The Children's Christmas Eve

The stockings hang beside the hearth,

the holly on the door.

The children hope that they’ve been good --

but they’re not sure.

They think of sometimes thieving fingers,

sticky with cookie-guilt.

A tear creeps to their eye at the corners

as they think of the milk they’ve spilt.

And oh!  What of the times they tried,

but failed, to say their prayers?

Lo, woe!  their whole life seems to proceed

in the spotlight of grownups’ stares.

Untidiness, disobedience,

the list of sins grows long.

Like toddlers walking, they sway on the fence

dividing Right from Wrong.

The stockings hang like judgment

as the children search their souls.

Will sweetmeats by their portion --

or a lump of cold black coal?

Toys left lying, beds unmade,

the Sunday suit awry.

There was even a time, they know to their shame,

when they told -- O coal!  -- a lie!

The children crawl between the sheets

on the night before Christmas day.

The pillow against their cheek is wet.

Their lips begin to pray.

*

The stockings hang from the scaffold.

The dark tree stands by the stair.

Yet as they pray  they hear the toll

of sleighbells in the air.

Behold!  A chariot slices the sky,

the stars roll back in a tide.

Saint Nicholas stands upon the helm,

the Virgin by his side.

And all the angels  whirl like fire,

bearing the carriage along.

The heavens thunder  with the choir

of joyful Christmas song.

Sugarplums shower from the tree

where CHRIST was crucified.

Raised souls join in a jubilee

redeemed by Him who died.

The children stare at Santa Claus

as light streams from his face.

Their present’s the best  that ever there was --

the gift of Grace.

~     ~     ~

For a further story of miracles through grace,  

have a look at this:

Murphy Makes a Mitzvah

Salute the Solstice

The Brightening, though Frozen  Solstice

This time each year,  the sun doth wend,

signaling days-dying’s end.

Henceforth  throughout  the grateful lands

our daily dose of light  expands.

Thus do we, cheered  by this faint grace,

take heart for Winter’s chill embrace.

And though the brisk winds  scourge the earth,

look forward to  our Spring rebirth.

Christi dedico in nomine;
Gratias agimus, Domine.

[I post this poem,  three days before the event itself.

In the intervening hours, the still-encroaching darkness 
is like Triduum.]

After a Night of Sleet

O no    the Icemonster   ate up all the squirrels !

Now the world is sad !!

Julian monostich

Constantius   wore the purple.

The robe fell stiffly

to his  crimson shoes.

[--Gore Vidal, Julian (1964), p. 174.

For more about the surprising shoes of a ruler, try this.]

Marxian monostich

Another philosopher  recently posed the question, “What is it Like to be a Thermostat?”

-- David Lodge, Thinks… (2001), p. 97

Thermostat, dissing the mere Thermometer:

“The question is not simply to measure the temperature; the point is to change it.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/

Dinosaur hoax unmasked !

In these days of increased awareness of the perils posed by Fake News ^TM (proprietary mark registered by World of Dr Justice, Inc., all rights reserved, y compris en URSS), we must each of us be unceasingly vigilant.  And just the other day, an outright hoax was perpetrated on an unsuspecting public, by an otherwise respected news source:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered-dinosaur-tail-amber-theropod-myanmar-burma-cretaceous/

The “dinosaur”, these gentlemen would have us believe, was covered in feathers from tail-tip to top!   Feathers, if you please!

Now, back in my day, we schoolchildren knew better than that:

     =>  Dinosaurs are reptiles, covered in scales.
     =>  Birds fly, and are covered in feathers.

So what, then, was this prehistoric fossile, which indisputably does exist?

Why, none other than a late specimen of Pinguinus ingens,  which you can read all about here.

~  The World of Dr Justice ~

~~  Science U Can Trust  ™ ~~

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/03/ask-dr-science.html

Note:  
In fairness (and this blog is about nothing if not fairness -- well, okay, about hamsters too), we must acknowledge some skepticism in the scientific community about the very existence of penguins:

   http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-existence-of-penguins.html

There.  Due diligence done.

