Bullish On Gold Poem by gershon hepner

It’s harder to worship the unseen
than images believers have constructed;
imagination only is a queen,
and views of kings are never unobstructed.
When Israelites on Moses bearish hastened,
to make an image, bullish then on gold,
self-righteous people soon became complacent,
praised by the pundits by whom they’d been polled.


Martin Peretz writes about the riots in the Muslim world after Michael Isikoff’s discredited report in Newsweek that US personnel had flushed copies of the Quran down toilets in Guantanamo Bay (“Consequences, ” TNR, May 30,2005) .

Just because “the Muslim street” reacts is not proof that anything has happened. Like Isikoff, the raging crowds in the streets did not read any Pentagon document. But sometimes it is easier to believe what one has not seen….All of Newsweek’s penitential protestations notwithstanding, what emerges from this episode is the image of a profession that is complacent, self-righteous, and hopelessly in love with itself….They are—I mean Isikoff and his editors—simply scavengers.


5/25/05