f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

Although shunning overt politics today, I’m going to try to pen an entire posting sans

the letter of the alphabet that follows “v” (and then look ahead to a similar Inauguration

Day come January ’05).  

                                                                                                                                                                        

• 
  
  My baseball-loving, parent-poet-teacher friend from Rochester, NY, Tom Painting,
  
  
  has a pair of haiku that fit this artifice:                                                                                      

 

bases loaded

a full moon clears

the right field fence

 

 

the toddler

runs to third base

first

 

from the haiku chapbook piano practice

(Bottle Rocket Press, 2004)

 

by dagosan: 

first night at her place –

three-dog gal

no-dog guy

                                       [Oct. 26, 2004]

 

 

 

one-breath pundit  

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  Be very glad that your city is not hosting this nasty district attorney race 

  
  

  (Albany [NY] Times Union, Oct. 26, 2004); and see DA race getting nastier;

  
  

  Hearing held on candidates’ complaints.

  
  

   

• 
  
   Florida Bar please take note:  “Ditch the Bitch” lawyer ad upheld in UK.–
  

  unlikey to encourage more divorce, and unlikely to offend target audience of

  
  

  “men frequenting public houses in the City of London.” (Thanks Mr. Olson)

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  Sleeper-berth seatbelt violation?  See May it Please the Court (and see seat-belt haiku)
  
  
• 
  
  Is linking by big-name bloggers a negative externality?  Read Prof. Grace. (no guilt here)
  
  
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  Bravo to the federal 3rd Circuit appeals court for fining Janice Haagensen $45K for

  
  

  bringing frivolous appeals.  (law.com, Oct. 26, 2004; via LegalReader)).  It was a civil

  
  

  case but reminds me of a question I’ve often had:  Does an indigent defendant have

  
  

  the right to a frivolous appeal?  It sure looks like it in practice.

• 
  
  Here’s one for my TISK! page: f/k/a is result #2 in a Google Search for
  
  
  vacation on continuing legal education courses>.  (Don’t tell Carolyn)
  
  
• 
  
  Jim Moore pointed to this Passion of the Present post on Darfur Genocide Humor.

does this count?    get sticker here

one-breath pundit  

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  At Legal Underground, today, you can meet an extraplanetary observer from Og who’s trying to figure out

  
  

  what makes American lawyers tick
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    did Evan put his classics education to work, choosing the Planet Og? 
    
    
    OG is the Latin abbreviation for Omnes Gentes (“All the Peoples”); or
    
    
    is the allusion to the Biblical, long-necked giant, Og?  On the other hand,
    
    
    OG also stands for original gum and Original Gangsta. 
  
  

  
  

                                                                                                                                                                       

  
  
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  Speaking of bibles, Prof. Bainbridge clucks and wonders how John Kerry will explain his positions

  
  

  on various stem cell issues to St. Peter.   We’ll leave what makes a good Catholic to other commentators. 

  
  

  But, we think St. Peter might have questions for religous “fundamentalists”: 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Why do you think that only the religion that you were born into or have chosen has all

  
  

  the answers?  Can’t we distinguish “faith” in a relationship with God from adherence to

  
  

  church-made dogma?

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Can a religion that excommunicated those who said the world was round and revolved

  
  

  around the sun be a good judge of the appropriateness of scientific research?

  
  

   

  
  

  Do you guys think you were given wonderous, curious, creative brains and a world

  
  

  filled with problems, so that you could find all the answers in one ancient book that’s

  
  

  filled with gossip, ambiguous metaphors, war crimes and ethnic hatred?

• 
  
  
  

  Ernie is seeking good taglines for Windows, in response to Apple’s “Think Different”. Mr. Svenson suggests:   “I’ll just do it the hard way.”  We offer: “Think Difficult” and “Don’t think, just update.”
  
  
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  Curious about any developments in Cat Stevens’ deportation case, I pulled up two articles that mention him: 

  
  

  
  

  – One from YellowTimes says “Yusuf’s Islam should be showcased, not shunned“

  
  

  – The other by immigration lawyer Alan Lee gives the Bush Administration poor

  
  

  marks on immigration policy and execution, and notes that “As of September 30,

  
  

  2003, the number of pending cases at the U.S.C.I.S. stood at a record 6 million plus.”

  
  

   

  
  

    I’ve been thinking that the best part for me about Yusuf Islam landing in the news is

  
  

  my digging out old Cat Stevens’ albums.  However, the worse part is that some of his tunes

  
  

  are so darn catchy, I can’t keep them out of my head and I’m singing them everywhere (to

  
  

  the chagrin of many, who are surely taking their various lord’s names in vain.)

 

    Now it’s time for some quiet haiku from our Honored Guest/Friend paul m.:

 

migrating whales
all our footprints
wash away

 

spring rain

the measured step

of a sandhill crane

 

canyon echo

sky-colored asters

among the rocks

 

 

credits: “migrating whales” – The Heron’s Nest, Feb., 2003, Readers’ and Editors’ Choice — Poem of the Year  [2002]

        “spring rain” and “canyon echo” – The Heron’s Nest, Feb. 2002, Readers’ Choice Popular Poet Award, Runner-Up

For half a century, it wasn’t only the horses racing to the finish line in Saratoga Springs, NY,

the trendy “summer place to be.”  Tourists enjoying the city’s main park often discovered

too late that no public restrooms were available there. 

