.

Target Gets Targeted

A leftist agenda endorsed,
Down customers’ throats it was forced.
They now find their business is blighted,
You could say that they’ve been “Bud Lighted.”

.

.

Newspapers

Newspaper costs had tripled.
The boss said “read online.”
To keep the peace I tried it.
It didn’t turn out fine.
 
I like to check the sidewalk
To see the paper’s come,
I’ve done that sixty years,
A venerable sum.
 
I love to flip through pages,
Screen taps just bring laments,
To read a paper online
Makes sore eyes and little sense.

.

.
 

Unintended Consequence
of Anti-Meritocracy

I heard a black man at a seminar,
Say doctors he selected are Chinese,
Because that way the chances far decrease,
That lowered standards got them where they are.

.

.

Prerequisite

My cousin often lets me know
“My soulmate I’m awaiting.”
His prospects might be better though
If he in fact were dating.

.

.

Russel Winick recently started writing poetry after ending a long legal career. He resides in Naperville, Illinois.

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The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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22 Responses

  1. Paul Freeman

    Too true about newspapers. Same with books. The feel and the smell mean so much.

    Unfortunately, recruiting doctors from overseas is causing a brain drain in poor countries, hence, for example, the abundance of Nigerian doctors in Western countries and the dearth of Nigerian doctors in Nigeria.

    Thanks for the reads, Russel.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      You’re welcome Paul. I don’t know whether the gentleman’s doctors were native Chinese or American-born, but your point is well taken.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Nobody wants to be treated by incompetent doctors, of whatever race or background. The problem in the United States today is that many young doctors don’t know how to diagnose, but can only order tests and take cues from the Merck catalogue.

    • Joshua C. Frank

      If doctors overseas are better than local doctors, then doctors will be recruited from overseas. The alternative would be a dearth of decent doctors in Western countries, which is enough of a problem as it is without refusing to import good doctors.

      We need to fix our own problems before we go messing in the affairs of other continents. Western countries are such a mess, we have no room to talk when we tell other countries how to fix their problems.

      Reply
    • Russel Winick

      I’m so glad that you liked them, Cynthia. Thanks for letting me know.

      Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    All of your poems directly make some masterful points perfectly. I enjoyed all of them very much.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      I’m very glad to hear that, Roy. Thanks for your feedback.

      Reply
  4. Tonia Kalouria

    Fun reads. And another thing about newspapers…
    I enjoy seeing the old fancy
    fonts up top.

    Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    The poem “Newspapers” made me remember something that Marshall McLuhan said. In World War II, the American army decided to create reduced and streamlined versions of major U.S. papers for the troops overseas. These were essentially “boiled down” newspapers that contained nothing but news items, editorials, and other prose features. All advertisements, comic strips, editorial cartoons, photos, crossword puzzles, games, and sports info were omitted, to save space and paper.

    The troops HATED this! They wrote vociferous letters of complaint to those responsible, and demanded that they be given real copies of American newspapers, with all of the familiar trimmings. They wanted the full experience of a newspaper. McLuhan used this to defend his theory that “the medium is the message.”

    Apparently people who enjoy reading their newspaper on-line don’t have the intellectual and aesthetic sense of the ordinary American soldier in wartime.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      I’m glad the poem brought that interesting memory back to you.

      Reply
  6. Cheryl Corey

    Russel, these are killer! Like you, I look forward to reading physical newspapers (and doing the daily puzzles); and it looks like “Bud-lighted” enters the lexicon as a new verb.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thanks Cheryl. I’m thinking of trying to follow up on the Target poem by doing a piece depicting why its and Anheuser-Busch’s practices are so off-putting to so many people. If I can.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        How about a poem targeting The North Face, a men’s outdoor clothing firm that is doubling down right now on woke, perverted ads? When these companies begin to lose money, they will re-think their policies.

        There’s an old Sicilian saying: You get a jackass’s attention by hitting him squarely in the face with a two-by-four. Let’s keep smacking these jackass CEOs.

      • Russel Winick

        I have heard that. Will look into them as well. Thanks.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        As was mentioned in the comments on a similar poem, these may be deliberate moves by corporations to lower the value of their stock and then raise it up again when the whole thing blows over so they can cash in on their engineered fluctuations, something like the plot of The Producers.

        Now that I think about it, it may also be a move to make the rest of us think we have some degree of power over the mega-corporations, and so we’ll continue our boycotts, thinking we’re making actual change, instead of killing all the corporate overlords the way the peasants killed the nobility in the French Revolution. (Not that I’m suggesting we resort to armed revolution; I’m just describing the thought process.) I’ve heard it said that conservatism today is only tolerated because its primary effect is to slow change enough that we won’t revolt. (Has anyone else noticed that conservatives today are mostly the liberals of 20 years ago, just as people were saying 20 years ago?)

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Joshua, what we call “Mainstream Conservatism” today (or Conservatism Inc.) is purely a controlled opposition. Its job is to allow angry anti-liberal persons to let off steam, work out their political energies, and then imagine that they have accomplished something. The chief outlets of Conservatism Inc. are National Review, Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, neocon think tanks, the local Chambers of Commerce, and the bulk of the Republican Party.

        I call these groups “emergency-brake conservatives.” When the dominant left-liberal culture goes too far, these conservatives hit the brakes momentarily, and manage to force things back two or three paces. Then the left recharges itself, and advances five more paces. This process is repeated ad infinitum, thereby ratifying the left’s claim that everything is being done democratically and fairly as they gain more and more power.

        A friend of mine who works at Fox News told me (at first I didn’t believe her) that the entire operation was nothing but a false flag operation to trick conservatives into thinking that they had a real voice. In fact, she said, most of the persons working at Fox as administrators were left-liberals, with the cynical attitude that they were just making money from the Murdoch machine. It took the firing of Tucker Carlson to convince me that my friend was telling the truth.

        Even Stalin allowed small pro-Czarist, conservative, and religious magazines to exist in Soviet Russia. When asked about it, he said “When a publication has only a few hundred subscribers, what does it matter? Leave them alone.”

  7. Joshua C. Frank

    Russel, these are great! They all gave me a good chuckle. Thanks for that.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      I’m happy to hear that, Joshua. Thanks for letting me know.

      Reply
  8. Alex Wolff

    “Prerequisite” is so lovely with its wittiness and brevity. And also a good criticism of the ideal of a soul mate and the passivity people have when dating.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thanks Alex, I’m glad you enjoyed the poem. It was also intended to represent the commonality of folks claiming to want something, but being unwilling to put in the work necessary to attain it.

      Reply

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