Surfing the web's tsunami

Wrong way Dubya and the big Dick
Good piece in Slate and a great picture of the always lovely and diplomatic Dick Cheney

and my new favorite site to check regularly - Disinfotainment Today - with Paul Krassner columns, hilarious images and harsh political rants.

Tom Tomorrow rules this modern world
Down with the small cute dog!

'Twas Gimli and the slimy orcs Did battle and grumble in the way All flimsy were the Hornburg doors And in the end, they gave. - Lord of the Rings as written by Lewis Carroll -
GANDALF:
I do not want your bread and jam. I'm busy being mad at Sam. He likes to sneak. He likes to spy. Ill grind him up for hobbit pie!
FRODO: Oh, do not grind him up for pie! He is a pretty handy guy. He mows my grass. He paints my gate. He is my friend. We both are straight.
- Lord of the Rings as written by Dr. Seuss -

Roots of modern world twine through a gripping adventure
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle
By Neal Stephenson
William Morrow, 815 pp, 27.95 dollars
Fully understanding the history of the 17th and 18th centuries is like trying to pick up a handful of mercury. Like the art of the period, the events of the Baroque Era are extremely complicated, intricate, and often baffling. As such, it is an apt setting for Neal Stephenson's three-volume Baroque Cycle of aptly titled novels: Quicksilver, published earlier this year; The Confusion, recently released; and The System of the World, due out in October.
Quicksilver set the scene and introduced the principal characters: Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds, and his soldier brother Sgt. Bob Shaftoe; Eliza, a former Turkish harem slave rescued by Jack who goes on to become a financial prodigy and duchess; natural philosopher Daniel Waterhouse, the son of a puritan firebrand and college roommate and intimate friend of Isaac Newton.
The Confusion spans the years 1689 to 1702 and comprises alternating sections of two novels. The first, "Bonanza," is a swashbuckling caper in which Jack is miraculously cured of the syphilis that was slowly stealing his sanity in Quicksilver and hatches a plot with a multiethnic gang of his fellow galley slaves to steal a shipload of Spanish silver. The second, "Juncto," concerns the political, sexual, and business intrigues of Eliza, Bob Shaftoe's quest for revenge on the Earl of Upnor for enslaving the love of his life, and Waterhouse's various tribulations.
With a fittingly Baroque set of storylines that defy summary, and at times comprehension, Stephenson manages to deftly illuminate the beginnings of modern economics, science, politics, currency, information technology, trade, religion and cryptography. He also packs in more action than the combined works of Alexandre Dumas and Jerry Bruckheimer.
Jack Shaftoe in "Bonanza" circumnavigates the globe, robbing treasure ships on Spanish rivers, fighting marketplace battles in Cairo, buying mercury in Japan, selling his blood to feed insects in Ahmadabad, building ships in Luzon, facing the Inquisition in Mexico, concocting phosphorus for use as a weapon in Hindustan and even spending a few years as the appointed king of a small realm in the Indian hills. Stephenson crams in so much action that many significant events are merely alluded to or mentioned briefly by characters as the smoke of the latest battle clears.
"Juncto" moves at a slightly less breakneck pace, but with infinitely greater complication as Eliza loses and rebuilds her fortune, invents currency speculation as a way of getting revenge on the man who steals her first-born son, gives smallpox to a rapacious German prince and helps polymath Gottfried Leibniz develop his theories on information storage and calculating engines. Daniel Waterhouse is introduced to the bloody world of post-Restoration British politics in which gentlemen members of Parliament bite each others' ears off in coffeehouse brawls, and tries to convince Newton to abandon his alchemical work on atomic physics to take over the Royal Mint.
Much of "Juncto" takes the form of letters between Eliza and various characters ranging from Leibniz to the treasurer of France to legendary French privateer Jean Bart and often requires the reader to exercise a bit of deductive reasoning to read between the lines.
The Confusion, like Quicksilver, often digresses into lengthy explanations of banking systems, aristocratic genealogy and mathematical theory among other things, but Stephenson has a knack for making even the driest topics fascinating while rending the most complex subjects understandable. His attention to detail and relish for providing historical context provide the attentive reader with a liberal education, while his imagination and humor delight.
It is a rare feat to produce an 800-page novel that provides the reader such a feast, yet leaves them starved for more. Stephenson has done it twice and The System of the World is awaited with hungry anticipation.

Scumwads of a feather feather their nest together
Not that anyone should be surprised these two Great Men of Destiny (tm) were formally in cahoots, but it is nice to see one's expectations confirmed that they are both inept, corrupt crapulous fools. Read the excellent, life-affirming article in Slate.

