Buoyant blog of septuagenarian (77) Kanadian poet and haikuist Chris Faiers/cricket. People's Poetry in the tradition of Milton Acorn, haiku/haibun, progressive politikal rants, engaged Buddhism and meditation, revitalizing of Callaghan's Rapids Conservation Area, memories of ZenRiver Gardens and Purdy Country LitFests (PurdyFests), events literary and politikal, and pics, amid swirling currents of earth magick and shamanism. Read in 119 countries last week - 43,329 readers in September.
Donald Trump’s peace deal with Iran represents a disastrous climbdown for American foreign policy. It is catastrophic for Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is now completely isolated on the global stage.
Whether the deal holds is anyone’s guess, but Trump’s promise to guarantee $300 billion to Iran smacks of the “pay up or else” extortion tactics by which MAGA tried to redefine global relations.
But now it’s Washington having to pay up.
Trump claims that the United States agreed to these terms to prevent the world from plunging into a global depression. That’s something he should have thought of before going along with Netanyahu in launching the war.
Iran’s decision to play hardball in the Strait of Hormuz has turned the tables completely. For decades, the Americans maintained their dominance through control of key military, geographic and economic chokepoints.
There isn’t a more strategic chokepoint than the Strait of Hormuz, and the theocratic regime in Iran has taught a power lesson to Washington about what happens when you miscalculate how dependent you are on access to the chokepoint.
The 21st century was supposed to be the era in which American hegemony would be guaranteed, not so much by its overwhelming military power as by its ability to control the key strategic and economic chokepoints.
The theory is laid out in the new book Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare by Edward Fishman where he argues that American dominance has been guaranteed through its control of the global financial system.
If you are buying wheat from Ukraine or importing oil to Japan, you are not carrying out these transactions in hryvnia, yen, or even the Euro. It’s done in US currency.
The American dollar is the global currency for trade. So much so that 90% of all global currency transactions involve the dollar. Without the currency, international trade becomes much more complicated.
This is why the rest of the world has remained committed to propping up the US financial system even as the country buries itself in debt and reckless economic policies.
The United States also uses other tools to maintain control of the global financial system. To move large sums of currency to pay for these trade purchases, you are dependent on one of two US-based trading systems. The first is the Clearing House Payments System (CHIPS), and the other is the Federal Reserve Wire (Fedwire) system.
If you are denied access to either system, good luck trying to run a business or economy. It has been said that this is like trying to travel the world without a passport.
These financial tools are the key “chokepoints” - over which the United States exercises influence and coercion well beyond the realm of military threat. It is also how they have targeted narco money and terrorist financing.
This extraordinary power lies in the hands of the President. He doesn’t need to go to Congress for permission.
Robert Rubin, the Treasury Secretary under Clinton, warned that “once you do it, you become a less reliable supplier.”
When that power is abused, it undermines trust. Even before Trump, the bullying of allies to freeze out Chinese competition like Huawei and Chinese EVs moved from trade irritants to growing disquiet. The US wielded a big stick, and the allies got nothing in return for acquiescing.
Under Trump, the abuse of these levers has become much bolder. It is the means that he is using to try to break the people of Cuba. The tools are used against airlines, hotel chains and VISA. Not a good look.
He has also used it against respected international voices.
This past March, the United States froze the assets of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who was preparing reports on human rights abuses against civilians in Palestine. They cut off her access to any US-based financial institution.
Her crime? Recommending that Benjamin Netanyahu be charged with war crimes for his conduct of the war in Gaza.
These actions represent direct threats against both the United Nations and the international rule of law. It has made the United States look like a rogue state doing the bidding of Israel.
Such dangerous overreach forces countries to reconsider their willingness to go along with these chokepoints.
The Iran war put the global economy at risk without any perceivable strategic goal other than allowing Trump and Netanyahu to stay one step ahead of their scandals.
Little wonder that Canada and the European allies are looking to establish new trading and security systems while leaving the United States increasingly isolated.
The Iran deal has been even more disastrous for Israel. Trump has turned on Netanyahu. For the first time, the G7 has shown a willingness to call out Israel for its brutal invasion of Lebanon.
The fallout of the Iranian disaster is just beginning.
Iran has taught the world’s most powerful empire a lesson in the politics of the chokepoint. For the rest of the world, it has become a strategic necessity to find a way out of the American chokepoints.
