Superman: A Poem

You can be strong, you can do no wrong
you can outrun a train
you can fly in the rain
you can withstand the bullets of hate
you can overcome your Kryptonian fate
but if you're without love
no nothing's the same
even being Superman
seems so lame.

Is Clark Kent really a disguise?
Who does Lois Lane see in her eyes?
Who you are?
Or what you do?
Who's her real hero
when the day is through?

You'd like to tell her
but you hesitate
wearing glasses for a mask
seems your fate.

Has she fallen for you
or fallen for a cape?
Does she love you for your heart
or your muscleman shape?

Oh Superman you may never know
but it's her touch and smile
that keeps you on the go
for those leaps and bounds
don't mean anything
if to the one you love
you're not everything.



-written by Dracul Van Helsing
Wednesday, Feb. 25th, 2009

The Morality of Selling Rotten Peanuts

So one of the big stories in North America lately (one of many of course) is the fact that the Peanut Corporation of America knowingly sold peanuts that they knew were contaminated with salmonella.

Several young children and elderly people have fallen sick and even a few have died as a result.

Last year of course in China, several babies died and thousands of infants fell sick when dairy companies added melamine (an industrial chemical) to infant milk formula to give it the appearance of more protein.

I suspect the reason for the Chinese companies' doing it was greed. They put profits before people in this case children.

In the case of the Peanut Corporation of America, I suspect it was greed as well.

But since this was America rather than China, there could have been another reason as well.

For the past 25 years, New Age thought has been growing in America.

New Age thought isn't big in China. In fact the closest to New Agers in their thinking- the Dalai Lama and the Falun Gong- the Beijing government detests both with a fiery passion.

New Age thinking is of course the belief that one can create one's own reality. By thinking positive thoughts and saying positive words, somehow magically this is supposed to alter reality to what one wishes.

Shirley MacClaine and other people have expostulated such nonsense in North America over the past 20-odd years. Personally I wish they'd try out their theory by throwing themselves off the Brooklyn Bridge and see if by thinking positive thoughts and saying positive words and acknowledging their inner divinity within, they can create a reality in which the law of gravity doesn't apply and they won't plunge to the river below.

So maybe the President of the Peanut Corporation of America (who was recently given a rough ride in hearings before Congress) is a New Ager. Maybe he genuinely thought that by selling salmonella laced peanuts, he could create his own reality in his mind which would alter the outer reality and eureka there would be no salmonella in the peanuts when people ate them.

But personally I don't think the President of the Peanut Corporation of America is a New Ager.

I just used this example as an idea to show the absurdity and irrationality of New Age thought.

Personally I think the President of the Peanut Corporation of America is an economic neo-Nietzschean Ayn Rand style extreme laissez-faire capitalist in his mind set who would do anything to make a quick buck and maximize as much profits as possible.

So was the President of the Peanut Corporation of America wrong to maximize as much profit as possible even if that meant putting human life at risk by selling salmonella laced peanuts?

Well my dear reader, was he wrong?

Answer now.

I'm sure many of you will answer that he was wrong to do that.

Anyways the reason I ask this question is because of a disturbing statement I read in an ezBlog post last week. The blog was about a woman who was in an abusive relationship.

Anyways, the following statement was made, "There is no such thing as right or wrong. It's all a matter of opinion."

The statement, "There is no such thing as right or wrong"- is that statement right or wrong?

Anyways if one truly believes that there is no such thing as right or wrong, then of course the President of the Peanut Corporation of America wasn't wrong to sell salmonella laced peanuts even if a few kids and old folks died as a result.

The Chinese dairy companies weren't wrong to sell melamine laced infant formula even though many children died and thousands of children fell seriously ill and thousands of mothers and fathers were put through great emotional distress.

Well such is the case if you believe there is no right or wrong.

The idea that there is no right or wrong seems to be becoming very popular these days.

It's definitely always been the position of the New Age Movement- there is no right or wrong.

And I think the reason that the notion "There is no right or wrong" has become so popular these days is because there's a growing number of people- both men and women- who use that position to justify giving in to the itch in their respective genitalia and engage in all sorts of sexual encounters for their own respective pleasure.

