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

Yesterday evening, I filled out my biennial New York State Attorney

Registration form.  The main purpose of the Registration appears to

be the collection of a $350 fee, which can be avoided by declaring

one’s self to be retired from the practice of law (as I have done for

the past few two-year cycles).  The form is also used to obtain verifi-

cation that the attorney has completed Continuing Legal Education

requirements (just a signature, no list of actual courses taken), and

is in compliance with certain rules relating to client funds entrusted to

the lawyer (again, just a signature affirming compliance). 

 

Clearly, one never had to be a rocket scientist to fill out the old Attorney

Registration form.  In fact, even though some lawyers can be less than  

fully competent and — more often — less than fully diligent, we would have

thought that being a member of the NYS bar might have been sufficient 

preparation to fill out the Form.

 

   

 

It was quite surprising, therefore, to find the following greeting from the NYS

OCA Attorney Registration Unit accompanying the Form:

Dear New York State Attorney,

 

      We are pleased to provide you with this redesigned Attorney

Registration form, which includes, for the first time, graphically-

enhanced, step-by-step instructions on how to complete the

form . . . . 

                                                                                     

 

That’s right: “graphically-enhanced, step-by-step instructions”!  To be more

precise: in the lefthand margin of the Instruction Page, you will find tiny re-

productions of the two-page Registration Form, with — hold on! — arrows

pointing from each Section (you know, A, B, C, D) of the Form to the

related Instructions (again, A, B, C, D).

 

Am I being too negative?  Well, go here to see just how helpful this graphic

enhancement can be for the poor lawyer facing the task of filling out his or

her Registration Form.  Remember, the attorney gets only two months to

perform this task.

 

 

We have at times accused bar regulators of treating both clients and lawyers

as if they are simpleminded  This little graphic instruction boost seems to suggest

a new level of disdain for lawyer intelligence and attention to detail.  Just who needs

these arrows?   What kind of mistakes were being made on prior forms?  And, how

much did OCA pay for the assistance of form-filling and graphic design experts? 

 

Maybe we should show these Registration forms to pro se litigants, as they struggle

to fill out court filings and pleadings.  It might make not having a lawyer seem a lot

less worrisome.  In fact, each pro se party might start hoping the opposing side hires

one of them lawyers who needs them there arrows.

 

 

 

 

“easy to assemble”
I put it back and
grab a teddybear

 

 

 

setting up the creche —

the Baby’s name

whispered over and over

 

            dagosan 

 

                        [eros & arrows:]

 

                       anniversary day

                             my wife & i

                         assemble a treadmill

 

                               ed markowski   bear creek haiku (Spring 2002)

                                                                                                                    

 

Coming of age as Richard Pryor was evolving into a new voice
of black comedy in America, and Eugene McCarthy grabbed
the spotlight in Presidential politics, greatly affected my views
on race and politics in this nation — and on the need for both
everyday citizens and our leaders to speak the truth about the
problems we face as a nation.

 

 

Their deaths yesterday (see NYT on Pryor and McCarthy,  Dec.

11, 2005) left me considering similarities between outwardly very 

different men.  One was  brash, black, emotive and a foul-mouthed

elf and entertainer, and the other a tall, patrician intellectual and

politician (and former baseball player).  But, they both used acid

humor to skewer the powers to be and wake up their audiences.

 

I recently watched Pryor’s Live in Concert (1979) for the first time

in years, and my cheeks hurt from all the laughing — he showed

blacks, whites, men and women the humor in their differences and

their similarities.   I don’t find expletives funny and don’t need an

entire evening of blue humor, but Pryor’s insights into human

nature and American character sometimes called for both and

almost always worked despite the raunchy packaging.

 

                                                                              

 

As the NYT notes, “Eugene McCarthy left his mark in a generation’s
skepticism toward war and the willfulness of political leaders.”  His attitude
toward party politics perhaps most affected me then and now.  The Times
explained that McCarthy “identified simplistic partisanship as the ultimate
enemy in the domestic strife over the Vietnam War. Invoking Whitman’s call
to human goodness – ‘Arouse! for you must justify me.’ – candidate McCarthy’s
basic message to Americans was Daniel Webster’s dictum to never ‘give up
to party what was meant for mankind’.” Pryor and McCarthy both stood up and

spoke the truth.  They left me expecting truth from entertainers and politicians. 

For that, I thank them.