 

  The Albany Times Union reported yesterday, however, that “Public facilities are

due to open before the summer tourist season in a $180,000 project at Congress Park. ”  (Oct. 24,

2004, Restroom plan offers relief to Spa City visitors).   While cheered by many, the project has,

naturally, raised the “potty parity” issue, which ethicalEsq discussed last year.                                                                                               

 

University of Chicago law professor Mary Anne Case, creator of the Toilet Survey, has been

studying the issue for years, and explains that separate facilities are not always equal, as equal

square footage does not produce equality.  Thus, she says:  

“What are you equalizing: excreting opportunities, or are you equalizing waiting time?

I’m not being frivolous when I say these are important questions to debate.”

                                                                                                                                                                    

 

As the home of liberal Skidmore College, and proud of both its traditions and its progressiveness, I’m

counting on Saratoga Springs to help clarify, and maybe solve, many of these issues.

• 
  
  
  

  Finding a public toilet was apparently a frequent problem for travelling haiku poets in

  
  

  19th Centry Japan.  Master Issa addresses such issues frequently, see here and here,

  
  

  often bringing humor to the topic.  For example: 

mountain village–
a temporary toilet
in blossom shade

 

where piss dribbles,
dribbles down…
irises

 

get ready to see
my piss waterfall!
croaking frog

 

Issa,translated by David G. Lanoue

 

   Cute Caleb Lemley doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of restrooms in Congress Park.  

(original photo by Times Union photographer Cindy Schultz, Oct. 24, 2004, no longer available at the site)

• You know, Caleb is almost as cute as Denise‘s Little Baggage Tyler:    “Tyler swinger”

 

• 
  
  by dagosan: 

toilet seat up –

bedroom

suddenly chilly

                                       [Oct. 25, 2004]

No, not more lupine or aquiline presidential campaign ads, but more haiku from our Canadian friend,

DeVar Dahl:

 

 

 

car dealership

the tuneless whistle

of a salesman

 

 

a silent magpie

flies across the valley —

leafless willows

from “something to sing about”, pawEprint 58 (March 2003)

credits: Haiku Canada Newsletter

 

• 
  
  by dagosan:  

late October —

tv on

sound off

                                                     [Oct. 24, 2004]

 

• 
  
  Maureen Dowd cooks everyone’s goose skewering the antics and ads of our presidential candidates.  (silly geese are everywhere!)
  
  
• 
  
  Although his opponent has campaigned strongly for tort reform, Barack Obama has still failed to explain
  
  
  his position on the issue.  Lord knows, we’ve tried to pry it out of him — here, here, there, and even there.  I’m disappointed and have to wonder if it has something to do with trial lawyer contributions, or the hope thereof, in the homestate of Madison County’s “judicial hellhole.”
  
  
• 
  
  As mentioned on this page this weekend, I can’t wait for the election to be a fait accompli.

• 
  
  Has anyone else noticed that Blawg Republic‘s new format of “most linked” weblawgs is far less useful than its original hourly update of postings?  Now, the page is virtually unchanged for hours at a time, AND it shows items that are many days old (without even giving the date).  Couldn’t they at least show the newest posts from a subset of their directory — maybe the top 30 or 40 weblawgs?  Better yet, let’s urge them to return to the original format.
  
  
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  Prof. Steve Bainbridge can be a mensch:  He posted yesterday: “In his post Catholic Ireland, secular Ireland, William Sjostorm offers a thoughtful and detailed response to my post Running the World on Faith. I’m persuaded that I stand corrected. Well done.”

I’m always a little skeptical when politicians talk about their children.  . . .

But, some of my favorite haiku feature the poet’s kids. 

 

Matt Morden is a great example:

 

 

summer’s end –
my children try to teach me
how to smile

 

 

winter sickness
my daughter tucks me in
for the first time

 

 

 

an old resume
my son colours in
his rainbow

 

 

  credits: “summer’s end” – The Hornet’s Nest  (Jan. 2003)

“winter sickness” – The Heron’s Nest, Valentine Award (July 2003)

“an old resume” – Snapshots #7 2000; World Haiku 

 

• 
  
  by dagosan: 

just one glass of wine –

Google keeps asking

“did you mean ______ ?”

 

                           [Oct. 23, 2004]

 

another stray dog

finds

her

          [for e, Oct. 23, 2004]

one-breath pundit  

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  In a thoughtful post, the Uncivil Litigator says he’s still undecided.
  
  
• 
  
  Athough she sure doesn’t trust Bar Counsel, Carolyn Elefant wants to let solo 
  

  practitioners read weblogs for CLE.  Call us skeptical about honest compliance.
  
