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

As the old year comes to a close, the only bakers I want to be contemplating are Mama G., (Aunt) Grace Papagni, Sylvia Briber, and other selfless souls who have been stuffing the entire f/k/a Gang with all sorts of Christmas cookies and similar treats over the past week.

empty cookie tin —
letting out last year’s
santa suit

frontdoor
to curb –
pine needles and tinsel

…. by dagosan – from “Holiday Haiku from Schenectady“

Nonetheless, I’ve been spending far too much time the last two days responding to Ron Baker and Ed Kless, who are defending Value Pricing (their version of vale billing) in comments to a prior post here at f/k/a.

. . . .  Despite his adopting a new-agey, feel-good image, and condemning hourly billing as unethical, it seems quite clear to me that Value Pricing guru Ron Baker wants lawyers to charge (and clients to pay) higher fees than can be generated using hourly billing. Value Pricing is the mechanism he touts — in books, seminars, private consultations, articles, and more — as the way to achieve those premium fees.

If that topic interests you, click the above link (and see our prior post and the links therein).  For another perspective on a topic that kept us busy at this weblog again in 2008, see the Washington Post article “Laws to Track Sex Offenders Encouraging Homelessness” (via The Moderate Voice, Dec. 27, 2008).

holiday thaw
a trooper emerges
from the snowmelt mist

… by dagosan

The f/k/a Gang would much prefer to be focusing on more pleasant topics.  Like seasonal haiku and senryu, and the wonderful sunset last night along the Mohawk River (at the end of my block of Washington Avenue, in the Schenectady Stockade), which I tried to capture with my Canon Powershot.

rising river…
sandbaggers pass
a brown paper bag

.. by Ed Markowski

— looking eastward into Riverside Park; Dec. 28, 2008 —

year’s end
the bartender
blocks my reflection

…… by Tom Painting – The Heron’s Nest

New Year’s Eve –
the lentil soup
again

…… by Tom Clausen – from Homework (Snapshot Press 2000)

blue sky
behind bare branches
year-end bonus

…. by David A. Giacalone – Legal Studies Forum XXIX:1 (2005)

……………….. ..

.. the view west toward the Western Gateway Bridge; Dec. 28, 2008 —

last week of the year
ice floes rush
to the waterfall

… by David Giacalone – Roadrunner Haiku Journal (Feb. 2006)