{"id":3625,"date":"2005-02-17T14:32:23","date_gmt":"2005-02-17T18:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2005\/02\/17\/dandelion-ghosts\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:57:58","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:57:58","slug":"dandelion-ghosts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2005\/02\/17\/dandelion-ghosts\/","title":{"rendered":"dandelion ghosts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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no wind today —
the cottonwoods
speak in chickadee<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV><\/FONT>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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long winter–<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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prayer bundles sway<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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in the cedars<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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breezy afternoon–
dandelion ghosts
float past the daisies<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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“snowflakeSN”  <\/FONT>Billie Wilson<\/STRONG><\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT>from The Heron’s Nest<\/FONT><\/A> – a haikai journal<\/FONT><\/EM><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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“<\/FONT>no wind today<\/FONT><\/A>” (special mention, Valentine’s Issues, Feb. 2005)<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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“<\/FONT>long winter<\/FONT><\/A>“;  “<\/FONT>breezy afternoon<\/FONT><\/A>“<\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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by <\/FONT><\/FONT>dagosan<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A><\/FONT>:<\/FONT><\/EM><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/FONT>  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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travel plans<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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penciled in —<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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winter’s asterisk *<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV><\/DIV><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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\"snowFlakeSN\"  <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/EM><\/FONT><\/SPAN>potluck<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A><\/EM><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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\"\"  I just learned today that <\/FONT>Sen. Barack Obama<\/FONT><\/A> was among the 18 Democrats voting  <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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for the Class Action Reform Act last week.  All 26 opposing senators were Democrats. <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/SPAN>Obama appears to have adopted the popular (with me too) anti-coupon position, but <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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maybe also the Madison County-bashing. According to the Kansas City Star<\/EM> (Feb. 10, 2005):<\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/SPAN><\/SPAN>Barack Obama, D-Ill., said in a statement afterward that he had voted for the <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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bill even though he is “a strong believer” in class-action lawsuits.”When multimillion-<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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dollar settlements are handed down and all the victims get are coupons for a free <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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product, justice is not being served,” he said. “And when cases are tried in counties <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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only because it’s known that those judges will award big payoffs, you get quick <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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settlements without ever finding out who’s right and who’s wrong.”<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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Of course, f\/k\/a is <\/FONT><\/FONT>still waiting<\/FONT><\/A> for<\/FONT> a fuller explanation of Obama’s Tort Reform position.<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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\"tiny I can’t understand why it would be shocking to learn that some companies are firing <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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employees for things they have posted at their weblogs concerning the company.  (See CNN\/Money<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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 <\/FONT>article<\/FONT><\/A>)  Would we be shocked that an employee was canned for putting nasty remarks about a <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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supervisor, or proprietary information, on a roadside billboard?  If the electronic communication <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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device in question were a telephone, wouldn’t you want to know the facts before getting huffy?  <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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People get so myopic when they think their ox is being gored.<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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\"graph A year ago this week, we talked about misleading “hit” counts on weblogs (see <\/FONT><\/FONT>here<\/FONT><\/A>, <\/FONT><\/SPAN>here<\/FONT><\/A>).<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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I finally got a <\/FONT>Site Meter<\/FONT><\/A> two weeks ago and have compared the Daily Hits numbers from my <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Harvard weblog server over a 24-hour period with the Site Meter results.  On one<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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representative day, I found that Site Meter Page Hits were 5.9% of the Harvard Hits, and <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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on another they were 4.7% of the Harvard Hits.  <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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\"tiny   Where do they get these slogans?  New York City wants to trademark a new    <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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tourism slogan “Th<\/FONT>e World’s Second Home<\/FONT><\/A>” — which is only going to remind folks of<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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the line about it being a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.    In general, I <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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think telling people your self-proclaimed status is not very effective.  If they want the home<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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theme, why not “New York City — Make Yourself at Home” or “We’ll Make You Feel at <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Home”?  On the other hand, who travels to feel at home?<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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\"tiny All kidding aside, for a moment, Steve Bainbridge has some very good questions  \"fedupski\"<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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for his fellow conservatives on private Social Security accounts<\/A>.  Check his TrackBacks and<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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decide whether their answers are persuasive.<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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“tinyredcheck”  Speaking of weblog persuasion, Lisa Stone<\/A> at Legal Blog Watch quotes a couple<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Law.com luminaries who seem riled by the MSM-weblog-what’s-journalism? debate.   Prof. Eugune<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Volokh thinks<\/A> the analogy of webloggers to lynch mobs is very weak.  <\/FONT><\/SPAN>And J. Craig Williams wonders<\/A> <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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“After all, if you have a legal question, who would you rather hear<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/SPAN>the answer from? A newspaper <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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reporter who asked a lawyer? Or from a lawyer who’s also a highly respected law professor?”  While<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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I agree that some weblogs are journalism (but many don’t even try to be), I also believe that:<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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(1) Webloggers have the ability to create giant “opinion bubbles” that are based on weak or<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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misunderstood facts, yet have persuasive or coercive force that is totally unconnected to reason, <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/SPAN>logic, virtue, or facts.   The “lynch mob” effect is fueled very often by such anger and vile — and<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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ideologically-based agendas — that the target can be easily overwhelmed and left without <\/FONT><\/SPAN>allies. <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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(e.g<\/EM>., the <\/FONT><\/FONT>Durango Cookie Case<\/FONT><\/A>, where<\/FONT> the girls were flooded with gifts and tv invitations <\/FONT><\/SPAN>and <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Mrs.Young ended up flooded with hate mail and phone calls, and death threats, before she <\/FONT><\/SPAN>had <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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any chance to get her facts out.)<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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(2) I know of no source more likely to give a skewed response on an issue than a law professor <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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who’s already stated an opinion publically on the issue in question.   There are some legal <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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journalistswho do a darn good job at figuring out the law without asking a lawyer or a law <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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professor.<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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(3) Too many folks with weblogs have a hard time understanding that their opinion is not <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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necessarily truth and comes filtered through their own ideological and experiential perspectives<\/FONT>.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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I know this last blurb violates yesterday’s pledge to keep things short, but Lisa made me do it.  \"noYabutsS\"<\/FONT><\/DIV><\/SPAN><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

no wind today —the cottonwoodsspeak in chickadee     long winter– prayer bundles sway in the cedars         breezy afternoon–dandelion ghostsfloat past the daisies     “snowflakeSN”  Billie Wilson from The Heron’s Nest – a haikai journal “no wind today” (special mention, Valentine’s Issues, Feb. 2005) “long winter“;  “breezy afternoon“     by dagosan:   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-Wt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13363,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions\/13363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}