Of course these people are so busy thinking with their genitalia rather than their brains, they don't seem to realize the idea "There is no right or wrong" has consequences far beyond the sexual immorality they want to engage in with seemingly clear consciences (since there is no right or wrong).

Thus a man who on the way walking back home to his wife and family (after dallying in various sexual positions with another woman) is suddenly hit and crippled for life by a drunk driver will no doubt be whining and snivelling that the man who hit him had no right to drink and drive and put someone else at risk.

But if there is no right or wrong, then of course the drunk driver can do whatever he pleases.

Who are we to say he was right or wrong in what he chose to do.

The idea that there was no objective right or wrong affected Greek philosophy and held it back.

Then roughly 1500 years ago a man called Socrates arose.

Socrates taught the then revolutionary notion that truth wasn't subjective.

Truth was objective.

Truth was something that lay outside man.

And it was up to man to discover that objective truth rather than create a subjective truth of his own.

Plato taught that in some of his dialogues. Sadly Plato was also influenced by the Greek cult leader Pythagoras (who is better known today for developing mathematical theorems rather than the fact that he was the leader of a mind control cult of brainwashed disciples who had several weird far-out mystical ideas involving numerology) so some of Plato's ideas are weird.

Where Plato's ideas are good, you can see Socrates' influence showing up.

Where Plato's ideas are bad, you can see Pythagoras' influence showing up.

Fortunately for the history of philosophy, Plato's student Aristotle accepted his teacher's Socratic notions and rejected his teacher's far-out Pythagorean cult notions.

Aristotle believed in objective truth.

Aristotle believed in the concept of right and wrong.

And it was Aristotle's notion of objective truth and belief in right and wrong that led to the birth of empirical science.

The 13th Century English Franciscan friar Roger Bacon studied the works of Aristotle and invented empirical science (It was Roger Bacon that did this not Francis Bacon as some anti-Catholic Histories of Science have erroneously taught).

But thanks to the intense stupidity of David Hume and the resulting mind paralysis of Immanuel Kant and the gobbleygook-covered sheer imbecility of Friedrich Hegel, this has led to the resulting philosophical outhouses of deconstructionism and postmodernism whose outhouse sh_t holes we have fallen down today and can't get up.

By accepting deconstructionism, we have returned to the ideas of the pre-Socratic philosophers.

For example by accepting the ludicrous macro-evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin, we have returned to the ideas of the pre-Socratic philosopher Empodocles (Micro-evolution has been shown to be empirically true- evolution occurs within species but macro-evolution- the idea that a species has evolved into a totally new species- no hard core evidence has been found for this despite Richard Dawkins' intense looking up his own a- - hole for signs of that evidence).

Aristotle blew apart the whole notion of macro-evolution in just one sentence on the basis of pure logic alone. I wish I could remember what that phrase was. I remember when I read it in his book Metaphysics (in the chapter where he was taking aim at the ludicrous ideas of Empodocles) in my 4th year university seminar class on Aristotle, I said to myself, "Wow. So much for the ludicrous notion of Darwinian evolution."

So today in terms of philosophical thought, civilization seems to have taken a giant step backwards. We have returned to the ideas of the pre-Socratics in philosophy.

Many so-called thinkers teach there is no objective truth.

We create our own reality.

There is no right or wrong.

In such a world then, dairy companies should be able to sell melamine laced infant formula and peanut companies should be able to sell salmonella laced peanuts- with impunity.

Charles Laughton

British actor Charles Laughton was one of the greatest
actors of the 20th Century.

Sadly he isn't as well known today as Sir Laurence
Olivier but in some ways Laughton could be just as
good as Olivier if not better in some of his acting
performances.

What brought this to mind is this past weekend, my dad
and I watched the 13th installment of the BBC television
series I, Claudius.

I, Claudius was a famous BBC television series of the
late 1970s which gained enormous popularity and a large
following in North America when it was shown on American
PBS television back in the early 1980s.

We got the DVD back in December and we've been
watching it on and off- 1 or 2 episodes a week ever
since.

