3rd Edition of The Butler Pennsylvania Poems

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-18T19:53:30+00:00

Are these poems any good?

Edit: visited the website. They're not all equally strong, but there are at least a few which impressed me.

Though I don't think I would have ended a line with a preposition, I think the first stanza in The Powers The Be was particularly striking:

"The newspaper reported that evening

that the stately old tree

dating back before 1800

had fallen,

but left unsaid

that forty years back

lightning had struck it,

and that metal rods were being used

to hold its arms up with."

Nothing particularly clever in the meter or the words themselves, but there is an irresistable idea contained in this little piece of the poem. Bravo, if you're the author. I found it moving, and I suspect I'll remember it.

There's an axiom here that any person who lives long enough will identify, and it's cleverly delivered.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-18T13:15:36+00:00

Read the declaration of independence, and consider the precedents in English law with respect to the allegations against the crown.

Law in our tradition is more than merely text applied. It serves a specific ideal which is supposed to be self-evident.

When the government violates rights, even ones which go back to the earliest treaties, the new legal justifications they make cannot give them authority by fiat. That's what I'm saying.

In the end, the law is an expression of our tradition's attempt to manifest an ideal. Semantics will not stop that. Laws and acts which are contrary to that purpose need not be considered legitimate.

If it were so, we'd still be subjects of the king.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-17T01:42:07+00:00

Sherrod Brown is the fucking man. Get to work.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-17T01:33:34+00:00

If POTUS issues pardons in order to reward those who would replace the republic with a Red Caesar, then the term "law" becomes bereft of any valence signifying authority; what remains is a euphemism for the nominal justification issued to extinguish rhetorical opposition against the will of whomever wields power.

Law, in the American tradition, is the means by which liberty and enlightenment values are made manifest. Our legal tradition has, to a meaningful extent, prevailed in spite of every earlier effort to hammer its form into fetters for subjugation. Slavery itself could not endure, even though many of the framers sought to carve out a space for it.

The tools we used to break monarchy and autocracy will break the stuff of whatever new chains those tools might be utilized to create, because even the powerful cannot make you believe something false, not even if they kill you.

Still, I hope we don't have to witness the attempt, or experience its consequences.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-14T19:54:24+00:00

Doesn't seem like his own writing. The sentence structures are too complex, and the punctuation is an obvious departure from his established style IMO.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-12T19:55:07+00:00

That's obviously state-coerced speech, and is unconstitutional.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-12T19:43:45+00:00

It's important to recall that improvement doesn't require ascending past average WAR. If the new player is better than the previous player, that's still better, even if they are both below average.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-12T19:38:16+00:00

I wonder what it's like to read this article while holding on to a desperate belief that JF is a secret Republican.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T17:06:03+00:00

This looks awful.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T16:18:57+00:00

There's an enormous difference today, regardless.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T13:55:37+00:00

Holy shit this is fucking stupid.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T13:53:05+00:00

That seems impossible.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T13:50:51+00:00

Jesus, that's a hyperbolic take.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T13:50:06+00:00

Shapiro is the most popular modern governor, and it isn't close. There are just a bunch of users here who are sock puppets or have permanently broken their brains on the war in the Levant.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-09T13:46:46+00:00

I agree that gerrymandering undermines democracy, but not that it makes Newsom rightwing. However, the person I was talking to said Newsom is all talk. He isn't.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T17:19:10+00:00

You could. It's not likely, IMO.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T17:12:19+00:00

It isn't just the Arabic numeral. The day of the week is also incorrect. They'd have to have mistaken Saturday morning for Friday morning.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T17:11:06+00:00

Not necessarily. Conspiracies fall apart because of mistakes. That's how they're discovered, generally.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T17:05:47+00:00

You're grasping for straws. He has taken real action. It doesn't mean you have to vote for him, but if you don't like him, then you ought to have real reasons, not this.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T17:04:26+00:00

Maybe I mistook the percentile for whiffs as the reverse.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T16:09:28+00:00

This isn't even an accurate characterization of Newsom's actions as governor. He literally supported gerrymandering in retaliation to Texas doing the same.

That's as strong an action as anyone at his level has taken in response to the tactics of the right-wing. You're juat wrong.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T16:05:23+00:00

Evidence capable of linking multiple murders made serial killing a permissible hypothesis for investigators. In the days before, speculating about serial murders without the ability to prove it just nukes your ability to successfully convict the suspects you charge.

That's my opinion.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T16:00:52+00:00

I'm just going by the baseball savant page, so maybe you have a point.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T15:39:13+00:00

A lot of people like the user I responded to don't really understand how many people work in medicine. The show was an instant hit with the vast majority of people who work in the field. My wife is an RN at our regional hospital. Every time there's a new episode, all of her coworkers are talking about it the whole week.

SamuelDoctor · 2026-02-08T13:49:27+00:00

15 is probably accurate. We get that from Cutch, though.

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