901

Subject: THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND BAILOUT PACKAGE.

It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are quiet and deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

On this particular day, a rich German tourist is driving through the town. He stops at the local hotel and lays a �100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wishes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to select a quiet one to spend the night in.

The owner gives him all the room keys and, as soon as the visitor has gone upstairs, the hotelier grabs the hundred-euro note and rushes next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the hundred-euro note and runs off down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the hundred-euro note and sets off to pay his bill at the suppliers of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers' Co-operative takes the hundred-euro note and goes off to pay his drinks bill at the pub.

The publican quietly slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar. She is also facing extreme hardship and has had to offer him "extra services" on credit.

The woman quickly dashes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the proprietor with the hundred-euro note.

The hotelier immediately places the �100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the note, says that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and is looking to the future with a great deal more optimism.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

THE HEINOUS HERO

Once upon a time, in far Bavaria, there was a beautiful Queen with very large breasts. Peter the Dragon Slayer obsessed over her for this very reason. He knew that the penalty, should he ever try to touch them, was instant death; but he just had to try.

One day, Peter revealed his secret yearning to his pal Lento, the King's doctor. Lento thought about it and said that he could arrange for Peter to satisfy this desire, but it would cost him a 100 gold coins to orchestrate the corroboration.

Peter readily agreed to this.

The next day, Lento made a batch of itching powder and sprinkled a little bit into the Queen's bra while she bathed. After she dressed, the itching began instantly and soon became intense. Upon being summoned to the Royal Chambers to look into this matter, Lento informed the King and Queen that only a special saliva, applied for four hours, could cure this type of itch, and that tests had shown that Peter's saliva would work as the antidote.

The King, anxious to help his wife, summoned Peter to their chambers.

Lento then slipped Peter the antidote to the itching powder, which Peter put into his mouth, and for the next four hours, he worked passionately on the Queen's glorious breasts. Her itching was eventually relieved, and Peter left the room satisfied and hailed as a hero.

Upon returning to his chamber, he found Lento seeking payment of the 100 gold coins. With his kinky obsession now satisfied, Peter couldn't care less and, knowing that the doctor could never report the matter to the King, told him to get out.

Later that day, Lento slipped a massive dose of the same itching powder into the King's underwear. The King hastily summoned Peter to his room...

The moral of the story?

Pay all your debts!!!

902

[Here is a set of 18 Scripps National Spelling Bee winning words anagrammed into another set.]

gladiolus + deteriorating + sanitarium + canonical + semaphore + psychiatry + vignette + schappe + esquamulose + sycophant + abalone + incisor + milieu + spoliator + fibranne + kamikaze + succedaneum + stromuhr

albumen + knack + therapy + initials + soubrette + condominium + syllepsis + catamaran + smaragdine + equipage + eczema + psoriasis + Purim + staphylococci + antediluvian + logorrhea + autochthonous + serrefine

[The digits in the years that these words were spelled are an anagram, too, making this doubly-true.]

1925 + 1934 + 1938 + 1939 + 1946 + 1948 + 1952 + 1957 + 1962 + 1964 + 1968 + 1975 + 1985 + 1989 + 1990 + 1993 + 2001 + 2010

1928 + 1932 + 1940 + 1941 + 1953 + 1956 + 1958 + 1959 + 1961 + 1963 + 1965 + 1982 + 1983 + 1987 + 1994 + 1999 + 2004 + 2007

903

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there I do not sleep,
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain,
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

The sunlight hits your photograph
And memories stir and start to dance,
I let the quietness linger then,
The moment fades, but not the pain
That hides within, it's undiminishing,
A format never finishing,
Distained and flat, a stone-hard fact...
Now, as rain drums on my window pane,
A dormant mind-light glows again,
And I believe I can make it through;
You'd want me to.
You'd want me to.

904

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Imagine no lie, wars!
Ooh, and nobody ignores
Hungry and poor -
Everybody sated and secure!

