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

We’ve long asserted around here, along with 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney and grump-expert Jon Winokur, that:

“Curmudgeons are idealists at heart.“

Scott Greenfield is one of my favorite fellow curmdugeons.  He makes a good case this Thanksgiving morning at his Simple Justice weblog that it is more important than ever in this season of economic distress that those able to do so give generously to charities, but “Give Wisely.”  A little curmudgeonly skepticism is needed when we choose our charities this year.  That means:

• “Given that charities may well die this year from lack of donations, it is critical that you know that your contributions are being put to the use that you intend, to help the cause the charity purports to represent.  This may require a little digging, perhaps spending a few minutes to check out CharityWatch.org, the website of the American Institute of Philanthropy, to see what percentage of donations actually make it to the cause.  However, many smaller or local charities are not included, so you may have to do the legwork yourself.”  And,
• “The mission of a charity may well be important and worthwhile, but it has to be viewed in relation to the irreparable harm that will result should the charity fail to fulfill its mission.  This year, it means that people will die for lack of food, shelter, medical care, warm clothing and other necessities of survival.  Not to denigrate many other worthy purposes, but imminent death trumps a lot of good causes.”  Therefore,
• “No matter how important other causes may be, and they are important, this is a year for charitable triage.”

Please open your hearts and your checkbooks, but please do it with your eyes wide open — do it with the idealistic cunning of a skeptical curmudgeon.

We already said sentimental stuff wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving yesterday.  All there is to do today, then, is offer a few haiku appetizers as a prelude to your feast of gratitude with your loved ones.

Thanksgiving
without him
three-quarter moon

… w.f. owen – Haiku Notebook (Lulu Press, 2007)

laid off
she asks the mall santa to
bring dad a job

snow
the beggar’s
bare hands

.. by Ed Markowski

in the glow
of the red maple
autumn’s end

…… by Roberta Beary (1st Place tie [Kigo], Shiki Kukai, Nov. 2008)

wet snow
another year weighs
on the century oak

….. by tom painting  (3rd place [Kigo], Shiki Kukai, Nov. 2008)

home for Thanksgiving —
my old bed
in the guest room

mom makes
grandma’s holiday soup –
steam and tears

… by dagosan

First snow
the white mounds of coal
beside the closed station

.. by Rebecca Lilly –  from A New Resonance 2 (2001); Brussels Sprout 9:3

cutting the moon cake
just like my mother
Mid Autumn Festival

……………………. Yu Chang from Upstate Dim Sum

p.s. Looking for a little inspiration and nudge toward Thanksgiving gratitude?  See our post about Morrie Schwartz (of Tuesdays with Morrie fame), “self-pity: the opposite of Thanksgiving“.  I

On the other hand, if you need a curmudgeonly smile, check out and maybe even print out the amusing “Thanksgiving Guest Liability and Indemnification Agreement,” prepared by The Center for Consumer Freedom, who say “Don’t Let Lawyers Sue The Stuffing Out Of You This Thanksgiving” (Nov. 16, 2007; via Stephanie at Idealawg).

The f/k/a Gang wishes a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday to all of our readers (regular, occasional, or inadvertent).   May your travels — across country or across town — be APAP (as pleasant as possible) and your feasting divine. Don’t forget to nurture an attitude of gratitude for all the good things in your life — and even for the trials that help make us better people.  And, guys, don’t forget to offer early and often to help with preparations and clean up.

men washing dishes – 
an early alarm ends
her Thanksgiving dream

Just in case conversation grinds to a halt around your dining table — and the Baby Boomer Raconteur in your family can’t remember the name of that movie he liked so much — here are a few topics that should liven things up and unloose a few tongues:

• Should obese people who take up two airplane seats have to pay double the fare? This is a great question for Uncle Vito, between mouthfuls, while he’s reaching for that third helping of pumpkin pie.  As CBC reported last week, the Canadian “Top court backs free seat ruling for some disabled, obese travellers” (Nov. 20, 2008).  By rejecting an appeal by two airlines from a Canadian Transportation Agency ruling,

“The court’s decision means airlines must offer a “one person, one fare” policy . . . for people who are clinically obese and take up more than one seat.

Walter and Ted have been covering this topic for years at Overlawyered.com, and they can give you lots of tips for baiting the soft-hearted liberals in the family.  Meanwhile, you’ll find lots of tart, tasty zingers over at Simple Justice, where Scott Greenfield says “Obesity is Not a Crime, But Is It a Disability?” (Nov. 22, 2008).  Scott believes “this is a problem, both for the airline and the rest of us.” And he argues:

“No one suggests that obese people be prosecuted for being so fat, or spilling over into the next person’s airline seat.  

