Buy the Rumor, Sell the News

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

― Groucho Marx

Rumor has it that God loves us.

Or at least that perhaps She might.

She, in fact, is quite uncertain,

Doing Her best to get things right.

We should never credit rumor,

Taking a chance on what it means.

It's best though to heed it sooner;

The news is seldom what it seems!

Hearsay has a thousand faces,

You can't be sure which one is true.

Me, I trust in Innuendo—

That donna sure knows what to do!

Had you placed a bet on rumor,

The world would hardly end today.

Sell short the news. You'll save a life.

Don't try to catch a falling knife!

Saturday, November 15, 2025

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

An Egyptian Baladi street dog and her puppies

“The end result of a good deed is a slap with the palms.”

"Do good and throw it into the sea."

—Egyptian sayings

No good deed, the Arabs say, goes unpunished;

If being kind, best "throw it in the sea"—

Lest some chastising angel you offend

Supposing worthy actions to commend.

Unclear to you how the good gets banished?

What's with this “slapping with the palms”?!

(It's not a kick in the teeth or call to arms.)

What, while we're at it, to consider a good deed?

Mere kindness? Common decency

That gratulates our goodie-two-shoes selves?

Self-praising might in rebound set free

A niggling fear of "motivation doubt"—

Kindness nothing to write home about.

I've been done many a good turn,

And have sought to do as done to me,

Since it's no help the good to spurn.

Set doubts aside, give alms graciously.

No matter how good you are, you're never good enough.

So screw the sneaking sense it may be bluff.

A pox on sneaking senses, that shit that thinks it's tough!

Friday, November 14, 2025

Epigraph source: 1,001 Arabic Proverbs with English Translation, ed. Brian Powell (Washington, DC: Industry Arabic, 2024).

Note also the modern Greek equivalent of the Egyptian saying "Do good and throw it into the sea": Κάνε το καλό / Και ρίχτο στο γιαλό.

NoMo SoHo

“The newspaper industry . . . has flubbed its chance to propel itself into the future.”—Harper’s 

There's suffering on the very best of dates.

Do not consent to unromantic states.

Fall clarifies—life complicates.

Can we consume what we've got on our plates?

We thought we could—doing little good

In circumstances just barely understood.

Playing with fire, up against the wire,

Born-again, polymorphous perverse,

Am I a stand-in for tomorrow's bad, or worse?

When the news comes on, I turn off my radio.

There’s so much that I just don’t want to know

In these final days of the Anthropocene.

Believing what you want's the way to go!

This is our stop now—the Skivalocene.*

*From Ancient Greek σκύβαλον (skúbalon), dung, offal, stuff thrown to the dogs, trash + καινός (kainós), new.

Epigraph quote: Media critic Jack Shafer in discussion at the NoMo SoHo Hotel, New York, July 23, 2025, “Why Doesn’t Anyone Trust the Media?” Harper’s Magazine, November 2025.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025