The shirt is good but the reviews are outstanding...

13,215 of 13,339 people found the following review helpful:

Dual Function Design, November 10, 2008

By	B. Govern "Bee-Dot-Govern" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women.

---

Ya just gotta read on... it is just hi-larry-us! [ Continue ]

Must see: High Speed Robotic Hands

. . .
[GerbilGod7]

[Hat tip to /Ambivalence ]

A New Technology: Starting from scratch ....

...

Chris Harrison, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University whose human-computer interaction work we've written about previously, will demonstrate his new scratch input technology. The system turns any surface into an instant input device by sensing the unique sound produced when a fingernail is dragged across it.

-- Technology Review

Gotta be trippin'

[ Source ]

Not right!

From I'll Make Lemonade

“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants « Here There and Everywhere

“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants « Here There and Everywhere: "“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants

This woman doesn’t have to take the whipping – she was a UN employee, and could claim diplomatic immunity. She wears a headscarf, she wears modest clothing. She could have quietly escaped. But like Rosa Parks, the black woman in segregated America, who refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus, Lubna Hussein has chosen to take a stand, even take a whipping, rather than back down.

Do you think it is un-Islamic for women to wear pants?

‘Whip me if you dare’ says Lubna Hussein, Sudan’s defiant trouser woman
Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese woman who is daring Islamic judges to have her whipped for the “crime” of wearing trousers, has given a defiant interview to the Telegraph.

...

The officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for mercy, as most of their victims do.

Instead she turned the tables on them – and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for women’s rights in one of Africa’s most conservative nations.

She has become an overnight heroine for thousands of women in Africa and the Middle East, who are flooding her inbox with supportive emails. To the men who feel threatened by her she is an enemy of public morals, to be denounced in the letters pages of newspapers and in mosques.
As she recounted her ordeal in Khartoum yesterday Mrs Hussein, a widow in her late thirties who works as a journalist and United Nations’ press officer, managed cheerfully to crack jokes – despite the real prospect that in a couple of days she will be flogged with a camel-hair whip in a public courtyard where anyone who chooses may watch the spectacle.

Her interview with The Sunday Telegraph was her first with a Western newspaper.

“Flogging is a terrible thing – very painful and a humiliation for the victim,” she said. “But I am not afraid of being flogged. I will not back down.

“I want to stand up for the rights of women, and now the eyes of the world are on this case I have a chance to draw attention to the plight of women in Sudan.”

Faces of the Iranians killed and Arrested

Faces of the Iranians killed and Arrested:

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

The Poetry of Heroism

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to war,
and even more so to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy.

-- Celine

Oh no, I've a spoot on my tie...

Spoot

[a jaunty tip of the hat to Bro. James who doesn't blog, yet!]

Wilde thoughts

gapingvoid - sage brush advice

Twitter / Search - gapingvoid: "gapingvoid I've got to get better at following my own advice: 'IGNORE EVERYBODY'

Bare arms

LETTERSTREAM — LetterCult

Global Warming

Kawano Takeshi | Fubiz™: "kawanotakeshi_3"

Sam Jinks - Artist

Sam Jinks - Artist: (Caution: NSFW - hyper-realistic sculptures may be disturbing to some viewers.)

You cannot legislate common sense.

Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While Driving -- Texting -- InformationWeek:

"Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While Driving

The four major wireless operators agree that the practice is dangerous, but not all believe national legislation is the best way to solve the problem."
. . .
"We've got to figure out a way to stop this behavior because it's irresponsible and reckless," Taylor said of texting while driving. "You would think anyone with common sense would know that, but obviously that's not the case."

Throw AT&T under the bus.

The Camel's Back Broke: 1984 Days of Bad PR for Apple:

"Throw AT&T under the bus.

That's all we ask. Here's how it works: Apple can save face here. All they have to do is release the Google voice app (and not cancel GV Mobile) and announce that they had been getting pressure from AT&T..."

I can haz a cookie

Carabaas

Gonna be ona dem days...

AC is out at the office - servers shut down out of self-defence... Waiting for the repairman.

