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A Further Perspective

A Smatter of Opinion

A few reflections on the year passed.

(Page 2 of 2)

Harry Reid won an election in the state of Nevada despite presiding over the squandering of trillions of dollars, thousands of thousands of millions, on his personal hunches without solid evidence.

Bernard Madoff went to jail for taking a few billion dollars from people for safekeeping and squandering it on his personal hunches without solid evidence.

***

The Yankees were eliminated in the playoffs and George Steinbrenner went to Heaven anyway. Michael Vick’s career, once gone to the dogs, began to soar on the wings of Eagles. LeBron James forsook the city of Cleveland, prompting its citizens to compare him to his late brother Jesse.

***

The Republicans won the House and blocked the Democrats in the Senate for cloture but many Americans lost their houses to foreclosure. America came to its census and moved away from New York to Florida. And don’t look now, but Jerry Brown has been reelected Governor of California.

***

Iran caught a virus and Greece is a riot. Argentina lost its shadow President and Venezuela lost its shadow citizenry. Afghanistan can’t control its surges while Pakistan can’t control its boarders. Israel froze its freeze and North Korea was contemplating a Korea change.

***

The world is still a dangerous place which resists the blandishments of men for melioration. As far as I am concerned, this would be a good moment for the Messiah to enter… even stage left, if that’s what it takes. Farewell to 2010, a mixed bag indeed.

Happy New Year 2011!

Page:   12

About the Author

Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human EventsHere he speaks at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Miami on June 8, 2012.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (35) |

RT| 12.30.10 @ 8:19AM

To choose one example of but many, "Or stay right in my seat and cede my right to take a stand. "

Sir, I do not know how you come up with those things but they are sheer brilliance. You are a modern day Ogden Nash, but better. After all, he just wrote poems. (Now true, that was back in the day when poems actually rhymed, but still...)

Appleby| 12.30.10 @ 9:46AM

They're not poems if they rhyme; they're verse.

Like the old Burma Shave signs:

He lit a match
to test his gas tank
and now they call him
Skinless Frank.

R Martin| 12.30.10 @ 2:32PM

I, too, enjoy Mr. Hommick's writing, but suggesting he is better (better?!) than Ogden Nash is a bit much. Has Mr. Hommick ever penned anything like this little Nash goodie:

"The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck
is hoping to outwit a duck."

Claudia Monteverdi| 12.30.10 @ 2:58PM

Most Honoured RT,
Yours is the very best letter I have yet to read in this space, HEAR HEAR!
Jay's talent is overwhemiing..as for Nash:
Ogden Nash
was long on cash
but short on matters moral...
Enter Jay,
who rules the day,
with that we have no quarrel!

regards,
Claudia

Appleby| 12.30.10 @ 3:59PM

That money talks
I can't deny.
I had some once.
It said GOODBYE.

Ogden Nash

Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 9:53AM

2011 a year that will live in Infamy. Future school history books will read: The year the Muslims conquered the United States of America. With not so much as a whimper from its cowardly military leaders, and name calling armchair patriots. Disgraceful,Shameful there are no words to adequately describe her defeat. As the 300 Spartans strength and ingenuity conquered all of those who challenged them, so a small band of renegades conquered the greatest country the world has known. When Davids rock slued Goliath. It also foretold a warning. "The bigger they are,the harder they Fall." Our country lost its battle of survival when it became intoxicated with its deceptive mentality, that it did not need its Creator anymore, and wisdom no longer was apart of its citizens physiology to survive.

Dan Hirsch| 12.30.10 @ 10:08AM

Dale,

Wake up! You are sleep posting your nightmares.

Surely posting here requires consciousness, doesn't it?

Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 5:41PM

Yes Dan, and it also requires an education in history,which you plainly are lacking. I can tell by your comment that you are a very young man, probably preoccupied with play station games ,cell phones,TV reality game shows,Computer games,and a host of other distractions, that focus the mind always in the wrong direction. Try reading some history books for a change like: "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" or how about "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich"and then maybe you might see or could visualize these tragedy's happening to America, in the light of what is happening with a Muslim called Barack Hussian Obama and his czars in the Oval office.It is you who needs to wake up, out of your lethargic mental state. If William L. Shirer or Gibbons were still alive they would have another best seller on the book market "The Rise and Fall of the Fourth Reich" but then again you probably have never heard of History has a way of repeating it's self, if nobody learns the lessons from it. Right?

Dan Hirsch| 12.30.10 @ 10:14AM

Jay,

Methinks you are being way too generous to Mr. Madoff. Did he not purloin funds given to him as investments, rather than making stupid investments? Surely, most of the securities firms would be in adjacent cells if it were a matter of poor stockpicking on Mr. Madoff's part.

He violated his fiduciary responsibility. Anyone else violating their fiduciary responsibility should go to jail, too. Looks like we need a new federal country club prison with about 537 cells (Mssrs Obama and Biden get rooms, too!)

Noliteme conculcare!

Claudia Monteverdi| 12.30.10 @ 3:04PM

Jay,
I can easilyexplain your recurring nightmares..when you speak of....to retain and not to retain... and then wander into ...maternal lode...Mamma mia, you are pregnant!
PS...don't talk to anybody without consulting a good lawyer--did i say "good" lawyer? OMG, maybe me too!
Thanks for such a wonderfully spicey slice of knowledge,
faithfully,
Claudia

Richard Baker| 12.30.10 @ 3:06PM

Dan:
With what the Congress has done over the years, the Madoffs of this world look like rank amateurs in comparison, don't they?

Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 6:00PM

Oh.... and Dan, if you are trying to make light of my truthful post,as all liberals with their silly adolescent and feeble attacks on the truth often do. Your at a huge handicap, because of your education in today's government run school system.

Ken (Old Texican)| 12.30.10 @ 6:38PM

Dale,
I appreciated your post...the first three times.
Start a new one< Okay?

Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 8:38PM

Thank you Ken, I appreciate your comment!

Jay D. Homnick| 12.30.10 @ 7:23PM

Special request for my poetry, I gather, although it is already clear who can compete here with Ogden Nash, and her initials are CM.

ANONYMOUS
By: Jay D. Homnick


If the critics ask for your name
To treat you just like Don Imus
The better by which to defame
Then just go sign: Anonymous.

If the readers ask for your title
To make you less autonomous
As they fit to your bits a bridle
Then just declare: Anonymous.

If the faddists ask for your label
So they all can be synonymous
To steal scraps from your table
Then just you aver: Anonymous.

If contrarians ask for your style
In an effort to wax antonymous
And miss by as good as a mile
Then go hard to get: Anonymous.

If editors ask for your password
Ravaging with their economies
To usurp from you the last word
Then grab this motto: Anonymous.

If publicists ask for your slogan
And joints you made eponymous
As they threaten: no pain, no gain
Then go clear a way: Anonymous.

So, yes, you can be your own man
Remain becalmed and bonhomous
If no initials are set in stone, man,
Your monument reads: Anonymous.

ClaudiaMonteverdi| 12.30.10 @ 7:41PM

My thanks for the words of warm praise
she said,
My eyes do doth now beglaze
she said
permit her to mutter
her heart all a-flutter
it don't hold a candle to Jay's
she said

Put that in your pipe and shove it ...WHOOPS I mean SMOKE IT!

LOve and Kisses,
Claudia

R Martin| 12.30.10 @ 8:45PM

Jay and CM, by your examples you underscore just how peerless Ogden Nash is. Meter, folks, meter. It's harder than it looks. You gotta make it flow, e.g.

"Pity Mr. and Mrs. Bryan
He was eaten by a lion
After which the lion's lioness
Up and ate Bryan's bryaness."