On the other hand, there is no rational basis to place the burden on society to make accommodations for the obese.  Are you prepared to be bumped from your flight because an obese person showed up at the airport with a ticket?”

In a similar vein, Prof. Ann Althouse offers more food for thought:

“If you get a free extra seat now, won’t people be clamoring to be considered one of the truly obese? Does some government agency certify that you are fat to the point of disability and thus entitled to accommodation?”

• What the heck’s a Sex Offender? This one should wake up a few in-laws.  In an illuminating piece at his Once Fallen website, Derek Logue presents his stand-up routine called, “You Might Be a Sex-Offender, If. . . “, a compilation of real cases that have branded defendants as sex offenders for crimes that simply do not rise to that level.  Such as:
  • You might be a sex offender if… you ever paid for a prostitute in New York
  • You might be a sex offender if… you use a stolen credit card to hire a stripper in New York
  • You might be a sex offender if… You had sex with a teenager while you were a teen yourself

There are many more on Derek’s list.  The P.S.A.P. weblog aptly adds: “As a result of [a] deep and legitimate concern, however, our collection of sex offender laws have become draconian and self-defeating. They’ve become Draconian because they have been extended to cover “crimes”  that either should not be crimes in the first place or, even if they merit prohibition, the perps are by no means “sex offenders” (in any way outside of the ridiculously broad statutory definition).”

Before we brand them with a scarlet letter that restricts where they can live, hurts their job prospects and embarrasses them, P.S.A.P. rightly notes we need to stop and consider that:

“If we truly want the designation to have any shaming power, we must restrict its use to those offenses that are actually offensive.”

• We’re Clueless on Civics (present company excluded, of course): G.W. U. law professor Jonathan Turley reported earlier this week that “Elected Officials Score Lower on Civics Tests Than Average Citizens (Who Score Lower than Basic Condiments)” (Nov. 23, 2008; and see the full report from AFP) via Simple Justice, which opines that we’re “Getting the Government We Deserve” ).  It’s a little dispiriting, but it presents all kinds of opportunities for one-ups-manship at the Thanksgiving table.  You can find the Civics Quiz here (from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute), and cherry pick the questions that stumped the most people, college graduates, and elected officials. How will your extended family do compared to:
  • the average American, who scored 49%
  • college-educated, who averaged 55%
  • elected officials, who averaged 44%

Prof. Turley notes that “Some 20 percent of elected officials believe that the electoral college as established to ‘supervise the first televised presidential debates’.”  But, offers a little solace: “our English cousins appear equally ill-informed on history.”

update (Dec. 1, 2008): Conversationalist Carl Strock of the Schenectady Gazette made “Flunking civics” his Thanksgiving column, and we’re grateful Carl snuck it into the free part of the Gazette‘s website.  Carl muses, “Today being Thanksgiving, let us give thanks that we live in a country as open as ours, where anyone can aspire to be president, whether he knows which branch of government the president belongs to or not.”

• Finally, to make Mama G. happy, I’ll point you to “Keeping Thanksgiving Conversation Pleasant,” from ksl.com in Salt Lake City.

Below you will find a bunch of Thanksgiving senryu and haiku, which (along with the one near the top of this post) I wrote a year ago and would have forgotten about, if not for Mr. Google refreshing my recollection.

afterwords (Nov. 29, 2008):  Yes, these are a little late for Thanksgiving, but they should come handy throughout the Holiday Season left.

• Tips for dealing with your Republican relatives from Jen Sorensen in this week’s Slowpoke cartoon.
• Mediator Victoria Pynchon’s “Tips for Negotiating Conversations at the Thanksgiving Table” (Settle It Now weblog, Nov. 21, 2008)

Thanksgiving rush –
not as late
as that flock of geese

wintry mix – 
a seatbelt protects each
Thanksgiving pie

bowed over
turkey and stuffing —
fewer, grayer heads

a third helping
of Thanksgiving politics
I bite my tongue

thanksgiving snow
gone too soon to make
that snow Buddha

… by dagosan –   from Magnapoets Japanese Form (November 20, 2007)

Finally, as we always say around here:  

Last May, I fretted that my friend, the lawyer-poet Roberta Beary, often sends me links to articles about unhappy and depressed lawyers (and sleep deficits, too). Such referrals often make me worry a bit about my image. Similarly, my weblog buddy Stephanie West Allen of Idealawg apparently thinks about me whenever she reads or writes about deteriorating Baby Boomer Brains, which she calls neuroboomeritis.  That association probably started when I wrote the post “peridementia and the aging knowledge worker” in June 2005. But, it could be based on the garbled messages she occasionally gets from me (at times when my friend Laurie Hyde Smith says I’m writing/typing in Martian, due to fatigue).

