draft: Livin' in Kakistocracy

Franklin told the men of old
"We're making you a nation."
Now we're screwed as we can be
Livin' in kakistocracy!

DFT and GOP
Love maladministration
There's no doubt they're making out
Livin' in kakistocracy!

 He panders to the racial fears
 And hatred of his base
 He's bringing back our basest years
 To shove them in our face

Eric, Junior, and Ivanka
All hate nepotism
But they profit handsomely
Livin' in kakistocacy!

Donald poses with his wife
Pretending there's no schism
She sure seems to loathe  her life
Livin' in kakistocracy

 He babbles like a weenie,
 And slurs his fourth-grade words
 He acts like Mussolini
 Heilin' Hitler for his herds

Donald talks in greasy squawks
That show no education
Flinging poo and fourth-rate woo
Livin' in kakistocracy

Folks he hires and often fires
Are temps, sans confirmation
Lacking all ability
Livin' in kakistocracy

 He says he loves the USA
 He works for free, we hear
 But adding up his golf trips, they
 Cost millions every year

Loves the Gang and speaks their slang
With violence his fixation
Worships jerks who rule by fear
Livin' in kakistocracy

This slimy blot has now been caught
We have the information.
Gops decree he'll get off free
Livin' in kakistocracy

Loves to tweet, on gilded seat,
His bile and indignation
Time to flush this slimy slush
And live in a democracy!

[ttto: Doin' What Comes Naturally, by Israel Baline]

.

Tales of Thrilling, Globe-Trotting Adventure!

Who among us does not enjoy a rip-roaring tale of adventure in the snowy Himalayas involving one or more purveyors of artificial limbs? WELL, DON'T ANSWER YET because this also has a... well, I'll not spoil it for you. No, I'll not. 

Penned (directly in ink, as is the fashion) by my pal Mike and me, with him doing panels 1, 3, and so on, and me evening it all up, here is Commander Rugglesby, field operative for the Cadmus Company, to tell the stirring tale! (Click the images to make bigger--my choices here were miniscule, teensy, small, this, and enormous.) From 1999:

Mike started in, and drew for a while. "I kind of blew the guy's arm," he said. 
"Don't worry!" I said confidently. "I'LL FIX IT!" And that's how an epic is born. 

Pay no attention to such minor details as whether "Junior Lefty (tm)" is a right or a left arm. It is irrelevant, and can only serve to breed pointless discontent. Previously printed in The New Pals Club Magazine. I don't even know why the paragraphing is so weird here. It's these little details that distinguish home-wrought craft from the mass-produced junk the major producers foist on us!
.

Spoilers for Shaw's "Saint Joan"

I don't mean I'm spoiling the historical facts, that Joan went to the stake, and the 7th Cavalry didn't ride in and save her or anything like that, but I'm spoiling a wonderful gimmick--a terrific piece of theatre--that Shaw came up with for an ending to his play.

It's years after the events of the story. One of the characters is old, dying in bed, and he has what may or may not be a dream, and the players in the tale walk again: Joan, her inquisitor, and so on. And there's a soldier, a rough and churlish fellow.

He wasn't a good man, this soldier, but for one night of the year, he walks as a saint. The rest of the days, he is in Hell, and he's actually happier there than he is being a saint, if we can believe his good-natured grousing, but we don't always get to choose, do we?

And his saintly act is, likely enough, the only good thing he ever did: He was at the burning of some witch, a young lass he wouldn't even recognize if he saw her again (spoiler: He's talking to her and doesn't know it.), but he heard her cry out as they were lighting her pyre.

She cried out for a cross, any cross, and this soldier, in a moment of reflexive compassion, held up two sticks in the shape of a cross, and this was her final succor, and it sufficed, and she died easily enough, under the circumstances.

So the soldier is a saint one night a year, and a denizen of Hell all the other nights. He played his part: You could say he was the final friend of the heroine of France. And I think about him and his one worthwhile deed.

I think of politicians, our politicians, who have in some cases done one decent thing that made all the difference. I think of appointees, elected officials, judges, who have chosen the wrong way over and over, and who yet may be our last hope--if they'll just do one good thing.

Maybe as we're watching the flames start to rise, some worthless lackey on the other side will do the one right thing that makes all the difference. Maybe it will be enough. Maybe not. Odds are, it won't even happen. We're not in a play.

Here's to all our hopes in 2020.
.

[edited and revised from a thread of tweets from January 1, 2020]