) OCT 25 (2021) singable satire: 'INDIANA SONG'

 SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, May 2018. Readers interested in this topic might also enjoy Giorgio's lyrics posted on these earlier blogposts...

Dark Schemes
Rosenstein
Brennan's Tweet 
"Get Me Roger Stone - the Song" 

ORIGINAL SONG:  "Annie's Song" by John Denver, 1974.

Enjoy Denver's recording HERE on Youtube. 

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "INDIANA SONG" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

BACKGROUND INFO: George Will's opinion-editorial  was published in the Washington Post under the rubric "Trump is no longer the worst person in government". It appeared in our local newspaper on May 10, 2018, under the heading "Mike Pence sets sad standard for governing by groveling."

Here is the link to the particular newspaper column which generated all the interest.

INDIANA SONG

to the tune of "Annie's Song"

  

George Will writes Mike Pence sets
A 'sad standard for ... groveling',
Like at cabinet meetings
Where he's 'humbled' by Trump.
Using barbs like 'oleaginous', 
Like 'repulsive' and 'toady',
George fills up his column -- 
His disdain doesn't slump.

Then George targets invective
At Mike's praise for Arpaio,
At a rally in Tempe
Near the home of McCain.
George invokes Mike's 'vocation'
(Servile ingratiation)
And asks voters repudiate
That mob's M.A.G.A.* again.

*  Make America Great Again, slogan of the 2016 Republican campaign.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

George Will  'conservative political commentator' and popular columnist with the Washington Post Writer's Group.
Mike Pence  Vice-President 2017-2020. Previous experience as Republican governor of his home-state of Indiana. Described as 'conspicuously devout' by Will, presumably picked for his current post due to his freedom from financial or lifestyle imbroglios. 

"Sheriff Joe" Arpaio  controversial local political figure in Arizona, self-styled as 'America's toughest sheriff', convicted of contempt of court in relation to repeated racially charged practices, 'pardoned' by Trump in 2017.

John McCain   high-profile long-serving senator from Arizona, Republican candidate for President in 2008, struggling with terminal brain cancer at the time of these events.

BEYOND CANALS: still more Magical Palindromes

With all this mental energy focusing backwards and forwards on palindromes, it has been hard to escape the subject of canals. A project close to our hearts was to take the standard palindromes about canals, (e.g. the well-known, A man a plan, a canal, Panama), and extend the adulation to a series of other canal sites. 
 - MAGICAL CANAL VERSES and PALINDROMES: the application of the magical palindrome construct to wordplay of geographic interest, specifically dealing with artificial waterways. Paris, Riga and Toronto (a surrogate for the Trent-Severn waterway) are honored here in both verse and wordplay.

 - UNPLANNED CANALS (More Magical Palindromes): This followup post expanded the involvement to 8 other world sites. For a few of these cities, e.g. Reno (Nevada), the existence of canals is apocryphal, but the relevant municipal administrations were co-opted as partners in the interest of wordplay. 
  The aim of the current blogpost is to extend these concepts beyond the constraint imposed by canal themes to more general world destinations; however the meticulous reader might notice the persistence of some elements of our canal hangup. And if you need help with the concept of magical palindromes, see the slide at the bottom of the post; it shows simple examples of magical palindromes which are unrelated to the geographical theme.

A man, a potato - Paris. Sir, a potato - Panama.


A cakery - Napa. A pan - Yreka CA.

A 'garden folly' at
Chateau de Bagatelle,
Paris, France

A man, a plan, if final - pagoda. A dog, a plan, if final - Panama.





Dr. of tarts - Oxford. Dr. of 'X' - O, Stratford!


A man, a plan, if final, Pat - Paros. So rapt a plan, if final - Panama.


No 'D'; no 'L' - Boston. Not (sob!) - London.


A man, a plan, if final, Pa - Lagos. So, gal! A plan, if final - Panama.


A rep. of Omaha. A ham of opera.


A man, a plan, if final, Pa - Niagara F. Far again, a plan, if final - Panama.


A girl, a panama. A man, a pal - Riga.


Wonders in Italy - Latin is asset. Tessa's in Italy - Latin is red now.


 A pan, a dog, a pal - LA. Pagoda - Napa.


A man, a pâté , feta, Parma ham. Rap! Ate feta - Panama.


 Zeus pees on a Toyota. A Toyota? No seep - Suez.