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I recognize many haikuist's names here from summers long long ago . . . LeRoy Gorman, Marshal Hryciuk, Marianne Berger, Randy Brooks . . . still observing, still writing.
waiting for your love Haleakala silversword --Tejendra Sherchan (Kathmandu, Nepal)
* * *
unrequited love biscuits in a blue box from the sky in June --Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)
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This new day opens with some of us wrong-footed while Druids count nights --Philip Davison (Dublin, Ireland)
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subway platform the poverty of a singer elongating… --Nicholas Klacsanzky (Seattle, Washington)
* * *
bus station madonna pregnant alone eating beans mouth pricks red --Guliz Mutlu (Ankara, Turkey)
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Cowering alone in the corner of the nest a swallow chick --Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)
* * *
pushing her way past all acceptable conduct-- spring’s flooded river --Becka Chester (Santa Barbara, California)
* * *
cliche women waiting at the window --Barbara Anna Gaiardoni (Verona, Italy)
* * *
play the game or slay the dungeon master --Jerome Berglund (New Orleans, Louisiana)
* * *
lover leaving a brief flare in the Martian sky --LeRoy Gorman (Napanee, Ontario)
------------------------------ FROM THE NOTEBOOK ------------------------------
The wedding highlight... lumber-carrier chants dispel the spring blues --Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)
The haikuist belted out a worker’s song (kiyari). He first heard it as a boy at a summer festival in the timber-rich mountains near his hometown. Since his generation, it seems people are waiting to marry later in life. In Split, Croatia, Dunja Pezelj read a Chinese classic about making changes.
I Ching courtship From the balcony smiles a blue tulip
Rosemarie Schuldes waited all night long for a magical moment in Mattsee, Austria. Preeti Sharma attended a wedding in Delhi, India.
ascending morning mist lifting a bride’s veil
* * *
long-awaited garland made of marigold
Angela Giordano heard wedding bells in Avigliano, Italy.
once in a lifetime--deluded about eternal love
Patrick Sweeney taught tectonic theory to bright grade 6 elementary school students in Aomori Prefecture. His haiku juxtaposes that act of drifting apart with a legal term recognized by divorce courts as grounds for separation.
irreconcilable differences have nothing to do with continental drift
Yoko Arimoto, Jason Ray and Rose Smith, respectively, chaperoned students visiting Kagoshima Ikueikan High School from Nacogdoches, Texas.
Raindrops became diamonds from America
* * *
Blended together town and university stirs friendship
* * *
young college students across the sea, yet the same the same buzz is here
Leon Tefft was mesmerized by a cloudy swirl in an ice-cold glass of water with a sugar cube and silver spoon resting on its rim.
absinthe drip the fortune teller waits for silence
Slowing down to listen to a rhythmic rainfall in Camano, Washington, David Cox couldn’t quite catch a clandestine whisper. Water droplets percolating lines of raked sand resembled moonlight on the sea at the silver pavilion in Kyoto, according to Charles Smith.
Spring rain… the tulips guard their secrets
* * *
Ginkaku-ji moss absorbing the sounds of wet tourists
Lee Nash’s gated property in Poitou-Charentes, France, is in dire need of repairs.
paint peeling from the mansion gates windfall apples
Eva Limbach in Saarbrucken, Germany, and Jacek Margolak in Kielce, Poland, respectively, waited for paint to dry.
freshly painted the tiny spot no one notices
* * *
a hair-- caught in fresh paint
Maxianne Berger waited for the sun to shine in Outremont, Quebec.
purse umbrella ready to become a parasol
Deborah A. Bennett got soaked in Carbondale, Illinois. Mutlu prayed she would be on time for the bus.
missing every bus on the way to work-- summer rain
* * *
bus station clock stops at 11:11 every prayer gets stuck
Laila Brahmbhatt froze, while waiting at Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, New York.
frost warning she waits at the empty station with the tick of the clock
Anna Goluba waited ominously in Warsaw, Poland.
Blind date Wall clock ticks Louder and louder
When storm clouds gathered over Tempe, Arizona, Brandon Favre felt giddy about getting some rain in the desert. The haikuist soon realized that he was just imagining the feeling of rain on his skin.
dark clouds thunder across desert skies Schrodinger’s raindrop
Floods dampened Nash’s spirits who reported “the wildlife is disoriented, but help is at hand...”
