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

 

sixty floors
above the sidewalk
carpenter ants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nude beach

the occasional beep

of a metal detector

 

 

 

 

 

                        

     “red hots!”

for an instant i’m ten

           and

  father’s still alive

 

 

 

Ed Markowski

“sixty floors”  Simply Haiku (Dec. 2003)

 

 

 

from dagosan                                               

 

picnickers fleeing 

a slate-gray sky —

lilacs aglow

                        [May 3, 2005]

 

 

“YYS”  Yesterday, in a post positing that the Jennifer Wilbanks situation may be less like 

the “runaway bride” and more like Sleeping With the Enemy. Conglomerate‘s co-editor,

Marquette Law Prof. Christine Hurt confided: “I’ve come to believe that crazy women

are made, not born.”  Similarly, in When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,  George Carlin

says that “men are stupid and women are crazy, but women are crazy because men are stupid.” 

I agree with Carlin and Hurt on the general principle.  However, Ms. Wilbanks almost certainly

proves Carlin’s corollary that nature-genes- hormones can also play an important role in female

insanity.   Prof. Hurt concludes: 

“Maybe we should create a bride protection program, similar to

witness protection.”  

Mandatory psychiatric treatment (and maybe a lie detector test) should be part of any

such program. 

 Yesterday, Hurt’s co-blawger, Wisc. Law Prof. Gordon Smith,

hosted Blawg Review #4 at the Law & Entrepeneurship Blog.  As

grateful as I am that Gordon linked to my Not Lawyers Day post,

I must disclose that he originally referred to Abnu as a former

“alter boy” — a condition that may indeed relate to Abnu’s post

on “benefit of clergy.”  (While Martin Grace was taking a break from 

posting, your Editor served as proofreader for yet another professor.) 

 

 

“tinyredcheck”  Add my name to the list of commentators across the political spectrum– including

Mike Cernovich, Prof. Bainbridge, Christina Hoff Sommers — who believe that many

college administrations must be getting severe hernias and slipped discs from bending

over backwards to appear politically correct.   Far too often , they appear to (1) have no

common sense; (2) have no sense of humor; and (3) have no idea how discriminatory

and arbitrary their positions appear out here in the real world.  The latest example is the

flap in R.I. at Roger Williams University over the dueling gender Monologues.   Are there

any grownups on campus these days?  (NRO, “V-Day Meets P-Day on Campus,” May 2,

2005)

 

  Consumer Complaint Corner: CitiBank Credit recently purchased the Sears

credit division, and sent cardholders notices promising “More great benefits.” 

Well, the first batch of those benefits were disclosed this week in a “Notice of Change

of Terms.”  The changes include (1) an increase in the annual interest rate from 11.58%

to 17.33%;  (2) a new late payment fee ($39 for account balances over $50 — even for

being one day late); and (3) higher minimum due requirements each month.  It has been

an eye-opener, over the past few years, discovering how impossible it is to get decent 

credit card terms (like I had in my pre-CFS, working days) since exiting the middle class.

• 
  
  
  

  By the way, class actions and class acts aside, some

  
  

  transactions should always be in cash.

 

  Will the Flordia Bar ever stop making fools of itself over advertising rules?  As if

pit bull battles weren’t enough, going after ice cream cones, and the phrase “expect more from 

your law firm,” leaves them with more egg on their faces.  See Legal Underground and Gerry

Riskin’s Amazing Firms.  I agree with Gerry that:

“[A] firm that publicly commits to serving its clients better and repeatedly

communicates that message internally to its own staff will raise its own

standards of service considerably and thus create competitive advantage.”

 

 

                                                                                                    – ’round here, ev’ry week is “icecreamweek”

 

 

You can team up with the FTC to help the mothers in your life become

safer consumers. This Federal Trade Commission press release (May 2,

2005) says it all:

 

She’s Already a Great Mom – Now Help Her Be a

Confident Consumer

 

This year, instead of giving your mother something she doesn’t need

for Mother’s Day, you can give her something she can really use. A

new Mother’s Day e-card that’s sent with love from you and FTC.gov

will let moms know how to keep their personal information secure.

The musical e-cards, available in English and Spanish at www.ftc.gov/mom

and www.ftc.gov/madre, thank moms for all they’ve done to keep us

safe and secure and remind them to:

• Safeguard their Social Security number;
  
• Read their bills and bank statements;
  
• Exercise doubt and check out offers that come via phone or e-mail;
  
• Report fraud to the FTC.

 

click to see Mama G. with her hands full

in 1950 (your Editor is clueless on the right).