The Curse of Black's Perle
According to the Hollinger report, Conrad Black and Richard Perle richly deserved each other.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004, at 1:44 PM

We hope one day you'll join us
A communique from the high command of the People Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction. Viva la PRKA!
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105672/

sometimes headlines just suggest themselves, no matter what you do to try to drive them out of your head....


IOC pulls gold medal from Annus
Anti-doping officials unable to find Annus with Booth, Hans
ATHENS, Greece -- Hungarian hammer throw champion Adrian Annus was stripped of his gold medal on Sunday for failing to take a follow-up drug test, an International Olympic Committee executive board member said.
Annus passed his drug test after winning the gold on August 22, but failed to show up for another test Friday in Hungary. Refusing to take a drug test is considered the same as testing positive.
The IOC took the medal away following a disciplinary hearing Sunday, the executive board member said.
Annus did not attend the hearing. IOC anti-doping investigators Henry Booth and Fritz Hans were to administer the second test but could not contact Annus. (Okay, so I made that last part up. So what?)
It was the sixth medal -- and third gold -- revoked during the Athens Games because of doping. Japan's Koji Murofushi will get the gold for hammer throw, Ivan Tikhon of Belarus moves up to silver, and Turkey's Esref Apak gets the bronze.
Annus probed
Although Annus' event had been over for several days, the IOC has the authority to demand another drug test before the end of the games.
Annus passed his test after the hammer throw, but the IOC wanted another one to make sure he didn't try to circumvent the drug testing system, as his teammate Fazekas was accused of doing.
Fazekas lost his gold in the discus after Olympic authorities said he failed to provide enough urine for a drug test, a charge Fazekas disputes.
Pal Schmitt, head of the Hungarian Olympic committee, said Annus' doctor would not let him travel to Athens for Sunday's hearing because he was in bad shape psychologically.
Schmitt said Annus did not show up for the follow-up test because he thought the police station designated for it "was not an adequate place to maintain his dignity" and to ensure the integrity of the test.

Bob Dylan to publish first vol of his memoires
Agence France-PresseNew York, August 26

The first volume of US folk singer Bob Dylan's memoires will be on sale from October 12, publisher Simon and Schuster said on Wednesday.
Chronicles: Volume One, the first of a series of books written by Dylan, will be 304 pages long and will cover the period of his early career in the 1960s.
The book's first edition will have a run of 250,000 copies.
Soon after an updated version of the book Lyrics: 1962-2001, with the words to virtually all of Dylan's songs, will also be published.
Dylan, currently on a US tour with singer Willie Nelson, had originally planned to publish his memoirs in late 2002. There was no reason given for the delay.


"We wants it, oh yes we does. Its our precious"

Our spiritual leader of the moment: Pete Seeger

http://http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1092305288064&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630


a bio

an interview

Since this newspaper doesn't archive stuff and this editorial will disappear in a day or two, I will post the whole thing in the interest of stirring debate and shining a light under the rock at the revisionist who run the Japanese media. I will try to comment at length and add links later

Class-B, -C 'war criminals' should never be forgotten
Yomiuri Shimbun
For Japan, today marks the 59th anniversary of the end of World War II. The occasion offers an opportunity to pay tribute to all those who were killed in the war and renew our pledge to pursue eternal peace.
Under international law, however, Aug. 15, 1945, did not mark an end to World War II for this nation. Article 1 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty states that a technical end to the warfare between Japan and the Allies took place on April 28, 1952, when the pact went into effect.
During those years, 25 Japanese wartime leaders and others were convicted as so-called Class-A war criminals in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the Tokyo Trial. Of the 25 convicts, former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and six others were sentenced to death by hanging.
After the conclusion of the trial, Dutch Judge B.V.A Roling visited Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, the chief intelligence officer at GHQ, to bid him farewell before leaving Tokyo for the Netherlands. In his meeting with Roling, Willoughby is said to have denounced the Tokyo Trial as the "worst hypocrisy" in legal history. The GHQ officer told Roling that he would even ban his own son from serving in the army.
The episode symbolizes the nature of the Tokyo Trial.
Meanwhile, about 5,700 Japanese and others were tried at 49 military tribunals at home and overseas on charges relating to the violation of wartime laws, including the mistreatment of prisoners of war and the slaughter of civilians. A total of 920 convicts, including Koreans and Taiwanese, were executed as Class-B and -C war criminals.
Undeniably, the Imperial Japanese Army's conduct was marked by such barbarous acts as the abuse of POWs. Given this, it was correct that those involved in these atrocities were tried as Class-B and -C war criminals.

