potluck
Matt Miller asks whether “luck” or “individual effort” matters most “in determining
where people end up in life.” He notes that both Democrats and Independents
overwhelming said luck in a survey he commissioned, while Republicans said it’s
“Try too hard to wipe out the inequities spawned by luck, and you
banish luck’s societal benefits and go down the road of communism.
But harness a healthy awe for luck, and you expand the bounds of
empathy in ways that make a living wage for poor workers and great
schools for poor children national imperatives. What we’re led to is the
public agenda missing today, built around passionate commitments -
by both liberals and conservatives - to (1) equal opportunity and (2) a
minimally decent life, achieved in ways that harness market forces for
public purposes.”
If Republicans won’t act on these moral imperatives, Miller thinks Democrats
should take luck seriously — making America more just by forging a victory
based on “values that can win.”
horseflies’ and bees’
big lucky day…
blossom-filled temple
donning my umbrella-hat–
cherry blossoms portend
a lucky day
Your editor apologizes for all the webserver problems that have made
accessing f/k/a so difficult the past few days. I’m afraid that no amount of effort on
my part will solve the problem. Pray to the great Webmaster in the sky.
supplemental (midnight, May 24): Sarni at Infernality chewed over and posted her Stick.
She has some interesting choices and — being into fanstasy literature — alternative
Stick universes. Talk about generation gap: not one of our choices matched. Not one
of our genres, either. I’m again surprised that so many people re-read books. Has there
been a study about personalities that re-read books or watch particular movies or tv
episodes repeatedly (as adults reading for themselves, and not for children) as compared
to those who are one-off-ers? [Note my Britsy idiom.] I spent years recording hundreds
of movies (for personal use, of course) and have not watched even one of them in the
past five years. I’m glad to see that Sarni feels no need for lugging a How-to-Survive-in-
the-Wilderness book. That’s probably part of the basic curriculum in Aussie elementary
school — Walkabout Ed. Stop over to Infernality and see Sarni’s Stick and shtick. Thanks
for shaking and sharing your Stick, Ms. S!!
“tinyredcheck” I feel lucky today: two of my favorite haiku poets agreed over the
weekend to be Honored Guests here at f/k/a: Tom Clausen of Ithaca, NY, and
Yu Chang of Schenectady, NY. I will be formally introducing each of them this
week, but you’ve worked hard (or are just lucky) and deserve a double sneak
preview — with haiku and senryu by Tom and Yu from the latest issue of frogpond,
the Journal of the Haiku Society of America.
from Tom Clausen:
just oatmeal
the waitress says
“enjoy”
out of its reflecting pool
the windblown
fountain
from Yu Chang:
pumpkin patch
this one is big enough
for my son
taking turns
to stretch their necks
a pair of herons
“THNLogoF” “THNLogoG”
last week of May
unpacking
the winter quilt
[May 23, 2005]
Wish I Said That:
“[FDR’s secretary of war and NYC lawyer] Henry Stimson would have been shocked
and saddened by the state of the bar today, and especially by the common, public,
even proud utterance in and out of bar associations that ‘law is a business like other
businesses.’ . . .
“As recently as 1963, Everett Hughes wrote that the central feature of professionalism
was a doctrine of credat emptor—”let the buyer trust”—rather than the commercial
maxim of caveat emptor—”let the buyer beware.” Society counts on the law, and on
lawyers as its servants, to spread such feelings of trust through the community. Instead,
too often, we help weaken them.”
1994), reprinted here (DCBA Brief, June 1999)
first snow falling
I trust in his hand…
bridge by the gate
entrusting the thicket
to the field crow…
the lark sings
Wish I Said That:
“[FDR’s secretary of war and NYC lawyer] Henry Stimson would have been shocked
and saddened by the state of the bar today, and especially by the common, public,
even proud utterance in and out of bar associations that ‘law is a business like other
businesses.’ . . .
“As recently as 1963, Everett Hughes wrote that the central feature of professionalism
was a doctrine of credat emptor—”let the buyer trust”—rather than the commercial
maxim of caveat emptor—”let the buyer beware.” Society counts on the law, and on
lawyers as its servants, to spread such feelings of trust through the community. Instead,
too often, we help weaken them.”
