f/k/a . . .

        As we mentioned last week, today is being observed as One Day of Blog Silence at weblogs throughout the blogisphere to pay respect to the victims of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute massacre, as well as worldwide victims of violence.  In general, the world could use more silence — mostly so that we can learn to listen better to eachother. Rather than silence at this weblog today, however, I want to acknowledge:

1. the deep feeling of loss for the families, our nation, and the world, due to the deaths of those 33 unique individuals at Virginia Tech;
2. the realization that the VPI campus was an excellent example of how the love and desire for education can bring the world closer together — with our nation serving a positive role nurturing learning and community;
3. my growing frustration over groups who put grandiose or absolute assertions of  individual rights over our society’s joint, interdependent, and fundamental need to take reasonable, effective steps to protect itself and its members from violence of all kinds.

  There is no single way to appropriately mourn any one person, much less so many, diverse and undeserving victims.  And, mourning will have many meanings as the seasons and years pass.  The best that I can do is this collection of haiku and senryu from the f/k/a Honored Guest family of poets:

 

 

the first notes
squeezed from bagpipes
small town parade
 

 

cricket sounds
rise into night
the names of the dead

 

…………………… by Peggy Lyles from To Hear the Rain

 

 

news of his death
the cigarette smoke rises
straight up
 

another year
the tallest trees shade
the oldest headstones

 

 

spring evening
knowing a new moon
is behind the clouds

 

…………… by DeVar Dahl     
“news of his death” from New Resonance 3
“another year” - Simply Haiku (Spring 2005)
“spring evening” - WHR, Robert Spiess Tribute, March 2002

 

strewn driftwood
a boy asking
about his father

 

summer’s end—
riding a borrowed bicycle
past the graveyard

 

……………….. by paul m.
“strewn driftwood” - A New Resonance 2
“summer’s end” - from finding the way

 

 

Stillness of sand
in the hourglass bottom–
the sound of wind

 

 

autumn evening –
yellow leaves cover
the plot reserved for me

 

 

An obituary
circled in the newspaper–
pale winter moon

Snow tapering off . . .
at the graveyard, one tombstone
leans on another

 

My small family gone–
ants crawl on their graves
in the pale autumn sun

 …………………… by Rebecca Lilly 
“Stillness of sand” - Acorn #18 (2007)
“Autumn evening” — Modern Haiku XXX:2, and A New Resonance 2
“An obituary”  - edge of light  (Red Moon Anthology 2003); Acorn 10
“Snow tapering off” — Modern Haiku XXX:2; A New Resonance 2
“My small family gone–” - Shadwell Hills (Birch Prees Press, 2002)

 

missing in action.
she dusts off his guitar,
returns it to the shelf

 

funeral procession . . .
snowflakes blowing
into the headlights

……………………………. by Randy Brooks from School’s Out

 

 

cherry blossoms
the one that falls
on mother’s headstone

 

     eulogy…
       an amber crow sits behind
             the altar glass

 

. . . . . . . . by ed markowski

 

old tombstone
losing its name
faint first star

…………………….. by George Swede - The Heron’s Nest

 

after her death
composing roses
instead of words

 

Mother’s Day alone —
a neighbor’s first iris
pokes through the fence

 

after her death
finding the old scar
in my eyebrow

                                     
………………….. by Pamela Miller Ness
“Mother’s Day alone-” - The Heron’s Nest (Sept. 2003)
 ”after her death” -  The Heron’s Nest (Dec. 2002) 

 

among the graves
of strangers
forsythia

… by paul m. from called home (Red Moon Press 2006)

   Although their logo/slogan EDin’08 seems poorly chosen, billionaire philanthropists Eli Broad and Bill Gates get an A for Effort and Commitment for creating the new Strong American Schools project, and donating $60 million dollars to put education high onto the agenda of the 2008 presidential race (press release, April 25, 2007).  You may have already seen their Histery of IRAK newspaper ad, which says — under the chalky mispelled words — “Debating Iraq is tough.  Spelling it shouldn’t be. America’s schools are falling behind. It’s a crisis that takes leadership to solve. So to all presidential candidates we say, ‘What’s your plan to fix our schools?’ ”  

  Before writing a few serious paragraphs, I must do a school-masterly tsk-tsk over the choice [by education (and good-spelling) advocates!] of “ED in’08” as the Project’s logo.  In 2007, virtually everybody from Bob Dole to Jay Leno, and from Merriam-Webster or the OneLook Dictionary’s Quick Look, to Wikipedia and the acronym experts at Stammtisch Beau Fleuve, knows that “ed” as a word or an abbreviation means “education,” while ED is an initialism that stands for Erectile Dysfunction.  You don’t have to be a stickler for linguistic precision, or even a too-quickly-aging Baby Boomer (and his significant other), to be turned off by a campaign promising more ED in ‘08.  Of course, certain pharmaceutical companies, and hordes of email spammers, might feel differently, but they don’t get a vote here at f/k/a.  We prefer “ed in ‘08″ or “educate in ‘08.”

 

during discussion
on the meaning of life       the crunch
of a student’s apple

………….. by George Swede from Almost Unseen (Brooks Books, 2000)

 

    Logo logos aside, citizens (and aliens) who want to see much more done to improve the education of America’s youth can readily agree with Bill Gates that “The lack of political and public will is a significant barrier to making dramatic improvements in school and student performance.” (New York Times, “Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort,” April 25, 2007)  A campaign backed with scores of millions of dollars for publicity, organization and follow-through should go a long way to assure that presidential candidates (and the public) take education seriously enough to make it a top priority and construct (or demand) specific proposals.   As project director Roy Romer, former Colorado governor and recent school superintendent of Los Angeles, noted at his related weblog, they want the next President of the United States, on his or her first day in office, to “make a Kennedyesque or Reaganesque call to get this done.”  (Roy Romer’s Blog on Schools, “Why involve the presidential candidates in Education?“).  Romer continues:

“The next president will pick one issue on that first day in office … and we want it to be education, because people will listen, they will pay attention and they will start acting.”

In their press release and public statements, the leaders of Strong American Schools make it clear that they will not be endorsing any candidates, but will instead focus on creating conversation, brainstorming and debate on three main areas (as outlined and expanded by Romer):

1.     American standards (agreed upon by the states not forced down their throats by the federal government). That means a fourth-grader is learning what she needs to be successful no matter where she lives, whether Iowa or South Carolina or California.  All youngsters need to prepare for college and compete for good jobs, so they should have the educational foundation. That’s number one.
2.     [E]ffective teachers in every classroom. A lot of people would like to interpret this to mean that we are knocking teachers. That’s just wrong. We are trying to identify the best ways – notice I say ways, not one single federal way – to attract and support and reward the most effective teachers for every subject and every classroom.  And that means compensating teachers based on performance and willingness to take tougher jobs.  But again, there are many ways to do that, and we will be highlighting lots of different ways over the next few months.
3.     [M]ore time and support for learning. Again, there are a lot of ways to get this done. We want to explore the many possible ways to do that with people.

