Western poets wither my very soul. Whilst my own people boast a fine tradition of aristocratic verse--a tradition to which I, Atobe, ably contribute, as you soon will see--my travels in America have been dreary indeed whenever I, Atobe, encounter those celebrated for their literary prowess. So many Western poets of potential, afflicted by victim veneration, socialism, and the anti-social impulse, are reduced to malevolent irrelevance.

Just this Friday I, Atobe, attended a poetry event with Crusader88, and was sorely disappointed. The guests were fine writers, but their ideological perversions reduced it all to waste. These practitioners of the art simply must be heard to be believed. Find any handful of people, anywhere, any time, who've been excluded from society for the supposed good or health and community, and you have yourself victims to be memorialized in a poetry chapbook. One guest was selling a book about the poor lepers sent to Penikese Island, off the coast of this Commonwealth, at the turn of the 20th Century. Now, yes, the disease isn't as contagious as scientists then believed, and there were a few cases of bureaucratic ineptitude, but face it: these patients lived well. The poet included this very shot in her slide show. Now, these cabins might not be my Okinawa bungalow, but they aren't exactly 8'-by-10' cells. They had electricity, were well-fed, and had their laundry done by Chinese immigrants. And the location was even up to Atobe clan standards. Penikese, as you can see from this enlargeable map, is located among the Elizabeth Islands, halfway between the seacoast and Martha's Vineyard; Penikese is the little one just to the just above and in-between the bottom two. Yep, the colony was on real estate nicer than the late Ted Kennedy's pad; heck, he probably yachted by the spot time and again. And they were ably cared for; our Lord Jesus healed lepers and showed them care and compassion, but liberals aren't satisfied until they live among us like they didn't even have a contagious disease. The book would've been nice if the poems read were any indication, but the pity lust really irked me a bit too much, and so I, Atobe, kept my wallet closed at selling time, but riffraff interested may purchase the volume here.

Also disappointing were poems read by the same author on Suzanne Valadon, a promiscuous fool who did Impressionism, and a guitarist who somehow connected a melody to the future trial of your last President George W. Bush for war crimes. As per the American idiom, Are you serious? These people are under the impression that Bush is motivated by something besides the progressive liberal dream that, one way or another, the entire world will enter succumb to the easy consumerism and unjust perpetual peace that is Western liberalism. To make myself clear to less educated ears: Americans often giggle, and with good cause, when people die in a human stampede in Muslim countries. Trust me, in fifty years, they'll still be stampeding, but not because disorder broke out during a procession or some such. Oh no, they'll be stampeding, just like us, in an effort to snag the best Black Friday deals at Wal-Mart Baghdad (trust me, they'll be celebrating corporate Christmas sooner or later, just my own pagans back in Japan). Such will be the triumph of democracy.

But I, Atobe, return to my point. These cultural (and political) Marxists deserved a due reproach, and they received one. Since anything this veteran rightist says himself would be seen by these leftistas as mere boilerplate, I, Atobe, penned a mischievous poem to be read by a mutual friend of Leslie and myself. A ginger given to pulling at her curls, we put her up to reading this brusque masterpiece.

Curling up to Marx

A girl with curls [thread fingers through hair] thought this to herself:
"Why is it not straight?"
She asked her friend the same question:
"Why is it not straight?"
"I think it's naturally curly."
"Oh, nonsense!" she said, and stormed off,
fingering her curls straight, just like so, anticipating their compliance.
This girl, as it happened, later curled up to Karl Marx.

Immortal, is it not? But it actually won laughter and cheer from the attending ex-hippies; either they have a sense of humor, or they were too burned out to notice the poetic prank. Give that to your utopian why don't you? Poor people and their delusions...

Next week I, Atobe, shall condescend to be kinder to mt brother Christians of lesser means. Yes, folks, expect an Atobe-centric Christmas giving guide next Friday, just in time to miss the potentially deadly Black Friday crowd!

Be awed at the sight of my prowess!

Last week was quite wonderful, and I expect no less from this one. My meditations have frequently wandered to the loss of A Certain Hope, however. So please enjoy, before I read it at Friday's poetry event, an allegorical poem specially written for this time of the New England year,

Sonnet CXLVIII Asking for the Snow

The autumn night suggests more than herself.
When black, or merely gray below the rain,
I hope and hope the promise of a swain
Rests on Ouranos' bosom: Winter's sheaf,
Crisp silks for clothing mucklands, marvelous,
Hauled live by sky, a man's back's Christmas tree.
I pray to God, expect my ask to see
This bedlayn ossuary may just pass.