Last Thursday, we watched the final installment- Episode 12-
where Claudius eats poisoned mushrooms fed to him by
Agrippina (the psychotic mother of the equally psychotic
Emperor Nero) and promptly kicks the bucket.

But there was a bonus on the DVD- a thirteenth episode- if
you will - a documentary that was done on BBC television
back in the mid-1960s.

The documentary was about British filmmaker Sir
Alexander Korda's forgotten and unfinished epic
movie of 1937- I, Claudius- the first time they
attempted to film Robert Graves' famed 1934 novel
I, Claudius.

The movie starred Charles Laughton as Claudius,
Merle Oberon as Messalina and Flora Robson as Livia.

Surprisingly this was one London Films production (London
Films was the name of Sir Alexander Korda's studios) that
Korda did not direct himself.

He was just the producer.

Instead he hired a German-American director named von
Sternberg (the man who directed Marlene Dietrich in her
breakthrough film in America, The Blue Angel) to direct
his production of I, Claudius.

Only a few scenes were shot in the film and then the
project was scrapped.
Coincidentally shooting on the film began on February 15th,
1937.

And it was the wee morning hours of February 15th, 2009 (exactly
72 years later) that my dad and I watched the documentary about
the making of this unknown and unfinished virtually forgotten
epic.

The film it turns out was Charles Laughton's most
difficult role. He was having a hard time trying to figure
out how to bring Claudius to life.

For Charles Laughton was one of those method actors who
wanted to totally immerse himself in the character and become
that character. It was this that made him such a great actor of course.

But he was having a heck of time trying to capture Claudius- trying
to become Claudius- trying to bring Claudius to life.

In a 1965 interview with Merle Oberon for the documentary, she
said that during the month of shooting for the flim, Laughton would
enter her dressing room and start crying on her shoulder for hours
saying, "I can't find Claudius. I can't find Claudius. I can't bring
Claudius to life."

Needless to say, this caused numerous setbacks in the
shooting schedule. And it lead to much bitter fighting
between von Sternberg the director and Laughton the actor.

Laughton was depressed.

von Sternberg was depressed.

And there was a feeling of tension and unease on the
set.

What finally killed the film was that Merle Oberon had a
car accident after about a month of shooting into the film.

It turns out Miss Oberon had a crazed chauffeur and
the jerk blew through a traffic intersection crashing into
another car and sending poor Miss Oberon flying
through the windshield of the car (remember there were
no seat belts in those days).

Anyways Merle Oberon's face was badly cut
and they didn't know if her scars would ever heal
and since Merle had shot so many scenes as Messalina
it would have been impossible to bring in a replacement for
her (not that Korda would have allowed them to anyways
since his purpose in making the picture was to make an epic
greater than the Hollywood epics of the day with his beloved
Merle as the star).
And since the picture was behind schedule anyways because
of Laughton's anghst and the tensions between Laughton and
von Sternberg, it was decided to just scrap the picture.

Of course, Merle Oberon's facial scars did heal but by the
time they did, the chilling winds of impending war were already
blowing across Europe so no effort was ever made to finish
the picture.

I remember as a young kid, I had a tremendous crush on
Merle Oberon.

There was one night a week when the local TV station every summer
showed what they called a Korda Film Festival in which they ran one
of Sir Alexander Korda's great London Films movies from the 1930s.

The first film I ever saw Merle Oberon in was called The Divorce of
Lady X and starred both Miss Oberon and the young Sir
Laurence Olivier.

I went to bed that night having pleasant dreams.

I dreamed that I was busy kissing Merle Oberon.

But my favourite Korda film of all with Merle Oberon in
it was the 1934 The Scarlet Pimpernel in which she
played Lady Blakeney and Leslie Howard played the
eccentric English nobleman and seeming fop Sir Percy
Blakeney (it was just an act for he was actually
the courageous intelligent and brave Scarlet
Pimpernel who saved thousands of Frechmen
and women and children from their deaths at the
hands of Madame Guillotine during the French Revolution).

I remember the dresses Merle Oberon wore in that
film were absolutely gorgeous.

So I'd go to bed imagining that I was the
Scarlet Pimpernel and having spent the day
rescuing people from Robespierre's guillotine
would spend my nights kissing and making out
with the lovely and beautiful Merle Oberon.

