Part 1: Japanese Weather Forecast

In Japan, the weather forecast is notoriously accurate. That's a nice facet of living here. You can count on the TV weather forecaster to be competent and correct. There are also some nice weather sites such as Japan Meteorological Agency's and Tenki.jp.

It was a constant disappointment living in the States when you'd watch the TV forecast and get the weather for Chicago or L.A., for example, which would inevitably be significantly different from where you actually lived. Because you are in their TV market area, however, you are left guessing just how different your personal experience will be.

A really excellent feature of these forecasts is the sentaku (laundry) forecast. In case you were unaware, in Japan almost everyone dries their laundry outside on plastic clip hangars suspended from a pole on the veranda. This goes for both apartments/condos (or "manshyon", which are not the mansions we think of in American English, but that that's another post entirely) and private residences. The plastic hanging devices have one or two larger sized hooks to suspend them from the pole (commonly a long aluminum pole suspended horizontally by hooks mounted to the overhang of your balcony/veranda), then small alligator clips to connect various pieces of laundry. The whole laundry hangar folds in half to save space during storage, as well.

The laundry forecast will tell you how good the weather will be that day for hanging and drying laundry. It really pays off if you put some out and have to leave home. You can figure out ahead of time whether or not this will be a good idea or rather if it will likely rain or be so windy you'll loose your skid marked tighty-whities when they are blown into the neighbor's veranda.

Laundry drying outside was one of the first things I noticed here as most residential buildings were covered in laundry on nice weather days. In America, when one travels somewhere, whether it's rural or downtown, and sees laundry outside, the typical first impression is that the area is not very affluent. Here, it is pervasive and generally has nothing to do with income levels. Sometimes in the winter when it's particularly dry, we hang our laundry inside to help humidify the air in our apartment.

I have begun to notice that I'm becoming slowly inured to this type of thing the longer I am here, so I am going to try to "re-notice" some of the oddities or differences herein for the benefit of those of you who don't live here.

In Part 2, I'll discuss the main reason we dry our laundry outside here.

In Part 3, I'll discuss the historical significance of the main point of Part 2.

Link'd: Krugman Article

I think this article by Paul Krugman nicely summarizes several points I have been making of late (mostly to myself since my family is not interested in my rants other than to poke fun at me for being an incensed maniac at the kitchen table).

The idea that investigations and "looking back" at what appear to be obvious violations of U.S. and International Laws would somehow distract us from fixing the economy and the plethora of other problems plaguing the U.S. right now seems spurious at best.  I was happy to see in print the obvious argument that the individuals tasked with the economic recovery would certainly not be distracted from their missions in order to perform what is the Justice Department's job.  Unfortunately, the MSM talking heads consistently fail to bring up that simple point.  It's not that difficult to notice that there are plenty of appropriate personnel available to look into potential crimes without burdening departments already fully engaged in such things as economic and energy policy.

I also enjoyed his asking the question "What political consensus?".  What exactly is the downside risk of such probing, considering the Party of No hasn't joined in any of our reindeer games thus far anyway.  If you want to be outside the process and obstruct in lock-step, then I guess that's your prerogative.  If you want to tea bag each other to make yourselves feel better, then you are welcome to exercise that freedom, just as the majority of us are welcome to exercise our freedom to make fun of your efforts.  However, when your focus on non-issues drives your party to the point of distraction and leaves you out of the dialogue, it is difficult at best to empathize with your complaints about the agreed upon course.

Krugman is also likely correct that many of the individuals currently calling for us to "just move on" (on both sides of the political spectrum, mind you) have a personal stake in not looking back.  Many people were undoubtedly aware of the torturing.  Some supported it vigorously, but perhaps just as culpable are those who stood idly by and did nothing to prevent it or at the very least publicize it.

America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding

Kind of hard to argue with the precedence we've already set ourselves, don't you think?

If we don't follow up in kind with our own torturers, do the families of those tried, convicted, and in some cases put to death then have just cause to seek reparations and official apologies from the United States?

I'm at a Loss for Words...

I am ready to go home now.

American culture is officially dead.

Please note these are available in "Happy":

and "Determined":

Homecoming

So, it's good to be back home for a short visit.

