Good Lord what a long month.

The blogs were in bloom this week on the Commons.  Maybe it was the never-ending rain that forced everyone to sit home and write poetry, or maybe we all just felt like chumps for letting Carl James Grindley do all of the heavy lifting this month over at Poems in Progress.  Whatever the motivation there was poetry in spades here.  Timothy Wilson was feeling prolific towards the end and broke out some Spanish on us.  Good thing we’re not in Arizona or…you know…he’d probably accused of being a Mex’can terrorist commie illegal or something. Ok, alright, Footenotes isn’t exactly a bully pulpit, but come on Arizona. COME ON!

Shhhh…just relax, it’s ok, they’re far away from here and it’s not like I’m in dire need of turquoise or anything.

Anyways, poetry.  All of our favorites threw in.  Michael Oman-Reagan posted perennial favorite Lawrence Ferlinghetti via Religion Scholars and Linda Wadas at For the Benefit of All Sentient Beings offered some photography as poetry.   I was holding out for Scott Voth to write a little ode to wikis but, alas, it was not to be.

But it wasn’t all sonnets and stanzas around here.  Tamar Zilkha made a return to the Commons this week thoroughly annoyed with the Census Bureau.  It was an interesting post about what constitutes race to the government and good ole Uncle Sam might be a little out of his league when trying to define race.   Honestly at this point I wish I hadn’t turned in my Census form yet because I’d love to make a few changes to my own answers.  Especially in light of this stupid friggin law that Arizona passed.

It’s basically like a bunch of people in Arizona realized that they’re referred to as the “South-West” and decided it was time to invest a little more in the “Southern” part of South-West.  Like, maybe Arizona just got lonely because the only other states that would hang out with it were Utah and New Mexico.  I’d be pretty lonely too, but making eyes at Alabama just because you’re tired of the dry heat…I don’t even know what I’m saying.  As a southern refugee I always looked towards the desert peoples as wise sages of the brush.  Now you don’t need a license to carry a concealed gun and it’s ok to stop anyone (Latino) and demand papers.  Because the wild west was so much fun you know, just like at Six Flags.

No seriously, it’s ok, I’m done.

Tony Picciano pulled up Maureen Dowd’s op-ed in the Times this week about the Goldman Sachs hearing over on Tony’s Thoughts.  As much as I’d love for something to come out of the criminal charges headed towards Goldman I just don’t see it amounting to much.  What I suspect is that Lloyd Blankfein is just going to erect a giant wall of gold bricks around Goldman Sachs downtown and throw big diamonds at SEC investigators till they give up from all of the bruises.

While Scott Voth did not deliver on a wiki poem, he made a post over at Wiki Wrangler giving us a sneak peak at his masters thesis work.  The post cards are lovely and it’s a great project suited to the scope of Omeka.  Takes some time to visit the Omeka site and learn about what they’re doing.

Speaking of technology and academia, Adam Wandt had a really touching post on the increasing use of technology by the elderly.  He set up his grandmother with a computer and got her to explore the internet and technology with some really great benefits on the side.  The links towards the end are a nice touch if you’re looking for some further reading on the mental benefits of technology.  Congrats Adam!

Finally, Helldriver made it in just under the wire for this week’s round up.  It’s a post about spring and music.  That, of course, is an understatement, but were I to try and explain what a great post it is I’d just ruin it.  To be frank, I think the best thing I can say about Helldriver’s post today is that it’s enough to make me wrap up this week’s round up and get the hell out of my apartment.

See ya next week folks!