In the few scenes that were shot with
Merle Oberon as Messalina in I, Claudius,
she made a priceless and far better Messalina
than the one they cast in the mid-70s BBC TV
production.

And Flora Robson made a far better Livia
than did the one cast in the mid-70s TV production.

Derek Jacobi was of course excellent as Claudius in
the BBC-TV production.

But how did he stack up against Laughton?
Well of course not too many scenes were shot
with Laughton as Claudius because of Laughton's personal
anghst in trying to capture the character.

My godfather a retired high school art teacher
who used to also do set designs for local stage
theatre productions once met Charles Laughton.

My godfather and another man Bob Willis
were doing set designs for a University
Studio Theatre production back in the 1950s
and Charles Laughton was going to be sitting
in the audience on the opening night of the production.

The play was a Greek tragedy and was to be set
in the Temple of Diana of the Ephesians.

Now for those of you who have studied classical
Greek history, the statue of Diana of the Ephesians
was of course a multi-breasted woman.

So my godfather and Bob did a faithful reproduction of
the statue- there was Diana of the Ephesians in all her
multi-breasted glory.

Well of course in Social Credit governed Alberta of
the 1950s, to show a statue of a nude multi-breasted
woman would be verbotten shall we say? ;)

So the breasts were covered up with gauze and cloths.

My godfather being the meek and mild mannered man
that he is went along with it.

But Bob Willis was fuming.

On opening night before the play began,
Bob stormed out on stage in front of the curtain
and began a long diatribe against censorship to
the audience.

At first the director thought, "oh well. We'll just
give Bob the chance to get it all off his chest
and then the play can begin."

But Bob wasn't letting up in getting it all
off his chest (the way Diana of the Ephesians
had got it all on her chest) and so after
20 minutes with no end in sight, the play's
director sent out a couple of extra strong
stage hands to drag Bob off stage.

Bob had to be dragged literally kicking
and screaming off the stage.

At the end of the play, Charles Laughton
in the theatre auditorium was asked by the local
press what he thought of the play and Laughton
answered in all honesty and seriousness, "Well
I do think the play dragged a bit but I thought
the prologue was positively brilliant. I don't
think I've ever seen a better performed prologue
to this play. That fellow was marvellous.
A marvellous actor. And to have him dragged
kicking and screaming off the stage like that-
with such utter passion. My kudos to the director
for conceiving such a brilliant performance."

As to who was the better Claudius? Laughton
or Derek Jacobi?

Well most of the scenes with Laughton as Claudius,
Laughton did seem a bit unsure of himself.

You could see his anghst in trying to capture the
character.

Ironically on the same day that Merle Oberon had her
car accident, they shot the scene where Claudius
after the murder of Caligula is dragged off by the
Praetorian Guard to the chambers of the Roman
Senate to have Claudius acclaimed Emperor.

The night before, Laughton had spent hours
listening to a grammophone recording of
King Edward VIII's abdication speech
in which Edward gave up the throne "for the woman
I love" (Mrs. Wallis Simpson).


That morning like a child, Laughton excitedly entered
the studio, exclaiming with glee, "I've found him.
I've found Claudius."

And after watching that performance where Laughton as
Claudius had spoken to the Senate and the Praetorian
Guard, my dad and I both sat silent at the end of the speech.

It's what one does when one is in the presence of a
great work of art.

Viewing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

Or gazing at Michaelangelo's Last Judgement on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Or putting down a copy of Shakespeare's or Keats'
sonnets.
Or having just listened to Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

I don't think I've ever seen or probably ever will see
a better speech delivered on a screen by an actor.

It was even better than Sir Laurence Olivier's St.
Crispin's Day speech from his performance as
Shakespeare's King Henry V.

For Laughton had indeed become Claudius.

Sad that the day it happened, Merle Oberon
had a car accident and the picture was shelved.

For what was probably the greatest film performance
in all of motion picture history has sadly been seen by few
as a result.

Only those fortunate enough to watch that scene on
that documentary about the forgotten unfinished epic
of Sir Alexander Korda would have seen it.