Hunting gutter snipes

If you know what this is then you have a good idea what I did for my Saturday "Honey-Do" project. This odd thing-a-ma-bob is one well engineered little machine. So much so that I feel compelled to acknowledge it here. So here goes...

A couple of weeks ago, just before dark, the wind commenced to blow. Not your gentle kite-flying breeze but rather your precursor-to-a-wicked-storm gale force wind. It did blow. Then all of a sudden there were thunderous crashing sounds - obviously right on the roof over the kitchen. Said gale force wind had torn one end of the gutter loose and was proceeding to just beat it against the roof. Why it didn't come off completely I will never know. The flailing 14' section of gutter eventually folded up the incline of the roof and became lodged under the lip of one of the roof vents.

So I knew I needed some form of attaching device to reconnect the loose end of the gutter. Off to research my choices at Lowes. I looked at plastic brackets. I looked at 10-packs of Ferrule and Gutter screws. Then I spied the Amerimax 5-1/4" Aluminum Hidden Gutter Hanger. It was gutter love at first sight.

After a half hour of drill motor and right-sized-socket, extension cord and ladder logistics I was ready to scale the heights and do battle with the errant gutter. I gently eased it from beneath the roof vent lip. To my great surprise, like an extended tape measure rotated and bent, the gutter simply 'snapped' back into position. Only a very slight amount of adjusting was necessary to straighten out the kink. Even the proper slope was intact to insure the run-off runs off in the right direction.

Now all I had to do was fit these Hidden Gutter Hangers and screw them in. It took longer to go up and down and move the ladder six times than it did to re-secure the gutter. Ahhhhh... now I have plenty of time to do some real snipe hunting. Ha! Get your mind out of the gutter. I would never kill a snipe.

Externalities - The hidden costs...

True Cost

• Kalle Lasn | 15 Jul 2009

What is the real cost of shipping a container load of toys from Hong Kong to Los Angeles? Or a case of apples grown in New Zealand to markets in North America? And what is the true cost of that fridge humming in your kitchen, that car purring on the road or that steak sizzling on the grill? Practically every one of the products we buy in the global marketplace is undervalued because the environmental costs haven’t been taken into account. As a result, every one of the billions of purchases we make every day pushes the world a little deeper into the cosmic red.

But what if we were to implement this simple idea: true cost?

We calculate the hidden costs associated with products – what the economists nonchalantly refer to as “externalities” – and incorporate them. We force the price of every product in the global marketplace to tell the ecological truth. [More...]

Soylent Green is the economists answer to ever rising population numbers and ever diminishing natural resources. Processed field corn and soybeans provide most of the "delicious and nutritious meals" that we can afford. Monied interests and mega-corporate farms have convinced us that the only economical way to feed the nation is by offering "New and Improved" Soylent Green.

Bon Appetit

Haute Dogs!

10 Off-the-Wall Hot Dogs

Check out the most formidable findings between a bun (or on a stick)

By Brynn Mannino
Posted June 17, 2009 from WomansDay.com

The Chihuahua

Crif Dogs, the popular New York City eatery located in the

East Village, is beloved for its variety of wrapped and overloaded
franks. This particular culinary explosion contains a hot dog blanketed
in bacon then capped with sour cream and avocado. Photo courtesy of Chelsea Peretty/chelseaperetti.blogspot.com

Everything is as it should be.

Image by Plamoe via Flickr

Everything is as it should be.

Everyone is doing what they should be doing.

1000 Words to celebrate freedom

Michelle and Barack Obama

Shaving your palms

Blogging about blogging is a lot like sending yourself e-mail. Both practices I have engaged in for a number of reasons. Testing out a new e-mail addy, making sure the new mail proggy works correctly, even double checking filter rules. But blogging about blogging is something I really try to avoid at all costs - except for today. Today I am going to engage in the tradition of link-love under the guises of telling rendering a great adventure analytical tale observation about blogging. In any event it will not be a long one, tail that is.

Two distinct philosophies of blog publishing are typified in the works of Humorlessbitch (Zo) and Listics (Frank). Now I am not here to offer deep contextual reviews of respective expressed world views(Weltanschauung ( [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] (help·info)) . (See also Life-world (Lebensveld). Derived from phenomenology (q.v.), it refers to the taken-for-granted universe of daily social activity-- the forms of life (Wittgenstein).) Rather I am here to amplify certain nuances in blogging styles.