 

 

mother dog
testing the depth…
snow-melt river

 

my dead mother–
every time I see the ocean
every time…

 

 

 

 

holding it over
his mother…
the parasol

 

 

the sold pony
looks back at mother…
autumn rain

 

 

 

Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue  

sisters bent over
the heating vent
adult talk below

each stroke of his crayon
his tongue
across his lips

neon light flickers
on a crumpled beer can —
yellow jacket at the hole

“schoolBrooks” Randy Brooks, from School’s Out (Press Here, 1999)

• by dagosan

 

 

 

temper tantrum
at the mall —
parking lot saplings bloom

 

[May 2, 2005]

potluck

  I hate to be cynical, but I don’t think there’s any chance that the American

public — or their courageous leaders — will go along with lowering speed limits

to 55 mph in order to save billions of gallons of oil a year. See NYT, “Unmentioned

Energy Fix: A 55 M.P.H. Speed Limit,” May 1, 2005) (Interesting fact: “driving at 10 miles

an hour above the 65 miles-per-hour limit increases fuel consumption by 15 percent.”)

 

“The American Jury: We the People in Action” is the theme for Law Day 2005, which

falls on May 1st, but will be celebrated on May 2nd in many locations.  There will be no more

cynical stuff from me on the topic of Law Day for this year (unless extremely provoked).  As

Alexis de Tocqueville reminded us in his Democracy in America:

The jury, which is the most energetic means of making the people rule,

is also the most efficacious means of teaching it how to rule well… The jury …

may be regarded as a … public school, ever open, in which every juror learns

his rights.

If you haven’t celebrated Law Day yet with your kids (or your office mates), I suggest one of

the following activities:

  taking the ABA’s Law Day true-false quiz on juries and discussing the  

answers (advance preparation highly recommended);

  

 printing out the Michigan Bar Association’s Law Day official Coloring Contest 

picture — with jury, lawyer, judge and witness, plus a few questions — and sharing  

a fun learning experience; 

  discussing one or more of the MBA’s Law Day “Should” Questions about juries,

each of which has a link to a related U.S. Supreme Court Case;

 

  choose from the ABA’s Law Day 2005 Lessons  and brainstorm:

• K-6: Choosing an Impartial Jury
  
• 7-9: What Juries Should Hear and See
  
• 10-12: Juries: Cornerstone of Democracy
  
• Extra: Jury Resources

experiencing the jury selection process, with the Voir Dire Simulation by

Julie Van Camp.

 

The ABA’s Law Day theme page got it right about juries:

“The jury is the embodiment of democracy. We entrust juries—small

bodies of ordinary men and women—with decisions that involve the

liberties and property of defendants. In doing so, we confirm our faith

in the ability of people to make just and wise decisions, and that is the

very definition of democracy. We also see the jury system as an opportunity

to educate Americans in law, legal processes, and decision-making in a

democracy.”

 

In First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea (Oxford Press, 2005), Prof. Paul

Woodruff makes clear that no system of government is truly a democracy, if it does

not believe in the wisdom of its public to listen to and debate issues, and then make wise

decisions.  He asks some hard questions about whether we’re educating the American

public in a way that will ensure a citizenry that is informed and capable of such civic

wisdom.  That’s another good subject for Law Day. 

 

 

 

spring breeze–
the clay doll
gets some color

 

 

 

hands clapping
mother teaches her child
the dance

 

 

 

 

 

 

for the painted faced
maiden too…
spring dusk

 

Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue  

 

• 
  
  by dagosan                                               

she shows off her   

May Day drawing —

every pink crayon a nub

[May 1, 2005]   “crayonboxV”

 

Ken Standard, the President of the New York State Bar Association, stressed

judicial independence in his Law Day remarks on April 29th:

“At every opportunity, our bar association has sought to educate,

pointing out how essential is judicial independence to the effective

 functioning of not just our judicial system, but our society, too.

“Of our judges, we ask for consistent, evenhanded and impartial

application of the law to all cases that come before them… We ask

judges to maintain a delicate balance of decisional independence,

discretion, self-restraint and accountability.

“We ask the executive branch and lawmakers to refrain from and

reject proposals that would cut or freeze judiciary budgets or salaries.

We ask those who nominate, appoint or approve judges to select only

the competent, the diligent, the even-tempered and fair minded.

 “Mayday!” Mayday!”  Does anyone still use this international distress signal? It’s    

hard to believe that France used to be the source for terminology used around

the world (m’aidez!).   If radiotelephone terminology were derived from current

American English, what would the distress call be?  “Yo!” “Yo!” Expletive Included.

 

 

   In his NYT column today (May 1, 2005), Nicholas Kristoff wonders if we Baby

Boomer swill go down in history as The Greediest Generation.  Kristoff worries that self-

centered Boomers will use their political clout to demand more resources for themselves,

creating “fiscal child abuse” (a term borrowed from Laurence Kotlikoff, who, with Scott

Burns, wrote The Coming Generational Storm):

“In coming years, we’ll hear appeals for better nursing homes, for more

Alzheimer’s research and for more wheelchair-accessible office buildings,

and those are good causes. But remember that American children are almost

twice as likely as the elderly to live in poverty, and that you get much more

bang for the buck vaccinating a child than paying for open-heart surgery.

 

. . . Our top domestic priorities should be to ensure that all children get health

care and to get our fiscal house in order.”

 

tagging along

with an ice cream cone

the senior partner

 

                    Barry George, J.D.

 

 

custody hearing

seeing his arms cross

i uncross mine

 

                          by Roberta Beary, Esq.

                                 from A New Resonance 2