Or, Stephanie might have just been reading my foggy mind, when she emailed me yesterday about her latest posting on the subject — “Worrying about your brain sliding into cognitive decline?: Here are ways to sharpen your lawyer brain” (Idealawg, Nov. 10, 2008).  Did she know (or notice at this weblog), for instance, that lately I keep typing words totally different from the one I meant to write?  They’re not typos but Brainos. My fingers and brain produce misplaced, irrelevant words — usually starting with the same letter as the word I intended.  Because spell-check doesn’t catch them, and I’m a lousy proofreader, this is perilous behavior for someone who writes and posts in public.

Stephanie is far more optimistic than I that we can do much to delay Boomer Braino Syndrome, much less reverse the declining cognitive skills that come with the aging process.  She especially believes that physical and mental exercises can help. See, e.g., her post on “Improving your lawyer brain and mind” (October 18, 2008), and last January’s report on a new Brain Gym in San Franciso, called vibrantBrains™.  Luckily, at least one of my f/k/a Gang persona is optimistic enough to keep hoping for a cure.  So, we were pleased to learn from Stephanie’s October piece that new research suggests “exercise keeps brains from deteriorating,” with the researchers concluding:

“We can safely argue that an active lifestyle with moderate amounts of aerobic activity will likely improve cognitive and brain function, and reverse the neural decay frequently observed in older adults.”

Yesterday’s post at Idealawg continues that theme:

“So what keeps some brains younger than their chronology? Experts point to a prescription of neurobics. This concept includes life-long learning, trying new things, a healthy diet, social interactions, sleep and physical activity. ‘Exercise can actually increase neurogenesis and increase the size of the hippocampus,’ says Dr. [Vincent] Fortanasce, … . ‘Exercise also increases youth hormones. And novelty, doing new things, builds branches.'”

Let’s hope they’re right and Boomers get the message and act on it.  On the other hand, younger readers better not get too complacent.   This morning, I found the following blurb in Harvard Magazine‘s latest The College Pump column (“Oddments,” Nov-Dec. 2008):

Warnings: Affixed to the door of the office of professor of economics Andrei Shleifer on the second floor of Littauer Center is a news clipping headlined “Brain aging found to start at 40.” The piece reports on the work of Bruce Yankner, professor of pathology and neurology at Harvard Medical School, who is investigating how human brains change between ages 26 and 106. “If you are more than 40 years old,” it reads, “the news may not be good.”

By the way, whether you’re concerned or thrilled that “During the past few decades, a mounting body of evidence has shown that animals possess a number of cognitive traits once thought to be uniquely human,” you might find the article “What Makes the Human Mind?” (Harvard Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 2008) interesting.  It explores the work of professor of psychology, organismic and evolutionary biology, and biological anthropology Marc Hauser, who has written widely on human and animal cognition. Hauser has attempted to isolate the aspects of human thought that account for what he terms “humaniqueness.”  There’s some good discussion, with this summary of “the distinguishing characteristics of human thought” — four broad capacities animals do not appear to have:

“These include: the ability to combine and recombine different types of knowledge and information in order to gain new understanding; the ability to apply the solution for one problem to a new and different situation; the ability to create and easily understand symbolic representation of computation and sensory input; and the ability to detach modes of thought from raw sensory and perceptual input.”

“Across the board, Hauser says, there are signs that animal evolution passed along some capabilities ‘and then something dramatic happened, a huge leap that enabled humans to break away. Once symbolic representation happened, if the combinatorial capacity was there, things just took off. Precisely how and when this happened, we may never know’.”

Okay, enough punditry.  It’s time for some poetry. My friend John Stevenson turned 60 last month, but appears to have all his mental faculties intact — perhaps because of all that kayaking and hiking, plus acting, writing, etc., he does.  Here are a few haiku from the latest issue of Upstate Dim Sum (2008/II), which appear to speak of journeys and passages.

free of details
the full moon
from a train window

seated between us
the imaginary
middle passenger

Shoo Fly Pie
a place where I always stop
when I’m out this way

looking both ways
I find
the sun

I tighten the belt
to my son’s car
Father’s Day

[Frogpond, Volume 31:3 (Fall 2008)]

after the play
my grown son tells me
I was good

. . . by John Stevenson – Upstate Dim Sum (2008/II)

p.s. Dr. Fortanasce recommends “novelty, doing new things” to build new cognitive branches.  John’s been doing just that, writing “one-breath” poems that don’t even seem like haiku or senryu to some of us old fogeys.  Here are two for your consideration:

still committed to the truth
but so tired of
winter poems

dust devil on a dead planet

…. by John Stevenon
“still committed” – Frogpond Vol. 31:2; UDS 2008/II [Ed. Note: a rare double-tell-em]
“dust devil” – Roadrunner (Vol. 8:3)