I wonder, for instance, if Zo gets to see how her blog is presented in different readers. Publishing only the 'teaser' looks like this in Google Reader.

One Split Second Before Sex

from HUMORLESSBITCH

rabbit blog: You’re craving that one split second BEFORE you fuck the guy, and nothing more. Most of us are hung up on that moment, thanks to being flooded with its supreme significance through every minute of our waking hours on earth. Well, yes … it represents everything. The moment at birth when your gaze locks onto [...]

"The moment at birth when your gaze locks onto ... " Yeah, you got me clicking on the headline link looking for the next phrase. An endearing reflection of grandson's first breath and love.

... someone to whom you’d just become the center of all existence.

Never mind that it isn’t true. Obviously, we are meant, in order to thrive, to believe it for a while. To live in the center of her love, in order to learn. In order to become a human child. Obvious, too, that the craving of that moment, anticipating it, is way easier than growing up.

A wonderful roller-coaster ride that takes a sudden left turn and drops you squarely into the rabbit hole blog... who in turn sends you head-spinning off to
"Poets and Writers." Poets and Writers and rabbits, oh my.

Frank on the other hand lays his meat, maintenance and a cherry pie right on the table in his Saturday Farm Report. In his usual style Frank seasons the offering with a slight spicy aside ... " that’s (J)erry Garcia on the pedal steel on the cut above." referring to Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, The Farm ... eliciting fragmented memories of a hot summer day in East Lansing on the campus of Michigan State University... it was a day long happening...hippies and blankets, insence smoke and music...bellbottoms and tie-dyed t-shirts...and music. All contained in a hastily erected cyclone fence corral. The guy at the gate insisted on the $5.00 admission fee that I didn't have...so I and hundreds of others watched from the periphery...until the inevitable happened. The promoters abandoned their economic pursuit in deference to the pressing crowd. The fence came down and Jefferson Airplane took the stage. Grace Slick belted out...

Look whats happening out in the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Hey Im dancing down the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Aint it amazing all the people I meet
Got a revolution got to revolution
One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry
Hey now its time for you and me
Got a revolution got to revolution
Come on now were marching to the sea
Got a revolution got to revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we
We are volunteers of america

And if you don't mind my saying Zo, you remind me of her.

Headline Questions - a cheap journalist ploy.

It would appear that we have become a society of questions.

Russia: Which way with the WTO?

Is Instant-On Chrome OS's Killer App?

QOTD: Are You Going 32 or 64-bit for Windows 7?

Israel: Does Violence Pay?

Chrome OS to Bring More Linux IT Jobs?

Azerbaijan: Overzealous minions?

Microsoft Window 7: Is New OS The Beginning Of XP's End?

Journalism or what passes for it these days is little more than reiteration of sound bytes and cut&paste press releases. What seems to be the objective is to entice the reader into rereading the pablum. To this end authors or more probably editors try to shift the responsibility from the writers to the readers.

I have written before that when I am asked a question the onus of the responsibility shifts from the asker to the askee. I have become increasingly uncomfortable with this shift. I find myself in the onerous position of either ignoring the question - and as such becoming the "Bad Guy". All too often the plaintive whimper issues forth, "I was only asking a question."

Or, should I pay attention to the question, I am faced with the ever present threats of dealing with a rhetorical question or even worse an inane (go-google-your-own-answer-question). The worst by far is the "I can ask you a question to remind you that I have the power to ask such questions." In all three cases I must accept the onus of responsibility (and do the work) of answering counter-productive questions.

For supposed journalists to rely on such a questionable practice speaks to their lack of initiative. The News should be reported as statements of fact - as best be determined by diligent research. Editorial content should be equally reported with straight forward declaration instead of whining attempts to garner interest or agreement.

