat in Mexico
(Why you should never drink tequila when you haven’t finished your SOCS poem yet.)

Toss in the tequila
ice cubes and a lime.
Put it in a blender
and mix it for a time.

Put salt on your glass rim.
Pour the liquid in.
Take a little sip now.
Drinking’s not a sin.

If I hadn’t had two
with my evening meal,
I’d be writing verse now
you could take for real.

But Margarita got me
and holds me prisoner now.
I couldn’t engineer a poem.
I can’t remember how.

If you’ve a mind to scold me,
please don’t do it now.
I need to write something
to stay true to my vow.

There are laws against drunk driving
and driving while you’re stoned,
but nothing that forbids you
from writing when you’re zoned.

So please forgive this sad and
paltry little rhyme.
They need to make drunk writing
A misdemeanor crime.

To save you from the souls like me
who dare to take up pen,
disregarding just what
condition they are in.

You should give us pillows
and send us to our beds.
Remove our clothes, take off our shoes
and pat us on our heads.

Tell us that tomorrow
will be another day.
But now, for sure, the writing
we should put away.

Lock up our computers,
hide our ball point pens.
Throw away our pencils
in the garbage bins.

Please try to divert us
and help us to forget
so there will be no errant
verses to regret.

When we wake tomorrow,
we’ll hold our heads up high
with no embarrassing poetry,
no need to wonder why.

We posted here such drivel
that it could make one weep.
We just kept on writing.
We should have been asleep.

We did it for our SOCS prompt
against out better sense.
The late hour made us silly.
Tequila made us dense.

Tomorrow we’ll make up for it––
put bees within our bonnet
and write an ode, a ballad,
a haiku or a sonnet

Once more you’ll dare to call us friend
and read our royal rhyme.
I don’t know why I’m calling me
“we” all of this time.

I really don’t feel royal.
My identity’s not split.
I simply started writing
and “we” just seemed to fit.

I can’t seem to finish
this awful little rhyme.
So I’m just going to have to
stop and holler TIME!!!

The SOCS prompt is pat.

Silly Answers for Fibbing Friday, Apr 4, 2025

12 Replies

 

For Fibbing Friday  this week’s questions are:

1. Who made the first manned hot air balloon? Mary Anne MacLeod Trump (Donald’s mother)

2.  Which is the more widely used around the world, cow’s milk or goat’s milk?  It depends on what you are using it for.

3.  What does the word “Canada” mean? It means “can be done.” They chose it over the statement of the first French explorer who, when asked to cross a river, said, “No cana do.”  

4.  True or False, an adult male baboon can kill an adult leopard? It can, but just because it can doesn’t mean it will.

5.  Which U.S. State has the nickname “Hawkeye”? Maine, in honor of Hawkeye Pierce, whose birthplace was Crabapple Cove, Maine. (Check it out.)

6.  In which decade of the 19th Century did Christmas Day become a national U.S. holiday? the “Decade of the boughs of Holly”

7.  Which strong cheese, made from ewe’s milk and stored in caves, is named after a village in France?  Cheez-its

8.  Who painted “Whistler’s Mother”? A 4-year-old Whistler, when he got into her makeup while she was sleeping and tried to make up her face, somewhat excessively, I might add. It took her hours to scrub off the makeup.  She was not pleased and spanked him soundly.  Years later he tried to compensate by painting her portrait. She forgave him.

9.  In Denmark they are known as “laks” what are they known as in English? Something to put on bagels.

10.  Approximately what percentage of humans are left-handed? The remaining percentage that isn’t right-handed.

 

 

For Thursday Tree Love, Apr 3, 2025

12 Replies

 

I just rediscovered this tree-shaped poem I wrote a few years ago and couldn’t resist posting it to this prompt.

 

For Thursday Tree Love, April 3, 2025

Little Lies for dVerse Poets

11 Replies

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Necessary Untruths

A game of hide-and-seek
not behind chairs or under tables
within thickets or crouched in deep culverts
but obscured between sharp truths.
That white lie
you tell yourself
just to keep going.

 

To read more poems to this prompt, go here: dVerse Poets

For the dVerse Poets April Fools prompt: Lies

10,000 Federal Health Workers Fired: How Can This Be To Our Benefit????

8 Replies

By my computations based on the average income of federal health employees, If Trump continues to visit his Florida golf club at the same rate as he has so far, the entire yearly salary of all those 10,000 federal health Employees will be spent on his golf games in 2 1/2 years!!!!

And….please read on. Compare the cut of healthcare employees to this:

Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government contracts…

The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com › interactive › 2025
Feb 26, 2025 — Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments.
Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$342.9 billion as of March 16, 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $320 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
SEARCH
SIGN IN

Elon Musk’s companies have billions in federal contracts but also deep ties to China. Trump said it makes him ‘susceptible’ as a businessman

BY
March 21, 2025 at 10:28 PM CST
And, from Fortune:
  • Elon Musk’s Friday visit to the Pentagon drew criticism and highlighted his companies’ links to both the federal government and China. The billionaire’s rocket company SpaceX has $22 billion in contracts with the federal government. In China, Musk’s Tesla operates its biggest factory, Gigafactory Shanghai, which as of last year produced about half of all Tesla vehicles.

Elon Musk visited the Pentagon Friday for a briefing on China which underscored the billionaire’s steadily growing influence in the Trump administration as well as his businesses’ deep ties to both the federal government and China.

The SSA logo on a window

Politics

Elon Musk’s DOGE is undermining the Social Security Administration’s technology and operations, former White House official says

Julie Siegel says DOGE is making it harder for millions of Americans to access their benefits.

I guess it will be handy for the very rich to have a place to escape to once they have destroyed Earth through global warming and lack of health care and vaccinations.  It will be helpful when they’ve also created a new generation of unschooled children dependent upon social media (controlled by the rich as well) for all of their information.

And, by my computations based on the average income of federal health employees, If Trump continues to visit his Florida golf club at the same rate as he has so far, the entire yearly salary of all those 10,000 federal health Employees will be spent on his golf games in 2 1/2 years!!!!

 

Moon Tricks, for Last on the Card, Apr 1, 2025

2 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.

These are the last 4 shots on my phone, taken standing in my pool a bit before midnight on March 31, trying to capture the crisp crescent moon, which was all I could see with the naked eye. Unfortunately, my camera insisted on capturing a fuzzy full moon partially in shadow. My first April 1 trick, a few minutes early.

For Last on the Card.