Join Diane, MotherOwl, Mimi and me as we get in a lather over this topic. You can leave your poem in the comments or post on your own blog; if you do the latter, please let us know in the comments so we can track you down. Use the topic or choose another -- the objective is to have fun and be creative, so let your hair down and give it a try :)
*****
We're having a federal election in Canada today. I will doggedly go and do my civic duty, but it will be hard. The two leading parties have been mud-slinging and stretching the truth about both their own and the other parties' performance and promises. One or more of the remaining four parties may end up holding the balance of power in a minority goverment, but are out of contention as far as forming a government goes. So unless a person votes strategically, which can be even more of a gamble, there are really just two choices on the ballot as far as I can see.
May I also just say how disappointed I am in our governing Liberals. They have broken so many important promises they made in the 2015 election, it stuns and grieves me. Some folks would say that any liberal party is better than any conservative one, but I am so disillusioned I'm at the point of asking, Is it really? Is a party that said it cared about indigenous people, electoral reform, women participating in government, and ending deficit spending, but whose actions have failed, at times spectacularly, on all those fronts, really better than the others?
I don't know what the answer is, but I've had a little pointed fun at the expense of the two main parties today and this is the result.
*****
You're Both Full Of It
This vigorous poke with a hot sharp stick
Is accompanied by a good swift kick
Sent to our Canadian Tories* and Grits**
Your election campaigns have been the pits
Why can't we have: (1) consideration
For all the folks who live in our nation
(2) Do our bit to help others and the planet
Yet (3) spend within our means, goshdarnit***
Please say something sincere to give us hope
Or we'll rinse your political mouths with soap
And if you make promises with no carry-through
Next time the ones voted out will be YOU
*Tories =Conservatives
** Grits =Liberals
*** You might think I really meant something else that rhymes better, and you'd be right.
Thanks, Steve Reed, for catching my mistake re Tories/Grits. I'll have to fire my proofreader, lol (that would be me). It's fixed now 😃
*****
Oooooooooo, Donkey's worked up quite a head of steam. That's what happens when quiet folks have been pushed beyond their limit.
Don't worry; I'll be back to normal in a few days.
Thanks for reading, folks -- may you all have a fairy tale week that starts with "once upon a time" and not the other thing :)
The topic next week, coming to you from Diane in Technical Difficulty Land, is . . . TUNA. Good luck!
Please note that Diane's poem is posted in the comments below because she is in . . . Technical Difficulty Land . . .
*****
Bonus election funnies:
 |
Kitty is very fetching in those eyeglasses, isn't he? |
 |
. . . or you could just DUCK . . . heh heh |
My father told us 'it doesn;'t matter who you vote for, a politician will be elected'.
ReplyDeleteSadly he was very, very right.
These days I tend to vote (through gritted teeth) for the party whose promises I would like to believe in.
Good luck. May the least bad party win.
"... the party whose promises I would like to believe in" - Now that's one way of looking at it that I hadn't considered ...
DeleteYour father was SOOO right!
If in doubt, vote for the most handsome leader's party 😜 I suppose it is the nature of the beast that we are always disappointed. But the afore referred to particular leader had such huge political capital locally and overseas and then seemingly wasted it. The poem is good. The first cartoon is so true. We are receiving a little coverage of your election but so far from the saturation coverage we receive of a US election. I think for the next US election, coverage here may be pulled back a bit as people really turned off, literally, their tvs and radios.
ReplyDeleteYes, he did waste it, and as much as I don't want to think so, I'm left with no answer to the mystery of "why" but that he didn't truly believe in what he promised. He has let us all down.
Deletei completely share your disappointment for politics dear Jenny
ReplyDeletei think this is some kind of "universal truth" that politics sucks
still i think your part is little better than our's and this is why i hope this time they might fulfill their promises
your poem is true and amusing yet filled with sad reality that world's most selfish join the politics
here when it comes to cast vote i find no one deserving so i don't go for it which is not solution but just expression of despair as citizen
wishing you a lovely happy week ahead my dear friend !
It is awful to be a citizen in despair, isn't it, baili? I think you're right that we have it better, relatively speaking, than many parts of the world. Thank you for your perceptive comments as always, my friend :)
DeleteIt's easier here in the States where only one party puts babies in cages and tries to take healthcare away.
