Why do friendships happen?

Today's Tids Issue 4.706

Where do poems come from:

 

I have to imagine that there are people who really like the idea of not having to be closer than six feet from someone. Happy Introvert’s day.

 

Why do people become close? It must be some kind of natural selectivity. It is not about race or ethnicities, gender or even politics or economic position. My only guess is that it must come from the heart.

 

I have just read that all of the Wildebeests in Africa have been replaced by animatronic copies. Fake gnus!

 

Joe Biden boxed himself in by playing the Identity Politics card for his Veep Selection. You have to worry that if he gets elected, and when Putin and Xi are building the boxes.

 

I have to believe that all of this national animosity arose in the years following the FCC 4-0 1987 decision to abolish the “Fairness Doctrine” governing TV and radio. There’s something incongruous about a government body abolishing fairness. How do you abolish fairness? It just doesn’t seem fair.

 

The Question:

Who are considered the ten greatest all-time poets?

 

The Headlines:

--Markets Opening Lower; Analysts Discussing Weakening Dollar – Good Or Bad; Concerns Grow Over Potential National Eviction Trauma, Nasdaq Pausing To Take A breath Aftre Two Days Of Lofty Climbing.

--Isaias Hits North Carolina As Cat1 And Then Weakens; Heading Up Through Pa and NJ, Hudson River Valley Of NY And Western NE; NE Coast Spared; Tornado Watches Issue In Northeast.

--Top Primary Has Squad Member Tlaib Facing Stiff Competition From Detroit City Council President Brenda James; Kansas Primary Has Establishment Repubs Concerned Ove Trump’s Failure To Endorse Favored candidate Leaving Polarize ding Kris Kobach In Stronger Position.

--Corruption Charges Has Former Spain King Juan Carlos Leaving Country.

--Giant California “Apple” Fire Has Scorched 26,450 Acres; Still Raging.

--BBC Investigation Says Iran Has Been Covering Up Covid Death Toll.

--Apple Hit With $1.4 Billion Suit Over Siri Patent.

--UN Warns Of Catastrophe Due To Virus School Closings.

 

A child shall lead us. Yes, we in older age groups are doomed. It has just been announced that 50.7% of ten USA population are people 40 and under. Consider the possibilities.

 

Send in your guesses for Joe’s Veep.

 

There is a growing sense that the markets need a pull back. But, if the Gov can get some stopgaps in place, it shouldn’t be a something to worry a bout.

 

A reader notes that with the low math performance of USA schools over the past 40 years, how will they ever get an accurate count of mailed ballots?

 

Yes, our world can get weirder. Illinois officials are calling for the abolishment of history classes in schools until an alternative can be offered that would highlight underrepresented groups. Take away a nations history, and you take away its soul.

 

Deborah Birx deserves to be PO’d.

 

A new hotel just opened here in Historic Newport. It is easily the ugliest new structure I have seen here since the ugly, opportunistic architecture of urban renewal days of the 1960’s. Unfortunately, money trumps taste.

 

The Answer:

Because poetry so often comes from the heart it is actually quite difficult to rank poets objectively. So, here’s a list in no special order, and you can rank them: Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou. Emily Dickinson, Shel Silverstein, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, E.E. Cummings, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, (What, no Robert Browning?) William Blake, Sylvia Plath, WW Longfellow, William Wordsworth, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Donne, WB Yeats, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dante Alighieri, T. S Eliot, Ezra Pound, John Milton, Sappho, Homer, Li bai, Jalal al-Din Rumi. this is a consensus 34 greatest list. Pick your favorite.  

 

What happened to Joyce Kilmer?

I think that I shall never see,

A poem as lovely as a tree.

 

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair.

 

Poems are made by fools lie me

But only God can make a tree.

 

Speaking of poems by fools,

from the Tids Poet Laureate:

I think I shall never find,

An audience ever so kind

As a loving daily Tidster;

Whoops! How do you rhyme Tidster?

Of course, you can’t. They have no parallel.

 

Thanks everybody.

 

Are puns for children or groanups?

 

Bullies.

Today's Tids Issue 4.705

Beliefs are Beliefs:

 

Did you ever think that June and July have been bullying August for years? After all, what is August -- A dog days month that sits between the June Brides, Fourth of July and the delightful cooling down of the USA in September. Oh, August has VJ day, that wonderful occasion when the World War stopped. You can’t beat that. Other than the birthdays of some great friends, and the shredding of parent’s wallets for back-to-school, it is basically known as the last vestiges. of summer. And, June and July are always gloating.