And today instead of wondering whether it
was Sir Laurence Olivier or Sir John Gielgud
who was the 20th Century's greatest actor,
there'd be no discussion.

Laughton as Claudius. The silver screen's greatest
performance.

The 20th Century's greatest actor.

Cupid

Just another Valentine's Day.

Just another Saturday night.

Except it was a Saturday night that was a Valentine's Day.

And once again Cupid was working.

Valentine's Day.

It was his one big day of the year.

Santa Claus had Christmas.

The Easter Bunny had Easter.

And Al Gore had April Fool's Day.

But this, Cupid thought, this was his day.

This was his moment, this was his time.

To paraphrase Barack Obama.

Cupid set out for the nearest nightclub with his arrows.

After a short kerfuffle with the bouncer, he drew back an arrow and shot the bouncer in the heart.

Just as a male ballet dancer wearing pink tutus arrived on the scene.

The tattooed muscle bound bouncer ran after the pink tutued
male ballet dancer who shouted, "Help! "Help!".

Cupid entered the nightclub.

He noticed a girl with pink hair sitting up at the bar.

"Hey Psyche," the bartender said to the pink haired girl, "what will it be?".

"A Pink Lady," Psyche replied.

Cupid shot his arrow at Psyche.

"Now for the bartender," he thought.

But he was having problems getting the arrow into his bow...

and he accidently shot himself in the heart.

Psyche gazed at Cupid.

And Cupid gazed at Psyche.

And after so many eons, Cupid himself now had a girlfriend.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, everyone!

Poem For Valentine's Day

Lips to drink this red, red wine
lips to kiss these lips of mine
grapes to share
scented air
moonlight and paradise
honeycakes and sweet sweet rice
nectar divine
music sublime
oh my love,
wilt thou be mine?


-Dracul Van Helsing
February 12th, 2009

Watarasebashi

For the Valentine's Day week, here is my own English translation
of the beautiful and lovely Japanese love song Watarasebashi whose
Japanese lyrics were originally written by the beautiful and lovely Japanese singer
Moritaka Chisato.

Watarasebashi


You said you liked the sunset
that you saw on Watarase Bridge.
I was raised in a beautiful place, wasn't I?
I replied.

"I want to live here," you said
That day you came to see me,
in this city that is shaken by the train.

I still can't forget it,
even now when I pray at Yagumo Shrine,
I pray for you,
If I could have one prayer come true,
I'd want to return to that time with you.

Do you remember that pay phone
that stands alone on the barbershop's corner?
Yesterday without thinking,
I wanted to make a call,
I've picked up that receiver so many times.

The other day when I climbed alone
down Watarase River's banks
I watched the water's constant flow
the beautiful sunset's final glow.

The north wind blew so bitter cold
that I caught a cold.
It's nobody's fault,
The fact that you can't live in this city
has separated us,
I've worried about it so much
but
I know I can't live away from here.

The storefronts that you said you liked
are getting dark today too,
The wide sky and the far mountains,
The city the two of us walked
The city with the beautiful sunset
This city that is shaken by the train.

O Arrow, Where Is Thy Sting?

O arrow where is thy sting?
o voice of siren, sing!
O Cupid, art thou asleep?
laying on Olympian grass
lost amidst the sheep.

O Cupid, do thou arise
while salt flows from those eyes
of young girl on the beach
see whose heart you can reach.

Valentine's Day is near
let this be of good cheer
Draw thine arrow from thy bow
see where it doth go
that love divine she may know.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY WISHES TO ALL MY FRIENDS!

No One Knows Where The Circle Ends

Bernie the Baker reached for four chocolate eclairs.

It was for the same kid who had been buying them every
Friday afternoon now for the past 2 years.

The kid didn't say much. Just bought four
chocolate eclairs. And left the shop.

Bernie looked at the clock. Yep, just after
4 o' clock- the same time every Friday
the kid bought them.

There was a late afternoon rush of business
people on their way home who stopped to buy
his goods.

At 6 o' clock, Bernie closed up shop.

He walked around the block to the little
deli where he ate every Friday night.

