Wall Street Poet Michael Silverstein has emailed us this recent creation, which we pass onto you:
The Buck Stops Somewhere Else
Old Harry Truman had a sign
That sat upon his desk;
His thinking a-bout leadership
The sign straight out expressed;
Four little words were on that sign,
Their message true and clear;
The told you who to praise and blame,
They said: “The buck stops here.”The buck stops here,
The buck stops here,
The sign made clear,
The buck stops here.But nowadays another view
Pervades a new White House;
Because Katrina¹s pain has spawned
A universal grouse;
The poor Gulf Coast ain¹t doing well,
Ain¹t doing well at all;
And someone for this fi-as-co
Has gotta take the fall.The buck stop here?
Now, now, be fair.
Let¹s all just hug
And share a prayer.They finger point at local folks
Or clerks who work for FEMA;
They photo op the man in charge
And paint him a redeemer;
The guilt here will all roll downhill,
There¹ll be no big admissions;
The faults here will be parsed and spread
By bevies of commissions.You need not fear
That this affair
Will make blame clear.
No buck stops here….
Ever!
(Check out his site and read some of his other great poems…)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.