first day of term
her new school uniform
bright in the mist

……………………… by Matt Morden from A New Resonance 2

  It looks like Roy Romer’s Blog on Schools will not be a mere trend-conscious afterthought.  Romer seems to enjoy the weblog format and has already used the platform to “clarify” issues. For example, in “It’s Not About Specifics … Yet,” he tells those who want specific proposals that the Project wants to start a conversation, providing “some hard information and statistics and direction,” but listening to the ideas of others.  Additionally, in “Great Launch … But Let’s Be Clear About ED in 08,” he says that “a couple of misperceptions have arisen, and I want to address them right now.”  He worries that “Some of the news coverage used loaded terminology that we don’t use and we don’t agree with. When that happens, it’s easy for anyone to read and get the wrong idea about our positions,” and says “Let me give you two examples”:

1. “National curriculum” – Somebody wrote that we are calling for that. Let’s be clear: Strong American Schools and the ED in 08 campaign are not calling for a national curriculum, period.
2. “Merit pay” – Somebody said we want that. That’s wrong. We are not pushing some narrow merit pay scheme. The bottom line is … good teaching, effective teaching.  What we want is to find a way to focus on good teaching. That is the outcome that matters. Good teaching … how do we value it … how do we support it … and how we reward it so we can get more of it.

Romer might have been concerned about coverage such as found in the NYT article cited above, which stated, for example: “While the effort is shying away from some of the most polarizing topics in education, like vouchers, charter schools and racial integration, there is still room for it to spark vigorous debate.”  It went on to point to the dislike of usually-Democratic teachers unions for “merit pay,” and the disdain for a “national curriculum” by state’s-rights conservatives.

 

windowless classroom           
the blank look
same as last term

 

fund drive
the ivy covered building
has a new name

 

……………………….. by Yu Chang  from Upstate Dim Sum 

   I’m looking forward to watching the conversation — and the dance of the candidates — unfold over the next year.  Even beyond the crucial importance of the subject, it should be fascinating and instructive to see how so much money from a nonpartisan, nonprofit issue-group impacts a presidential election.   I hope Roy Romer’s weblog will be a good place to find out what issues and controversies are bubbling to the top of the presidential stew, now that education has been taken off the backburner.

 

school’s out –
on the child’s forehead
a blue reward star

 

youth orchestra
two rows of harps
bow to applause

 

after school meeting
collage clouds turn
round and round

 

 first day of term
 a mother pushes scooters
 away from the school

……………… by Matt Morden from Morden Haiku

 

chalk dust
in the eraser trough
autumn chill

 

a new term
clear water tumbles
over stones

…………………………………. by Peggy Lyles
“chalk dust” - To Hear the Rain (Brooks Books, 2002)
“a new term” - Snapshots Haiku Magazine #9 (2001)

 

 q.s. quickies …………… 

  Less Stress In Deed: A couple days ago, Phillip L. Clay, chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was quoted saying “In the future, we will take a big lesson from this experience.”  (New York Times, “Dean at M.I.T. Resigns, Ending a 28-Year Lie,” April 27, 2007)  Chancellor Clay was referring, of course, to the tale of Marilee Jones, M.I.T.’s dean of admissions, who has become well known nationally for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. As the Times, reports, Jones admitted this week that “she had fabricated her own educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at M.I.T. Officials of the institute said she did not have even an undergraduate degree.” The article explained further:

“Ms. Jones, 55, originally from Albany [NY], had on various occasions represented herself as having degrees from three upstate New York institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In fact, she had no degrees from any of those places, or anywhere else, M.I.T. officials said.”

I’m not sure how much coverage Ms. Jones’ scandal got elsewhere in the nation.  Here in the Albany area (and, in my town of Schenectady, home of Union College), the papers gave it a lot of space.  Is this a tale of irony or simply hypocrisy?  NYT tells us Jones was considered “a kind of guru of the movement to tame the college admissions frenzy.”  She’s been touring the nation as co-author of the book “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond.  If the book tour continues, a lot of people might show up to see a prime example of getting through the higher education machine with about as little stress and as much success as possible.   As a good weblogger should, I must caution my readers: Don’t Try This At Home.

drama class
the novice
botches a death scene

………… tom painting - frogpond XVII:3 (2004)

  Pentacle Spectacle: Did you see that the “Use of Wiccan Symbol on Veterans’ Headstones Is Approved” (New York Times, April 25, 2007).  Yep, it took them years, but the VA settled a lawsuit — to save the taxpayers the cost of litigation –  agreeing, according to the Times, ”to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.”  I’m pleased to see that Americans United for the Separation of Church and State represented the plaintiffs in the case. In a country with religious freedom at its cornerstone, it seems to me that the VA has no place banning a requested symbol from the headstone of a deceased veteran — no matter that it is paid for with taxpayer dollars.  They say there are no atheists in a foxhole, but I hope an agnostic or two will be suing soon for the right to have their symbol of choice engraved on their headstones, too. 

 FYI: Per NYT: “Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres nature and its cycles. Its symbol is the pentacle, a five-pointed star, inside a circle.” An “Altreligion” website tells us that: ”The pentacle, a pentagram within a circle, is the most recognizable symbol of Wicca. The pentacle represents the integration of body and spirit, and the spiritual mastery of the four elements.”

winter solstice
adolescent wiccans
flunk a spelling test

………………. by dagosan

p.s. Update (April 30, 2007): Thanks to Brett Trout at Blawg IT for including f/k/a’s post on Florida’s capricious Dignity Police in this week’s Blawg Review # 106.  As I haven’t had time to cover the story, I was pleased to see in BR#106 that both Ted Frank at Overlawyered.com and Carolyn Elefant at LegalBlogWatch skewered D.C. Adminsistrative Law Judge Roy L. Pearson, Jr. for the abusive lawsuit he has been prosecuting against a neighborhood cleaner shop, in which he is seeking $65 million in damages for a pair of misplaced suit pants.  The beleaguered mom-and-pop defendants offered $12,000 in settlement, but were rebuffed (see Washington Post article).  Carolyn seems to have it about right, when she says

“As for Pearson, I can imagine the appropriate remedy for a lawyer who persists in pursuing $65 million for a pair of lost pants: How about a lost license to practice law? That seems like a fair trade.”

At the very least, a large dose of e-shaming for pro se plaintiff Pearson seems in order.

