Old Bird Has Old Pinions

It may come as a shock to some, but Burt Prelutsky still has opinions:

According to my wife, I have a tendency to state my opinion as fact. She suggests that I begin my sentences by saying “It’s only my opinion, but…” and go on from there. It’s my opinion, however, that people already understand that it’s my opinion and that they share it if they’re smart, or don’t, if they’re not.

Oh Burt, she doesn't mean you should literally do that, she means "Shut up and stop embarrassing me while we're in the prescription line-up." It's a hint. Take it.

In any case, in the spirit of compromise, let us pretend that each of the following paragraphs begins “It’s only my opinion, but…”

A deft set-up, surely taking the place of "My mind wanders." There follows wandering:

When Gloria Steinem [...] finally got married

Here I have truncated a joke you may have seen on a late night talk show nine years ago.

these Somali punks

Yes, yes, those punks. Moving on, Burt encounters the wonders of the internets:

About a month ago, I looked up George Soros at Wikipedia and read about his helping the Nazis confiscate the property of his fellow Hungarian Jews when he was a teenager. At the same time and place, I read that in response to a Steve Croft question on “60 Minutes,” Soros claimed that he had never regretted doing it or felt any shame or remorse afterwards because, as he explained, if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. The other day, I re-visited the site and the entire episode had vanished. There still remained the mention of his having been convicted by a French court of insider trading. I am now wondering if billionaire Soros will make certain that it, too, disappears.

Burt can find the reasoning here if he likes. What I wonder about, apart from the lack of charity to a 13-year-old Jew who hid in plain sight from Nazis doing something odious, is if "billionaire Soros" is throwing money at Wikipedia editors HOW DO I GET PAID?

As much as I disapprove of Obama’s policies, what I truly find distasteful is the way he travels around the world apologizing for America, even to the likes of Hugo Chavez and the Castros. He bows to King Abdullah, cozies up to Ahmadinejad and tells the French — the French! — that America is arrogant.

Right! He should be apologizing to them for being leftist Muslim terrorist-loving anti-American Obama!

When, by the way, do we stop apologizing for slavery?

In your case never, just because.

And lest we forget, it was the Arabs and their fellow blacks who rounded them up for the slave traders in the first place. Which makes it sadly ironic that so many American blacks, including Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, assumed Arabic names.

Note. Following on though, I agree that that first name change 45 years ago remains chilling to the bone, and the second name change 38 years ago still makes me check my deadbolt when I wake up at night screaming.

Finally, one of the only places, aside from Communist nations, the Middle East and Thailand, where slavery still endures is in Africa!

Kudos to Burt, I suppose, for not noticing that massage parlours exist.

Finally, it occurs to me that perhaps I’ve been wrong in opposing same-sex marriages.

Of course this sentence is the start of some other cranky rambling, but I am inclined to give Burt a pat on the head in this case, as what follows is not quite as horribly insulting as past go-rounds. Baby steps, ya big baby.