Politkovskaya laureate murdered

Russia: Politkovskaya laureate murdered

from Global Voices Online by Vilhelm Konnander

This morning, prominent Russian Human Rights activist Natalya Estemirova was abducted from her home in Ingushetia by armed men. She was later found dead, a bullet through her heart. As mainstream media reports just another death of an activist - even when it comes to the assassination of one of the country's leading Human Rights' adovcates - some bloggers react with abhorrence.

Estemirova and Kovalev receive the Robert Schuman Medal

(Read more)

Because no one is above the Law!

Send and e-card: Demand a Special Prosecutor

Why my teenager doesn't twitter

1. Twitter doesn't belong to us. Like, Zanga was ours and so was, like, MySpace. For sure lately Facebook is becoming cool but only because, like, I know a bunch of college kids since I became a Junior.
   
2. Twitter only works good if everyone is, like, on at the same time an' half of us are at the Mall, duh!
3. And speaking of "Duh!" I really, like, don't want Jane to know exactly, like, what I am saying about Dick. Sheeeesh, that's like really dumb.
4. Oh yeah, and like, did I mention that Twitter is just, like, dumb. S'like soooo many rules and stuff.
5. Mostly I just don't wanna hear, like, you are always griping 'cause I am sitting in front of your computer. Like, that is all you do, like, all day long, is sit in front of your computer.

Like, gimme a break, Twitter is for dweebs...

What's good for GM...

Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Claburn writing for InformationWeek offered this observation about the recent announcement by Google of their forthcoming Chrome OS...

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows represents slightly less than 90% of the personal computer operating system market, a position it has held for years.

I assume that Mr. Claburn was suggesting that MSFT has a lock on OSs and that Google might do well to direct their efforts in a more profitable direction. Well, I have one observation to make about MSFT's lock on the market...

What's good for GM is good for the country.

He asked for it and he got it!

Leonard Bernstein

this was posted by Tom Sutpen to

If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,
There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats

Pressure to bear on the Redmond monster

Image by michperu via Flickr

The heart of Mitch Wagner's observation is that Microsoft will prevail...

Google's Chrome OS Threatens Linux, Is Good For Microsoft
Posted by Mitch Wagner, Jul 8, 2009 11:47 AM
. . .
Where there is confusion in the marketplace, hardware manufacturers and consumers look to the safe choice, and the safe choice is Microsoft. When the Unix market was fragmented into multiple different flavors, Microsoft settled the confusion by driving everybody to Windows. Now, with Linux fragmented, Microsoft has the opportunity to make history repeat itself.

...in a manner of speaking, yes, Microsoft will survive. Microsoft will always survive. Personal computing will change. Personal computing will evolve. Personal computing will improve because the collective effort of Google and Linux and BSD and BEOS and OSX and all the rest will relentlessly pressure Microsoft into getting their sh*t together, finally. And that would never have happened if the market had not brought pressure to bear on the Redmond monster.

Linus Fortune #23

Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his
followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and
there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
"Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his
commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your
Purpose in Life, anyway?"
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The
Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
-- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"

Linux Fortune #17

I lately lost a preposition;
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
And angrily I cried, "Perdition!
Up from out of under there."

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor,
And yet I wondered, "What should he come
Up from out of under for?"
-- Morris Bishop

Computers in the future...

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vaccuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons.

-- Popular Mechanics, March 1949

The Stranger Is Truthier Than Fiction

OMG! What a treat to read about folks living in foreign lands eating exotic foods and cavorting with (in)famous people... (Obviously they is ferrin'ers ... cain't be from around here ... tain't right to be talkin' about fois gras like it was goose liver or sum'thin.) So I ended up reading this article in The Stranger ... (warning: contains adult themes ... like gourmet food and adult tastes)

Same Food, Less Attitude

Elemental Next Door Might Be Just What You're Looking For

by Bethany Jean Clement

If you've ever been to Elemental@Gasworks and been cold-shouldered at the door by co-owner/sommelier/waiter/ bossypants Phred Westfall, you've thought to yourself, "Well, self, here I am literally at a dead end, and I'm thirsty and hungry and I've nowhere to go."¹ Then you've cursed Phred's (irritatingly spelled) name and slunk off into the evening...