 

  Over the past few years, it has been death that brings the spotlight back to many of the musicians ”of my youth.”  Some played major roles entertaining and sustaining me (e.g., Warren Zevon, Ray Charles).  Others had no great significance forming my psyche, but surely did make me smile (or dance).  Bobby “Boris” Pickett, who died yesterday fits into that category. (see CityNews.ca’s article, and cbc.ca, “Bobby Pickett, voice of ‘Monster Mash,’ dies;” and hear the npr remembrance; April 26, 2007) Pickett’s performance of ”Monster Mash,” which is probably the most-played oldie in the nation around Halloween, brought him fame but also the “one-hit wonder” label.  Monster Mash was such a novelty smash hit that Pickett could not get out from under its spell to have a broader musical or acting career. Here’s a stanza from Monster Mash that seems fitting today:

Now everything’s cool, Drac’s a part of the band
And my monster mash, is the hit of the land,
For you the living this mash was meant too
When you get to my door tell them Boris sent you

Click for all of the lyrics (get the chords, too), and here’s a link for a free mp3 download.  Pickett’s own Monster Mash website is here. There’s a lot of great Monster Mash trivia.  For example:

1. Boris Karoff did a version of Monster Mash.   
2. Leon Russell played piano for Pickett’s version, as part of the fictitious Cryptkickers Five.
3. Pickett’s Monster Mash is the only record to ever reach the top of charts three separate times in three separate releases - once in 1962, again in 1970 and a final time in 1973.
4. For the 2004 Presidential Campaign, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund produced an anti-Bush spoof flash move, entitled Monster Slash.  Bobby Pickett did the vocals with the revised lyrics.  Click for an mp3 version of the song. See Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article (Oct. 29, 2004)

According to several sources, when Elvis Presley heard the song for the first time, he said that it was the dumbest song he had ever heard (MusicChoice Trivia; Wikipedia).  Yes, it was a silly song, but it caused a lot of smiles and got a lot of stiffs up on the dance floor.  Thanks, Bobby Pickett.  Come back to haunt us any time.

 

spring rain–
a child gives a dance lesson
to the cat

 

the flute-playing servant
is the village headman!
butterflies dance

………………. by Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

 

thin ice
we dance
indoors

     …………………….. by dagosan

the widower
coaxed to the dance floor
spring equinox

………………. by Tom Painting - A New Resonance 2

palm sunday
the gospel choir
hypnotically swaying

 

thunder . . .
the mustang’s tail
begins to sway

 

cherry blossoms free fall
into the pond . . .
baby’s first steps

 

           every
                   * other
                             * pales
                                       *in
                                            *its
                                                 *wake
                                                          *falling
                                                                    *
                                                                      *
                                                                           *
                                                                              *
                                                                                *
                                                                                  *star 

  ………………………. by Ed Markwoski
“palm sunday” -  Haiku Sun  (Issue X, Jan. 2004) 
“thunder” - The Heron’s Nest VII: 4 (Dec. 2005)

 

turning off the music
a few miles before
getting there

 
morning fog. . .
a mash of wild apples
on the road

 

……… by tom clausen from being there   (Swamp Press, 2005)

   Speaking of monsters, we all better be on guard against the creatures lurking at websites throughout the internet.  See CNETNews.com, Web threats to surpass e-mail pests, April 24, 2007 (via The TVCAlert, which warns: ”By next year, internet users can expect more cyberattacks to originate from the Web than via e-mail, security firm Trend Micro predicts.”

“E-mail has traditionally been the top means of attack, with messages laden with Trojan horses and other malicious programs hitting inboxes. But the balance is about to tip as cybercrooks increasingly turn to the Web to attack PCs. . . . The reason for the flip is simple. Security tools for e-mail have become commonplace, but the same isn’t true for Web traffic. Security firms have found it tough to secure what comes into a network and computers over port 80, the network port used to browse the Web using the hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP.”

There is even a ”classic rat race between security firms and cybercooks. This has spawned an underground market for security vulnerabilities. Many of the bugs offered will let an attacker silently commandeer a PC through the Web when the unsuspecting user hits a site that packs an exploit, so-called ‘drive-by’ installations.”   It appears that “Criminals are offering up to $75,000 for a Windows XP vulnerability and $50,000 for a Windows Vista vulnerability.”  So, beware and be ready.  According to “Web Travels Become Increasingly Dangerous,” The Virtual Chase, March 2007:

“The best defense is awareness. You should keep your anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, browser and operating system software up to date, and run anti-virus scans daily (assuming you connect to the Web daily). You should also be aware that none of these preventions will keep you safe 100 percent of the time.”

single again
soap bar slivers
mashed together

 

snow flurries
the square dancers
do-si-do

……. by w.f. owen 
“snow flurries” - Hon. Men. Spiess Mem. Contest
“single again” -  frogpond XXVIII: 2 (2005)

 

      My biggest turn-off by far this week comes from the self-serving California lawyers who are opposing a proposal that would merely require lawyers to tell clients whether or not they have malpractice insurance. [It’s estimated that a third of all lawyers carry no malpractice insurance.].  As you know, I have to hold my nose whenever I smell groups of lawyers acting like guilds — protecting their own financial interests rather than putting their clients’ interests first – so, I’m forced to type this posting with just one hand.  The State Bar of California’s Task Force studying the issue supported mandatory disclosure last year.  Despite receiving mostly negative responses from the profession, it is expected to release a final proposal for comment tomorrow (Friday, April 27, 2007) again recommending mandatory malpractice insurance disclosure. (See Calif. Bar Still Wants Insurance Disclosure Rule, The Recorder/Law.com, April 23, 2007)  See our prior post supporting mandatory disclosure, which discusses a very good piece in GPSolo magazine (April/May 2003) presenting a debate on the pros and cons. 

 James Towery, who chairs the CalBar Task Force, supports the disclosure and wrote in the GPSolo article that the issue is: “When a client hires a lawyer, is the lawyer’s lack of insurance a material fact that the client is entitled to know?“  Virtually all clients simply assume every lawyer carries malpractice insurance — and would very much want to know otherwise.  Towery correctly states: “It is difficult to fashion a persuasive argument that clients are not entitled to that information.” 

Given their position as fiduciaries and their constant assertions of putting clients first, you’d think lawyers — or at least their leaders — would agree with Towery and the Task Force (even if reluctantly).  Nonetheless, many bar groups in California have fought hard for years to remove a prior disclosure requirement and to block it from being reinstated.  Leading the charge against the disclosure rules are several “voluntary” bar associations, including: a) the former state Trial Lawyers Association, which now has the nerve to call itself Consumer Attorneys of California (and soon perhaps the California Justice League); b) the Los Angeles County Bar Association, whose ethics committee chairman weighed in against the proposal; and the umbrella-group Conference of Delegates of California Bar Associations, which once had a website accessible to the public, but now apparently only wants members to know what they’re up to.   Why the fight against the State Bar?

1.    CalBar is a “unified” or “mandatory“ bar organization: It is a “statuatory public corporation in the judicial branch of state government.  As a unified State Bar, it “unifies” both the regulatory licensing activities applicable to the practice of law as well as the association activities of a professional association. In a unified bar, “membership” is mandatory for all attorneys who must pay “membership” or licensing fees to maintain their license to practice law.” (from Martindale.com profile) Of course, unified bars take anti-client positions at times but, with the right leadership, they can often stand up against the worst mob-psychology of organized groups of fearful lawyers.
2.    About two-thirds of all state bar associations are “unified.”  Most state bar associations in the northeast and midwest are “voluntary” organizations (see ABA map), as are all county, city and national bar associations. (The pros and cons of voluntary and mandatory state bars are discussed in this Wisconsin Bar Journal article)  Because no lawyer is required to join a voluntary bar association, and thus be required to pay their dues and subscribe to their rules of conduct, voluntary bar association must “earn their keep” by providing services and results that their members like.  Despite doing many good deeds (especially for the poor and various “victim” groups), far too many voluntary bars attract and keep members by fighting to enhance lawyer income, stifling competition and innovation, and concocting horror stories and fairy tales to justify opposing rules and laws that protect their clients.  It’s not surprising, then, that the voluntary bars of Arkansas (see this post) and Massachusetts (discussed here) have voted down proposals to require malpractice insurance disclosure.

