Despite your Editor’s skepticism about giant urban revitalization projects,
such as major league sports stadiums (see local schmocal), I can’t help but
be excited that my former hometown, Washington, D.C., now has a new
baseball team — which won the franchise’s first home game last night (see
“Nationals grab glory on DC debut,” bbc.com; “Powerbrokers see more
than a game: opener mixes business, pleasure ,” WashPost, April 15, 2005).
I had just graduated from Georgetown U. when the last DC team fled for
Texas.
I’ve enlisted two basebase-loving haijin, Ed Markowski
and Tom Painting to help celebrate the occasion:
distant thunder
the home run hitter
drops a bunt
lightning…
i lose jeter’s pop-up
in a blaze of static
rainy night
a hole in the radio
where a ballgame should be
Ed Markwoski
“distant thunder” & “lightning…” – from games (pawEprint 78, Nov. 2004)
“spring rain” – Haiku Sun (Issue X, Jan. 2004)
moths circle
the stadium lights
seventh inning stretch
all day rain
on the playing field
a stray dog
the toddler
runs to third base
first
“moths circle” from A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices
“the toddler” & “all day rain” – from the haiku chapbook piano practice
by dagosan:
squinting to see him —
another generation
sent to right field
[April 15, 2005]
p.s. Thanks to Paul David Mena, who contributed the following
haiku to this baseball lineup, as a Comment:
April chill —
Wakefield’s knuckleball
unhittable
bonus (April 17, 2005):
extra innings
a runner’s shadow
down the third base line
April 15, 2005
welcoming the DC Nats
taxes and sycophants in athens
Like last year, I hereby declare this website a tax-whiner-free zone today. By coincidence,
while reading last night, I came upon the following brief description of the way they
“paid for Democracy” in ancient Athens, in Paul Woodruff’s little gem, First Democracy:
The Challenge of an Ancient Idea (Oxford Press, 2005):
“TaxDayN”
“The hard labor of slaves paid for just about everything in the ancient Mediterranean,
including democracy.”
“Throughout the period of democracy, wealthy residents of Athens
were subject to special levies, depending on their wealth and the needs
of the city. The richest 2 or 3 percent were expected to pay for the
religious festivals that gave Athens both a civic life and a public education.
These included dramatic performances. Citizens only, most often the super
rich, were expected to pay for the ships in the navy of Athens. Both military
and religious financial duties were known as liturgies; they were a source of
pride and fame to the rich. After performing a liturgy, you would be exempt
from further demands for a year, or, in the case of paying for ships, two years.
How were the donors selected? It was an honor to be asked to perform a
liturgy, but if you thought someone else was richer, and that he therefore should
be ahead of you in line to pay for a ship or a festival, you could challenge him in
court, either to exchange his wealth for yours or to take on the liturgy.”
- Clearly, this is not the kind of “liturgy” of which Prof. Bainbridge is fond.
Preska) think of the Popular Court of Athens, as described in First Democracy (at 50):
“The right to bring charges now emerges [circa 462 B.C.] as an important
democratic principle. Ordinary citizens could bring charges against leaders
of the government, and thereby make powerful people accountable to the
popular courts for their actions. Penalties for frivolous lawsuits were heavy,
however. If a prosecutor won less than one-fifth of the votes on his jury, he
would be punished by a heavy fine (1,000 drachmas).
“The right to bring charges had an unwanted consequence– easy blackmail.
Sycophants made a living by theatening law suits against people who could afford
to pay them off. Popular juries were unpredictable, and could be hostile to
aristocrats. To many aristocrats, and evn to ordinary people, sycophants were the
worse consequence of democracy.”
An interesting wrinkle that might please a lot of Americans: “There were no professionals
in the law. Any citizen could prosecute, and anyone who was brought to trial had to
defend himself.”
p.s. Woodruff’s call to get back to the original meaning of democracy — of the people and for
all the people (not just the majority) — is an important message. Woodruff admires the democratic
ideal “because it takes human imperfections into account better than any other ideal of government.”
His suggestions for making America more democratic in spirit and reality are worthy of discussion
in another post.
where there’s people
there’s flies
and Buddhas
people of the capital
in parasol shade
drinking sake
pure mountain water–
people coming and going
muddy it
– from Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue
I wonder what