Claudia Monteverdi| 12.31.10 @ 6:18AM

Dear Mister Martin,
Sadly, your adventurous bit of poesie is hardly writ in the limerick scance--it is interesting, and some might find it skillful, but your "e.g." no matter how it tries, does NOT precede a limerick by any untold stretch of poetic license...so sorry!
Mournfully,
Claudia

handbags | 12.30.10 @ 10:00PM

good post!

Occam's Tool| 12.31.10 @ 12:49AM

Look folks, 2010 has ended with the best news for some time: Bolton is gonna run for President---he's putting out the feelers, and this guy has only one speed---full ahead. John "reinforce the floor of the Oval Office to sustain the weight of my huge brass ones" Bolton is running! Time to set up the ass kicking machine, 'cause we've got an operator! If he gets elected, the Iranians and the NKs are in for some serious schoolin'!

Can you tell I'm excited.

Claudia Monteverdi| 12.31.10 @ 6:21AM

hey there Occam--sign me up for your team please-man o man do we need Bolton--my thought was Chritie Pres, Rubio VP and Bolton Seecretary of State--what doyou think?
Claudia

Occam's Tool| 1.1.11 @ 12:26AM

My Dear Claudia:

Bolton is to the Right of Christie on Domestic issues. He's a Goldwaterite. I like Christie, but I want Bolton.

Bob Grant| 1.1.11 @ 7:32PM

I will say this: he's the most articulate of the potential group of candidates. His foreign policy expertise is a huge feather in his cap. His domestic stance needs to be fleshed out more.....I'd consider him.

Certainly an improvement over the republican queen of media.

....oops sorry, I promised myself I wouldn't slam Sarah in a non-Sarah article. I'll try harder in the future :-)

general summerall| 12.31.10 @ 1:14AM

Dale: I was under the idea that it was the Athenians who drove the Persians out of Greece. Read some stuff from Victor Davis Hansen on how Epidamdanos(sic) and his army of Thebean farmers moved into Sparta to liberate the helots, and the Spartans crumbled like paper. And for a vision of modern America the big thing on the coming of 2011 is going to be MTV lowering Snooki in a glass ball into Times Square. A shame Mencken is not here to comment on that.

general summerall| 12.31.10 @ 1:20AM

Epaminondas

Claudia Monteverdi| 12.31.10 @ 6:24AM

General,
Epaminondas are Greek tacos--delish with an tall icey dark beer and some good fries---Better get some fast, word's out that Madame Obama is about to ban them ..
Yum Yum,
Claudia

Bob Grant| 1.1.11 @ 7:52PM

Will it come to this: While everyone else's ass will be required to get smaller under the new health care mandate, section 8, subsection 1324aa-b2...her's will continue to grow larger?

Yosemeti Sam| 12.31.10 @ 11:42AM

" ... And don't look now, but Jerry Brown has been reelected Governor of California...."

Yo, Mexifornians - what goes around comes around, eh?

LOL.

Bob Grant| 1.1.11 @ 7:37PM

The people who voted for the continued destruction of California need to stay put and reap what they sow when the s**t really hits the fan there.

Don't be cowards and bail to another state to spread your poison.

Petronius| 12.31.10 @ 11:46AM

Thanks!
Moochelle probably didn't know about them until you just mentioned them. Or were you just referring to the fries? Besides, lamb is pricey.
Prosit!

Occam's Tool| 1.1.11 @ 12:27AM

Petronius: Let me know when you are in the Twins, and we'll see about the lamb.

general summerall| 1.3.11 @ 3:36AM

Does the large arse on the lady refer to Snooki or Michelle? Anyway, the ball Snooki was lowered in only descended about 6 feet. The whole spectacle may have been an allegory of '10; much noise but little show. Thanks for letting me know that Epamindondas is both a great Greek hero and a great Greek taco.

Occam's Tool| 1.28.11 @ 7:34PM

The VDH book in which Epaminondas is mentioned is The Soul of Battle.

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