 It will be interesting to see whether (as suggested by Law.com), the CalBar task force has watered down their proposal to appease all the angry attorneys, who don’t want the pressure to purchase malpractice insurance or the embarrassment of telling clients they don’t have it.  In our prior post, you can see some of the specious, scary and unprofessional arguments made by the opponents of disclosure.  Another posting, tells of the status of disclosure rules across the country.  The legal reform group HALT supports mandatory insurance disclosure , but would prefer mandatory malpractice insurance coverage for all lawyers.

hidden in shadows 
a laughing mouse…
New Year’s inventory

 
 
midday’s mosquitoes
hidden behind
the Buddha of stone

……….. by Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue 

fortune-telling machine
I re-pocket
my quarter

 

…………. by Carolyn Hall - Acorn #18 (2007)

 

 ……..  You can always get the straight scoop from lawyer-haijin Roberta Beary, like in this domestic haibun, from Hermitage 2006:

blue room

it is 6:30 a.m.  my boy has overslept for school again  i am his alarm
clock  for a few more months at least… by this time next year  he
will be gone  please god  not in that faraway war but under a blanket
of textbooks and rock music in the snowy heart of his homeland

empty house
pencil lines streak
a blue wall

————————————————————————–

 

           To my surprise, I’m turned on by TV-Turnoff Week, which is April 23 to 29, 2007.  Frankly, I’ve often been annoyed by the “won’t-have-a tv-in-my-home” crowd, who seem just a wee bit too self-congratulatory in their presumed cultural and intellectual superiority, and rather ignorant of the good programming to be found on occasion on the tube.  Nevertheless, my reaction is quite positive to the TV-Turnoff project, which is organized by the Center for Screen-Time Awareness.  (That may be because of my own creeping addiction again to sitting at my computer engaged in weblog punditry.) The Center’s approach seems intelligently moderate: they stress all the good things that can be done with our non-screen time; advocate that we (especially our kids) greatly reduce screen time; and hope that a week [or, if you’re starting late, a few days] without tv and similar devices will help us realize just how addicted we are to television.   There are a few enjoyable quotations on their quotes page (along with some ponderously preachy ones):

1. “The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.” -T.S. Eliot
2. “I really didn’t like TV-Turnoff Week except I did notice that my grades went up and I was in a good mood all week.” -Drew Henderson, 2nd grader, Donora, Pennsylvania
3. “The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.” -David Brinkley
4. “I  find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” -Groucho Marx
5. “Television is a chewing gum for the eyes.” says Frank Lloyd Wright.

Speaking of Frank Lloyd Wright, and not watching tv, click here to see a haiga based on one of his creations, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City:

  orig. haiga at Magnapoets (April 25, 2007) 

light show
behind eyelids –
free admission 

poem: DAVID GIACALONE
photo: ARTHUR GIACALONE
 

 

   Any haijin can tell you, there’s a world of things to do communing with nature, detached from television, computers and Blackberrys.

 

vastness of the stars
swallowing
my gum

 

a deep breath
of mountain air
shooting stars

 

soft earth   
I might risk
a cartwheel

 

………… by John Stevenson 
“vastness of the stars” - Hermitage, Vol. 2, 2005
“a deep breath” - Geppo, Jul/Aug, 2005
“soft earth” - Acorn, No. 14 (2005)

 

 dwindling heat
a butterfly lengthens
the rosevine

 

park bench        
an old man slips deeper
into his dream

 

unveiling i listen hard  for spring rain

 

…………………………………… by Roberta Beary - Hermitage 2006 

 

the boy casts    
farther than his father–
fine spring rain

………………….. by Carolyn Hall - Acorn #18 (2007)

 

   An email yesterday from lawyer Marc Chandler plunged me back into the dizzy-ditsy world of the Florida Bar’s Dignity Police and Advertising Nannies.  Marc is half of the Ft. Lauderdale law firm of Pape & Chandler, which is best-known for fighting the Florida Bar Association all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 and 2006, in a losing attempt to continue to use a pitbull logo and 800 Number in promoting their motorcycle injury law practice.  We’ve covered their story often and at length (e.g., here). Pape & Chandler tell about their fight with FBA in their own words, with links to many legal documents, here.

 Panter Panter & Sampredo   [prior logo]

   Mark’s note intrigued me by including the answer to a question we raised last April: If FBA can ban the image of a sleepy-eyed, non-growling pitbull — calling it fierce, combative and demeaning – what will it do about the slinky panthers used by Miami’s Panter, Panter & Sampredo?  As we noted in our post, Arne C. Vanstrum, Advertising Counsel for The Florida Bar, told Chandler in a telephone call that lions are not as vicious as American Pit Bull Terriers, but panthers are vicious and they are investigating the panther logo.  Marc and I both thought it might have been a little dignity-cop joke.  However, the July 2006 Minutes of the Florida Bar Board of Governors (led by the current President, Henry M. Coxe, III) shows just how arbitrary and subjective the FBA’s Dignity Police can be:

    9.   Report of Board Review Committee on Professional Ethics.   1) Advertising Appeal 03-02483 concerns application of Rules prohibiting visual depictions that are false, misleading or manipulative.  A law firm has been using an illustration of a pair of panthers for several years as part of the firm’s logo in part as a play on the name of two of the partners (Panter).  . . . The law firm filed a revised advertisement on November 28, 2005.    In the interim, the Supreme Court of Florida publicly reprimanded two Florida Bar members for use of a pitbull in a television advertisement in The Florida Bar v. Pape . . . Based on that case, staff requested guidance from the Standing Committee on Advertising regarding the filing law firm’s use of the panthers. 

  At its February 21, 2006 meeting, the Standing Committee on Advertising was divided on the issue of whether use of the panthers violates any lawyer advertising rules in light of the Pape & Chandler case.  Based on that guidance, staff issued an opinion on February 28, 2006 that the illustration of panthers does not comply with Rule 4-7.2(b)(4) (emphasis added), which prohibits visual portrayals or depictions that are false, misleading, or manipulative.  The Standing Committee on Advertising upheld staff’s opinion on April 24, 2006.

    The attorney subsequently requested Board of Governors review.  The Board Review Committee on Professional Ethics voted 4-0 to remove this item from the consent calendar and reverse the SCA decision. The board approved the board review committee’s recommendation by voice vote. 

 So, FBA’s Standing Committee on Advertising indeed held, a year and a day ago, that the cuddly pair of panthers at the head of this paragraph violated the code of legal ethics, as a visual depiction that is ”false, misleading, or manipulative.”  The Board of Governors reversed that decision — but did it on a voice vote, without giving reasons. The end result is a good one, but I wonder what the process says about the treatment of Pape and Chandler.  Please recall that the following masthead contains the only pitbull depiction ever used by Pape & Chandler: 

  orig.

