Haiku 15

Can someone explain
mimetic theory in
one syllable words?

Haiku 14

Living while coloured
diff'rently from the mighty:
tort-uous burden

(double-entendre intended)

Haiku 13

moments of triumph
in getting work accomplished:
makes much else worthwhile

Haiku 12

Has haiku time passed?
What came as torrent, trickles,
Fun while it lasted.

Haiku 11

Marks long awaited
arrive bringing fear? hope? joy?
Joy in excellence!

(My son got some "Advanced Placement" marks back today. He deserves a massive shout of "w00t! w00t!")

Haiku 10

Lacking enough time
to write real analysis,
what's left but haiku?

Haiku 9

On Michael's best tune
he wrote, "we are the children."
'cause he thought he was.

Haiku 8

subversive poems
have always added value
to prosaic lives

What Haiku is (in case anyone else was wondering, besides one friend)

five seven and five
three lines, seventeen word beats
sparsely spoken thoughts

Haiku 7

the right to dissent
is more precious by far than
the right to assert

Haiku 6

no quotes like mis-quotes
clever words made cleverer
if perhaps wryer too

Haiku 5

What helps more? Fluent
dissent or a single act
of neighbourliness?

Haiku 4

Giving blood again
Simple gift that helps up to
three fellow trav'lers

Haiku 3

holiday fliers
caught on the tarmac but for
mechanic inside

Haiku 2

hobbit dvds
i've seen them once too often
give me the books please

Haiku 1

time to write haiku
looking for more clarity
in three arid lines

They're WHAT!!???

Just a glance at slashdot and this story made me howl. The possible comedic reads on this are literally endless.

Translink -- Be Part of the Plan

In answer to the ads on radio here in the lower mainland for the Be Part Of The Plan portal into Translink, the local bus and transport authority, I have joined up there and begun posting. I confess my first couple of posts have bordered on rants: the off-loading that governments did in the 80s and 90s still rankles. And in part, I think this site is an attempt at manufacturing consent for untenable ideas. Still, if there's a chance to be heard, I'll jump at it.

Disappointed with the results

After completing the last entry with the line "disappointed with the results", I realized that I had yet to respond to the failure of the STV referendum in BC. It's been awhile since I was so intensely disappointed by anything in politics. I saw the polls last Monday and I knew it was going to fail. Still, as some folks wondered during the US election last year were, I wondered if the polling were skewed because the polling companies were only calling land lines. I was disappointed to see that they were not.

The FUD density (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt) in ads like this, which was only aired in the last week before the election, cannily during hockey games, challenged the mass density of lead. And that's without mentioning all the mis-information in its content. Once again, we have to get used to that. And we have to see the changes that we need brought about some other way.

And the FUD wouldn't have been so effective if the times weren't as troubled as they are. The votes for the Liberals, as the votes against STV, were votes for the status quo, for staying the course, for battening down the hatches and hoping we all survive with our houses and families intact. So be it. I guess we'll have to wait this one out for awhile. I wonder when Next Time will be?

"I was not born to be a hero..." but

Has anyone heard what happened this week in Guatemala? "If you're watching this it's because I'm dead" is a great way to start a story or to introduce a major plot twist. It's not often that you see it in reality. Youtube has a number of versions of the two part video from Guatemala that starts that way. But these two have pretty good sub-titles in English right up to the last. The don't have as many explanatory notes going by as some other versions but that's okay. There are others that have been over-dubbed in English. And doubtless, soon, there will be so many versions that nobody will be able to find the one they want without a link (which happened to me by-the-by about another version I wanted to cite here as well, with more background info in sidebars).

"Cry for Guatemala with a corpse at every gate..." Bruce Cockburn sang, back in the 80s, in one of the two or three signature tunes of his that anyone besides Burnheads know. And the crying can continue.

(For anglophones, actually, scanning through Cockburn lyrics of the 80s will get you a mini-education on Latin America and the Caribbean seen through eyes other than those of an American neo-con or a Marxist.)

Señor Rosenberg, I salute you. I don't often get the chance to hear the words of heroes as they speak but today I think I did. I hope your death is the beginning, as you hoped, of a new road. If we accept deaths like yours as normal then things will only get worse.

Sr. Rosenberg's death is the kind of thing good lawyering and newspaper reporting should be instrumental in cleaning up and preventing. That's why we have to keep on caring even when we're disappointed with the results.