Saintes outing goldfish swimming in the car park
Stuck in traffic, Raj K. Bose may have misspoken because he was more hungry than angry, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Flooded road slows down traffic… child’s paper boat
* * *
dinner date both arrive late stomachs growling
* * *
coffee dripping... should have held my breath dark thunderclouds
Padraig O’Morain had felt sure of himself in Dublin, Ireland.
in my mind’s eye a row of beehives where none have ever been
Lori Kiefer was anxious to get through the main gates on Royal Hospital Road for the Chelsea Flower Show in London, England.
flower show-- waiting in line the bees and I
Antonio Mangiameli held onto the summer solstice in Lentini, Italy.
high noon-- the kite’s shadow hangs by a thread
Tsanka Shishkova held her prince charming’s gift of florescence in Sofia, Bulgaria. Jacek Margolak walked by fluorescence in Kielce, Poland.
midnight date silhouette of flying Pegasus on the flower moon
* * *
midnight rain... the blue light from the shop soaks into the street
Stoianka Boianova arrived at Sofia Central in Bulgaria.
railway station-- my heart beats wildly before the train stops
Perhaps Randy Brooks hadn’t planned to go, but he seriously felt in need of prayer at a cemetery in Taylorville, Illinois.
fresh cut bleeding hearts in a fast-food cup her grave visitor
Zoltan Pachnik waited for a bite in Kaposvar, Hungary. Justice Joseph Prah blew smoke rings in Accra, Ghana.
the first fish smaller than smelt spring waters
* * *
seashore harvest calling tune after tune an old man puffs a pipe
Subhash Roy Choudhury waited in line for street food at an “overcrowded evening food stall” selling savory fried dumplings with potato and pea curry in Cuttack, India.
Iran, Israel, U.S. dahibara aloodum street fight continues
Dieting, Alexander Groth had been looking forward to a little more to eat today in Berlin, Germany. To relieve stress, Bennett ran in circles.
cheat day the disappointed look of my cat
* * *
hunted by the cat the cat tail surrenders-- summer night
Sandra St-Laurent stocked up on supplies for a long break in Whitehorse, Yukon.
last day of school raiding for our summer’s loot the local depanneur
Patrick Sweeney envied an antelope’s lyre-shaped horns at an expensive zoo in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
a nyala staring straight through me and my nine-dollar pretzel
Sagano waited to see the masterstroke of an artisan glazing grilled rice crackers at a Ginza department store.
once, twice, thrice soy sauce brushed senbei smell of rain
Hifsa Ashraf welcomed the scent of rain in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. An earthy aroma caused Jacek Margolak to shed tears in Kielce, Poland.
preparing bed for the wild rose cuttings petrichor
* * *
packing bags first heavy raindrops on the itinerary
Rob Scott waited for the sky to clear in Melbourne, Australia.
high fly ball a passing cyclist slows to a halt
After she lost her father, Soumya Mukherjee revealed that “for a long time, I used to see (or imagine, I still don’t know) a firefly sit on my mosquito net every night” at her childhood home in Tribeni, a small town in West Bengal, India.
Father’s Day I still see a firefly stuck in the mosquito net
Herb Tate watched fathers and sons plant potatoes on family farms with south-facing steep inclines on the warm and sunny island of Jersey, U.K. It took a lot of work, but he noted that this crop of Jersey Royals will get into “shops and supermarkets long before other new potatoes.”
cotil ploughing-- the veins that stretch from him to me
Jennifer Gurney recalled a childhood memory in Broomfield, Colorado. Viv Frawley lined up in Seattle, Washington.
Saturday morning walking through the woods with dad Egg McMuffins
* * *
in constant need of kintsugi broken shake machine
Maley was inspired by a statue of Matsuo Basho standing while leaning on a bamboo walking stick in Hiraizumi, Iwate Prefecture. The father of haiku recorded in his diary “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (Oku no Hosomichi) that he was there on June 29, 1689.