What you would truly like right then is a place, say, right next door, with lovely food, and tons of wine, and (why not?) the same kind of loftlike but not hyperdesigned atmosphere as Elemental, and (while you're at it) a man who's the opposite of Phred to hand you a complimentary glass of sparkling wine and then proceed to be as sweet as humanly possible for the remainder of your time with him.

(More...)

OMG! OMG! I was dragged to the aforementioned site because I was swayed into visiting ...

...which opened my eyes to the delights that are possible when discriminating palates gather to observe delectable treats... (ya'll ain't from around these parts, are ya?)

Braving the Elementals

In the overlapping sets of Seattle restaurant owners and people who are dicks there stands Phred Westfall, and it's not because he spells his name funny. Call him eccentric, call him quirky, call him sui generis if you must, but he's got a most unusual way of running his candy store, Elemental @ Gasworks.

Elemental's kitchen, by Laurie Riedmeman, does very well indeed. Last meal here was exceptional, in fact. After a refreshing aperitif, a cascade of delights: gnocchetti, beef tartar topped with a quail egg, asparagus-spinach salad with shaved parmesan, quail over green beans, a pulled pork tamale with corn, a generous cheese board. Wines to match each course (selected and poured by Phred, on his best behavior), and the tab (which includes tax & tip) was about $80.

(More...)

I haven't had my coffee yet...

MASTERMIND: Aubrey Martinson

MASTERMIND: Aubrey Martinson

By: Amy Whitesall, 7/1/2009

Pottery appeals to Aubrey Thornton Martinson for a lot of reasons – beauty, functionality, the challenge of striving for unattainable perfection. She likes its concrete ways to measure success. Is the pot heavy? Is it clunky? People can use the things she makes, and that feels fulfilling.

"I'm really happy still when people tell me, 'I use that mug I bought every day,' or 'That's my ice cream bowl.' " she says. "That is exciting to me."

Martinson, the 30-year-old executive director of the Chelsea Center for the Arts, doesn't throw pots anymore. The studio she and her husband, Chris, set up in their Grass Lake home gave way to renovations, then to their daughter, Lily. The kiln they started building as college students is almost done, and has been for years.

Go HERE and read the rest.

Araki Nobuyoshi

Nobuyoshi Araki (Araki Nobuyoshi) is a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist. He is also known by the nickname Arākī.

TouchPuppet: Photographer Spotlight: Nobuyoshi Araki

Paparazzi feeding our blood lust.

Paparazzi feeding our blood lust.

(Curious that each side of the tableau is so carefully staged.)

Eastern ratsnake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis)

Last time I saw this guy in my back field I thought it was just some old coarse weave tarp laying in the deep grass ... imagine my surprise when it slithered away.

fatchance: Eastern ratsnake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis),...

fatchance:

Eastern ratsnake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis), observed at [an undisclosed location, because some people who share the same space with this harmless creature would never step outdoors if they knew he was there]. This snake was about five feet long (1.5 m). Learn more here.

[link to original | source: all creatures [great and small] | published: 3 hours ago | shared via feedly]

Perfidious Albion, deLux Fiat

[link to original | source: ffffound.com | via: feedly]

Crumb, Burroughs

nevver: Crumb, Burroughs

nevver:

Crumb, Burroughs

[link to original | source: /Ambivalence | published: 1 day ago | shared via feedly]

I'm going back to IRC ... See you there.

If you are old(er) like me you will remember the communities in IRC. You will remember the conversations. You will remember the friends...and the feuds. You will remember when groups of people talked with each other in near-real time. You will remember full sentences. But most of all you will be a member.

irc://irc.freenode.net#Pa^Patois

irc://irc.freenode.net#Joiito

irc://irc.freenode.net##Slackware

I cannot promise that I will be on all the time - I do have a real job and some semblance of a life. I can promise that if you catch me there we can share more than 140 character blurts.

The circle of Life and Death here at the Flying Pig Ranch

Out of the corner of my eye I caught the shadow. A fast moving dark blur.

"What the heck was that?"

I stood at the kitchen sink window and watched. There it was again. More an illusion than a fact. A large dark visage careening across the front field of the Flying Pig Ranch. I stood stock still and waited. Perhaps my aging mind was playing tricks on me.