It's great to see my family and friends whom I miss very much despite my current love affair with my new home country.


I also miss White Castle's jalapeño cheeseburgers.

I do not miss Chicago's traffic jams.


I do love Bucktown.


However, I still do not love, like, nor support the Cubs.


Just look at me. I'm a black and white cat. Even the very fur on my back holds its allegiance to my beloved South Side Hitmen.


Go Sox.

Upbeat Thought for the Day

I'm no poetry guru, but I really enjoy this site.

I will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain --
I will remember my old strength and all my forest-affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugarcane.
I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.

I will go out until the day, until the morning break,
Out to the winds' untainted kiss, the waters' clean caress.
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake.
I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless!
                                    
                                     Toomai of the Elephants.

Some things that make me uncomfortable

This

And This

And This

And more of this

Link'd: Today's "Party" in Boston is Weak Tea

Today's "Party" in Boston is Weak Tea

by Dana Houle

Wed Apr 15, 2009 at 04:50:05 PM PDT

On December 16th, 1773, three ships were docked in Boston harbor filled with cargoes of tea from the royally chartered East India Company. The previous year, in a scheme to help fund colonial rule in India through the East India Company, the crown had decided to dump tea cheaply on the American colonies, but with a tax added to raise revenue.

American colonists drank prodigious amounts of tea, but it was almost all contraband tea. Dumping cheap tea on the American market would hurt the business of the contraband smugglers, many of whom had high status in the colonies. It also was a tax on colonial tea-drinkers, who had no representation in Parliament. Thus, it was taxation without representation.

A crowd of about 7,000 people assembled near the harbor. That night, after a town meeting in Boston's South Meeting House, around a hundred men, led by Sam Adams, boarded the vessels and dumped all 342 chests of tea in to the harbor.

A quick search of the intertoobz doesn't give the population of Boston at the time. But 17 years later, the first official US census found Boston's population at a little over 18,000; given the population growth trends of the time, it's probably safe to say that Boston's population in 1773 was around 15,000.

So, for the Boston Tea Party, the crowd was a little under half the size of the entire population of Boston.

Today, some people angry that they have both taxes and representation, got together in Boston. Fox News, which has been trumpeting these gatherings for days if not weeks, reported that the crowd was about 500 people. The current population of the city of Boston is over 600,000 people, and the population of the Boston metro area is close to 5 million.

So, fun with numbers:
Crowd at Boston Tea Party=7,000, equal to 46% of population of Boston

Crowd at Boston Teabaggers's Party= 500, equal to 0.08% of population of Boston.

BTW, the original Boston Tea Party didn't have free advertising from Fox News.

Even Homeland Security is Afraid

So, the potential and actual rising gun violence has peaked Homeland Security's interest/focus/concern. By the way, I still hate this terminology. It's grates on me like "War on Terror" did. It just makes me sick. When did we start using "Homeland" instead of United States or America or U.S.?

Ojii-san! What a big whip you have!

Oh, you crazy Japanese!

Link'd: Taxing Matters

This is a good summary article on what the real trend in our tax codes has been since the 80's.

I'm sick already of watching "Teabaggers" rave against who knows what. 95% of America got their taxes cut already under an Obama administration that is barely 3 months old. This cut came immediately in the form of reduced payroll taxes. Immediate relief, that is, as opposed to waiting until you have to file next year or sending out paper checks that cost the government money to distribute.

So, what the heck is the protest? It's a sham payed for by right-wing billionaires and inflated by Fox Noise Channel partisan hack hosts. Seriously? Teabagging? Am I supposed to be enraged on behalf of those individuals making over $250K that got a tax increase back to the Reagan era rates? Boo friggin' hoo.

59

Truly sad.

No Control

So, there have been 57 humans murdered by other humans using firearms in the U.S. during 8 different rampages in the last month. This, of course, is in addition to the countless non-mass murders using firearms during that same period nationwide. In the linked article, it states that "Gun enthusiasts say there is no way to prevent human beings from committing insane acts _ whether they have a gun permit or not. And studies conflict on whether stricter gun laws lessen gun violence." I would probably agree with the first sentence. However the second? Bullocks.

