Russian Rocket Riot

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7418860.stm

No hard-fought independence war was this,
The bright glare of the rockets was not red,
The smoking fires which lit them with a hiss,
Which fortunately left no victims dead,
But gave a show to them they'd not forget,
As rockets flew at random through the town,
And residents ran by with low-down heads,
Just hoping that the errant missiles' sound,
Would be all that they heard, and they would not touch down.

The Arctic Affair

In regards to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7417123.stm

The snowmobiles ranged wide across the shelf,
Of country vast and empty; naught but ice,
Which coldly lingered, left alone with self,
Those men whose visit was like Eurydice,
A quickened sortie, over in a trice,
With one exception: they would soon return,
Not back to Hades, but to somewhere nice,
And leave the barren ice floes there behind,
Although the cracks in them left little peace of mind.

Live Bookmark Feed Failed to Load

Today, my live bookmark feed failed to load, so I thought I would write about that instead of the news.

Alas, the dreary morning of today,
Did also play a hand in my distress;
It led my RSS reader astray,
And left me sans sujet and in much stress,
As I would have to work with much finesse,
To point my browser to the news by hand,
And see what happened; there was no express,
To show me quick what happened in the land,
And thus instead I wrote this garbage, quite unmanned.

Alas, poor firefox! Though I knew it well,
To misquote Shakespeare, and to merry make,
Thy noble rule is over, shot to hell!
Alas! Alack, to think you were a flake,
And all it took was one simple mistake,
In someone's coding, though I know not where,
And crunch, and smash, and crash, you swiftly break,
Thus leaving me with nothing left to share,
Save gibberish I wrote from nothing as I dared.

Guantanamo

This one is terrible. My apologies.

As time draws onwards in the world outside,
The seasons passing as they often do,
The men in here were tortured 'til they cried
Their secrets--whether real or made anew--
To stop the painful agony endured,
And Paying ev'ry day for alleged crimes,
Against humanity; This treatment rude,
Their fondest mem'ries of their native climes,
Obliterated by their captors over time.

And now the US Supreme Justice states,
That in their cells they must forever sit,
Unable to be freed or face their fates,
For crimes of war they did, or not, commit,
For reasons as here follow: As, to wit,
The treatments used to have them spill their guts,
Don't sit too well with international writ;
So there they'll stay under this sad tenet,
Which surely is enough to drive all sane men nuts.

Foldit: Solving Puzzles for Science.

Aghast by dreary news from every port,
I turn to something lighter for today,
An entertaining electronic sport,
And something that the youngest child could play,
But also can help researchers display,
The forms of proteins best to fight disease:
And if your protein puzzle wins the day,
And is rewarded by the Noble peers,
The Nobel Prize will be part yours, and earned with ease.

An interesting tool is what results,
With mind of man and ease of game combined,
And databases there to store results,
In cases a player successfully finds,
A combination that restores the minds,
Of people with Alzheimer's, or the cure,
For AIDS or Cancer, in their proteins binds,
And rid the body of all that's impure;
I think that many will be snagged by this game's lure.


URL: http://fold.it/portal/adobe_main

The Dark Continent?

Again the focus turns to old Afrique,
More discord and confusion there to find,
And makes me wonder: were I not so meek,
Would I ignore it for my peace of mind?
As currently I push it all behind,
So as to carry on my easy life,
Where everything that's needed can be mine:
A job, and shelter, money; soon, a wife,
While in less well-off countries people die from strife.

This time, far South, a domino effect,
As refugees from other crises near;
Perhaps because of Apartheid's neglect,
A Xenophobic aftershock is clear,
And brings out in survivors deadly fear,
That everything they fled from might again,
Be safer for the lives that they hold dear,
So they return back whence they came again,
To face with bleak distress what may become of them.

China Quake

The Quake in China drawing to an end,
'midst mourning and 'midst public shows of grief;
In Sichuan the rescue teams still wend,
And hope that they can give some small relief,
In order to relieve the heavy grief,
That's felt by victims and by those still trapped;
And in the public eye the nation's Chief,
Thanks donators with all their sources tapped,
As China shows the world that in some things it's apt.

The rescue teams from many other lands,
As well as those from not so far afield,
Search through the ruins with a noble plan:
To dig through rubble, and to make it yield,
To get survivors out and have them healed;
And wearily to take the hapless dead,
And bury in mass graves while watchers reel,
And mourn their loved ones 'midst the earth's bloodshed;
While words of horror form but must remain unsaid.

Cyclone Nargis

On Burmese shores the aftermath still shows,
'midst accusations of the inhumane,
In Irawaddy delta, ruled by woes,
The Burmese Junta gives in with disdain,
And finally accepts care for the pain,
Of all its starving citizens who wait,
For food to come so they can eat again,
Too weary and unfortunate of late,
To take into their hands the matter of their fate.

The vote on which the Junta were hell-bent,
They carried out despite the nation's plight,
And claim they passed by ninety-two percent,
"Democratized" their governmental right,
And now they have "the people's" gathered might,
Or so they'll claim, when foreigners look in,
To criticize this or the other wight,
For something they perceive to be a sin,
And as before, the government, not people, win.

Zimbabwe Poll Run-off: Dare We Hope?

In southern Africa the time draws near,
For hope to find its glory or defeat:
Election run-off peaceful? Or as feared,
More threats of violence spilling into streets,
With ethnic cleansing claims, and such downbeat,
Disasters as were in the Kenyan state;
Mugabe and Tsvangirai will compete,
And all the other nations can but wait,
And see what will emerge for this one's lonely fate.

As always in the governmental world,
The people seem to gain the greatest loss;
As standing 'neath your leader's flag, unfurled,
To show the opposition who's the boss,
Oft seems to lionize the very dross,
And send into the margins those who care,
In an attempt to force your views across,
So that your leader can be sent up there,
To stand triumphant and to glory in fanfare.

Prologue

Lo I the man, whose muse whilome did mask,
As time her taught, in lowly lim'rick's form,
Am now enforst a far unfitter task,
To Spenser's stanza's my low rhymes transform,
And gibber on a blog, as is the norm,
Though entries here will not be in dull prose,
Although this may discourage all the swarms,
Of readers who prefer to look at those,
I hope upon this blog some ones will views bestow.

So then as follows are my duties here,
To daily post up interesting things,
And if I can find none of those, ne'er fear,
I shall make up a number of doings,
To lend to your imaginations wings;
And if my scansion doth destroy your brain,
I can but lift my hands, and grasp and wring,
In anguish at the thought of causing pain,
When all I wanted was to please the lofty brain.