  
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  Inconsistent Brits?  Although writing new laws to ban inciting religious

  
  

  hatred, 17th Century anti-blasphemy laws remain on the books, which

  
  

  penalize anyone who challenges the truth of  Christian doctrine or the Bible.

  
  

   (IndyStar.com, scroll to last item)

  
  

   
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  
  

  Interesting NYT Op-ed today (free reg. req’d):

  
  

  – Nicholas Kristof on God and Sex (NYT, free reg.)

  
  

  – Vaccine shortage priorities: liars, and Congress, and bears, oh my! [but, Europeans have enough]

  
  

  – David Brooks asks “why are we still tied?” and concludes

  
  

  
  

  “It just so happens that America is evenly divided about what sort of leader we need: the Republican who leads with his soul or the Democrat who leads with his judgment. Even the events of the past four years have not altered that disagreement.”

• 
  
  
  

    Longing to get away from presidential politics?  How about joining the COMPLETE 

  
  

  project — a collaboration among researchers in five countries aimed at fully mapping nearly

  
  

  1,000 square lights years of star-forming material in the Milky Way galaxy.  [Let’s see,

  
  

  5,880,000,000,000,000 square miles.  Do they have tv election ads out there?] 

 

A little reality check for my fellow Democrats:  If we fail to win the Presidency, it will largely be because the leadership of our Party:

• 
  
  did the politically expedient thing and gave the then-popular President blanket authorization to start a war against Iraq
  
  
• 
  
  did the politically expedient thing and failed to point out early how disorganized our efforts were in Iraq after the swift “military victory”
  
  
• 
  
  did the politically expedient thing and started attacking the war when John Dean’s anti-war rhetoric was popular
  
  
• 
  
  did the politically expedient thing and sought “anybody but Dean” because they feared Dean’s approach to politics and/or thought he would surely lose the presidency if nominated
  
  
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  did the politically expedient thing and backed off on the anti-war talk as soon as the Kerry folk feared the swing voters would be turned off
  
  
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   etc., etc.

  My point:  If Democrat leadership had voted and acted wisely and courageously on issues relating to the Iraq war, we would almost surely be closer to victory right now (and the nation and world a safer, better place).  Therefore, I’m hoping the Party (even those politicians for whom honesty does not come naturally), will learn the lesson that doing the right thing can be good politics, and feels better, too.

 

I’m sure that I’m not the only member of the electorate who would rather vote enthusiastically for an honest politician who almost wins, than reluctantly for a cowardly, evasive, or shifty politician who almost wins.  [Nov. 2 better come quickly — “pithy poetry not prolix politics” is supposed to be our motto!]

 

speaking truth
the rainy season’s crack
of thunder

 

in poor soil
blooming courageously…
chrysanthemum

Issa,translated by David G. Lanoue

 

 

p.s.  Please note that the Editor , David Giacalone, is solely responsible for all

commentary or opinion that appears in the postings on this weblog.   The haiku

poets who generously appear here as Honored Guests do not necessarily — or even

presumptively — concur.

 

p.p.s. Post-election update post is here.

 

“bombfuse”

 

update (April 29, 2006): The folks at True Majority have started a campaign to

bombard Democratic Leaders with the demand that they Not Be Fooled Again

and that they stand up against the Bush Administration’s plans and arguments

for bombing Iran over its future nuclear weapons.   Their Petition to Democratic

Leaders says:

Please, use all the influence you’ve got to convince Democrats to

find sufficient backbone to withstand any and all pressure from the

President or anyone else to go to war with Iran.

We wish would could agree that it was a lack of backbone and a problem

of believing bad information that got Democrats to vote to authorize the

Iraq War.  It surely was the fear of losing votes from a public that appeared

to support the then very popular President.   If Democrats do the “right thing”

now, it will surely be because voters are sick of war and its costs, and the

President is unpopular.  I’d still prefer integrity to political expediency, but at

least politics should help prevent bombing and war this time, rather than

promote it.

FYI: you can find the sticker here

   The Fool in the Forest is no silly goose, but he wonders just “What is up with Senator Kerry and geese?”

(see NYT)   For some reason, this has inspired haikuEsq and friends to engage in a little foolishness. 

 

Master Issa:  [for more geese haiku from Issa,translated by David G. Lanoue, click here;]

 

big bridge–
the hunter is followed
by a goose

 

the departing goose
drops an enormous
crap

 

scrawny goose–
no partner flies north
with you

And, dagosan:

“Entering Goose Creek”

the candidate

covers his behind

 

 

behind the bush –

bishops

goose-stepping

 

 

goose

bumps – –

UCL switches to Bush                

 

[Oct. 22, 2004]

 

 

 

honking at my window —

geese above

cabbie below

                        [Sept. 19, 2004]

 

 

down in front!

geese upstage the hawk’s

cameo

                                  [dag, 06-05-04]

 

More seriously, Anna Holley, from her White Crow Haiku (online at AHA! Poetry) . . . .  

 

 

autumn here early
over a ridge of hills
geese-shaped clouds

 

geese gone
one white feather
settles on a reed