He couldn't handle going back to his apartment
alone every Friday night.

Friday night had been his and Estelle's night to go out-
have dinner, a glass of wine and then go to a movie,
a concert or a stage play.

How he missed those times.

He didn't think Estelle would have been the first to go.

Then he thought.

That was selfish of him.

How did he think Estelle would have felt had he been
the first to go?

Living life without the one you truly love must be hard for
anyone male or female.

Being the one left behind is not easy for anyone no
matter who they are.

Of course these days there were plenty of husbands and wives
who felt quite relieved when their spouses die.

But that wasn't true for him and Estelle.

His and Estelle's had been a golden love story- one of those
rare and too unfrequent occasions when two soulmates actually met
and encountered one another in the right place at the right time-
the encounter that the rest of us can only dream about.

Some of us may even think that such a love does not exist.

Because it's not part of our life, our experience.

Bernie ate his cold meat sandwich and thought back on his
life.

He thought of Richard's Milkshake Bar.

Wow. Richard's Milkshake Bar.

He hadn't thought of that place in years.

A place he had visited when he was a kid.

Oh, how he had loved Richard's Milk Shake Bar.

Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, blueberry, raspberry and seemingly
every other flavour under the sun.

You know he had never tasted a milkshake as good before or since.

There was just something about Richard's milkshakes that was different
and better than any other milkshake.

What was that secret ingredient?

Probably love, his romantic of a mother would have said.

Some people carry out their jobs with love
and it makes all the difference in the world his mother
told him. Love. Passion. It's what created excellence not greed or desire
for fame, his mother told him.

Funny, the time he had walked into Richard's Milkshake Bar
and had been told the old man had died came as a stunning
blow to him.

He had felt Richard would always be there. Always be there serving
his delicious milkshakes. But he was gone.

Still Bernie ordered a mikshake from the new
owner.

But it wasn't the same.

And it would never be the same.

Funny, the day he walked away from
Richard's Mikshake Bar the day Richard
had died, Bernie knew then that he would
look on this period of his life as a golden
age, a golden age as far as milkshakes were
concerned.

Bernie finished his sandwich and got
up to pay the bill.

As he did so, Bernie felt a sharp piercing
pain in his chest.

He fell to the floor gasping for breath.

Someone call an ambulance, the deli
manager shouted.

Bernie looked at the whirling images
of faces now around him.

The manager, the cashier, the waitress,
the paramedics as they came rushing
through the door.

Then he looked at the woman to his immediate
right.

Estelle.

It was Estelle.

How young and beautiful she looked.

Bernie looked up at her and smiled.

And then closed his mortal eyes for the last
time.

Paul entered the bakery promptly at
4 PM the next Friday afternoon.

He looked around for signs of old Bernie.

Where was old Bernie?

He looked at the chocolate eclairs.

What was up with the chocolate eclairs?

They didn't look the same.

"Can I help you?" a gruff voice spoke to him.

"Um... where's Bernie?" Paul asked.
"Bernie's dead," the voice answered very
unsympathetically, "he croaked last Friday
night."

"Um..." Bernie looked at the chocolate eclairs,
"I'll have... I'll have... one chocolate eclair please."

"One chocolate eclair?" the man answered, "is
that all?".

"Yes," Paul nodded.

As he walked down the street after
leaving the bakery, Paul bit into the solitary
chocolate eclair.

No, it wasn't the same.

And even though young as Paul was, he
felt the voice of wisdom telling him that somehow
this was the end of the golden age as far as
chocolate eclairs were concerned.

He would never again taste a chocolate eclair
as good as Bernie's had been.

15 years later as Paul sat on a bench
on a promenade overlooking the river
valley, he munched on a ham and cheese
sandwich and started thinking about
Bernie's Bakery.

Funny, he hadn't thought about Bernie's Bakery
in ages. Bernie's Bakery. And those yummy
mouthwatering out of this world chocolate
eclairs.

What was in it that made them so good?,
Paul wondered.

"Hi, is it all right if I sit here?" a soft gentle
feminine voice asked him.

Paul looked up. A beautiful woman in a multicoloured
spring dress stood there.

"Sure," Paul stammered somewhat.