Basho sits waiting for the frog to take the plunge-- the plop still echoes
Randy Brooks sat on a stone lost in thought in Taylorville, Illinois. Perhaps he crouched with a hand to the chin and right elbow to the left knee in the way Auguste Rodin cast “The Poet” (now called “The Thinker”) in 1884.
glacier field stone behind the barn think on it
Alan Maley awaits the summer solstice; June 21 is the longest day of the year where he lives in Canterbury, England. Helga Stania’s soul flows in Ettiswil, Switzerland. Eugeniusz Zacharski left Darlowo, Poland.
the lake sleeps, silent in a duvet of dawn mist, waiting for the sun…
* * *
a long look at the waterfall the flow of silence
* * *
summer solstice-- departure in full bloom
Marshall Hryciuk wondered why caterpillars and blossoms were taking so long to climb his neighbor’s tree in Toronto, Ontario. Nicoletta Ignatti has been seeing flowers since the Ides of March in Castellana Grotte, Italy. Mauro Battini heard woodcutters approaching Santa Croce Sull’Arno, Italy. Mick Mc Gann Jones waited to see which deer would run to Caragh Lake, Ireland.
so, where did that horde of dusky emperors disappear to?
* * *
seeing trees blossom where none exist tulips red and yellow
* * *
deer’s bellowing-- the trees in the woods marked in red
* * *
twilight encounter four sika does staring match
What was it that Stania saw in Ettiswil, Switzerland?
March wind… white petals in the air snow or butterflies
* * *
spring dew I see the blue butterfly which isn’t one
Deirdre Hines read correspondence in Letterkenny, Ireland. Ashoka Weerakkody got a delivery note in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
cabbage white on a purple leaf-- butterfly letter
* * *
candled but unlit ready for pickup birthday cake
Sagano composed a haiku on Fortnum & Masons kraft paper. She also replied to Yosa Buson’s (1716-1784) ink-brushed letters on washi paper at a temple in Kyoto where the master poet and artist was buried. Spring rain filled Lilia Racheva’s haiku with exciting contemplative emotions.
running up the steps to Konpuku-ji temple fallen peony petals
* * *
temple, the rain draws layers of history
Doc Sunday can’t wait to travel along the Setouchi Shimanami Kaido scenic route from Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, to one of the world’s largest suspension bridges that stretches across the Seto Inland Sea.
carrier ship marine spring light haze giant bridge
Shishkova could forward poste restante (waiting mail) to an abandoned post office on the Seto Inland Sea islet at Mitoyo, Kagoshima Prefecture. That Missing Post Office has become a sanctuary for undeliverable letters and a place for people who are not yet ready to deliver a final goodbye to the lost or dead. Govind Joshi sang from the heart in Dehradun, India.
unreceived letters around a collapsing house forget-me-nots
* * *
swallow nests around the crumbling house family gathering
* * *
mother’s eye surgery nurses in the waiting room listen to her folk songs
Natalia Kuznetsova’s compatriots left pastures to fallow in Moscow, Russia.
spring in the war zone waiting hopefully for peace farmers’ unplowed fields
Wieslaw Karlinski and Marek Printer, respectively, found hope in the rewilding of Poland.
sometime after… in the enemy tank a finch nest
* * *
tank wreck someone stuck forget-me-nots into the barrel
Alan Summers noted how “birdsong can never be totally eradicated” in Wiltshire, England.
despite the tear gas a birdsong so blue
Sanjana Zorinc didn’t have time to point, nor did Silvana Medac have time to measure growth spurts, respectively, in Bjelovar, Croatia.
just as I see it the wind carries it off-- a white butterfly
* * *
youthful laughter... the future takes root with a pine sapling
Mario Massimo Zontini had no time to prepare for a visitor in Parma, Italy. Frawley frowned. Pitt Buerken used a laptop to check in with his boss in Munster, Germany.
hospital: the sunset enters my room unannounced
* * *
the scars after stent surgery golden arches
* * *
fast food a man working on his waistline
Maley and Jackie Chou, respectively, took all the time in the world to order fast food.
McDonald’s at dawn: plastic tables and cold light-- just two customers…
* * *
eternal yellow of the golden arches logo a long day
Charlie Smith in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Louise Carson in St-Lazare, Quebec, respectively, take one day at a time.
pink sunset beneath wisteria pastel illusion
* * *
retirement condo view of the setting sun
Ian Willey found an answer in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture.
asked if I believe in an afterlife-- a cicada’s husk
Tom Bierovic need wait no longer in DeLand, Florida.
Read what you’re just waiting to do at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear July 3, 17 and 31. Readers are dared to try composing a haiku juxtaposing truth with deceit, honesty against deception, or reality to delusion, on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).
* * *
David McMurray
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