 A dog, a paw, a pan, a panama. A man, a pan, a paw, a pagoda.


A man, a plan, if final - Pristina. A nit, sir; plan if final - Panama.


 If I mouse - Canada CA. A cad, an ace - Suomi FI.


A girl, a Pa - Mar-a-lago. O gal, a ram, a pal - Riga. 


No 'D'; no 'L' - onion. No 'I'? - No London.

Check out the 'FIRST SET' of examples (#1-5) here. 

Check out the 'SECOND SET' of examples (#6-10) here.

If you still need a fix of more palindromic fun, go to "Gratingly American: THIRTY-ODD POLITICALLY-TAINTED PALINDROMES". 

-----------------------

SONGLINK: "A man, a plan, a canal - Panama"
Readers who are particularly interested in musical wordplay might also enjoy a fantastical discussion on the development of this famous palindrome by Leigh Mercer, in this blogpost of our lyrics blog (SILLY SONGS and SATIRE)  ...
"Leigh Mercer's Palindrome Workshop" .

OCT 15, 2021: Poems for Hallowe'en: GRUESOME VERSE, part #2 [5]

CURRENT CONTENTS: (#2 -- Oct 15, 2021)

Hidey-hole

Horripilation

Scary upshot

Untimely demise

Zombie uprising

Authors' Note: Goose bumps or goose pimples are a common transient physiological change produced by stimulation of the skin's small and widely distributed arrector pili, tiny muscles at the base of each hair follicle. Their appearance may be provoked by physical conditions (such as a cold environment) or emotional factors, including embarassment, a sexual turn-on, or fear. The latter, accompanied by profound anxiety (the heebie-jeebies), and "hair standing on end" (piloerection or horripilation) is a reaction scaled down from that found in the animal kingdom, e.g. porcupines throwing their quills to put off predators. 

  Heebie-jeebies is gramatically another of those appealing (re) duplications, like helter-skelter and hocus-pocus, and represents a topic appropriate for discussion on Hallowe'en.

Authors' Note: Each year at Hallowe'en, all (living) persons, in addition to honoring tradition, must decide if they are ready to combat the zombie revolution.

OVERLAPPING THEMES:

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume your review of the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until July 2025. 

As of July 20, 2025, there are 2,000 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. 

Most of the key elements, such as this one, are also assembled here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.

The "Daily" format, a formidable mix of genres, also has the advantage of including song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

OCT 10, 2021: American Satire: A TERM OF ENDIREMENT, #3 [8]

This post provides a follow-up to ...

"AMERICAN SATIRE (A Term of Endirement) #1"(Note that this first collection of poems gives helpful suggestions on how to SING these intriguing lyrics.)

prior posted poems (#1)

make-believe 2016 (convention)

Vladimir's hope

anagrams (D-O-N-A-L-D etc.)

Hillary pilloried

impulse control

laying blame

borscht

Humpty-Dumpty (nursery rhyme)

prior posted poems (#2)

bilateral anagrams

disingenuous Don

intelligence

revision of NAFTA

covfefe

pardoning 'Sheriff Joe'

Sharpie-gate

'The Mooch'

CURRENT CONTENTS:

Conspiracy theories

Shutdown

'It is what it is'

Impeachment hearing

Tweetstorm

Twitter-ban

Georgia voters
Fraudulent

for continuation, see the link below

Author's Note:  The verse imagines an advisor or supporter picking up on an assertion by the contentious 45th US president. The latter had remained steadfast in demanding budgeting for a southern border wall with Mexico (putatively to decrease the unregulated influx of refugees), and was prepared to take the credit/blame for the pending global shutdown of government financing should it occur.

A venous cutdown is a maneuver to provide reliable access for fluids and drugs during a medical emergency. 

Authors' Note:  In August, 2020, “It is what it is” became a key U.S. presidential comment on deaths due to the coronavirus that were downplayed in the rush to 'reopen' the country. Subsequently, various explanations for the excess were squirmingly offered by the Executive branch of the U.S. government. It was purported, for example, that some doctors were rewarded by their hospitals for inflating the number of death certificates indicating COVID-19 as the apparent cause of death.

Authors' Note: Readers might want to check out prior posts, including that of Feb 9, entitled "Anagrammatic tribute to a Senator", and many prior posts, dealing with great egrets. The photos of birds were obtained from Giorgio Coniglio's personal collection, whereas those of political leaders were obtained from readily available online sources.

