In light of a self-incriminating tweet by
the president pertaining to possible ob-
struction of justice, the fired FBI director
tweeted a pithy aphorism by the Buddha,
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the
sun, the moon and the truth.” Forsooth!

Mark Twain wrote that he tells the truth
because lying takes too much work:
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have
to remember anything.” Forsooth!

If I had been around, I would have
voted for Mark Twain for president,
but his real name was Samuel Clemons.
Good heavens!

Mark Twain was considered a nom de plume,
I presume. But a nom de plume is a pseudonym.
Is a pseudonym a phony guy? I thought, for sure,
you were my guy. Did you tell a lie?
Oh, Samuel Clemons, why, oh, why!

Why all the fume about a nom de plume?
Everyone knew the pseudonym was the pseudo-him.
Unlike never the twain shall meet,
Twain and Clemons were one and the same.
How sweet!

Mark Twain for President! He’s too lazy to lie.
Finally an honest guy!

My wife and I dragged and our chocolate
lab Bart cheerfully romped into the spot
where we would stop our backpack trip

for the evening. We passed a bend in
the river and Bart made for it as soon
as our packs touched down. No sooner

was he in the river after jumping off
the steep bank than he was caught in
the branches and going down fast, when

out of nowhere came two angels around
that bend in a canoe. Even before we
shouted they paddled for the dog, grab-

bed him, disentangled him and held him
high by the collar while we made it down
the bank and grabbed him. By the time

we made it back up the bank the angels
flew around the bend and out of sight.
I asked, “Was that the Lone Ranger and

Tonto?” My wife said, “No, they would
have been on horses.” We felt a new
rush of energy while the dog fell

exhausted at our feet. He wouldn’t
be helping to put up the tent or
cook dinner.

Twenty, thirty years of stacking
the deck against the poor and the

middle class and then legislation
to reduce taxes on the wealthiest

and the totally dishonest housing
bubble and its sudden burst and

the near fatal financial fall of
all falls in 2008 and 9 when we

all could have gone down the
economic drain until the next

eight years of stability and
now the utter, unbelievable in-

sanity of the last election and
the new tax bill promising heaven

to the middle but actually padd-
ing the pockets of the rich and

the oligarchs laugh and the pluto-
crats count and the fascists move

fast to take over the whole frag-
ile affair called by the founders

“democracy,” and all the while the
poor just sit and, knowingly, smile.

All of it has the word “sex” in
it but it doesn’t have anything
to do with the glorious experience.

No, the organ might be used, but
it has everything to do with the
sick thinking in the other organ

sitting inside of the other head
— it’s spelled POWER. It’s all
about the illusion and now that

the power brokers are falling
faster than the leaves of fall
and weeping, weeping, weeping

like weeping willows and wailing
like a bad country-western song
about how sorry, sorry, sorry

they are, I am reminded of my
high school wrestling coach who
when I was found in an obvious

falsehood and saying how truly
sorry, sorry, sorry I was, he,
with a certain smirk on his face,

stated, “Are you truly sorry or
are you simply sorry you were
discovered?” And I was just a

stupid sophomore. Are the former
power brokers just stupid, sopho-
moric sophomores bragging in the

boys’locker room or power brokers
finally being called out by victims
for their unconscionable callous-

ness and disreputable even illegal
not to mention immoral behavior?
They ain’t sophomores anymore.