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

Woe is me.  My new driver’s license arrived in the mail today, and the photo ID looks

even worse than it had at DMV when they took it last week.  Despite having an aging

population, New York State re-licenses drivers for 8 years — they sent an application to

my 85-year-old Dad recently.   So, I’ll be flashing this little baby when Pres. Obama is

finishing his first term. [No, it won’t be going on my Sibs Page.]

• 
  
  Demographic policy questions are not what’s on my mind.  I’m wondering
  
  
  why I said “no,” when the DMV clerk asked whether I wanted to keep my
  
  
  current license photo.  You know, the one where I had all my hair and no gray.

Issa was lucky back in early 19th-Century Japan — no ID photos.  See his self-portrait: . . .

 

vain clouds
forming vain peaks
in vain

scolding
vain man…
the autumn moon

 

Kobayashi Issa, translated by D.G.Lanoue

one-breath pundit  

The headlines ask Is dodgeball too dangerous for kids?  I’ll let Overlawyered.com cover this

in full, but I just have to wonder about a lawsuit that claims teacher-supervised dodgeball is 

too dangerous for 7-year-olds and inappopriate for grammar school gym classes.   I’d like to see

stats that compare injuries from dodgeball with pee-wee sports like soccer, baseball and football,

which seem to be fine with the very same folk who think dodgeball is too warlike.   Why not

just have the little kids use softer balls?  Would this case exist without a potentially big dollar

payout for the lawyers? (Lawsuit aims to put dodgeball on trial (Newsday/AP, Nov. 19, 2004)

Updates: (Nov. 21): Walter Olson treats this topic here.

(Nov. 22, 2004): Wikipedia has a good, brief history of “dodgeball” and has this

to say about the current Controversy:

“Dodgeball, when it emerged, was touted as the “nerd’s sport”.  Since players

normally were not part of a team, no player had to endure the teasing that would

fall upon a player accused of “causing the team to lose”. As well, the game was

seen as having a light-hearted and self-deprecatory nature and, therefore, more

amenable to non-athletic students.

 

“Ironically, dodgeball has come under attack for failing to meet the needs of precisely

those students. Opponents of dodgeball have argued that the game provides, for

bullies, the excuse to abuse unathletic and unpopular students, by throwing the

ball hard enough to cause injury.”

 

 

 

 

fall’s first chill —

the football

bounces louder

 

driver’s training–

the instructor’s hairy arm

hangs out the window

 

by Barry George from A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku  

credits: both poems – Haiku Happens 1998

 

• 
  
  by dagosan: 

clogged drain–

300-pound plumber

under the sink

   

                                        [Nov.20, 2004] 

 

Saturday Searchee Bonus:  I haven’t posted this yet on the Inadvertant Searchee page, but

had to chuckle over our 1st Place showing in the Google Search won’t stop mentioning prior relationships>.

Have no idea why someone was Googling amputee+happy>, but I hope it was therapy, not depravity. [we

came in #72 of 73,000 results.

Denise Howell got it right: “Oy” is her response to the pumped-up ads that Law.com

has required for entry into its new Weblog Network.  [The eight weblogs are all top-

notch and I hope their authors will resist any urge for self-censoring to avoid displeasing

their corporate sponsor.  They all insist that this new arrangement won’t change them.]

 

It’s a little ironic that one of the new Networkians Commented here last year that

“I don’t like the idea of law bloggers posting ads at their site. I don’t

know whether it’s ethical or not, but it just looks cheap.”

(see the OJR article “Will Microads Save Online Content? The next big thing could be quite small,”

written by Mathew Honan,  praising inobtrusive text ads and panning banner ads.  Despite our

initial visual confusion, Honan, is not Matt Homann, proprietor of the Law.com Network weblog

the [non]billable hour).

 

I hope weblog readers will urge Lisa Stone of law.com’s Legal Blog Watch to  lobby

on behalf of her Networkians to have the required ads greatly reduced in size.  Such

e-billboards are >tacky and unnecessary — and may prove to turn off a lot of visitors

(and ex-visitors).  The silly flipping rolodex ad that is featured on many other law.com

pages today is even more annoying than EDDix‘ infamous “confounded scrolling

ticker thingy.”

• 
  
  
  

  Law.com/ALM knows that bigger is not better.  The Network weblogs are stuck with

  
  

  an ad that is 3.25 inches wide and 5 inches high at the very top of their righthand margin.

  
  

  There are no such monstrosities on Law.com own homepage.  It’s Newswire page does

  
  

  have a 2.75 inch ad, but it comes after links to the important stories in the day’s edition. 

  
  

  It is only on its non-substantive Index page and on its new Weblog Network pages, that

  
  

  the 3.25 inch Big Box ads are found.  I think we can deduce the real answer to Law.com’s

  
  

  question “Why Blogs?”.

p.s.  There’s an interesting piece on lawyer ads at First Amendment Center.  In it, John Bates of

Bates v. State Bar of Arizona. is quoted (via Ambrogi): “It is the nature of the First Amendment

that there is going to be speech in every medium of communication that some people don’t like.”

 

 

while selling his dumplings
and such…
blossom viewing

 

morning frost–
yet still a child
sells flowers

 

 

by Issa, David G. Lanoue, translator