It swooped low on broad wings. It was being chased by three sparrows and a starling. Undeterred it turned again, folded its wings and settled two thirds of the way down the driveway. The huge vulture paced. Warily eying its prize. A prize invisible from my vantage point.

---

Here at the Flying Pig Ranch we don't have fur bearing indoor pets. Too many allergies to 'animal dander'. So we have outdoor cats - or more specifically now, one outdoor cat - Pussin.

Anyone who has spent time with cats knows the difference between ambling and intent. When Pussin got up from her throne on the stoop and walked by me with intent I knew something was up. She made a direct line for the field behind the new shed.

---

Enamored with the prospect of a new species to list on the ranch roster I made my way outdoors to stand behind one of the Norway spruces closest to the driveway. The vulture was still being pestered by the smaller birds. Opening it 6 foot wing span it made a graceful leap to a nearby fence post. There it turned and kept a careful eye on the still unidentified prize. Mollified the smaller birds skittered away to their respective places.

Majestic in its stature the vulture just sat... almost as if in a cartoon segment... waiting... so we waited together ... I from my somewhat hidden vantage point and the vulture for ...

---

Pussin returned as intently as she had left. Proudly she presented the field mouse at my feet. As only a cat can she then accepted her accolades ... my scratching her behind the ears and compliments on her kill. Duly acknowledged she sat down with the dignity befiting her station and respect for her prey she began crunching away.

---

Satisfied that the time was right the vulture slipped from the fence post and settle next to its prize. Affixing it with one foot the sharp beak made quick work of the dissection. Three good tears each followed by a head-tilt swallow and the meal was over. A moment to preen and then taking wing the vulture rose in characteristic circles seeking thermals off our hillside to drift into the summer afternoon.

---

Pussin, having completed her repast, settled again on her throne to wash. Once properly appointed she languorously stretched out and napped.

---

Curiosity bested me. I went down the driveway. It took a moment of searching but there I found the lone fore claw of a mole.

As a father my heart breaks... Daughters For Life

Daughters For Life

There are no words that can adequately express the sorrow...

Bummer, dude!

Click the pic for the story.

Tanka, Renga and Haiku

Tanka

Tanka consists of five units (often treated as separate lines when Romanized or translated) usually with the following mora pattern:

5-7-5-7-7.

The 5-7-5 is called the kami-no-ku ("upper phrase"), and the 7-7 is called the shimo-no-ku ("lower phrase").

Tanka is a much older form of Japanese poetry than haiku. In ancient times poems of this form were called hanka ("reverse poem"), since the 5-7-5-7-7 form derived from the conclusion (envoi) of a chōka^{[citation needed]}. Sometimes a chōka had two envois^{[citation needed]}.

The chōka above is followed by an envoi, also written by Okura:

銀も	Shirogane mo	What are they to me,
金も玉も	Kogane mo tama mo	Silver, or gold, or jewels?
何せんに	Nanisen ni	How could they ever
まされる宝	Masareru takara	Equal the greater treasure
子にしかめやも	Koni shikame yamo	That is a child? They can not.

[English translation by Edwin Cranston]

The Heian period also saw the invention of a new tanka-based game: one poet recited or created half of a tanka, and the other finished it off. This sequential, collaborative tanka was called renga ("linked poem"). (The form and rules of renga developed further during medieval times; see the renga article for more details.)

Renga (連歌, renga^?, collaborative poetry) is a genre^[1] of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two ku (句^?) or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the hokku (発句^?), became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry.

The first stanza of the renga chain, the hokku (発句^?), is the forebear of the modern haiku. The stand-alone hokku was renamed haiku in the Meiji period by the great Japanese poet and critic Masaoka Shiki. Shiki proposed haiku as an abbreviation of the phrase "haikai no ku" meaning a verse of haikai^[6].

Reference

Wikipedia: Waka (poetry)

Wikipedia: Renga

RIP KODACHROME

© Steve McCurry
Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl, at Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, 1984.

June 22, 2009

A Tribute to KODACHROME: A Photography Icon

They say all good things in life come to an end. Today we announced that Kodak will retire KODACHROME Film, concluding its 74-year run.