The oily night's skin slips on over blue.
Her darkness drapes the lonesome, pupile moon.
Trees bristle, for the night shall not end soon.
Eyelashes flutter, darkness in them too.
The bent horizon might, with less surprise,
Be nothing but the closing of my eyes.

When they campaigned against your victorious candidate with this, you know you're in for a good four years...

...and when they called Senator-elect Pat Toomey one of these, you know you'd have to be nuts not to like him.


You find me still in an enviable abyss... or should I say a Neo Angelique Abyss? That recommendable shojo anime I have lately begun encapsulates, at any rate, my thankfulness in its aptly-named opening theme, "Joy to the World". While the cute Angelique, seen here with ribbons, derives pleasure from the company of the anime's plenitude of handsome males, I express my gratitude for Tuesday's nationwide Republican victories. However little I (and I think most other conservatives) have come to expect from the Grand Old Party, this electoral rebuke of President Obama and his agenda is certainly more welcome than a further endorsement. And what a rebuke it was! As I write this, it seems the total Republican gains in the House of Representatives shall number 64, making this the biggest Republican year since the 1930s. The strident naysayers, of course, attribute the mood of the electorate to pocketbook issues. Even if this is partially true, I am not such a snide pessimist. Midterm reversals are common, and I doubt this Democratic defeat would have been such a rout were it not for the innumerable indignant citizens who only now long-facedly realize the consequences of their ballot but two years back. And the economy? Many voters finally realized that our economic woes are as much the fault of big government Republicans as the Democratic socialists, as they demonstrated in the several primary upsets that booted incumbent candidates of both parties.

Conclusion? Be vigilant, o ye Christian Americans; if we hold John Boehner and his merry men to their promises, and especially their pledge not to fund Obamacare, maybe things won't get any worse for a few more congresses. And whatever the limitations of the two-party system, promising, genuine conservatives--I'm thinking especially of Senator-elect Rand Paul--have made it to Washington: this is an opportunity to supplant the Manhattanite neoconservatives that nearly ruined the Republican party not too long ago. For one good sign, Ron and Rand are planning to introduce legislation to end the Federal Reserve on the latter's first day in office! A symbolic move, but certainly better than the successful stunts perpetrated by some of those who've been booted--at least the second half, for instance, of McCain-Feingold is now out for good.

Moreover, while Atobe called a few races wrong, and Sharron Angle, Dino Rossi, Bill Brady, and apparently Joe Miller were rejected in favor of crooked incumbents (I would bet Campus Cash that an Illinois recount EXCLUDING those no longer among the living, and inner city votes surreptitiously purchased by ACORN, would place Brady above Governor Quinn), the wins can count are no small joy. I was afraid I'd have to swallow our optimism about Maine's Paul LePage, but in Right-wing equivalent of the Chilean presidential election of 1970, the good man won with 38% to the leftist Independent's 36% and the Democrat's 20%. He's got a lot on his plate, but expect LePage to keep hounding the President for his hellishly bad policies. And Pat Toomey? I was starting to think long-standing dreams never come true, but heck, he won too. On the congressional side, which Atobe didn't have time to discuss, we are certainly joyed to see Lou Barletta, the infamous anti-illegal immigration activist from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, is finally in the House on his third try. Frank Guinta, the Tea Party-backed Assumption grad, also won his race in New Hampshire.

Lastly, while Massachusetts did not elect a single statewide official or congressman from the Republican party, the Mass G.O.P. scored an important win no one's talking about. And I'm not talking Question 1 (repeal the surtax on liquor), though it shall certainly make the average student's weekend life much cheaper. As MassResistance reports, Republicans doubled their representation in the General Court's House of Representatives, and 12-14 of the new Republicans are rock-solid social conservatives. Still, the expected in-excess of 30 members are a minor stumbling block for the Democratic supermajority in the 160-member body, so even becoming an effective opposition block remains something of a pipe dream...

Oh, and since she's so darn cute in her Gothic lolita dress, here's another shot of Neo Angelique Abyss's Angelique.