Victor's justice

But questions must be raised about many cases involving those tried as Class-B and -C war criminals.
The Allies hunted for suspects mainly on the strength of testimony taken from former POWs. But many Japanese and others were arrested and executed for crimes they had nothing to do with. Judges at those military tribunals were often careless in examining items presented as evidence. In some cases, defendants were never given the opportunity to state their cases.
It is said that the Dutch military tribunal in Indonesia was egregious in this respect. The tribunal was set up by the Netherlands, which invaded Indonesia two years after Japan's surrender to the Allies in 1945.
Two Japanese military officers were put to death as Class-B and -C war criminals for "competing to see which would be able to behead 100 Chinese with swords" during Japan's incursion into Nanjing in 1937. The accusation must be dismissed as fictional.
In 2003, the families of the two officers filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court, seeking to restore their honor by proving that the accusation against them is groundless. The case is being heard at the district court.
Some rank-and-file soldiers were sentenced to death for executing POWs under orders issued by their superiors.
This is in stark contrast to the failure to dispense justice by trying Allied soldiers who visited atrocities on Japanese civilians. No one has been tried for the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the U.S carpet bombing of Japanese cities.
On the contrary, the Allies tried a jurist of the Imperial Japanese Army for allegedly mistreating a U.S. pilot who was taken prisoner after his plane was downed. The jurist had sentenced the pilot to death for carrying out indiscriminate air raids on a Japanese cities.
Experts have said that the decision by the Allies to try the jurist was made because there were defects in procedures carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army in sentencing the pilot to death. Still, the trial of the Japanese jurist should be deemed to be retaliatory.
U.S. soldiers have drawn international condemnation for abusing Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Graib prison. Reports have said that victims include those who were ordered to stand on small boxes with electric wires tied to their fingers and toes. Other victims were forced to go naked and form human pyramids. Some female prisoners allegedly were raped. Reported cases also include some deaths of prisoners.
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has acknowledged that some methods employed by the U.S. forces to interrogate Iraqi prisoners violated the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
If the standards applied in trying Japanese Class-B and -C war criminals were applied in the prosecution of the U.S. soldiers involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, then it follows that they should receive the death penalty for committing such atrocities. We are interested to know what the United States will choose to do.

'Criminals' died for country

On May 30, 1958, the final 18 Class-B and -C "war criminals" were released from prison. This was six years after the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect.
In 1959, those executed as Class-B and -C war criminals were enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of the war dead rest in peace. In 1978, the executed Class-A war criminals were enshrined at the Shinto shrine.
China and South Korea have reacted angrily to visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in recent years. These nations defended their attitude by emphasizing that the shrine hosts the souls of the "Class-A war criminals."
Neither China nor South Korea have yet issued official comments critical of Japan's decision to enshrine the Class-B and -C "war criminals" at Yasukuni Shrine.
But what will China do if the Japanese government gives in to Chinese pressure and relocates the souls of the Class-A "war criminals" from the shrine to another facility? There are concerns that China and some of Japan's other neighbors could point a finger at Japan's decision to enshrine the Class-B and -C "war criminals" at the Yasukuni facility when they deal with issues involving their relations with this country.
Concerning the issue of paying tribute to the dead, it is a cultural tradition in Japan for everybody to be treated equally once he or she has passed away. In this sense, no "war criminal" should be excluded from the list of those to be honored at an annual government-sponsored memorial service for the war dead.
A bronze statue stands near the Marunouchi south exit of Tokyo Station, with its arms spread toward the sky. The statue's pedestal bears an inscription that reads "Love."
The bronze was erected in 1955 by an association called Sugamo Isho Hensan-kai, which hoped it would symbolize its members' earnest wish for world peace. Proceeds from the sale of "Seiki no Isho" (Wills of the Century)--a collection of essays written by the executed "war criminals" and later published by the association--were used to build the statue. It is a pity that this fact seems to have been forgotten.
"Seiki no Isho" contains about 700 essays and other articles written by Class-A, -B and -C "war criminals." The book shows that many of these "war criminals" quietly accepted their destinies as they looked toward their nation's future, although they insisted that the trials conducted to judge their wartime conduct were unfair.
No one should forget that Japan's current peace and prosperity have been made possible through the contribution that about 3.1 million Japanese killed in World War II and other wars made to their country.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 15) Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun



http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Askew.html

denials

Nanjing and other atrocities

http://vikingphoenix.com/public/JapanIncorporated/1895-1945/jpwcrmz.htm

http://ideaworx.com/slatewiper/slatelinks.htm

Breakfast porn....3 egg moose farm omlette, steak, bacon, wild turkey, hot sauce, plums,iced coffee, green tea, parmaesan, tomato and fresh basil, guiness, cheddar, kiwifruit, Steely Dan, John Coltrane and the Asylum Street Spankers, Neil Stephenson, etc etc etc. 