According to this 2002 data, the U.S. had 9,369 such murders over the year while Japan with roughly half the population crammed into a land mass the size of California had just 47. America is 4th from the bottom of this trash heap of statistics behind South Africa, Colombia and Thailand. Yep, it's clear that the legislators and lobbyists are doing a great job protecting America from itself when we're keeping such august company.

Well, We Dodged Another Bullet

I borrowed this photo from the Huff Post. They rock.

I didn't detect any falling debris from the North Korean missile, ahem, communications satellite launch this morning at 11:30. Actually, I was at the gym punching and kicking away. Caught the news on CNNJ when I got home. They actually did a nice job and interviewed some of my friends at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as going back over a time line of North Korean missile activities including sales to nations on our "bad people" list.

I would encourage everyone reading to do two things:

1 - Please use Google Maps or whatever your favorite mapping site/software is to examine which is closest to North Korea: Hawaii, Alaska, or Guam. Please also note that the MSM talking heads routinely refer to North Korean missile technology from the perspective of what chances it has of reaching Hawaii or Alaska as if those are the two closest U.S. targets to the launches. Then, do a quick Google or other search to determine that Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas are U.S. Territories and thus are inhabited by U.S. citizens. Once you have accomplished this, you will be 100% smarter on the subject of North Korean missile technology potential than any talking head such as Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer, et al. This is, of course entirely ignoring the fact that we have thousands of American military personnel (and cats) stationed in South Korea and Japan that are well within current missile range, including the shorter range Nodong missiles.

2 - Please read the ten basic articles of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between Japan and the United States of America. This should only take you three minutes or so. Please read Article V twice and you will understand more about the U.S. obligation to protect Japan from attack than most people on the planet, including in our own State Department in Washington, D.C.

"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"

Buddha at Kamakura



O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when "the heathen" pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat,
The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
His children at Kamakura,

Yet spare us still the Western joke
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
That worship at Kamakura --

The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies
That flit beneath the Master's eyes.
He is beyond the Mysteries
But loves them at Kamakura.

And whoso will, from Pride released,
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the Soul of all the East
About him at Kamakura.

Yea, every tale Ananda heard,
Of birth as fish or beast or bird,
While yet in lives the Master stirred,
The warm wind brings Kamakura.

Till drowsy eyelids seem to see
A-flower 'neath her golden htee
The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly
From Burmah to Kamakura,

And down the loaded air there comes
The thunder of Thibetan drums,
And droned -- "Om mane padme hums" --
A world's-width from Kamakura.

Yet Brahmans rule Benares still,
Buddh-Gaya's ruins pit the hill,
And beef-fed zealots threaten ill
To Buddha and Kamakura.

A tourist-show, a legend told,
A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,
So much, and scarce so much, ye hold
The meaning of Kamakura?

But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
No nearer than Kamakura?

Kipling - 1892

So, I Joined a Gym

It's getting to be that time in my life where I can't drink all night, snap back the next day and still keep a flat stomach. So, it was time to start an exercise / training program. Back in 2000 - 2001, I was studying Tae Kwon Do in Chicago. I was in the best shape of my life at that time.

Since then, I turned 30, then 35, etc. Not quite the same perspective on health and fitness now in my "mid" 30's. If I was from Okinawa and could reasonably predict living to be 100, that would be one thing. However, I'm probably further along the life scale than your average Okinawan, so now I gotta work to stay fit. Woe is me.

Every day on the way home from the train station, I would pass this kick boxing gym where you could see in the window and watch guys punching and kicking. It looked like a lot of fun, so we finally stopped in to check it out. I went to a trial lesson and it was a blast. I got a great workout, the other students are nice people, and the instructor even speaks pretty good English so he can help me understand why I am such an inadequate grasshopper on a regular basis.

Actually, he's taking good care of me and I'm learning a lot. It's a heck of a stress release. After a trip there, I'm too tired to feel stress or much of anything. Today, my left wrist is killing me from hook punches I did incorrectly and my left shoulder is "dead" from the wrestling portion of last night's class. It turns out the gym isn't just kick boxing, but also mixed martial arts. We study some MMA moves in addition to standard kick boxing punching and kicking. It's a bit different than Tae Kwon Do was, but extremely satisfying in much the same way.