Paul had always usually felt comfortable around pretty women
but this woman somehow felt different.

Not that Paul didn't feel comfortable in her presence
but he felt extremely awkward as well for some reason.

Both extremely extremely extremely comfortable and at
the same time awkward. It was a strange sensation.
The more Paul and the young woman whose name was
Laura talked, the more comfortable he felt.

They got up and left the bench and walked on a
path along the river.

They were so busy looking at each other, of course
neither of them would notice the tiny plaque on the park
bench.

For the city encouraged people and businesses to donate
money to pay for these park benches.

And plaques would be put on the back of these
benches naming the people or business who
had sponsored this particular bench.

As Paul walked away with Laura, he thought to
himself, yes the golden age of chocolate eclairs
was long behind him but he couldn't help thinking
to himself that some vaster greater golden age of
something far far more wonderful lay just ahead
of him.

As for the plaque on the very old but extremely well
kept-up park bench, it read,

Bernie and Estelle- two people who were very much
in love.


The End.

The Burlap Diamond

Dracul Van Helsing was lecturing to his
Geopolitics and International Relations class.

The topic was Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev's advice to Patriarch Kirill the
newly elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

Medvedev had warned Kirill (who had been Metropolitan
of Smolensk prior to his election as the Patriarch of
the Russian Orthodox Church) to break all contacts
with the Roman Catholic Church.

Kirill was the reform candidate for the top position
of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate. He was very
ecumenical and wanted to establish closer ties
with the Roman Catholic Church.

The other two candidates wanted the
Russian Orthodox Church to remain closely
tied in with the Putinist state (Putinism being
a synthesis of old Russian Imperialist Tsarism
and neo-Stalinism) and promote Russian
ultra-nationalism rather than seek the re-union
of the Mystical Body of Christ.

As he talked, Dracul noticed a man
who had never been in his class before.

When class was over, the man
went up to Prof. Van Helsing and introduced
himself.

"I'm Sond... John Sond... Double-O Nothing,"
said the man, "I like my cans of Coca-Cola shaken
not stirred.

"That I can believe," Dracul noticed the
nasty Coca-Cola stains on the man's shirt
and tie.

"Anyways, we have reason to beiieve that you
are in possession of the Burlap Diamond," Sond
explained.

"How do you know that?" Dracul asked.

"Well, we at MI-6 didn't know it ourselves,"
Sond explained, "the Russian FSB (successor
to the Soviet KGB) told us. Last weekend,
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin felt an
intense craving for real British Fish and Chips
and MI-6 told him we'd buy him and fly him
over a dish in return for any valuable information
he could supply us. So he directed the FSB
to tell us the location of the Burlap Diamond
that had been stolen under our very noses
last week."

"I understand Swiss terrorists stole the diamond,"
Dracul said.

"And we understand you know the leader of these
Swiss terrorists, Susmita Singh an Indian girl who
lives in Zurich, Switzerland," Sond noted.

"Yes, I didn't know Susmita Singh was the
leader of a Swiss gang (although Swiss terrorism
consists of stealing diamonds and watches and burning
Swiss Chalet barbequed chicken not bombing or kidnapping
or killing people)," Dracul replied, "I just thought she was into
yodelling and making Swiss cheese."

"Why would she mail you the Burlap Diamond?" Sond asked.

"I suspect it was mis-communication of some sort," Dracul explained,
"I told her I was looking for a new baseball diamond for the town of
Tofield, Alberta, Canada. And she mailed me a baseball and also this
diamond the Burlap Diamond."

Dracul Van Helsing opened the Swiss stamped package and there wrapped
inside some burlap in the package was the Burlap Diamond.

"Thanks," Sond picked up the diamond, "this is one of Britain's national
treasures."

"Do you want to take this baseball as well?" Dracul Van Helsing
held up the baseball.
"No thanks," Sond smiled and left the classroom.

As he walked down the halls of the community college,
it suddenly dawned on Sond whose autograph was on
the baseball.

Joe DiMaggio's.

John Sond started hitting his forehead in public and
said out loud, "oh, what a dummy! oh, what a dummy!".

The End.