Senator Kreek’s 2023 holiday message

 Well, greetings to all. And sundry, whoever that is. As they say. Or were we talkin’ about Sunday? I don’t generally greet Sundays, given the rigors and social ferment of Saturdays here in the Capital’s Nation. Or Nation’s Capital, as some folks still call it.

You know, this was all addressed in that movie, the one by what’s his name, the Italian guy, Once Upon a Mime in America? Oh, time? Well how about the book, then? That one they claim was written by a wolf? Mime and the River?

His name was Wolf? Huh. You know, comin’ from where I do, somebody says “wolf” and you pay attention. Just like “bear,” but sneakier. We still got ‘em up there. Bears and wolfs. I do pretty well with ‘em, in terms of votin’. And if you get ‘em to come to a meeting or a funeral or something, it kind of keeps the press away. But anyway, what were we talkin’ about? Saturdays and Sundays, I think it was. You know, it’s a pity that the observation of the Sabbath is fallin’ out of our socio-political ken. And as for our socio-political Frank, well, hell, I haven’t heard from him in a woodchuck’s age.

And while we’re on the subject, speakin’ frankly, I haven’t heard much about Frankin’ privileges for a while, and I wonder why the Franks of our great nation aren’t more up in the trees about it. Or Arms. I don’t know where that term came from, up in arms. Most of my constituency are well armed but out of the loop. Language is a funny old thing, isn’t she?

What? Hold on, one of the young people who run around with me wants a word. I usually have a few to spare, so … what’s that, Son? A holiday message? From who? Me? Why would I send myself a message? I’m supposed to send it where? Excuse me, folks, we gotta get this straightened out.

Okay, I believe I’m now on the same paragraph with the action, if that isn’t a contradiction in terns. Terms, I mean. We got off on that wildlife thread, and I sort of lost my path. That happens a lot, up in my district. Chronic Path Loss, we call it. Happens on Saturdays, mostly. And all the fault of the chronic interns. I asked one once why he didn’t just go on and be a doctor. He said he had to wait his tern. You gotta watch out for these etymological guys. They don’t always know what they’re talkin’ about.

Now then. What’s that? Now, then, what? That’s what I was gonna say. Don’t know why I didn’t. But if I have to, I’ll go on to express my heartiest wishes for whatever it is people in our great polity and our lesser ones, too, wish for me to wish them. From Ahmeek to Bete Grise, from Sidnaw to Spread Eagle, Traunik to Green Acres … I know, I know. I made that last one up, just to see if people were payin’ attention. Now, can we wind this up? I have to go help the President say something without really sayin’ it. He relies on me for that.

Senator Elijah Kreek represents the citizens in and around Lesser Evil, Michigan, and has served their interests almost as well as he serves his own for decades.

Senator Elijah Kreek's New Year Address

 

Senator Kreek's 2022 Holiday Address 2023 Kickoff

In just a moment, we'll join Senator Elijah Kreek in his office ... ah, he's ready for us now. Here with his annual new year kickoff address is the US Senator from somewhere in Michigan, Senator Elijah Kreek.

What? Oh, we're on? Okay. Let's get this over with. My friends and indeed everyone else, I have to begin with an apology. Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with my staff, I seem to have overslept a bit. So instead of presenting my usual holiday wrap up, with this ... event, I guess we'll call it ... I'm switching to a kickoff spiel for what I assumed would be the coming year, but seems somehow to be the current one. How the hell did that happen, I asked my chief of staff, but he didn't really have a coherent answer. If any of you out there is looking for a chief of staff, I could, I guess, introduce him. And if you have a coherent answer, I could use one of them, myself.

However, be that as it be, I've been doing this nonsense long enough that I can certainly ... wing it, I guess, while keeping my insights and outsights to their usual incredible standard of ... standards. And speaking of standards, our great national standard is waving gallantly in the slight breeze coming off the Pentomic - why it doesn't stay on the  Pen ... what? Potomac, I mean, is beyond me. Why, in fact, the Chinese can't keep their baboons from floating around in the clear, blue skies ... balloons, of course I meant. Baboons don't really float, I'm assured by my team of experts, here. You can toss one in the water, and he'll stone like a sink unless you throw him a line.

But what, I ask you, is or are the question or questions that we should or perhaps shouldn't be questioning at this point in whatever it is that we're pointing toward? Who is responsible? And where? And how damn much is it going to cost? Those are the things that I assume the valiant voters who ventured out to vote for me or someone else, as far as that goes, want? Or need? And why was I not given a brief briefing in due brief before I sat down make these brief remarks?