 

 

winter parting…

the man in the moon

still eludes me

 

 

 

 

 

winter fog
car after car
onto the bridge

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

what my words can’t explain —
the autumn sun
on your back

 

 

 

 

snow flurries
candlelight moving
from window to window 

  

 

paul m 

“winter parting” Roadrunner Haiku Journal V: 2 (2005)

“winter fog” The Heron’s Nest (July 2003)

“snow flurries” The Heron’s Nest (Dec. 1999)

“what my words can’t explain” – The Heron’s Nest (Oct. 2003)

 

 

sleet turns to rain –

snow buddha’s visit

cut short

                       dagosan  [Dec. 31, 2004]

 

                                                                                                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

       This time last Saturday, I came into possession of a lovely haiga bookmark painted by Susan Frame, with a haiku by Pamela Miller Ness.  I want to share it with you, just as Pamela shared it with those attending the Haiku Society of America Metting. Click here to see it in color, full-sized.

 

 

muddy puddle

a plump robin

a plump robin

from Reeds 3

There never seems to be enough new haiku and senryu from Pamela.  One very good reason is her work over the past few years with the tanka genre of poetry, including editing The Tanka Anthology (Red Moon Press, 2003) with Michael McClintock and Jim Kacian. I haven’t presented tanka yet, at this website.  But I hope to whet your interest in the 5-line poems by sharing two of Pamela’s, which appeared last year, along with several others, in Simply Haiku 2:3 (2004):

We feed the ducks
you & I
and
the laughing little boy you
have begun to become.

 

…………………………….. American Tanka #7 (Fall 1999)

Packing
Mother’s library
I tuck
the ribbon I gave her
into a new book

…. unrolling the awning, (Grand Central Station Tanka Cafe, 2003

…… by Pamela Miller Ness

 

If you’d like to learn more about tanka poetry, see Michael McClintock’s Introduction to Tanka at Simply Haiku, and the Tanka Definition page of the Tanka Society of America.  McClintock notes: “While poets continue to experiment, the contemporary tanka in English may be described as typically an untitled free-verse short poem having anywhere from about twelve to thirty-one syllables arranged in words and phrases over five lines, crafted to stand alone as a unitary, aesthetic whole—a complete poem.”   In Footsteps in the Fog (Foster City, California: Press Here, 1994), Pat Shelley gives a more literary perspective:

“Tanka in English is a small lyrical poem that belongs to everyone. Still written in thirty-one or fewer syllables in five rhythmic lines, as it was over 1,200 years ago, it can embrace all of human experience in its brief space with emotions of love, pity, suffering, loneliness, or death, expressed in the simplest language. It may sometimes seem fragmentary or lacking in unity because it is more intuitive than analytical, using imagery rather than abstractions . . . . One of the more challenging (and charming) of its elements is the subtle turn at the center of the poem, something unexpected perhaps, usually occurring after the second or third line as two seemingly unrelated events, images, or ideas are brought together, something less than narrative, an elliptical space that adds pleasure to our listening. Tanka is about our everyday lives in the smallest happenings, a little song of celebration.”

 

potluck 

   

From the plump to the political:  I can’t let the week pass without noting

Hillary Clinton’s tryout as Compander-in-Chief.  As a New York Times

editorial noted, “Senator Clinton, in Pander Mode” (Dec. 7, 2005),  Hillary

Clinton is co-sponsoring a bill to criminalize the burning of the American

flag, and “It’s hard to see this as anything but pandering.”  As they explain:  

Mrs. Clinton says her current position grew out of conversations

with veterans groups in New York, and there’s no question that

many veterans – and, indeed, most Americans – feel deeply

offended by the sight of protesters burning the flag. (These days,

that sight mainly comes from videos of the Vietnam War era; the

senator’s staff did not have any immediate examples of actual New

York flag-burnings in the recent past.) But the whole point of the

First Amendment is to protect expressions of political opinion that

a majority of Americans find disturbing or unacceptable. As a lawyer,

the senator presumably already knows that.

Maureen Dowd noted: “As Condi [Rice] used weasel words on torture, Hillary

took a weaselly position on flag-burning. Trying to convince the conservatives

that she’s still got a bit of that Goldwater Girl in her, the woman who would be

the first woman president is co-sponsoring a Republican bill making it illegal to

desecrate the American flag. The red staters backing this measure are generally

the ones who already can’t stand Hillary, so they won’t be fooled. . . The senator

doing Clintonian triangulating is just as transparent as the secretary doing

Clintonian parsing.”  If Ms. Clinton keeps this up, my liberal friends will start to

understand, perhaps, why I just don’t trust the woman.