 

The cultural bullies tried to go after Trader Joe’s. After initially appearing to collapse over empty racial accusations, and under threat of public humiliation from the intolerant left, they sat back and thought better of it: “We want to be clear; we disagree that any of those labels are racist. We do not make decisions on petitions. We make decisions based on what customers purchase, on feedback we receive from customers and Crew Members.” Will other more responsible organizations be saying, “Enough”.

 

The whimpification of America began when people stopped husking their own corn.

 

The good news is that on so many campuses where we have been seeing “One sided Freedom of Speech”, there is a backlash looming. Rational thinking College professors see the vitality of discussion diminishing as ideologues squash almost all opportunities to hear opposing views, sentencing kids to wallowing in their myopia. Like most eras of discontent, intelligence will regain the upper hand.

 

If you are really out of sorts, I have a couple you can borrow from me.

 

Yes, we live in an incongruous world these days. A news item from rural RI was about a man stabbed on “Peach Blossom Lane.” Yikes! Say it ain’t so Dorothy Gale!

 

Steve Mnuchin for President. Niki Haley for Veep.

 

Amazon just received permission to place 3,200 Internet satellites in space. You can’t go anywhere anymore to get away from the crowds. Duck, incoming!

 

The Question:

Who is William Lawrence Murphy? Bonus: Who was William English?

 

The Headlines:

--Good Earnings Plus More Positive Outlook For Stimulus Talks Push Stocks Higher; Dow and S&P Strong, Nasdaq On Fire.

--Microsoft Activistly Pursuing TicTok US Operations.

--WH, Dems Agree On $1,200 Stimulus Checks; Unemployment Assistance Is The Stumbling Block

--Isaias Moving Up East Coast of Northern Florida; On To Carolinas Than Targeting North East; Intensity Rebuilding, But Just Below Hurricane Force Winds.

--Politicos Wait For Biden Veep Announcement.

--WHO Says There Is No Silver Bullet For Covid.

--Dozens Of Passengers On Norway Cruise Ship MS Roald Amundsen Test Positive For Covid.

--

 

Over at the NY Times, the staffers are “Terrified of the young wokes.” Former “Opinion Editor” Bari Weiss talked to Bill Maher about living in fear of the marauding online mob. “All it takes is a dozen people to repeat a lie about you – that you are a raciest a transphobe, that you are a bigot – for that lie to become true, and that’s extremely dangerous.”

 

How great was that splashdown yesterday? America still works. We still have brave people traveling to frontiers to discover new remedies for the betterment of all mankind equally. Yay NASA, and the dedicated heroes, all.

 

The success of the SpaceX capsule return, immediately ignited talk about Hotels in space. Yes, I am not kidding. SpaceX sems more about tourism, at least according to the splashdown spokesperson. So, expect in the not tool distant future for emergence of the Slurpy Way. Or at least, The Almond Milky Way.

 

Speaking of evading bullies, I will never accept the fact that kneeling during the national anthem is good for America, or that people who enter the USA unlawfully shouldn’t be considered illegal citizens. No matter how many cultural revisionists tell me I’m not woke.

 

Did you hear about the golfer who had an iron difficieintcy?

 

The younger of the two merciless Boston Bombers just got his death sentence thrown out because he didn’t get a fair trial. I say that the fact that he got a trial is fair.

 

The way restaurants are trending, good ole’ regular American food eateries will soon become just another quaint ethnic food option.

 

We better get used to the Covid life. Google just announced that their employees will be working from home until next June. Inevitability will become the norm.

 

It now appears that after the movement away from Kamala and the accompanying spurt of enthusiasm for Susan Rice and Karen Bass, Kamala is back on top as Joe’s pick. The DNC probably recognized that the RNC would go after the Benghazi Kid and her propensity towards barefaced lies, and that Bass has some serious communist leaning credentials. Joe has to go left to get Bernie buddies, but not that fat left.

 

The Answer:

William Lawrence Murphy was the inventor of the “Murphy Bed”. Yes, it was invented, and out of necessity. It appears that Murphy was fascinated with an Opera Star, and in 1900 in San Francisco it was not acceptable for a man to invite a woman into his bedroom. That’s the legend and I’m sticking to it. Bonus: You know there are many unsung heroes in this USA of ours, who have contributed to the convenience of our daily modern lives but don’t always get the proper national recognition for their ingenuity. William English invented the computer Mouse! How great is he! In 1963, he put it all together for his partner Doug Engelbart at Stanford U. Now, only if he had run for some political office, he’d be all over the news.

 

Old romance novels never die, they just run out of steam.

 

Now, that’s an odd way to end a Tids issue about popular bullying tactics of the day.