ReplyDeleteAs a disabled person, that's an existential issue for me, although it is for many poor Republicans also, and they still vote for them.
I wish there was a soap that washed propaganda away.
-Doug in Oakland
You folks have really had a miserable three years (so far), haven't you? Our problems don't seem so bad when I look south. I hope things resolve soon for you. And a soap that washes away propaganda - now that would be amazing.
DeleteYour poem made me smile, but I think you'd need a vat of soap to wash that many mouths out. Love the definition of politics kitty.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that there are some good politicians out there, but they don't seem to be the ones with the most influence, sadly. Maybe we could work together with the mouth-washing, River - I'll hold them down, and you can wield the soap sponge :)
DeleteYOU TELL 'EM, jenny!
ReplyDeleteI thought you were talking about the country to the south of you. It's a small world after all.
MM, I really think it's the same the world over, it's just a matter of degree.
DeleteTories in Canada are liberals? That's so bizarre. I had no idea.
ReplyDeleteLook at it this way -- the liberals may not have done what they promised, but it's still better than the conservatives DOING what they promise.
Nope, you caught a mistake there, Steve - thank you! I had originally written the line as Grits and Tories and put in the footnotes, then changed that line later to be easier to rhyme. Dang proofreader didn't do her job :)
DeleteUnfortunately, one of the liberals' promises was to get the spending under control by now, and instead our country is far deeper in debt than many of us thought possible - a situation that will affect us and our children and our grandchildren as surely as climate change will. Hence my despair (devil vs deep blue sea).
I feel wiht you in election woes. Why are there no decent politicians anywhere anymore?
ReplyDeleteGranma's lye soap would be justly employed here.
Yes, lye soap would be just the thing, MotherOwl!
DeleteElection promises float on the wind and burst...just like those soap bubbles. Good luck with your vote today...I really don't think the Canadian public is going to come out a winner no matter who gets elected.
ReplyDeleteSadly I think you're absolutely right, Delores.
DeleteI'm glad you're still able to comment from time to time, my dear!
We voted in the advance poll. It was a tough decision. You expressed my feelings perfectly. I dread what’s coming tonight. How soon before the next vote?
ReplyDeleteExactly. I dread it too, Marie.
DeleteSOAP
ReplyDeleteThe way soap works is a miracle.
I will try to say in words of one syllable
And the answer will be quite lyrical.
It makes oil and water mix.
It really needs to get a fix,
But its molecules know some tricks.
They are both hydrophobic and hydrophilic
So it attracts water and gets rid of it!
Sorry about the syllables – and the rhymes – and the scan...!
When you put it that way, soap really IS a miracle, isn't it bazza?! Science is amazing!
DeleteOh wonderful. Words of one syllable indeed. You're the folk song army of soap. Many bubbly greetings.
DeleteDiane (of On the Alberta/Montana Border) is having technical difficulties this week, so she sent me her poem to publish in the comments. Thanks, Diane!
ReplyDelete_________
Soap
Emily was a young girl still, but eldest of the clan,
Her mom was in the hospital as number eleven was planned,
Em was busy cooking, cleaning, laun-der-y and chores,
All the things the other nine demanded more and more.
When little brother Bryce came in the room, demanding ‘drink’!
She turned and looked at him, up to her elbows in the sink,
“Just a moment, Bryce,” she said, “I’ll fetch a dipper, then.”
“And if you’re really patient, then you may get nine or ten!”
But Bryce went in the pantry, started looking on the shelf,
He knew what the dipper looked like, he could surely help himself,
And there is was, just as he’d hoped, and full, too, so it seemed,
He tipped it back and drank it all, then gave an awful scream.
For what he thought was water wasn’t really that one bit,
Instead the dipper harbored lye, the poor boy threw a fit,
In agony he moaned as Sister desperately gave aid,
Calling in a neighbour ‘fore he in his grave was laid.
The two of them succeeded, and they saved the little boy,
When the deed was then reported the whole family wept for joy,
There’s an aspect of this tale, that makes me think and sigh,
Why this near disaster o’er a dipper full of lye?
What was it for? Well I can tell you, it was soap. For home,
Cause lye’s a main ingredient when you’re cooking up your own,
If such a little bit can cause a family to lose hope,
I think I’ll have a little more…of respect for soap!