Watching your twin age is an interesting phenomenom.  I see Arthur only

a few days a year, but we’re in touch frequently.  At times, he seems

older and at times younger than I; often, we are amazed at the simultan-

eous maladies of aging and maturation that we are experiencing.

 

 

  larger

 

twins’ birthday –

two cakes

hundreds of miles apart

                                       dagosan

                                                     [12/09/04]

 

 

Now that he’s turning 56 today, I thought maybe my readers — especially

those with busy solo law practices (and at-home offices), plus parenting

experience, could suggest how Arthur might conserve his energy and

preserve his mental health as he faces a couple more decades making

a living as a lawyer.

 

                                                                                            larger

 

One big difference in our current circumstances is Arthur’s hands-on

parenting relationship with two energetic, “strong willed,” and bright

offspring — Elisabeth “LIssa” (8 years) and James (5.5 years).   Do

they retard or accelerate their father’s aging?   As an advocate, I could

imagine making good argument for either position.  As their loving

uncle, I shall keep my own counsel.

 

If you have helpful suggestions, I shall pass them on to Arthur and

his lovely and youthful spouse, Coral.   Meanwhile, I am pleased

that I’m not living in that infamous “lake effect” snowbelt just south

of Buffalo.   I hope Arthur’s back is a lot stronger, and that his toes

stay warm a lot longer, than mine.  (For more sentimental birthday

stuff about my twin, see last year’s post.)

 

 

  larger

 

 

 

the um in her voice

before offering me

the senior discount

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so suddenly winter
baby teeth at the bottom
of the button jar

 

 

 

 

 

 

winter sunset

buttoning mother’s coat

up to her chin

 

 

Carolyn Hall 

“so suddenly winter” – The Heron’s Nest VII: 1 (March 2005)

“the um” – A New Resonance 2; Frogpond XXIII:2

“winter sunset” – Frogpond XXVIII: 3

 

 

“you look much younger
than your twin” – a welcome
bit of birthday snow

             dagosan at simply senryu

 

                                                                                                                                            

 

 

 

Even if you’re not among those who pray regularly for our courts

and judges — or are among those who pray not at all — you might

want to note in passing that December 9th is the Catholic Church’s

official Memorial Day for Saint John Roberts.

 

 

 

As we pointed out last September, St. John Roberts:

– had ancestors who were princes of Wales

 

– was raised Protestant

 

– studied law at the Inns of Court when he was 21, and

later that year converted to Catholicism while in France

 

– worked among London plague victims

 

– was arrested and exiled several times for performing his priestly

duties and associating with Catholic rebels.  

 

– was finally convicted for the crime of “priesthood” in 1610, and

was martyred (hanged, drawn, and quartered). 

 

– has two fingers [of his otherwise missing corpse] preserved at Downside

Abbey and Erdington Abbey (we don’t know which two fingers and

we don’t vouch for this or any other saintly body parts kept as relics)

 

– was canonized as a saint by Pope Paul VI, in 1970, as part of

a group known as the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. 

 

If the patience and humility of St. John Roberts had anything to do with his    

namesake’s new blow on behalf of Plain English on the Supreme Court, the

f/k/a Gang raises our eyes toward heaven and sends up a thank you. 

 

 

 

all sorts of fools
moon-gaze too…
winter prayers

 

 

 

 

 

 

ain’t a devil
ain’t a saint…
just a sea slug

 

Kobayashi Issa —  translated by David G. Lanoue  

 

 

 

this body of mine

part temple

part tavern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        the old priest dines

                his wine

                just wine

 

 

 

David G. Lanoue 

“this body” – Dewdrop World (2005; free download)

“the old priest dines” – the thin curve:; Modern Haiku XXX: 1

 

 

    Your Editor probably would not have remembered

this date, except that it falls on the birthday of his [twin] brother, (who

still doesn’t have a website for me to link to).  Happy 56th Birthday, Arthur!

 

p.s. With all this talk of saints and martyrs, here’s a reminder: we’re

still looking for more law school exam prayers.

 

                                                                                                      

 

 

As you may have seen, this year’s Gallup Poll on “Honesty and Ethical Ratings

of People in Different Professions” (Gallup News Service, Dec. 5, 2005) found

nurses again firmly on top, with lawyers far behind.