How can this little doggie be condemned when the panthers are exonerated?  How can the Florida Supreme Court agree that the depiction of a ferocious pitbull demeans the profession, and FBA president Alan Bookman admonish Pape and Chandler that “The advertising devices would suggest to many persons not only that you can achieve results but also that you engage in a combative style of advocacy”, when panthers are okay? (see prior post) 

 

spring-like day
the cat grapples
with a catnip bird

                                         spring rain the cat’s pink nipples

wilderness trail       
the manicured poodle
still on a leash  

 

…………………….. by Carolyn Hall 
“spring-like day” - The Heron’s Nest (Vo. VI, 2004)
“spring rain” - 2003 Henderson Hon. Men.; Frogpond XXVII: 1
“wilderness trail” - The Heron’s Nest (II:11, Nov. 2000)

  Speaking of “combative style of advocacy“: Marc Chandler’s email informed me that the Board of Governors has also recently permitted a new ad from the firm of Dell & Schaeffer in which the Dell & Schaeffer attorneys are standing inside a boxing ring with the tag line “Let us be in your corner.”

Ferocious?  It’s also a bit strange that the simple depiction of the head of a pitbull by P&C (shown above) is decried as suggesting an unacceptably fierce brand of lawyering, when the high-profile, immensely successful, well-connected law firm of Robert M. Montgomery, Jr. (who was lead counsel for Florida in its $13.5 billion settlement with Big Tobacco) gets to use the following masthead

  

and to open the website with the words “we pride ourselves on being fierce trial attorneys.”   In deciding whether the Florida Bar is truly worried about misleading and manipulating the public with a depiction, or instead about some pathetic notion of Dignity of the Profession, consider the cleancut Panter Brothers:

 &    Brett and Mitchell Panter,

and pillar of the community,  Bob Montogomery; also, take a look at the photo of the partners at Dell & Schaeffer.   Ads from these “suitable” firms have passed muster with FBA.  Now, compare their “image” with   

the motorcycle-riding, suitless John Pape and Marc Chandler    full tv image

It sure makes me want to scratch my head, and to quote to you from the new-look Pape & Chandler website:

“When you hire Pape & Chandler, you hire John Pape and Marc Chandler. We refuse to water down our legal product by hiring a gaggle of assistants. We have to work harder because we do everything ourselves. . . ..  

“Beware the attorney who assumes that he’s dignified and professional merely because he sports a neat little newscaster hairdo, sleeps in a business suit and works for or represents large corporations. You know the type of stuffed shirt we’re talking about. Professionalism and dignity are not products of such superficial nonsense. Some of the most dignified, loyal and trustworthy people we know haven’t worn a suit in years and have long hair and multiple tattoos. At Pape & Chandler, we believe that dignity and professionalism are qualities that you have to earn like a soldier earns his stripes.

“As attorneys we earn those traits by how well we treat our clients, how loyal we are to them and how tenaciously we work on their behalf. We earn those traits by being fully and completely prepared every time we represent a client’s interests inside or outside of the courtroom. We don’t assume that graduating law school and passing the bar exam automatically imbues in us the qualities that smart clients should seek in their attorneys-loyalty, tenacity, commitment, and preparation. We have earned those characteristics one client at a time over the course of our combined 20-plus years of legal practice.”  

   You can now reach John and Marc at 1-888-MOTOLAW.

 lightning flash–
only the dog’s face
is innocent
 
………… by Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue
 

country graveyard
a dog burying
a bone

nobody on the street
stray dog stops to bite
its wagging tail

 ………………………. by George Swede from Almost Unseen
          We recently detailed the dignity indictment by FBA against Steven Miller, Esq. and DivorcEZ.   In case you think that I’m picking on the Florida Bar, here are some of the ethics actions taken over the past year by its Advertising Nannies:

     Per the September 29, 2006 Minutes of the Florida Bar Board of Governors [BOG]: a) Staff concluded, and the BOG agreed that the language “Avoid Time in Court” and ““SAVE VALUABLE TIME!” in a direct mail advertisement to handle traffic ticket cases was likely to create an unjustified expectation about results the lawyer can achieve, in violation of Rule 4-7.2(b)(1)(B), among other
rule violations.   b) Staff and the Standing Committee on Advertising concluded that the language “When justice is done for a mother, a child a family you can’t beat that” is likely to create an unjustified expectation about the results the lawyer can achieve.  The Board Review Committee ane full BOG disagreed, finding the above language permissible.  c) The visual depiction of a crashed car with people inspecting the crashed car, including a deployed
airbag, was found to be manipulative and therefore impermissible under Rule 4-7.2(b)(4).   and d) Background sounds such as horns honking, traffic, wind through a car window, squealing brakes, and a heart monitor were found to be impermissible.

   Per the BOG December 8, 2006 Minutes: a) the phrase “legal firepower when you need it most” was determined to be a statement that characterized the quality of legal services, in violation of Rule 4-7.2(b)(3).  b) when the same law firm then submitted the phrase “Protecting you and your family for 25 years” was deemed impermissible, because likely to create an unjustified expectation about results the lawyer can achieve, in violation of rule 4-7.2(b)(1)(B).  c)  Based on guidance from the Standing Committee on advertising, staff rendered opinions that television advertisements using the telephone numbers 1-800-Justice and 1-800-Justicia were misleading.  Eventually, the Board Review Committee and full BOG reversed and allowed the use of the numbers (although owned by an out-of-state company).  And, d) the Board accepted a proposal that use of the term “Doctor of Law” or “Doctor of Laws” is misleading in the context of an advertisement published in English.  It took the position that “lawyers can state their own actual degrees, but that use of anything other than the degree is misleading and impermissible.

Two final points before I get accused of being too combative and demeaning to the legal profession:

1.     According to the Orlando Business Review, “Florida Bar’s board favors Web ad regulation.”  Under the proposed Website Rule 4-7.6, the homepage would be treated like all other advertising (except for needed prior approval), with lawyers allowed to advertise their past results and the quality of legal services through testimonials on Web pages that are just one click past the homepage. (BizJournals.com, March 30, 2007).  That is not very surprising, of course.  What is a bit unexpected, however, is the assertion by Charles “Chobee” Ebbets, chairman of the special committee that developed the proposed Web advertisement rule, that the proposed rule would make Florida the first state to address lawyer advertisements via the Internet.
2.       Possibly Relevant Blast from the Past:  In Ethics Opinion 82-1 (April 1, 1983), the Board of Governors (going against the majority of members of the ethics committee) concluded that ”A lawyer’s inclusion of the statement ‘Jesus is Lord‘ with a drawing of the dove of peace in his advertisements does not violate the commands of the Code of Professional Responsibility.”  The opinion noted that the words and drawing does not appeal primarily to “fear, greed, desire for revenge or similar emotion” and is not “showmanship, puffery, self-laudation or hucksterism.” [There is no mention about whether the items are likely to promise results or suggest an undue connection to a decision-maker.]  The Ethics Opinion also explained (are you listening, current FBA leaders?): “While the inclusion of such a message in a commercial advertisement may be viewed by many as ‘professional bad taste, the United States Supreme Court in In The Matter of R.M.J., [455 U.S. 191 (1982)], declined to recognize bad taste as a viable ground for restriction of commercial speech.” 

