On a slow summer afternoon, the f/k/a Gang is often in a “year ago today” kind of mood — having learned long agao that rummaging in our archives can be a cheap, easy way to fill up a weblog posting. It’s been extra-sleepy around here all day, and with the evening approaching and nothing prepared to post, we’ve quickly checked out what was happening at f/k/a on the 13th of August in other years. We hope you’ll enjoy our reminiscence.
In 2008, as in 2007, August 12th and 13th bring the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Click here for some great photos from 2007. And check your skies tonight for a heavenly show.
long after
the fireworks
a shooting star…. by George Swede from Almost Unseen
trail dust settles—
a shooting star bobs
over a spider’s turret… by Michael Dylan Welch – from Thornewood Poems
August 13, 2007 — Was a Monday, and we were praising “inspired solo” Sheryl Sisk Shelin for presenting Blawg Review #121 without the artifice of an awkward theme. See our post “having no inspiration can be inspiring.”
On a substantive note, we wrote about Our Uninspired Health Care System:, with a discussion of a New York Times editorial “World’s Best Medical Care?” (Aug. 12, 2007). We opined that it was easy to agree with NYT that:
With health care emerging as a major issue in the presidential campaign and in Congress, it will be important to get beyond empty boasts that this country has “the best health care system in the world” and turn instead to fixing its very real defects. The main goal should be to reduce the huge number of uninsured, who are a major reason for our poor standing globally. . . . The world’s most powerful economy should be able to provide a health care system that really is the best.
The New York Times has coincidentally published another eye-opening piece about the American health care system today. In “Health Benefits Inspire Rush to Marry, or Divorce” (Aug. 13, 2008, by Kevin Sack), we learn that “it is not uncommon for couples to marry, or even to divorce, at least partly so one spouse can obtain or maintain health coverage.” For example:
“In a poll conducted this spring by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research group, 7 percent of adults said someone in their household had married in the past year to gain access to insurance. The foundation cautions that the number should not be taken literally, but rather as an intriguing indicator that some Americans ‘are making major life decisions on the basis of health care concerns’.”
I’ve got to say it again: I’m ashamed to live in such a such a wealthy nation, which constantly lectures other peoples about “human rights,” but whose people are apparently too greedy and selfish — or its leaders too much in the sway of powerful lobbies and bogus ideologies — to grant every American the basic right to universal health care. The number of lives that have been lost, families that have been bankrupted, and decisions (from careers to marriages) that have been skewed, because we lack universal health care coverage is shameful. [For more on how our (non-)system of medical care compares to those in other industrialized democracies, see our prior post “please watch and discuss ‘Sick Around the World’” (April 16, 2008).]
For haiku inspiration, a year ago today, we posted the following poems that were selected for the Shiki Haikusphere 10th Anniversary Anthology (2007) (full cover image)
Valentine’s Day –
pulling a thorn
from my palmblue heron
all paddles
at rest
melting snow
headlines of war
fall apart
…………….. by Yu Chang
he’s gone
and gone too
the hydrangea
early spring walk
the roughness of the scarf
that was mother’sfirst cold night
my fingers snug
in mother’s old gloves
…………… by Roberta Beary
disinfectant jar –
there must be 14 or 15
barber’s combsclouding sky
my finger
on the bear trackbroken tennis racket –
my aging father says
he won’t replace it………………………… by Michael Dylan Welch
Two more from Yu Chang from Upstate Dim Sum 2007/I 
just in time
to pick blueberries
August evening
lingering heat
the pale color
of green beans
August 13, 2005 — We posted “first kisses and brain freezes“, which was a quickie, featuring the following haiku and senryu:
first kiss
deep in the woods
sunbeams filter down… by Randy Brooks from School’s Out (Press Here, 1999)
lemon-ice stand –
the lawyer-dad looks for
a Brain Freeze Warning… by dagosan
August 13, 2004 – Was a “rainy Friday the 13th” and found the f/k/a Gang with eyes closed, in a virtual hammock, listening to the delightful Rumpole Rests His Case (2002), narrated by Tony Britton. We opened our collective eyes long enough to share a handful of one-breath poems:
rain stopped
her silk blouse
on the chair
.. by paul m., from A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices (Jim Kacian, Dee Evetts, eds., Red Moon Press, 2001); orig. pub.: Modern Haiku XXIV:2
the far edge
of the sea is lost
misty rain
…. by jim kacian, from Chincoteagu (Red Moon Press, 2000) 
sudden lightning–
the street mime
claps… by michael dylan welch, from snow on the water: The Red Moon Anthology 1998 (Jim Kacian, et al, Eds.).
baker’s dozen of
bagels — we eschew
triskaidekaphobia
the garbage bag lands –
squirrel and I
startle eachother… by dagosan
August 13, 2006 — We were in the midst of a posting hiatus — and probably spent the day on a comfy futon, parked in front of a fan or two. Hmmm. Sounds like a great idea. See you in our dreams.