http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/12/snow-fog.html has a lovely and rather dark series of photos of a cemetery at Christmas time. I was inspired to write a little poem...

Though you partake of life and breath
We rest here in the frozen earth
And celebrate the peace of death
While you observe your Savior’s birth

Our quiet bones, beneath the snow
Forswear the warmth of Christmas cheer
Excited children will not know
The love of those who slumber here

When snow and fog their vigil keep
In quiet moments, contemplate
The silence of eternal sleep
Someday will also be your fate.

Re-post of Virginia Tech poem

This seems appropriate once again in light of the mall shooting. Please remember as you undertake your daily activities that each day holds the possibility of death. Always hold your loved ones close and never leave their company without telling them how much they mean to you. There are monsters in the midst of our society and they are not identifiable until they commit some atrocity.

Now mingling with the peaceful flocks
All gentle bleats and snowy fleece
What nightmare beast among us stalks
Whose thirst for blood imperils peace
On sunny days, we watch the skies
For hawks, the harbingers of death
Sometimes, no shadow signifies
The advent of our final breath
And when the thinning veil of fate
Is ripped, like flesh by tooth and claw
Death's visage, recognized, too late
Consigns us to his grinning maw

Hillary poem

It should be no secret from my former postings that I am no great fan of Hillary Clinton. As a female manager, I appreciate all of the advances made in recent years for women's rights and/or gender "blindness" in business decisions. I question why Hillary has stuck by her husband in spite of his very public unfaithfulness. Their relationship seems quite dysfunctional and her defense of him over the years is sick.

Besides being Bill Clinton's wife
What's Hillary done in her life
To earn our respect
We're right to suspect
Her defense of feminist strife

When values of women's rights clash
With power-lust and campaign cash
Mere feminist goals
Mean less than Bill's polls
His victims were just trailer trash.

Defending her unfaithful spouse,
She's less than a man, more a mouse
Why stand by that man
If not for her plan
To regain a Clinton White House.

(cross-posted on Althouse)

Omaha Mall Shooting

I don't have much to say about this, except that this is yet another indictment of our public mental health system. The gunman was a former ward of the state, for whom over a quarter of a million dollars was spent, the result of which was that he was still incapable of living with his parents. I don't want to jump on the pro-CCW bandwagon, although I totally agree with those who say they we should not be deprived of our second amendment rights simply because of the arbitrary rulings of a property owner. I doubt that the holder of a concealed weapon, which is legal in Omaha, could have made any difference in this outcome, unless an extremely alert and well-trained person had seen the shooter as he exited the elevator and took him down immediately. It is overall just a sad and tragic situation. My prayers are with the survivors and the families of the deceased. Maybe this kid should have been locked up but it is difficult for bureaucratic employees to discern which of their clients are truly dangerous and which are merely incapable of being high-functioning members of society.