slanted light
through meadow grass
the jackrabbit’s ears

 

lopsided moon
a phone message saying
the cat is dead

…………………….. by Carolyn Hall  - Acorn #16 (2006) 

 

  vpi mumorial? is it just silent slackivism? Steli Efti “had to do something” about the terrible tragedy last week at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where 33 victims died.  So, he came up with the idea of the One Day Blog Silence on April 30th, to honor the VPI victims and their families; he later extended the scope of the event to include “all victims” of violence worldwide.   For Steli (who calls himself The Supercool Principal of Supercool School and “a serial entrepreneur with expertise in sales, marketing, neuro-linguistic-programming & learning techniques”) “doing something” is not writing at his weblog and launching a non-writing memorial event.  Although I don’t want to fall into the negativity trap decried at The Wrong Advices, I do want to:

1.       Declare that having my weblog go dark for a day does not — for me — seem like a useful way to honor the VPI victims.  It certainly does not have the impact of the two-minute national silence in Israel on Holocaust Remembrance Day (beautifully described by Lorelle in her post ”Silence is a Memoriam, Not a Reason to Stop Blogging”)  Like Diane Levin at Online Guide to Mediation, I intend no disrespect to the many good-intentioned bloggers who join One Day of Silence, “But I have to ask, why?  Why be silent?  What is the point?  Why not use this as an opportunity to speak out? To rage against the machine? To stand up for whatever cause you believe in that will reduce human suffering or end violence?” (via LegalBlogWatch)
2.      Point out the similarity of One Day Blog Silence to the symbolic and too-easy gestures that have been called slacktivism.  Diane Levin has a good point, when she says “Or, better yet [than writing about a cause], get away from the keyboard and actually do something?” As I noted in the posting “activism requires action,” discussing Not One Damn Dime Day:
1. activism takes action not faux-action, as with   
2. likely results are highly correlated with amount and duration of effort
3. preaching to the choir is not an effective way to change minds (and neither is self-congratulation over your moral or intellectual superiority)
3.     Opine that respecting the good intentions of others and their mode of expressing grief, dissent, or support, does not require instantly adopting their suggestions and passing them around the internet.  We each get to say, or at least ask ourselves: Does that make sense? For me?  Is it likely to be effective? Are there better ways to make the point effectively? [see our post “another one-day-gas boycott.” update: 9 PM: by coincidence, someone did a search today at Google for /gas boycott effective/ and our one-day boycott post was the #1 result.]
4.     Note my confusion over the posting at geeksugar.com,  which asserts: “One Day Blog Silence does not mean that all of us bloggers need to set our computers aside and stop writing.  Rather, it is a chance for us to post the One Day Blog graphic on our sites to show remembrance and respect for the victims and their families.  No words and comments are needed.  Although you are encouraged and welcome to discuss this tragedy if you feel the need to do so.”  For me, being nice and showing solidarity does not mean posting someone’s logo and then ignoring its message.

Those of us who do not join the One Day Blog Silence perhaps have a responsibility to spend some time preparing a thoughtful posting for that day related to the violence at VPI.

Stillness of sand
in the hourglass bottom–
the sound of wind

 

The all-day snow–
in its bud vase
one rose tightly closed

    

Regulars gone
from the bus stop–
late autumn sun

………… by Rebecca Lilly, from Acorn #18 (2007)

 

 . . .     On the other hand, when tempted to use your cellphone while driving, it is almost always a good idea to maintain your silence.   I’ve been writing about this topic for years (e.g., here and there) — and about the fact that banning handhelds is not sufficient, because the problem is one of distraction, which is just as bad when using headsets or speakerphones.  However, I  won’t get on my soapbox yet again to rail about the irresponsibility and purposeful denial of those who put themselves and others in danger by attending to cellphones or Blackberries instead of attending to their driving.  Nonetheless, in the spirit of doing (a little) something about it, I am mailing away today to the good folk at npr’s Car Talk show, for their yellow, red and gray bumper sticker, “Drive Now .. Talk Later!”  And I am telling you how to get a free copy yourself.  (You can get multiple copies for 20 cents each, but must agree not to resell them).  As Tom and Ray Magliozzi explain (while also revealing their preferred, but npr-rejected, wording):

  For a free “Drive Now, Talk Later” Car Talk bumper sticker, just send a self-addressed business-size envelope with 39 cents [or the current first-class] postage on it to:

Bumper Sticker  
Car Talk Plaza
Box 3500 Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02238

I’ve never attached a bumper sticker to any vehicle of mine.  I plan to put one instead at on the inside bottom of my rear window, and place another one on the window behind my driver’s seat. 

 Special thanks to the woman in the brandnew blue SUV on Clinton St. in Schenectady last Thursday, who inspired me to finally send for the Car Talk bumper sticker.   First, she almost ran over me as a pedestrian in the crosswalk, as she illegally used a handheld cellphone while turning from Union St.  Then, she blocked my driving away from my parking space for a couple of minutes, because she continued on the phone while simultaneously attempting to parallel park in the space ahead of me.

the old man stops
at a green light
driving into the sunset

….. by dagosan

 

 

 Thanks to Toronto law librarian — and “info diva” — Connie Crosby, I discovered on Saturday that April 23rd is UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day.  To help celebrate that day, Connie is hosting Blawg Review #105 this week at her Connie Crosby Weblog. The organizers of World Book Day explain:

By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. . . .

23 April is a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died.
The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia where on 23 April, Saint George’s Day, a rose is traditionally given as a gift for each book sold.

Apparently, many gentlemen in Catalonia give a lady a rose on April 23rd and receive a book in return (and, let’s hope a kiss, too). The Wikipedia entry for the event tells us that: “On World Book Day a free book token is given to all school children in the United Kingdom and Ireland [where the Day is now inexplicably celebrated on the 1st Thursday in March]. . . . They can be used to buy one of the books that are released especially for the day and cost the value of the token or any other book or audiobook. Many schools also choose this day to hold a readathon or a book sale.” 

Rather than stress the Copyright Law protection aspect of the Day, I hope you’ll learn about the Fair Use exception to copyright.  We have an essay on Haiku and the Fair Use Doctrine here at f/k/a (which goes into the basics).  At shlep, you can find a discussion and collection of links to Fair Use materials, as well as excerpts from Brooklyn Law Prof. Jason Mazzone’s writing on the intriguing topic of Copyfraud – . . . . “false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner’s permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use.”

Thanks to the folks at UNESCO, you can download the 2007 World Book Day poster ”in high-resolution PDF for your printing and reproduction needs”:

1. Poster with text in English and French
2. Poster without text (for you to add text in your language) 

on the bridge
hundreds died to defend
end-to-end graffiti

………………. by George Swede - Acorn #17 (2006)

cheek on her hand
… the pages
turn themselves

…………………………………. by peggy willis lyles

lunch alone
without a book
i read my mind

…………………………… by tom clausen 

 Limbo illustration orig. 