Now, those among you who are paying attention will probably note that no one around me really is, to the point that I appear to you, apparently, to not understand that I am, in fact, at this point in time, standing up, not sitting down, to brief you briefly on ... these things? Why, I ask you? Well, the answer is that you can't answer that. You're not here, and this isn't one of those baboon meetings ... Zoom? Okay, fine. They both got double o's, don't they? I mean, what's the difference? Baboon or zoom or whizzbang, it's all going to be the same in two thousand years. And let's all hope it's better. Won't be hard to achieve that, I imagine.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to bring this epic moment to a close. I have to go over to the Senate and vote against whatever everyone else is voting for, since you gave me what I choose to call a clear message that you would do that, if you were here, and, you know, allowed to break into the Senate and vote. At all. But you don't have to do that because you've got me here to do it for you. Enjoy a peaceful and baboon-free year, and, assuming nothing falls out of orbit again and impedes the democratic process, I'll be sharing my vague impressions of the situation with you once again, at or around that time.

And there you have it. Senator Kreek's somewhat annual message of ... something. Stay tuned for the Republican and Democratic Parties' responses.

Copyright 2023 J.F. McLuggage

Sailing to Vladivostok

Panic was easy enough to come by
Down by the Dogger Bank,
When the sea was full of dancing lights
And dim shapes that might have been God knows what
Torpedo boats or anything at all.
And they opened fire, the Czar's fleet,
On British fishermen,
There in the fog.

Steel hulls, men, boxes of machinery
Steaming from the Baltic,
Sent around the world
To reinforce failure:
The embodiment of Imperial Russia.
They weren't new ships,
Or even ships of uniform design,
The Russians didn't build in classes often,
But in ones and twos, haphazardly,
With the funds that trickled through
Layers of corrupt administration.

How to say it? The fleet was a thing.
It was an act,
Something actually done,
Different from the daily getting by
And carrying on
That a bureaucracy performs.

And when doing is the exception
And getting by is the rule,
The things that do get done
Reflect those who do them.
And that may be all they're good for,
And their only value.

And so Russia sent an image of itself
Through the English Channel,
Past Gibraltar, around the Cape for Asia.
Tied to the speed of its slowest ship,
Led by Rozhestvenski to their deaths.

And the sailors must have talked and thought
Hearing the engines thumping all night long,
Looking out the casemates day by day
Along the barrels of their guns
Stoking the fires
Stowing the hammocks in the messes
Serving meals.
They must have speculated,
Must have convinced themselves.
That there would be at least some self-respect.

Copyright 2005 by Joseph McConnell

Senator Elijah Kreek's 2021 Holiday Address

Good morning. It's nice to see those of you who I can actually see - those who have, in a manner of speaking, actually made themselves visible - on this Decemberish occasion, here in the Nation's political back yard, on the banks of that stream that, muddied with history, flows through the mud of our uncommonwealth.

Let me begin by asking, as I so often do on these occasions, for you all to reflect on a question that I - and I believe most of you have- posed silently or loudly for that matter, in the glorious past and the doubtful future, that is, "why?" Why are we here? And who's paying for it?

I know that I am not, anyway. My staff and Rod, over there, the young fellow with the tie and the appalled look on his face, assure me that I in fact do get paid for doing this sort of thing, and the wonder of that shines like a young woman's face in the snowy moonlight on the banks of the Tacoosh River, you know, northeast of Muskrat. Where the railroad tracks run between New and Old 35?

It always surprises me when I pass by that spot that there's not really anything there. Seems like there could be. Gas station, at least, you'd think. Or a Starbucks. But perhaps it's for the best. For where else, as we stand here on the erodin' banks of the Potomac, could we actually make a living doing this stuff we do, if there weren't little crossroad favelas, lost in the primordial soup of nature, footin' the bill?

The last time I visited my constituency, I put that question to the audience. "Fred," I asked, "why do you put up with it?" I'll never forget his response "With what?" he said. And I've taken that as a mandate and a sacred obligation. So let me conclude by quoting the beloved poet laureate of our beloved little patch of... well, not really turf so much as sand and pine trees... Mildred Mastodon. What? Oh, she's from Mastodon? Where's that, again? West of Sawyer?

Anyway, she wrote in her piece, Notes to My Children, "Straighten up, dammit. And keep your hands to yourself". I think we can all learn from that.

Senator Kreek has announced that he will be running for or away from the Senate again in 2022, depending on circumstances.

The Stars Came Otherwise

The second of the Peninsular Republic novels is available

Picking up a year after Dog Island, The Stars Came Otherwise brings Eden Gorsky to the national capital, first to investigate a financial crime, then to go deeper into a more disturbing crisis. While the Republic deals with a foolish but critical wave of discontent, Gorsky and her partner struggle with a massive winter storm and a demanding new challenge: talking a group of misguided revolutionaries down off a metaphorical roof. As she says:

"I assume you read, Major, in my record, that while Big Bay was going on and I'd been a lieutenant for two days, the brass put me in charge of a whole naval base? On about ten minutes’ notice?"

"I did know that, yes."

