The Occasional Regret

Sometimes technology gets in the way,
There are ghosts in the machine, it seems
Or perhaps gremlins are the proper genus of the species
For when, in your haste to wish your interlocutor
Simple encouragements and the best of luck,
Your typed message got garbled by the darned computer
Transformed into choice obscenity before you could react
And now you wish that the whole interaction was something you could retract
Flush with mounting embarrassment
  And awkwardness that you're unable to deflect
All that is left is to bemoan it:
  The occasional regret of auto-correct

...

Sometimes when you're confronted with a choice,
You decide to take the easy way out
Unwilling, as you are, to listen to other voices
Or even entertain a scintilla of a doubt
You find yourself beefing up and promoting a patent scoundrel
Marshaling fraudulent arguments on the basis that he's a lesser evil
And now, without shame, he's hellbent on crudely screwing the pooch
The bodies are piled up high,
Unmitigated disasters while he cheerfully loots
  The uncouth rascal,
The hatchet jobs write themselves for even middling pundits
But now you have to stay silent as you were well and truly complicit
Call it buyer's remorse:
  The occasional regret of claiming to know what's best

...

Sometimes you decide to invade a smaller country
Might makes right and it will serve all your cronies
Fictitious claims, weapons of mass destruction
Vague but imminent threats and human rights violations
Ignoring, in your rush, all evidence to the contrary
Riding roughshod over any attempts at diplomacy
Wars of choice never lead to mission accomplished
After this catastrophic war on the wrong target, you are fully tarnished
Beyond the blood and lost valor,
  Your nation now entirely lacks credibility
Hell, even Putin can rightly accuse you of being part of an axis of hypocrisy
While badging his aggrandizing crimes with the same patina of manifest destiny
Oops, a cautionary tale:
  The occasional regret of the self-righteous mindset

Sometimes, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Sometimes by Bilal
• Sometimes by Erykah Badu
• Sometimes by Brand New Heavies
• Sometimes I Cry by Les McCann
• Sometimes (Mix #9) by Erykah Badu
• Sometimes I Cry by Eric Benet
• Sometimes by Mint Condition

See also Regret, a playlist

See previously: The Writing's on the Wall and Regret is all

File under: humour, life, technology, culture, observation, hatchet job, rogues, failure, politics, war, Iraq, USA, Bush, England, media, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, humour, poetry, toli

Writing log. June 4, 2022