Authors' Note:  The fiefdoms of major American political parties are frequently identified on political posters and maps by color coding, Republicans being depicted as red, and Democrats as blue. The relatively conservative southern state of Georgia had traditionally voted Republican in federal presidential elections for several decades until, in November 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a relatively small increment of twelve thousand votes statewide, a difference of less than 1%.

  After the 2020 election, the transcript of a phone call between the President and his lawyers and Georgia's Secretary of State (the state official in charge of elections) was obtained by the media. In the phone call, the federal parties derided the state's procedures, suggesting that a significant number of Democrat votes had been cast by dead persons. They asked that this unfair situation be redressed by "finding" just enough previously unrecorded Red votes to alter the outcome.

Authors' Note: The above verse reflects the workings of democracy as perceived by a vocal minority, sometimes labeled 'conspiracy theorists', following the 2020 US presidential election. 

FOLLOW-UP

Owing to intense demand for more verses of this type, we have worked hard to accommodate your wishes; in fact there are now four such collections! So, you can view another collection of these philosophically-charged limericks by clicking this link !

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

OCT 5, 2021: Verses About DOCTORS and their PRACTICES, part #2 [7]

This offering of collections of poetic nonsense is a continuation of themes developed in an earlier post of June 15, 2020.

previous published posts  (part#1)

colonoscopist
dermatologist (retiring)
diabetologist
Doctors without Borders
endocrinologist
ex-hospital chief
lecturing internist
lifelong learning

CURRENT CONTENTS (#2 -- October 5, 2021)

Lithotripsy specialist

Neighborhood (psycho-) analyst

Old (decaying) nuclear physician

Ophthalmologist sibling

Orthopedic surgeon (Pete, the orthopod)

'Stitches', waiting room journal

Urologist 

Authors' Note: 'dais' may apparently be pronounced DYE-uhs or DAY-uhs, although the authors had been familiar with only the former pronunciation.

Authors' Note: 

 (kap-SAY-sin, or kap-SAY-uh-sin)

  Capsaicin is a chemical derived from hot peppers that creates a sensation of heat on the human skin and in the human mouth. Almost all other mammals also dislike the sensation, so the chemical has come to play a role as the major ingredient in many products touted for repelling mammalian pests.

  Despite the mostly-true story related here, the drug has seldom been prescribed as a treatment by psychoanalysts or other psychiatrists. Moreover, the difficulty of repeated applications (repetition may be needed after each rainfall) to rooftop sites makes its use in this setting hazardous. 

Authors' Note: The new high-tech modality PET entails 'coincidence imaging' with positron emitters, such as fluorine-18, unusual drugs that give off two gamma-rays simultaneously in exactly opposite direction with each radiodecay event. In contrast, older technology with standard radiolabels, often designated by the initialism 'SPECT' (single-photon emission computed tomography) was used by imaging specialists such as our colleague 'Dr. Specter'. 

Authors' Note: 

orthopod: a casual name for the orthopedic surgeon (surgical bone specialist)

For many sites in the upper and lower limbs where trauma has resulted in fracture with angulation or rotation of the fragments, surgical treatment ('ORIF, or open Reduction, Internal Fixation') has become the standard of treatment.

You can find out more about Pete's professional life by proceeding to a blogpost entitled "Breaking News: FUNNY BONES". Click HERE! 

Check out the version of this verse on our companion blog 'Daily Edifying Nonsense' for a photo-collage related to the above verse. Click HERE.

Authors' Note: Stitches: the Journal of Medical Humour is a monthly Canadian humour magazine. Founded by an Ontario family physician, the journal in its original paper format, became the most widely read Canadian medical journal, was licensed in a handful of other countries, and prevailed from 1990. Although targeted at the general public, drug advertisements for medical professionals originally bore the major costs of the project. Since 2007, the journal has survived in a reduced form as a monthly online publication; the author laments that it is no longer a widespread tool for waiting-room diversion.

Authors' Note:  

PSA: prostate specific antigen, a widely used blood test to screen for prostate cancer and to monitor the result of treatment  

  

 Considerably more complex than blood tests, a biopsy obtains samples of the relevant tissue, and is used by the pathologist to make a specific determination as to the presence, type, and severity of disease.

Here's a LIST OF LINKS to collections of intriguing poems (over 200 of these!) on medical/dental topics, updated to December 2024. 

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.