1994), reprinted here (DCBA Brief, June 1999)
first snow falling
I trust in his hand…
bridge by the gate
entrusting the thicket
to the field crow…
the lark sings
2004 — she scored a first place in the tanka genre, and 2nd place with
Idlers in the Gallery
(by Pamela Miller Ness & Michael Dylan Welch)
overflowing
its cut-glass vase
La Farge’s magnolia pmn
Homer’s croquet player
hides a ball with her skirt mdw
strewn across
her studio table
Nell Braine’s turnips pmn
the unused pencils
Jacob Lawrence grins
in his self-portrait mdw
gathering hollyhocks
Frieseke’s woman in blue pmn
to the porch born
the precise signature
on Blum’s two idlers mdw
[each poem in the Idlers rengay is based on a painting
in the National Academy of Design, NYC. Five of the
Dressing
for a meal I’ll eat
alone
I decide to let loose
my hair
bonus from Pamela Miller Ness:
storm watch
we talk
about getting old
unseen bird
keeps repeating itself –
“you talkin’ to me?”
meeting the new
upstairs tenant
feet smaller than they sound
[May 22, 2005]
potluck
that I’ve been meaning to make for the past couple of months:
“I’m not keen on the politics of destruction, let alone the
language of destruction. If I hear about the ‘nuclear option’
one more time, I think I will go ballistic. Nuclear warnings
should be reserved for the real thing, like say, North Korea.”
(often perpetrated and perpetuated by the popular media) of using familiar
analogous situations not merely to explain a new concept, but also to name
it, is making a mess of our language, with more and more phrases simply
making no sense on their face.” (We used “black box” and “DNA finger-
prints” as examples. ) But, taking the term “nuclear option” out of the realm
of war strategy, and using it in the context of U.S. Senate filibuster rules is
several steps farther down the road toward language lunacy. I don’t care
that a politican used the phrase. The media are in the communications
business, they need to use words that express meaning. Did anyone think
of calling it the Filibuster Buster Option?
The next thing you know, someone will be saying that bar associations are just
guilds!
Thank you, Eugene Volokh, for explaining how silly it is to ask questions
chest-thumping!
Last week must have been a slow one in the blawgosphere – li’l old f/k/a
2004 — she scored a first place in the tanka genre, and 2nd place with
Idlers in the Gallery
(by Pamela Miller Ness & Michael Dylan Welch)
overflowing
its cut-glass vase
La Farge’s magnolia pmn
Homer’s croquet player
hides a ball with her skirt mdw
strewn across
her studio table
Nell Braine’s turnips pmn
the unused pencils
Jacob Lawrence grins
in his self-portrait mdw
gathering hollyhocks
Frieseke’s woman in blue pmn
to the porch born
the precise signature
on Blum’s two idlers mdw
[each poem in the Idlers rengay is based on a painting
in the National Academy of Design, NYC. Five of the
Dressing
for a meal I’ll eat
alone
I decide to let loose
my hair
bonus from Pamela Miller Ness:
storm watch
we talk
about getting old
unseen bird
keeps repeating itself –
“you talkin’ to me?”
meeting the new
upstairs tenant
feet smaller than they sound
[May 22, 2005]
potluck
that I’ve been meaning to make for the past couple of months:
“I’m not keen on the politics of destruction, let alone the
language of destruction. If I hear about the ‘nuclear option’
one more time, I think I will go ballistic. Nuclear warnings
should be reserved for the real thing, like say, North Korea.”
(often perpetrated and perpetuated by the popular media) of using familiar
analogous situations not merely to explain a new concept, but also to name
it, is making a mess of our language, with more and more phrases simply
making no sense on their face.” (We used “black box” and “DNA finger-
prints” as examples. ) But, taking the term “nuclear option” out of the realm
of war strategy, and using it in the context of U.S. Senate filibuster rules is
several steps farther down the road toward language lunacy. I don’t care
that a politican used the phrase. The media are in the communications
business, they need to use words that express meaning. Did anyone think
of calling it the Filibuster Buster Option?
The next thing you know, someone will be saying that bar associations are just
guilds!
Thank you, Eugene Volokh, for explaining how silly it is to ask questions
chest-thumping!
Last week must have been a slow one in the blawgosphere – li’l old f/k/a