Doctor J’s Winter Fund Drive

Normally, around this time of year, we’d be fishing for our checkbooks to contribute to NPR.   (In past years, I have made mine in the name of The Big Broadcast -- the only program on NPR that was specifically aimed at my demographic.  But now Ed Walker has moved on to that big radio up in the sky …)  

Now, however, that The Don is moving to Pennsylvania Avenue (or at least sending some of his kids and minions -- he might not wish personally to move downmarket from his own fabulous properties), some of you may be wondering whether that would be … as the senior George Bush used to put it …   prudent, to contribute to the most virulently Donophobic of the MSM.
Because The Don does not like you should defy The Don.   To do that, might be to seriously annoy him.   Wouldn’t be prudent.

So -- what to do with those extra dollars, rattling around in your piggy bank, which otherwise would have been wasted on a bunch of liberal low-lifes? -- Perfect solution:  Donate big-time to The World of Doctor Justice  -- your one-stop shopping for monostichs, truthitude, penguin lore, and Trinitarian Minimalism!  All the best people are doing that this year!

Give generously --  Give often !

Unfortunately, unlike contributions to NPR or other barely-worthy causes, through some administrative glitch, cash envelopes to this site are not yet tax deductible.  But that hardly matters, since once The Don takes things in hand, there should be no more taxes anyway.   Anyway not for Winner people like you & me.

Direct all tithings to this site  care of

      Buy_Doctor_Justice_a_Yacht.con

Gold bullion and Schweizer Franken only, please;  no bitcoins, dollars, or second-party food-stamps.

*     *     *

~ Commercial break ~

For a thrilling mini-movie, try this:

The Penitent and the Impenitent Thief

We now return you to your regularly scheduled essay.

*     *     *

In the temporary interests of total financial disclosure (such measures will become obsolete as of January 20, but in the meantime), here is an accounting for the proceeds of last’s year’s WDJ fund-drive.

Loot:

Contributions from people who wanted favors: $78,996.
Joke contribution from some cheapskate:  $1.

Total:  $78,997.

Expenditures:

Booze: $4,176.
Broads: $10,888.
Smokes: $400.
Unaccounted-for:  (Whatever’s left over.  You do the math.  What am I an accountant??)

*

For further musings from this pen,

check here:

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justice.html

*

Diego Rivera monostich (resartus)

Two    great             elongated  ellipses

crosseEd AC otHher

in the center of the wall

[--Bertram Wolfe,  A Life in Two Centuries (1981), p. 600.

Describing the mural “Man at the Crossroads”, painted 1934 in the foyer of the RCA building, then destroyed by order of Nelson Rockefeller.]

Note:  Rocky is invariably cast as the bad-guy here;  but as with most of the leftie causes-célèbres of the period (Sacco & Vanzetti; the Rosenbergs; Alger Hiss), their perspective is blinkered.   Wolfe himself -- Rivera’s primary supporter and biographer -- gently admonished the Mexican painter, who had been content to take Rockefeller gold, then was indignant when his patron objected at Rivera’s sneaking in Lenin at the last minute, as the centerpiece of the whole mural, at the intersection of those two ellipses.  “Have I not the right, as painters have always done, to paint into my mural  people I know?  To use any model which seems suitable?”

Wolfe observed:  “Yes, Diego, but the great painters of the Renaissance painted either the patron or somebody related to him… Do you think that if Pope Alexander VI or Lorenzo di Medici had commissioned a painting, he would expect the central figure to be Girolamo Savonarola?”

Jailbreak monostich

(Opening page;  fugitives  hiding  in the tall grass):

the jew’s-harp twanging

of the grasshoppers    in the broomweeds

(A page later, the author  revises  the imagery.):

Crickets in the roadside grass

sounded like wind   in loose telephone wires.

[ -- Edward Anderson, Thieves Like Us (1937)]