arrived in yesterday’s mail, along with Christmas cards (and alumni donation appeals).
The book is a reminder that haikuing, like weblogging, has brought me a feeling of shared
community that is real and valued, despite not having met any of the people involved
face-to-face. Neither the haijin, nor the webloggers, would be in my life if I had
not started a weblog.
because it contains my very first published haiku (just one). For others, it should be
special because it holds one haiku each by 206 members of HSA, from 39 US states, 11
nations, and four continents.
Here are three haiku from Honored Guests of f/k/a, which have not yet
appeared at this website:
the art museum
shimmers on the river
winter sunset
from Haiku Harvest, Jan. 2003
flower illiterate
I wander the garden
wordless
snowmelt
he changes into play clothes
after school
silently
she lures me to the kitchen
peeled tangerine
from Walking the Same Path
wind chill zero —
outside the high school
not one jacket zipped
[Dec. 18, 2004]
one-breath pundit
the O’Reilly Factor, where the host “refined” the topic from “Is dissent disloyal?” to
“Can an American want the United States to lose the war in Iraq and still be patriotic?”
Lessig received many hate-filled, threatening email messages after the show and wonders
what it all means.
straight, on Charlie Brennan’s Talk Radio Show yesterday afternoon, concerning tort reform,
hellholes and other kinds of holes.
Faith-Based Cheerleading: Unless they’re cute and in short skirts, I have little use for cheerleaders. Steve Bainbridge doesn’t exactly fit those criteria, so it is a bit annoying when he brags that the blogosphere beat the mainstream media to the cellphones-on airplanes-story — pointing to Ideoblog‘s Dec. 16th posting. Even if he doesn’t count the coverage from tv station WAFF, posted on Dec. 9th, maybe Steve will concede that the New York Times article that went online a full week before Ideoblog’s coverage, and appearerd in the Dec. 10, 2004 edition, counts as MainStream Media. (By the way, Larry Ribstein’s Ideoblog piece links to a Dec. 15 Washington Post article) Of course, when assertions are faith-based, facts never get in the way.
“Sunshine Hillygus, assistant professor of government at Harvard, added that while grassroots mobilization deserved mention, the critical story of the election was Iraq. Hillygus, appointed “academic curmudgeon” by moderator and HLS Professor Heather Gerkin, noted several disturbing effects of the Internet on the democratic process. It’s making it easier to avoid politics for those disinterested, she said; its proliferation of one-sided information is polarizing politics, and it has pressured traditional news media to produce faster, more scandal-driven, less researched news”.
“What is to be done? The goal has to be to keep pushing the Internet effect toward the mainstream. By
“Internet effect,” I mean the expressive individuality and variety, the adventure and sheer pleasure we all
feel in this space. I mean: the Emersonian self-reliance, the little bit of courage that “stand-alone journalism” requires, the richness of voices on the Web, and the Web standard of “authenticity” that trumps “credentials” and institutional attachments. As the authority and the economic base of institutional journalism keep eroding, we gain by persisting and believing in what we’re doing.”
A Little Nanny Good News: A Financial Times editorial points out “we can at least celebrate progress in one regard. Previously only women lost office over nannies. Now men do too. Messrs Blunkett and Kerik may take comfort in knowing their loss advances the cause of gender equality.”
In his NYT op/ed piece The Chestnuts of Christmas, Charles Passy. tells why “we’ve lost something special: the holiday song as a national statement of faith and hope for our time.” He’d like to see good holiday songs that speak to today’s America. I wonder what George Fool in the Forest Wallace thinks.
