The Age of Reason

The Age of Reason is a deist book.
Through reasoned thought we learn. Reject reveal.
Though not the first among elites, it shook.
Its vulgar language brought a wide appeal.

The world was made by God. He had no doubt.
But, contradictions in the Bible show,
Was writ by men who were themselves devout,
And not from God or Moses did it flow.

The French ignored, and Britain banned the text.
The States' embrace of deist creed was short.
The style of prose itself: contempt and vexed.
To print the book enough to land in court.

Though Thomas Paine was scorned for his essay,
The Age of Reason: printed yet today.

Stonewall Riots

Before that day in June they lived in fear.
The State Department, FBI would track,
A law-abiding man for being queer,
Without concern they one day might fight back.

New York: a midnight raid at Stonewall Inn.
Outside: too proud to slink, the crowd egged on.
Instead of going home, revolt begin.
Their chants and kick lines faced police baton.

From Greenwich Village, news of outrage spread.
Inspired union cross the country form.
No longer secret groups, their shame was shed.
A nation's culture, all pursued reform.

Parades today, from riots then, remain,
As equal rights for all we still campaign.

White Dwarf

A shock! Our stellar knowledge is undone?
A star, while dim, was white. Both small and hot?
A contradiction: mass much like our Sun,
All crammed into the size of Earth, a dot.

When fuel is spent, the outer shell will sprawl.
The core of carbon and atomic eight,
Becomes a stable dwarf if mass is small;
A supernova burst if mass is great.

With fusion stopped, it won't produce compounds.
The spectrum of their light assessed informs,
The lighter gasses of the star surrounds.
While slowly cooling, cubic crystal forms.

Forever darker: black the final stage.
None now exist: too young the proton's age.

Acid2

Called Acid2, a website test would check,
Exposing flaws a browser may conceal,
By testing all the features' newest tech.
A garbled image: errors thus reveal.

Cascading style sheets to frame a face,
And object eyes with alpha layers shade,
And padding, margins, borders, rightly place.
The nose glows blue: on cursor hover stayed.

Safari was the first to pass the test.
A year passed: Opera and Mozilla next.
In two more years, last March, it joined the rest,
Explorer 8, at last, passed all the checks.

Each mainstream browsers now with all complies,
"To Acid3," the web consortium cries!

Kit (association football)

A kit for football players is a set:
A shirt, some shorts, two socks, a shinpad, shoes,
And other gear that does not pose a threat,
Are all the clothes that are approved to use.

In eighteen sixty, England's football teams,
Designed a shirt with stripes to note each side.
Adopted local schools' known color schemes,
As football clubs became the workers' pride.

The knickerbocker pants gave way to shorts.
Adidas shoes with screwthreads on the cleat.
A sponsor's logo financed modern sports,
As one team may against the world compete.

While millions play the sport around the Earth,
The kit endures, from humble Blackburn birth.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Revolt in France led many learned Brit,
Debate the rights demanded of their king.
A meager education would submit,
A woman's life to old tradition's cling.

Inspired by Hume, that rights should be conferred,
By reason, not antique ideas of role.
That bound by senses ever is absurd.
To man: companion, not decor, their goal.

Response by Mary Wollstonecraft to Burke,
Used voice both honest and abstract in scope.
Though not content, desired revise her work,
She passed away, yet left her daughter hope.

A call to men to break their sisters' chain,
Once knowledge gained, their rights would be the same.

Operation Passage to Freedom

Japan withdrew from northern Vietnam,
And France soon tried to retake their control.
But, Minh and Communists declared new nom.
The north is red. And fear would take it's toll.

Geneva conference was held to split.
Elections planned for all Vietnamese.
To cross the border north and south permit,
Not one or ten: a million chose to flee.

The propaganda writ by Lansdale spread,
Moved Catholics to travel south by swarms.
Dissent among the native Buddhists bled,
The unity. Mistrust of all deforms.

Instead of seeing one new country soar,
Divide endured, and both sides fell to war.

Hurricane Ismael

September Nineteen Ninety-Five: the sky,
Turned Dark. A storm grew west of Mexico.
Depression winds would slowly turn their eye,
And eighty mile per hour winds would blow.

The storm was thought to hold: no warning made.
A flash! Then, waves of thirty feet were braved,
As Ismael turned north on boats that stayed.
Prayed fifty-two, and thirty-two were saved.

Just east of Baja California struck.
Ten thousand homes destroyed, though few were killed.
No water, power. Floods left folks in muck.
And thirty thousand homeless to rebuild.

While Mexico despite the storm survives,
One hundred sixteen people lost their lives.

Learned Hand

Young Billings Learned Hand was born upstate,
in Albany New York. A name renowned.
His father passed, so law became his fate.
To meet the man's success young Hand was bound.

He made few friends at Harvard learning law.
Regretful, anxious man: an ego small.
He met his bride, and though his heart did thaw,
His one true love was work. Restraint in all.

A judge in south New York. He found his fight.
Appellate Court, and then Supreme his aim.
His politics enraged both left and right.
A speech in Central Park brought lifelong fame.

A brilliant mind in times that needed care,
to balance liberty in law's cold glare.

SkyTrain

In nineteen eighty-five, the Skytrain tram:
An undertaking of enormous pride,
An answer to the city's traffic jam,
Commitment to the future one can't hide.

The blue and yellow lines run west to east.
The Expo was the first to be complete,
A marvel to behold, great speed unleashed.
A straight shot, Waterfront to King George Street.

Millennium was built two thousand two.
It follows Expo to a point halfway,
Then dives to darkness, silent, tunnels through,
To New Westminster, Brentwood, links Broadway.

The future holds extensions west and south,
To UBC and to the river's mouth.