Imagine there's no borders
Just friends and supporters.
Ooh, no rivalry in Middle East -
There is understanding and peace!

Ooh, imagine no eerie murders!
Ooh, eliminate killers or slaughters!
Just emotion, beaus and lovers,
Daffodils, lilies ...Ooh, eye flowers!

Ooh, imagine no 'filthy',weepy', 'uncleanly'!
Ooh, eliminate 'unhappy','awfully unhealthy'!
Ooh, only 'gently', 'lovely',
'Wealthy', 'politely'!

Ooh, imagine no woe, plague, no pain!
Light, Titillation to obtain.
Ooh, Bloom, Love, Amity!
Ooh, life like total Amenity!

Wait, imagine thee - NO MAMMON!

905

If
(Rudyard Kipling)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

A Woman's Answer to 'If'
(anonymous)

If you can suit yourself to be attractive,
Yet not make this fashion outfit your only delight;
If you think you can swim, run, be robust - beyond active,
But of your dignity and virtues not lose sight;
If you can dance, not identifying with the dancing,
Or, play without giving play too strong a hold;
Enjoy youth's love without flirting or romancing,
And unhesitatingly nurture the beaten, poor or old;

If you can master French, Greek, not to mention Latin,
And exhibit no uppity, snooty or pretentious look;
If you can touch the smoothness of silk or satin,
Without hating cotton or wool, button or hook;
If, when invited, you can use a saw or wield a hammer,
Can undertake any man's work if the need occurs;
Sing a karaoke rendition with no shy excuse or stammer;
If you can rise undaunted above any snubs or slurs;
Can cook nutritious food, bake crusty bread and fudge,
Can knit with skill and have a natural eye for dust,
If you can be a tolerant friend and hold no grudge,
A good neighbor whom all love because they must;

If you should ever meet and truly love another,
Making a tidy home with faith and peace enshrined,
And your inspiration, as hardworking wife and mother,
I know you'll work out pretty nearly, to my mind,
A plan handed down throughout the ages,
And win the best opportunity that life has in store -
You are then, my daughter, a model for the sages,
A noble woman whom the world will bow before!

906

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you're ok.
Money it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.

The fat old bureaucrats,
Paid by moolah for second rate tat.
I saw Tory vagabonds make hay,
Healthy nation's mortgages waste away.
On-the-grab highwaymen, today.
I'm a lumber jack and I'm OK.

907

This is the House that Jack Built
(Mother Goose rhyme)

This is the farmer sowing his corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the hand-cut coca plant leaf,
That the hired workers join into a sheaf,
That is whisked away to that hot kettle,
That simmers it like the tempered metal,
That cools overnight to that rock-hard drug,
That henchmen jet northward to the hardwired thug,
That markets his lethal shipment to all the others,
That threatens to harm an embryo and kill ten addicted mothers,
That dwell in the house that crack built.

908

[The anagram is my take on the 25th Anniversary of the People Power Revolution of 1986 which we're celebrating this month in the Philippines. The said event resulted in the departure for Honolulu of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda on February 25, 1986 after decades of murder and plunder. Thus, the anagram contains a DOUBLE ACROSTIC constraint based on the number 25. The 2nd letters spell out HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, the author of the subject poem; while the 5th letters spell out FERDINAND AND IMELDA MARCOS.]

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY

THieF and murderess
SEntEnced for less
ANgeRed the nation
BReeDing a hell.

EYewItness the pain;
A WorN hellish reign.
HAlf All the shilling?
EDen Needs to revel!

I SenD with might,
I Win A wrong fight.
TOok No numbers;
GReeD must be smashed!

STokIng in hills,
A HarM chills.
ILl hE'll find further...
LOst Lives had trashed.

ONce Dark shadow skies,
I GleAn a hundredth prize.
IF arMy herds will help,
TEn tAnks go by me.

CLeaR out, we implore!
FLeeCe us more?
NOw gO and leave us.
AWay Straight to Hawaii!