Why as a matter of fact the back of my neck is feelin' dirty and gritty

We've broken a record here in Tokyo this summer for longest heat wave on record locally - 38 straight days in which the high temperature has been above 30 C (86 F for all those living in the stone age), including a record high temp in July of 39.5 C (103 F) and a record hot low of 32 C at 4am a few days back. And all with humidity in the 75 to 95 percent range. As they say in Texas "It's hotter than two rats fucking in wool sock around here"

Yet another reason to see the Asylum Street Spankers in concert

Things you never thought you'd ever see #237: Las Lindas Spanker songstress Christina Mars double necked ukelele

Adachi's novel isn't socks
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
The Island of Bicycle Dancers
By Jiro Adachi
St. Martin's Press, 230 pp, 22.95 dollars
Jiro Adachi has obviously taken the creative writing maxim "write what you know" to heart. It is therefore not surprising that the bike messenger, English teacher and native New Yorker's first novel is concerned mainly with the lives of bike messengers and non-English speaking immigrants in the Big Apple. The surprising part is what a terrific book Adachi has produced with The Island of Bicycle Dancers.
The story centers around Yurika, a half-Japanese, half-Korean young woman born and raised in Kawasaki who has been sent to New York to work in her Korean uncle's corner store and learn English. Having fallen in with the wrong crowd in Japan--mainly out of boredom--and flunking out of a few junior colleges, the directionless Yurika has been sent overseas to get her act together.
The offspring of a Hungarian mother and a Japanese father, Adachi has some firsthand knowledge of the cultural identity issues faced by those like Yurika who grow up straddling a cultural divide. Yurika has been raised Japanese and her father hides his Korean ethnicity to avoid discrimination. Arriving in New York, Yurika's wholly unlikeable and inhospitable aunt, Hyun Jeong, insists on calling her by her Korean name and generally treats her either as a burden or an indentured servant.
Yurika's American-born cousin Suzie, a promiscuous party girl, welcomes the new arrival with open arms, teaching her enough English to gossip about Yurika's crush on Hector, a handsome Hispanic bike courier.
Yurika also learns English from Whitey, another bike messenger, who falls hard for her and shows her the New York outside her aunt and uncle's Little Asia neighborhood.
The love triangle of Whitey, Yurika and Hector provides the main thrust that moves the plot along, but the closely linked themes of personal liberation and community provide the wheels.
Throughout the novel, Adachi shows us characters who have set themselves free. Whitey has dropped out of college and turned his back on his family's expectations to pursue his dreams of traveling and writing. Suzie reinvents herself as an English teacher. The idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants, the land of opportunity, the place to make a fresh start and create a new self is constantly in the background of Adachi's New York.
For Yurika, learning English is the key to becoming a new person. It is also the key to shedding the dead weight of her complicated family history and becoming a member of the bike messenger tribe, one of several communities Adachi presents us with here as alternatives to family.
The messengers watch out for each other, enforce their own code of conduct and pursue their own goals. New York's ethnic neighborhoods are shown in much the same way--tight-knit social networks that look after their own. Wealth is reckoned in terms of friendship, respect within the community and the joy taken in pursuing one's dreams.
Hyun Jeong is one of the villains of the novel, an immigrant who has never tried to learn the language, a grasping, hypercritical harpy who generally makes her husband, stepdaughter and niece miserable. She has no friends and doesn't seem to want any. Hector, too, closes himself off from the rest of the group and suffers the consequences.
The author's experience teaching English as a second language has clearly given him a taste of the immigrant experience and, as clearly evidenced here, an ear for the expressiveness and color of the English language--broken, slang, patois and otherwise.
Yurika learns the evocative street slang of the bike messengers, words like "badass" and "kickin'" and the all-important expression "up yours." From Suzie, she gets vocabulary lists and pronunciation drills that show off the sensual nature of the language. Adachi also throws in the occasional humorous malapropisms ESL teachers inevitably hear from their students, as when Yurika complains, "My English is socks."
While the constant use of the bicycle as a symbol of freedom becomes repetitive by the novel's end and the significance of the final scene, in which a set of training wheels are removed from a child's bike, is beyond obvious, The Island of Bicycle Dancers has all the fluid grace, speed, sweat, muscle and guts of a fixed gear racer without any needless ornamentation or chrome. It is a simple machine that transports us while letting us see some interesting things along the way.