Lower Limbo Now: You surely read over the weekend that the Vatican has thrown into doubt the existence of limbo, and more directly throws doubt on the virtually universal Catholic belief (never deemed to be actual dogma, they note) that a baby who dies without baptism can never go to Heaven to be with God eternally, but must live outside the beatific vision in Limbo.  That’s because the infant “is with original sin.” It is all still very iffy, but after almost three years studying the issue, the Rev. Luis Ladaria (secretary-general of the Church’s International Theological Commission) gave the good news:

“We can say we have many reasons to hope that there is salvation for these babies.”

Happily, the blawgisphere had a refresher course on Limbo at Infamy or Praise, in Blawg Review #35. According to Dante’s Divine Comedy, the first circle of Hell comprises the souls of people who did not commit evil acts but who were not baptised and therefore cannot enter Heaven (several translators refer to these as the “Virtuous Pagans”) It includes the Limbo of the Children/Babies and Limbo of the Fathers.  More specifically, as to babies, the Associated Press tells us:

“Catholics have long believed that children who die without being baptized are with original sin and thus excluded from heaven, but the church has no formal doctrine on the matter. Theologians have long taught, however, that such children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness, a state commonly called limbo, but without being in communion with God.”

The new report has been approved by Pope Benedict XVI.  It is, however, far from a definitive statement on Limbo for Children.  The document stressed, that “these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge.”  Therefore, “Catholic parents should still baptize their children, as that sacrament is the way salvation is revealed.”

passion flower
your faith
or mine?

open window
I polish a mirror
from my childhood home

 

cemetery road
the chain gang
breaks for lunch

traffic jam
my small son asks
who made God

 

…………….. by peggy willis lyles
“dust on the pews” & - “traffic jam” from To Hear the Rain (2002)
“open window” - FreeXpressSion, February 2007
“cemetary road”- Modern Haiku 37:3, Autumn 2006

As we noted at the time, a 2005 New York Times article gave details of the Vatican committee that would be looking into the limbo concept and outlined some of the issues at stake. “Limbo, an Afterlife Tradition, May Be Doomed by the Vatican” (Dec. 28, 2005). As Ian Fisher wrote for the Times:

“Unlike purgatory, a sort of waiting room to heaven for those with some venial faults, the theory of limbo consigned children outside of heaven on account of original sin alone. As a concept, limbo has long been out of favor anyway, as theologically questionable and unnecessarily harsh. It is hard to imagine depriving innocents of heaven.”

Actually, Fisher explained that Limbo was originally conceived as a more palatable possibility for unbaptized babies (and ”virtuous pagans”).  Before its “creation”, St. Augustine’s vision was the Church’s position:

 ”The theology is complicated, but the bottom line is that Augustine, believing in mankind’s original sin, persuaded a church council in 418 to reject any notion of an ‘intermediary place’ between heaven and hell. He held that baptism was necessary for salvation, and that unbaptized babies would actually go to hell, though in his later writings he conceded that it would entail the mildest of [hellish] conditions.” 

The NYT article notes why the Church would give this lengthy bureaucratic assignment about a “theological hypothesis” to so many of its most talented experts at a time when its resources could be used so well elsewhere:

“But [limbo] remains an interesting relic, strangely relevant to what the Roman Catholic Church has been and what it wants to be. The theory of limbo bumps up against one of the most contentious issues for the church: abortion. If fetuses are human beings, what happens to their souls if they are aborted? It raises questions of how broadly the church - and its new leader - view the idea of salvation.

“And it has some real-life consequences. The church is growing most in poor places like Africa and Asia where infant mortality remains high. While the concerns of the experts reconsidering limbo are more theological, it does not hurt the church’s future if an African mother who has lost a baby can receive more hopeful news from her priest in 2005 than, say, an Italian mother did 100 years ago.”

 

waiting for you–
the faces
of missing children

 

children’s ICU–
a tissue box beside
the pay phone

 

……………………… by John Stevenson from Some of the Silence (1999)  

 

  There will surely be dissenters to this bleeding-heart approach to limbo and unbaptized babies and fetuses.   One priest wrote of his “serious concern” over tampering with the limbo doctrine, when the task was first assigned.  Writing “Could Limbo Be ‘Abolished’?“, in Seattle Catholic (Dec. 7, 2005), Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S.

 ”Hence, I feel it important to stand by, and indeed, reinforce, the position I expressed earlier, to the effect that this potential new ‘development’ of doctrine is a matter of serious concern.  . . .  For such a document would inevitably accentuate the already-existing tendency for Catholic parents to be lax and negligent about having their children baptized promptly after birth, and would therefore run the risk of being partially, but gravely, responsible for barring Heaven to countless souls, in the event that Limbo does turn out to exist after all.”

If you’re interested, Fr. Harrison presents “a survey of recent and ancient magisterial teaching on this difficult question,” including this discussion of abortion victims:

“[I]t appears that the only papal statement expressly mentioning the destiny of aborted infants is that of Pope Sixtus V, whose Constitution Effrænatam of 29 October 1588 not only abstains from raising any hopes that they may attain the beatific vision, but positively affirms that they do not attain it!”

” . . . The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God’s image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature.”

   In his hit song Limbo Rock, singer Chubby Checker urges dancers to “limbo lower now,” and asks “how low can you go“.  This issue limbo has struck a chord with me (causing me to belabor it here today), because Limbo for Babies has always symbolized my biggest complaint about the God that was described to me during my Catholic upbringing: He is supposedly all-loving and all-just (not to mention all-powerful), and yet he banishes otherwise innocent infants from His sight, because they carry guilt and degredation due to the purported sins of Adam and Eve.   Fr. Harrison asks who could be more terrible than an abortionist, “who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God?”  Well, it’s apparently God who Catholics have for two thousand years saddled with responsibility for making the no-baptism-no-salvation rule.  

 As I’ve often said to my still-in-the-Church Catholic friends and loved ones: You paint a picture of God that insults both God and mankind.  I don’t buy it. The new, wishy-washy alternative possibility for the fate of unbaptized babies doesn’t make the Catholic version of God or mankind much more palatable.  I again have to wonder what the historical Jesus Christ would make of what the Catholic Church has done to his humble message of love.

Other views on putting Limbo into Limbo:

1. At Seattle PI’s Snark Attack, D. Parvaz warns “I think Catholics are making a big mistake here in not realizing just how evil (and hence, doomed) unbaptized babies are. Really. Way to let ‘em off the hook, Pope.”
2. Michael Fountain laments the possible loss of limbo for the Virtuous Pagans: “That first generation of Christians had a problem, as if the Romans weren’t enough. If knowledge of Christ was a ticket to Heaven, what about their beloved grandparents, dead these many years, who wouldn’t know a Christian from Adam? If you love your grandma, you wouldn’t want to see her roasting in Hell with Nero…? The “Virtuous Pagans” teaching solved this psychological problem, and reconciled Heaven with the pagans’ Elysian Fields. “
3. L.A. Catholic doesn’t seem to like the kinder-gentler fate for unbaptized dead babies, stressing “We should all tell everybody: The document is NOT infallible, and it does NOT say anything definitively.” 

