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

It’s a lazy summer weekend, so I’m sure you’ll excuse a couple of “on this day” reprise themes from your sleepy Editor. On July 21, 2004, we were “at play with matt“, and presented two of my favorite Matt Morden haiku:

an old resume
my son colours in
his rainbow

children’s playground
a swallow’s nest
high above the noise

……………………….. by Matt Morden, from a selection at World Haiku.

credits: “an old resume” – Snapshots #7 2000;
”children’s playground” – Haiku Canada Newsletter VXII Feb 99

Here’s a recent poem from Matt’s Morden Haiku website:

unattached
a ballon free to follow
every gust

On July 21, 2005, we talked of perigee and focused on summer moon poems by Kobayashi Issa, with Prof. David Lanoue’s priceless translations. You can find ten summer moon haiku at David’s Issa collection. Here are some of my favorites:

her child tucked in
she washes his clothes…
summer moon

crossing the river
taking a leak…
summer moon

in soup kettle
and outhouse
the summer moon

We’re still taking a pundit hiatus, but would like to point you to two items featured in the July 2007 Harvard Monthly e-newsletter. First, a press release from the Kennedy School of Government titled “Survey Finds Young Americans’ News Use Is Half That of Older Adults: Teens’ Daily News Use Is Even Lower Than That of Young Adults” (July 10, 2007). It describes The Shorenstein Center Report on Young People’s Daily News Consumption, Young People and News, which concludes that:

“some recent surveys have overestimated young people’s news consumption and the capacity of non-traditional media to take up the slack from young people’s flight from traditional news sources. The report concludes that most young people can be expected to continue to do what they have been doing — snatching a bit of news here and there without making it a routine part of their day.”

Plus, the newsletter includes an Interview with Kennedy School Dean David Ellword about his Acting in Time Initiative, which was established “to confront and overcome inaction in the face of looming catastrophic events” (e.g., global warming, aging populations, health care, nuclear proliferation). The Initiative’s goal is:

“understanding the reasons that particular problems are not being addressed and to help foster ideas to help move solutions forward. The hope and expectation is that by bringing together scholars of different backgrounds along with practitioners, we will be able to learn more about the qualities of analysis, governance, policy design, democratic institutional structure, information, political mobilization, and leadership that can lead to effective and timely action.”

the child runs
in tears –
“mommy! that man smiled at me”

………………………………………………… by dagosan, July 21, 2004