Monday’s to get knocked a lot,
With poetry, we all besought
To try to make the week begin,
With gentle thoughts, perhaps a grin?
Look here, all my friends and me
Have written poems for you to see,
So now you’ve read what we have brought,
Did we help?
Or did we not?
Jenny
Mimi
MotherOwl
Next week, tune in when once again
We’re here with poems. On ‘Tuna’, then.
A cautionary tale if there ever was one, Diane! I'm thinking this may have its origins in a true story ...? No doubt it actually happened in the past when making soap (and having eleven kids) was much more common.
DeleteThanks for turning in your poem and next week's topic from faraway Technical Difficulty Land, my friend :D
@ Jenny_O: Thank you for posting here. I came looking for a reason why Diane was not posting.
Delete@ Diane: What a poem! As a soaper, I know the hazards of lye - and keep the children away. But you poemed well. I hope your difficulties melt away as soap in rain.
Well, if you don't want Trudeau any more, send him down here -- we'd gladly take him in trade for Agolf Twitler.
ReplyDeleteMost democratic political systems are designed with checks and balances that prevent a party in power from doing absolutely everything it wants -- and the influence of money and lobbyists is a problem everywhere. So perhaps one is always doomed to be somewhat disappointed. But I agree with Steve Reed's comment. Liberals who break their promises are better than conservatives who keep theirs.
Well, I agree that Trudeau is better than Trump, but it wasn't checks and balances that prevented Trudeau and his party from following through on the issues I mentioned. I think I have a fairly good understanding of the forces that they faced in those issues, and their choices came up severely wanting.
DeleteYour poem speaks for many of us who are whipped with fatigue and sometimes rage at all politicians and their dirty campaigns. I have voted in every major election and most local elections (the ones that count) and in all honesty, I tend to vote against someone more than for someone, except for once. I absolutely loved Obama and he ran against decent people. He might not have always made the right decision, but he is a very decent, intelligent man with a good family. We have moved light years away from that now.
ReplyDeleteIt shows how fragile our democracies really are, doesn't it? To go from Obama to Trump in one fell swoop. I understand and mirror your rage and fatigue, for both our countries, Arleen.
DeleteWe vote in two weeks. Sharpening pencils for the big one, next year. Hope yours goes better than expected, bayou.
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck to you, too. I'm checking results as I type.
DeleteThis election was awful. I went even though I didn't want to. I wish we could get rid of everyone and start with new parties and new faces. It's the same old, same old all the time.
ReplyDeleteThis time it seemed nastier than it's been in the past, too. I don't know that the party system is working very well; maybe it's time for something completely different.
DeleteElection day + 1 are we any further ahead? There was no particular party platform which met all my wants so I went with the party which promised one thing I wanted most and it wasn't even an election issue. Some good ideas from each party, such a shame they cling to their ideology instead of being willing to recognize the value of someone else's idea. Pipe dream to think they could work together for the benefit of the country. I would love to meet you when you are in a lather-a force to be reckoned with I suspect.
ReplyDeleteIt would be wonderful if the best ideas from all the parties could be smooshed together and we could work in harmony, right?
DeleteHah! (your final comment) Well, at times like that I'm usually excited and often loud, so there's that :)
politics these days is so disheartening. your poem is on point!
ReplyDeleteI had hoped we were semi-okay here in the great white north, but it seems to be a relative thing, not an absolute :(
DeleteYour poem is definitely on point. Politics and politicians are just full of it. The 2020 elections in the US of A are going to be awful because it's going to be so ugly with the lies, name calling and attacks.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to see how it can get uglier than it's been already, but I'm sure a way will be found! A good time to have another social media fast, my friend :)
DeleteTechnical difficulties abound, i am finally able to comment here.
ReplyDeleteLoved the poem from the first time i read it, and i am glad to finally say so!
Thanks, Mimi! I'm having technical issues too; I feel your pain!
DeleteI loved your poem, and totally agree.
ReplyDeleteThis election was a sad joke and the Tory and Grit leaders are both an embarrassment. When the best argument our national leaders can manage is "the other party sucks", it's time to elect third-graders to lead our country. At least they know it's rude to insult others, and they have a clearer understanding of right and wrong.
Excellent analysis (and burn!) - I agree :)
Delete