As I have mentioned in the past, I work for The Man - a 'newspaper' with a quasi-facist editorial policy and that is often racist, always sexist and a major apologist for the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. Basil Fawlty's "Don't mention the war" is usually our watchword. Failing that we fall back on the radical Japanese right-wing idea that Japan was a victim in World War II and was punished for its altruistic efforts to end colonialism in Asia. 'Nanjing? Where's that?'
Hence you get editorials like the following




Chinese government to blame for booing
Yomiuri Shimbun
It is unfortunate to see the Asian Cup soccer games being held in China marred by anti-Japanese sentiment.
"I don't care about booing (by Chinese fans against the Japanese team)," said Japanese national team coach Zico, a Brazilian. "But any soccer fan in the world should pay due respect when a national anthem is played."
As Zico pointed out, Chinese soccer fans apparently went beyond the bound of ordinary behavior since they kept booing even when the Japanese national anthem was played.
Anti-Japanese sentiments were expressed in the crudest manner Saturday at Chongqing Olympic Sports Center during the game between Japan and Jordan. Some Chinese fans provoked unrest by throwing things at Japanese supporters, surrounding the bus carrying the Japanese national team and heaping abuse on them.
The Chinese government should be blamed for developing such narrow-minded nationalism among the public.
Anti-Japanese sentiment in China has spread like an epidemic since
the mid-1990s. This has been particularly evident since 1995, the 50th
anniversary of the end of World War II, when then Chinese President Jiang
Zemin's government launched a major campaign to celebrate China's victory in the
anti-Japan war in an effort to strengthen patriotism and solidarity
among
the public.

Wartime antipathy rekindled
That year, Chinese newspapers and TV programs were filled with various reports on the
invasion of China and the atrocities committed there before and during World War II by the Imperial Japanese military. Since then, patriotism in China has been taught based on anti-Japanese sentiment.

A majority of Chinese soccer fans who filled Asian Cup venues are young people educated in such a way. It is unfortunate, but antagonism toward Japan has become a self-evident truth for
them.

Through patriotic education, Jiang and his government have amplified the antagonism of the Chinese people toward Japan to maintain the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party's dictatorship and its ability to unify the Chinese people.

Japan tends to be used as a target for the venting of frustration by Chinese youths who are not allowed to criticize their own government. The Chinese government may be able to learn various lessons from the Asian Cup.

Host's role may be questioned
In four years, it will host the Olympic Games in Beijing with its national prestige at stake.
If it cannot control the unruly, bad-mannered jeering seen during the current tournament, Beijing's ability to host the Olympic Games will be questioned.

The China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League of China, carried an unusual article warning Chinese fans to show restraint in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games when the quarterfinal match between Japan and Jordan was held in Chongqing.
However, the article apparently had a limited effect on the crowd at the game held between Japan and Bahrain in Jinan on Tuesday. Saturday's final match between Japan and China will test whether the country and its people are really ready to host the Olympic Games.

When he visited Japan in 1998, Jiang one-sidedly and doggedly repeated that Japan must
keep learning lessons from history. His remarks in turn ignited anti-Chinese sentiment among Japanese. Current Chinese President Hu Jintao's government, which will host the Olympic Games, a festival of peace and friendship, in four years, must end the vicious cycle created by Chinese antagonism toward Japan that has been nurtured by China.

It is unfortunate for both Japan and China to see this cycle of antagonism continuing.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 5)

Face it he deserves a medal, not prison time. Hurrah for Matsuno-san!


Peko-chan thief gets 1 1/2 yrs for 'vicious crime'
Yomiuri Shimbun
The Maebashi Summary Court in Gunma Prefecture on Tuesday handed down an 18-month sentence to a 42-year-old man for stealing two Peko-chan figures--the well-known character of confectionery maker Fujiya Co.
According to the court ruling, Kojiro Matsuno, unemployed of no fixed address, stole two automated Peko-chans from outside Fujiya shops in Ogomachi and Omamamachi in Gunma Prefecture.
Presiding Judge Seiya Sano said Matsuno had stolen the figurines to sell, and that the crime was vicious.
Prosecutors said in their closing argument that Mastuno had stolen 30 to 40 Peko-chan figurines around the Kanto area and had sold them to acquaintances for 20,000 yen to 30,000 yen apiece.

Numbers say Bush warm bread
A more informed look at the polling numbers here

Nicholas Kentaro Wood 

Brother Mike and his son Maxwell 

the family on Nick's first day of kindergarten