"Well, this is crazier."

While the storm and the revolt proceed, the young woman who was physically and psychologically injured in Dog Island, comes back in contact with the trauma, re-encounters the attacker, and discovers the healing power of poetry and a goat emergency.

The crises reach their climaxes at two roadside spots, one in the storm-stricken north of the Republic and one in the US President's rural hometown. And, in the midst of the chaos, there's still McConnell's trademark banter among his characters:

"You see, darling, I'm here by this dank tarn of Auber ... " Kristin waved in the direction of Lake Huron. "... in this raccoon-haunted woodland of Weir because you are. I'm a city girl. And the Capital may not be Paris, but there are at least things there. Things. Like restaurants. And music. And, you know, things."

"There are things here."

"True. I saw one just the other day. I had to stop while she and her cubs strolled across the highway."

Come along in trains, planes, and motorcades as the story hints at its connection with the title, taken from Browning's Caliban Upon Settebos:   

“Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
  But not the stars; the stars came otherwise.”

Available on Kindle or as a paperback.

Senator Kreek Appears on Finance Talk Show

 

Good evening  and welcome again to Show Me the Money, the financial program for individual investors. Tonight, we're happy to have United States Senator Elijah Kreek with us. The topic is cryptocurrency, and it's sure to be of interest to everyone, especially our older viewers. Welcome, Senator Kreek.

Well, thank you. Sadly, there may be a bit of delay, here, while my aide tries to find one. I assumed you'd have some on hand. Didn't know we had to bring our own.

We don't? While how am I gonna show you one if ... Oh, "money"? I thought it was Show Me the Monkey. So, maybe you can just bring me up to date a bit on the topic. I hope it isn't Trump's blood type, again. I thought everybody knew about him ... genotype-wise, that is.

I see. Cryptocurrency? Okay, well, to start off, I'm going to have to say, as many people say to me, "what?"  Sometimes they add qualifiers like "are you talking about?" Sometimes they use an acronym, WTF. And especially in my home town, they might use the quaint colloquialism, "Huh?"

Oh, I see. It's that money-that-isn't-really thing. Tied to the world market price of kryptonite, I hear. We were talkin' about it just the other day, and the head of that SEC place told me it has something to do with a blockchain. Where I grew up, that meant a short length of log chain, one end around a cement block and the other one attached to a young fellow's leg so he couldn't leave the wedding ceremony early. Became popular after they stopped allowing shotguns in church. Except in emergencies, you know. Like Marxist insurrections. Or bears.

Now, the thing to keep in mind, if you're an individual investor, is to steer clear of Marxist insurrections. Bears, you can take or leave - I sure do - but those hammer and sycamore people are a little rude. Unless you have friends or family in Siberia. Or you like bears.

Speakin' of Marx, he would have taken a dim view of these crypto bucks, but you know how he was. Grouchy. And for good reason. But what can you expect of somebody who died before there was even that chat room thing, let alone tick talk or whatever it is? I never got the point of chat rooms, myself. A room full of people talkin about cats, in French? Bears I could understand, especially in German. Did you know that they've got whole houses over there, just for bears to eat in? Bären Munch Häuser, they call 'em.

But to get back to the topic here, the thing to remember is that cryptobucks aren't Fiat currency. That's what those of us who talk about economic things call small, under-powered money without four wheel drive. Doesn't perform well in the snow. Some days, not even in the rain. Now, you would think that'd be more popular down in the south of our esteemed broccoli ... country, I mean, where the sun shines and the birds cough and all that. Seems like those cars would be more popular.  But somehow ... I don't know, the folks down there just seem to prefer something a tad bigger. It did give GM a nice bump up in the market when they figured out a way to convert all those old diesel locomotives into pickup trucks. The hard hat and flag crowd were enthusiastic. Bought a bunch of 'em. Especially the old Norfolk Southern ones. Didn't take a lot of imagination and black paint to fix that name right up.

What's that? How does the cryptohooey compare to hard currency? Well, it doesn't, really. I mean, all of that difficult stuff, hard or strong or even Grand Haven currency, it's all just so much ... harder. Harder to get. Harder to hang onto. And if you're really into ivy, you can use it to hedge yourself in. You know, so the bears can't see you.

But it's not just the bears you gotta worry about. When I was growin' up, the neighbors had a bull, And he'd come wanderin' into our north forty. One morning, my grandfather took umbrage - quite a lot of it - and although my grandmother told him ... that's a lot of bull, she said ... he went out to divest ourselves of the animal. He never was the same after that. No matter how much umbrage he took.

But the time's up, you say? Well, good. I hope I was able to properly address some of the concerns our older and even our younger investors may have about what ever it is they concern themselves ... with. Or at. Just talk to Jimmy, over there - the one with the monkey - and he'll tell you where to send the check.

Copyright 2021 by J. F. McLuggage