Lionel Deimel’s Web Log

I was shocked! Shocked! When I received my copy of the December 29, 2025 & January 5, 2026 issue of The New Yorker  (see illustration). ...

NPR, which has been interviewing Democrats about the future of their party, featured Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen today on Morning Edi...

I do a fair amount of cooking and lots of baking. Naturally, I have built up a repertoire of useful kitchen skills. I do make mistakes, howe...

The Trump administration has claimed that its cuts to the federal government are eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. If this is true, where...

Never in modern times has one political party been so philosophically monolithic as is today’s Republican Party. Never in modern times has a...

Pharmaceutical commercials on television are required to list possible, often scary (or even deadly), side effects. (Not every conceivable s...

Hamas may indeed be forced to accept the “peace” plan presented by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu today. It is a one-sided plan in Isra...

I don’t use ordinary #2 pencils very often. I probably use them most often for marking walls when hanging pictures. For ordinary writing, I ...

 I do not approve of political assassinations (or any other kind of assassinations, for that matter.) I mourn for Charlie Kirk’s family, but...

Labor Day weekend A time for Trump to rid us Of public unions. I added the above haiku to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago yesterday. You can read a...

President Trump wants to hold on to power through unconventional, mid-decade gerrymandering. An alternative strategy (and perhaps an even mo...

My latest poem celebrates my Howard Miller wall clock purchased many years ago. (See photo below.) Howard Miller has produced many beautifu...

Is CBS, in pandering to the tender sensibilities of President Trump to gain administration approval of the merger of its owner Paramount wit...

Last night, at Open Mic Night at Sulfur Books, I read my poem “ Summer Pleasures .” That poem evokes various experiences of my childhood in ...

What if, on December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt had gone before Congress and asked for an increased military budget to build more weapons ...

In June, the Texas legislature passed a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public elementary and secondary school cl...

The Supreme Court has become the “No-Surprise Supreme Court.” The justices take cases seemingly adjudicated rationally and definitely in low...

I often read poetry in public, usually my own, but sometimes the poetry of others. In particular, I have been reading poetry at Sulfur Books...

Many of us are concerned about the future of our country and worry that the grand experiment that is the United States of America may be com...

I’ve been looking through the stack of papers on my desk. On a church bulletin insert, I found the beginning of a poem I scribbled down duri...