 

 

Americans were asked “to rate the honesty and ethical standards of members of 

professions on a five-point scale that ranges from “very high” to “very low.”  Eighty-

two percent said that Nurses rated High or Very High, while only 18 percent put

Lawyers at the high end of honesty and ethics.  On the other hand, thirty-five percent

of those surveyed said Lawyers have Low or Very Low honesty and ethics, while a

mere three percent rated Nurses that low. 

 

Given those results, I had to follow up, when I discovered yesterday that someone

had Googled how do i become a lawyer as a registered nurse>. [By the way, the 

 # 1 result out of 1.75 million was an f/k/a post that mentioned Mary Coffin, who

switched from nursing to law in her 40s.]  My quick research turned up a 2001 article

from the Detroit News entitled “Weary nurses find jobs, joy in other professions.”   The

article quoted Barbara Redman, dean of the Wayne State University School of Nursing,

saying that nurses may be leaving traditional clinical roles, but they aren’t “abandoning

their public service role of caring for patients.”  The article then states:

‘Ann Mandt, a Detroit attorney and registered nurse, agreed: ‘I’m doing the   “ivstand”

same thing I did as a nurse. I’m taking care of patients’.”

According to her firm profile, at the plaintiff’s personal injury firm of Charfoos & Christen-

sen, Mandt “is involved in all areas of practice, including medical malpractice, drug

products litigation, legal malpractice, mass tort and multiple/complex litigation.”  I

wonder how many of those surveyed for Gallup’s poll would consider that to be “doing

the same thing I did as a nurse . . . taking care of patients”?

 

 

   My web search also located the interesting case of Michael Latigona, a critical

care ambulance transport Registered Nurse, who was recently a  gubernatorial candidate

in New Jersey and has just announced formation of the One New Jersey Party.  At a

candidate information website, which makes its reports “based on submissions by the

candidate to the Eagleton Insitute of Politics,”  I learned that Marlton resident Latigona

“has more ethics and morals than any person we have ever known in the political arena.” 

In addition he “has taken up the study of law, although he admits ethically he could not

become a lawyer.:  He states,

“I could not in good faith become a lawyer, although I have always wanted to.

I cannot lie or embellish to represent a client. It’s just not in my nature to do

so. Rather than going home and reading a book like the DaVinci Code, I go

home and read New Jersey statutes, interpret court decisions, and follow the

latest in legal decisions and legislation. I love the law, and know exactly how

to use it for all New Jerseyan’s. I’ve studied it for over ten years now.”

. . . .                                                           

 

“Who do you think will do the job better, a businessman, a lawyer, or a Regis-

tered Nurse who places people first, knows the law, and exactly how to use it?”

The website concludes — apparently based on candidate-submitted materials —  

that “Latigona has an acute awareness of how to use the law, and how New Jersey-

an’s can benefit from someone like himself who chooses to use the power of an

elected position to get the job done.”  At Latigona’s former campaign website we learn

that he will run for Mayor or Town Council in 2006, and he “vows if Governor elect Jon

Corzine does not fulfill his promises, he will start a recall in one year as law allows.”

 

Where is this post going?  Darned if I know.  It’s difficult to say whether disgruntled   

nurses will find career satisfaction in the law, much less joy.  I do believe, however,

that Americans will continue to trust nurses more than lawyers for as long as they

believe that nurses choose their profession in order to serve and lawyers choose theirs

in order to attain wealth, power and status.

 

 

 

 

 

tiny fevered brow –
the tick of the clock
measuring the night

 

 

 

 

wishing fountain

outside the cancer clinic:

some heads, some tails

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fire-side poetry –
I turn to warm the left side
of my brain

 

 

 

 

mammogram–

morning snowflakes

stick

 

 

 

 

Alice Frampton from New Resonance 3 (2003)

“fire-side poetry” – Raw NerVZ Haiku Volume VII No. 3

“mammogram” – The Heron’s Nest IV:2

“wishing fountain” – Frogpond XXV: 1

“tiny fevered brow” – In the Light, from the haibun Boots

 

 

I’m achy, fluish and grumpy enough this evening to finally put down

in pixels just how completely annoying and agita-inducing I find the

phrase “at the end of the day.” 

