Monday, January 25, 2016

The Most Dangerous Game

If there is one person

in whom the general public
would feel comfortable trusting

to make an app

that first person who came to mind

would probably not
be Donald Rumsfeld

though luckily

it has nothing to do
with reviving the relics
of the Bush administration

and is just a game
called Churchill's Solitaire

which was not explicitly
created by him

but was created
with Rumsfeld's input

by developers Snapdragon Studios
and media agency Javelin.

However Rumsfeld
does call it "diabolical"

in his article
at Medium.com
describing the game's inspiration

from a meeting with André de Staercke
in 1973

a Belgian government aide

who the Nazis
during World War II
had forced into exile

and who later became
the secretary

of the forever inimitable Churchill

who had demonstrated to him
a more "demanding and complex"

version of solitaire
played with two decks

and 10 rows of cards.

The rest of the world wishes
that Donald had only realized

his programming potential
years ago

rather than pursuing
unknown unknowns.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.