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

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
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
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    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?

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  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.

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  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”

 

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  by dagosan: 

toilet seat up –

bedroom

suddenly chilly

                                       [Oct. 25, 2004]