The Week in Verse

National Review, July 28, 1997

   July brought news to frighten and dismay
   And all but spoil our Independence Day,
   As Stewart and Mitchum, sadly, bit the dust--Two
   heroes who ('twas said) we still could trust.
   Who now the banner of our pride can wield?
   Pete Sampras? Tiger Woods? Or Holyfield?
   What paladin or doughty cavalier
   Who isn't overpaid and over--ear?
   While Clinton hobnobs with the Greek and Dane,
   Cruises the Med with royalty of Spain,
   Back in D.C. brave Thompson starts to hear
   Of money monkey-business done last year.
   Was there a plot hatched by some Red Chinee
   To buy our U.S. foreign policy?
   Too bad the probing Senate can't ask Charlie Trie!
   But even if it could, would many care
   To have the information he could share
   And thus the clouds of secrecy dispel?
   Yet thousands gathered this year in Roswell,
   Mad keen t'unearth a rumored alien.
   They didn't care a bit that Spaceman Glenn
   Obfuscates hearings, heard as a ding-dong
   About immunity and crafty Huang.

   Meanwhile in space ('tis said the last frontier)
   A crumpled fender takes out Russian Mir
   While, some three hundred million miles away,
   A dune buggy stands for the U.S.A.
   We may not conquer space, avoid collisions,
   But both will turn up on our televisions
   To make us proud of deskbound Kirks and Spocks,
   Our hero-nerds who're cool and--hey!--Mars rocks.!
   We know, who watch the news from TV land,
   Whence comes another jolt to beat the bland,
   As Turner thinks t'improve on F. Scott Key
   Whose "warlike" strains we surely must agree
   Sully our gentle Land o' th' fin de siecle Free.

--Juvenal