As a regular viewer of Sunday morning talking-head-political shows, 

and other interview-oriented presentations, such as, PBS News Hour

and the Charlie Rose Show, I have known for at least a decade that

“at the end of the day” virtually never means “before I go to bed tonight”

or “when the day in question is over.”  Instead, the underlying meaning

is more likely to be:

  “although I have absolutely no facts or evidence to

back this up . . ” 

  “contrary to all logic and reason, . . . “

  “assuming a timeframe in which we are all dead

anyway, . . . “

  “right after hell freezes over . . . ”  or

 “as the spokesperson for Group/Party X, I’m forced/paid to predict, . . . “

Maybe I’m just out of the main kvetsching loop these days, but I hadn’t

seen or heard others raise this complaint — until the repeated use of the

phrase on ABC This Week by White House Security Advisor Stephen

Hadley drove me to such distraction today that I decided to Google the

cursed cliche.   I have now learned that lots of people hate the use of “at

the end of the day” by politicians (and sports figures).

    For example, early last year, it was chosen the #1 Most Irritating

phrase in the English language by supporters of Britain’s Plain English Campaign

(“At the end of the day . . . we’re fed up with cliches,” News Release, March

24, 2005)    

Similarly, a history of the term found in GramTime News (Vaxjo [Sweden]

Univ., Jan. 2001, scroll down to Usage question #2), states:

“It should be noted that at the end of the day is one of those

phrases that irritate many people. In particular it also seems

that the phrase is used extremely frequently by British football

players and managers. In fact, as early as 1995 the readers of

the British football magazine When Saturday Comes (WSC 1995:

100) voted at the end of the day to be the most “overused phrase

which should be punished by public flogging.”

The phrase was apparently given its nefarious non-literal sense in Britain and 

spread from there to the United States.   The GramTimes News explains that it

means something like “with everything considered.'”  And says:

The 1995 edition of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

writes that it is “used to give your opinion after you have discussed all

the possibilities of a situation or problem.” The Oxford English Dictionary

explains the phrase as “when all’s said and done” and its earliest entry

is from 1974.

As late as 1995, the New York Times was still using the phrase rarely, and usually

with its literal meaning.  By then, however, the literal meaning was almost never used

in British publications.  To my dismay — but not to my surprise — the article ends

on this pessimistic note:

“At the end of the day the phrase seems to have a bright future because

highly influential public figures in both Britain and the United States have

adopted it in their speech.”

It has always seemed to me that Republicans began using the dread phrase first 

in America — possibly due to the Reagan-Thatcher connection.   Because so much

Republican and conservative politics is based on ideology, rather than facts or logic,

the phrase “at the end of the day” [like “at the end of days’] becomes a prophecy that

they expect to be taken on faith.   

                                                                                                                   

GramTime News notes a “huge increase” in usage in American English from 1993 –  

1997 — suggesting that the Administration of President Bush #41 may indeed be the

culprit.  The influential figures given as examples as using the phrase by GTN, however,

are Tony Blair and Al Gore.  Nonetheless, it has been Republicans who have triggered my

gag response over the past few years with repetition of “at the end of the day.”   Of

course, my b.s. meter goes off when politicians of every stripe use the phrase.  (Happily,

I don’t watch sport shows and therefore minimize sports-related exposure.)

   Could it be that “at the end of the day,” being a prediction, was

considered to be less deceptive than old standbys like “at this

moment in time,” which usually signalled a falsehood or

convenient lapse of memory?

After hearing it so often, many Americans now use the phrase “at the end of the day,”

without knowing that it creates great suspicion and irritation.  Please join me in using the

power of weblogs to spread the message.  Perhaps, there will someday be a day, at the

end of which, the phrase will be given back its literal meaning.   We can then go back to

 loathing “at this moment in time” and “my present recollection.”

  Dec. 13, 2005, is Plain English Day, and the Plain English

Campaign will be announcing its annual awards – for both clear

and baffling use of English.  There are categories for government

and media, along with the Golden Bulls (for gobbledygook) and

Foot in Mouth (for a baffling quote by a public figure).  The  

Plain English Web Award is actually an honor.

  The latest News Update from Plain English (04 Nov. 2005), tells of

a study out of Princeton that I had missed.  According to its author,

Dr. Daniel Oppenheimer, “writers who use long words needlessly

and choose complicated font styles are seen as less intelligent

than those who stick with basic vocabulary and plain text.” Hmm.

dad’s armchair

hindsight is

20/40

   

      by dagosan    

p.s.  My irritation over this phrase spilled over into my personal senryu weblog this morning — see simply senryu.