 

cathedral garden
cardinals in the birdbath
scatter drops of light

 

river baptism
another frog
with just three legs

…………….. by peggy willis lyles
“river baptism” & “cathedral garden” - from To Hear the Rain (2002)

 

   Speaking of limbo, shlep, other weblog, is still waiting to be adopted.  If you are interested in taking on management responsibility for an award-winning weblog focused on pro se litigation and the self-help law movement and community, please check out the above link and get in touch with me.

 

 Startling Starlings: photo by Richard Barnes in NYT orig.   

         In his New York Times op/ed piece Flight Patterns (April 22, 2007), bird-watching maven Jonathan Rosen spotlights some amazing photography taken in Rome by Richard Barnes — looking at the swarming starlings that are “beloved by tourists and reviled by locals.”  Rosen tells us:

“Richard Barnes’s photographs capture the double nature of the birds — or at least the double nature of our relationship to them — recording the pointillist delicacy of the flock and something darker, almost sinister in the gathering mass.”

He concludes that “Bird-watching thrives on the recognition that the urban and the wild must be understood together. We are, after all, urban and wild ourselves, and still figuring out how to make the multiple aspects of our nature mesh without disaster.”  That juxtaposition of human nature with nature, and the tension of being both wild and “civilized” is at the heart of haiku.   I believe you will enjoy the multimedia interactive feature that accompanies this interesting article.

 

         seventeen
starlings on the telephone wire
      sixteen     

        

……………….. by George Swede from Almost Unseen

clouds of pollen
drifting through sunbeams —
a sparrow’s sudden flight  

…………… by Michael Dylan Welch - Thornewood Poems  

 

corporate parking lot
another starling
settles on the power line

…………….. by Yu Chang - Upstate Dim Sum (2005/I)
    

  Blackberry Blackout: In Sunday’s New York Times April 22, 2007), Matt Richtell has an op/ed piece that delves into the psychological reasons for the excessive attachment so many people have to their Blackberry devices — as especially demonstrated during the 12-hour blackout of the Blackberry network last week.  In “It Don’t Mean a Thing if You Ain’t Got That Ping,” Richtell asks, “what if what the users were missing was more primitive and insidious than uninterrupted access to information?”  Here are some of the notions he uncovered:

1. “Experts who study computer use say the stated yearning to stay abreast of things may mask more visceral and powerful needs, as many self-aware users themselves will attest. Seductive, nearly inescapable needs.”
2. “Some theorize that constant use becomes ritualistic physical behavior, even addiction, the absorption of nervous energy, like chomping gum.  This behavior is then fueled by powerful social motivators. Interaction with a device delivering data gives a feeling of validation, inclusion and desirability.”
3.  ”Several years ago, [Harvard psychiatry professor John] Ratey began using the term ‘acquired attention deficit disorder‘ to describe the condition of people who are accustomed to a constant stream of digital stimulation and feel bored in the absence of it. Regardless of whether the stimulation is from the Internet, TV or a cellphone, the brain, he said, is hijacked. “I liken it to a drug,” Mr. Ratey said. “Drug addicts don’t think; they just start moving. Like moving for your BlackBerry.”

Dr. Ratey likens the Blackberry problem “to a food addiction, which is one of the most beguiling for psychiatrists.” After all, he said, “food is essential for life, but problematic in excessive doses. And that’s what makes breaking technology addiction so difficult.”

his power out,
my son calls to talk about
nothing special

…………………………….. by John Stevenson - Acorn, No. 14, 2005

 

home alone
she blows a kiss
into a cellphone

 

around and around   
learning the names
of one way streets

 

just long enough
to leave an impression
dragonfly

……………………………… by Yu Chang
“just long enough” - Upstate Dim Sum (2005/I)
“around and around” - Upstate Dim Sum (2001/II)
“home alone” -  Upstate Dim Sum (2004/II)  

 

  Thin Ice. Speaking of digital obsessions: I spent far too much time today re-formatting my Jan. 2006 post exploring the source of the maxim “if you’re walkin’ on thin ice, then you might as well dance.”  As often happens, I follow a link from our SlimStat page and discover that a visitor came to f/k/a because we had the #1 result in a Google search.  This time it was the query: dancin’ thin ice.  When I went to see our post, I discovered — as usual — that the formatting of the piece was in some way or other messed up when we changed webserver and weblog software last June.  My perfectionism then leads me to try to quickly fix the problem, and the result is almost always a bigger formatting mess (usually having to do with spacing and indentation).  

After several repair attempts, I ended up re-doing the entire piece as a new f/k/a Page — again called “dancin’ on thin ice.” The effort was not worth the time and aggravation, but the posting is pretty interesting, for those who missed it the first time and have a little spare time. 

    The talk of ice, coming as we are receiving our first too-hot (for me) weekend of 2007 here in Schenectady, NY, makes me want to reprise the ice-skating poems from that earlier posting:

coldest day of the year
the lone skater laps
his breath

………………… by George Swede from Almost Unseen 

 

figure skaters on lac la belle pirouetting into snow squalls 

 

cold wind  
      the sweep of the speed skater’s arms

…………………………………… by  ed markowski  

 

dancin’ on thin ice?
the old guy’s
doin’ The Slide

….……………………. by dagosan  

  haiga from MagnaPoets (April 22, 2007)

round and round with you
dancing
on thin ice

poem: DAVID GIACALONE
photo: ARTHUR GIACALONE  orig.photo

 

 Before I stop my frantic weblogging, and head out to a gorgeous spring day, I must tell you about CiteBite (via today’s TVCAlert, pointing to LawLibTech).  Here’s how law librarian Cindy Chick describes Citebite:

      You’re heard of deep linking, which is one way of directing someone to a specific page in a web site. But often you want to point to a passage or quotation somewhere on that page. In that case, you need Cite Bite.

It’s very easy to create a Cite Bite page. You don’t have to install anything. Just visit Cite Bite, and cut and paste the URL and quotation into the appropriate boxes; Cite Bite will create a link that you can send on to others.  . . 

The concept is simple and useful. I would imagine that any researcher could use Cite Bite on a daily basis to make it a little easier to deliver just the necessary piece of information.

I hope I don’t go overboard with Citebite.  I’m sure, however, to use it regularly, and I bet a lot of webloggers and just plain folk will, too.  For example, even I have trouble finding passages in my 30-page magnum opus on the Graying of the Bar.  If I want, for example, to direct you (or myself) to the discussion of two important ABA Formal Ethics Opinions featured in the essay, I now can do it with this link created quickly at Citebite.

   Likewise, if I’d like a friend to enjoy a particular haiku by Martin Gottlieb Cohen that is easily lost among the many on its Roadrunner Haiku Journal page, Citebite gives me a deep link that goes right there to the poem.  Similarly, dagosan’s first poem to win a prize can be located quickly at Roadrunner, by clicking here.

 

storm windows off:
the old man curses
the noisy neighbors

. . . . . . . by david giacalone, Nisqually Delta Review (Winter-Spring 2006, Errata Page)