Election Pre-Gaming: Part II

Feeling like the king that is Atobe. When fair Aurora's fingers next grace the Eastern seaboard, Americans will be voting, and not a moment too soon. Or too early: games of tennis not only, but of racquetball too have kept Yours Truly from the completion of his evaluations. I, Atobe, am in high spirits, and not the least because I expect tomorrow's vote will balance off the bad news from Brazil. A cosmopolitan (whereas my friend Leslie is wary of the word), I, Atobe, am much affected by the victory of former leftist guerrilla Dilma Rousseuf in that country's presidential election. Those poor Brazilians! Theirs is the largest Catholic nation on earth, and yet the faithful must suffer under an ideological successor to da Silva (and things would have been still worse, saith the Wall Street Journal, were it not for the growing influence of evangelical Protestants). Three bishops critical of Rousseuf even received death threats. The Brazilian Left apparently has its act together. Tomorrow, however, you Americans have the opportunity to stall, even turn back if G.O.P. rhetoric is to be believed, the encroachment of socialism and atheism. As promised I, Atobe, have furnished some brief remarks about candidates who give me hope.

This fresh Senate class may be something extraordinary. 2004 was a pick-up year for the Right; that we have the prospect of winning still more seats is a happy sign of the times. And moreover, most of the Republican nominees are not, as one might expect, liberals vying for the votes of the bad, but pro-family conservatives wholly at odds with the ObamaNation. Take Pat Toomey, that good Catholic of Pennsylvania, here shown beside a trigger happy Sarah Palin. "My idea of gun control," the source has her saying, "is good aim." He's basically been the Candidate-In-Waiting since he lost a primary against Arlen Specter six years before. He's in a tight race against Democrat Joe Sestak (whose win over the traitorous Specter did make me happy in its time), but I have hopes that he shall be the Keystone State's next Rick Santorum. (By the way, my Americanos, learnèd though I, Atobe, am, the knowledge of what this "keystone" image is has escaped me. When I, Atobe, asked Crusader88, he said, "Well, I always just called it the Pennsylvania Shape"). Not all the fine candidates, though, were hanging on the rack waiting for use. For the best of the contenders, we surely have the Tea Party to thank. But lest we forget, we have ONE PERSON to whom we owe more thanks than anyone, even any organization, for this fine crop: again, Sarah Palin. This Christian woman, bête noire extraordinaire of the Left, and feminist though she is, whom neither Leslie nor I, Atobe, would choose as President, has found a great niche endorsing anti-establishment conservatives. As you may read on this helpful map by the Washington Post, Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller, and Sharron Angle all enjoyed her support in the run-up to their close primaries (she also aided Carly Fiorina, whom I, Atobe, am not enthused about, but California could certainly have done worse). Yes, her penchant for giving Republican women a boost seems to have had salutary results. As Leslie said, O'Donnell is so great that, even if she loses (as looks likely, though she isn't as far behind as she was a few days ago), the G.O.P. did a noble feat in opting for her over Mike Castle. (A hint to latter-day witch hunters: If rather than hounding the misspeaking Catholic O'Donnell, you scoured my co-blogger's hometown, you would fine many who are guilty as charged). Joe Miller, a wonderful Christian pro-lifer, is in a race that's wholly up for grabs after the Alaska mayhem, so I, Atobe, wish him luck in replacing pro-choice moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski. The Alaska race was really the test of Palin's mettle: she'd spoken condescendingly of the Murkowski family's entrenched influence in Going Rogue, but to actually endorse Lisa's little-known foe in a primary was something!

And Sharron Angle! That woman had better win. The lovable fanatic--you need fanatics like her in your Senate--has already spent nearly $19,000,000 on her drive to unseat the Majority Leader Reid, most of it mine. Investments aside, Angle advocates eliminating the Department of Education and IRS, doubts man-made global warming, endorses militias, doesn't believe your First Amendment separates Church and State, and is a model against which even I, Atobe, must be weighed! Gasp! If she wins, and it looks like she just might, the entire election cycle will have been worth it. Bravo, Mrs. Angle.

Rand Paul, lastly, has his race good as won, so it's been hard to keep up the excitement due to the son of Ron Paul about to become a senator in Washington. Meanwhile, exemplary conservative Ken Buck has also got his Senate race against Colorado's Democrat Bennet to just a tiny lead without Palin's assistance, though the kindly woman has endorsed the aforementioned Tom Tancredo at the last second. And need I, Atobe, tell you anything about Dino Rossi? The poor man! He lost his last two statewide races in Washington; should he loose a third time, commend him for his strength if he doesn't leave this life Horace Greeley style! And against such an unworthy Catholic in name only! Good Kami-sama! Atobe hopes that YOU, America, will indeed vote your way out of your Obama's mess. To any remaining electoral indifferentists who don't think your vote matters, remember: you'll be voting for years after you die, so you might as well get involved in the democratic process pre mortem. (Post mortem voting is rather less common in Japan, which is odd since the voters are often interred much closer to the polls).

Be awed at the sight of my prowess!