Japanese Folly

From a Western perspective, there's a lot to admire in Japan. As with all countries, however, there's also a fair amount to loathe.

When an ethicity, nationality, culture or religion is involved with something heinous, they often justify their actions by invoking the rights of tradition. "It is our way," they say to critics. "You as outsiders do not understand our culture and should therefore not censure our activities or rituals." This reasoning has been used to deter meddling and defend repression, persecution, and even genocide throughout the ages. Tradition and heritage have no right to be included in any discussion of ethics or morality. Our ancestors were benighted fools who believed the Earth was flat, black people constituted only three-fifths of a human being, and that slavery was morally just. The Japanese are invoking this same ludicrous logic right now. Every year the government there sponsors a "dolphin drive" to herd marine mammals into shallow bays and coves and then cut or bludgeon them at close range with knives and clubs. They are left to bleed, and then pulled from the water by their tails.

In the face of international (and some domestic) pressure to put a halt to this centuries-old tradition, Takumi Fukuda, the fisheries attache at the Japanese Emabassy in Washington, D.C., responded with, "It is kind of our cultural activity. We think it is important."

Dolphins are some of the most intelligent and self-aware creatures on this planet. They are one of the few animals (along with chimpanzees, elephants and humans) who can recognize themselves in a mirror. They deserve better than to be sold as fake whale meat and dog food. The image below is from today's Washington Post.



Click here for a short but informative National Geographic article on the dolphin hunts, and how a bottlenose with four limbs -- perhaps evidence that dolphins evolved from land animals -- was caught up in the culling.

Roughly 16,000 dolphins have already been killed, and the Japanese fishermen are going for over 20,000 by April.

If you'd like to help end the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, click here to add your name to a petition sponsored by The Ocean Project, that will eventually be sent to Shinzo Abe, Japan's new Prime Minister.

Cool toys

I've just found some links to real-time indicators of both the National Debt and the ongoing price tag of the Iraq War (because, after all, the cost involves much more than dollar bills). Both are posted in the sidebar to the left; click on them to link to the hard data on zfacts.com.

What country do we live in?

I have come to the indignant realization that I no longer live in the United States of America; it is the nation-state it once was in name only. Dick Cheney, he who tells U.S. senators to "go fuck themselves", has eviscerated the constitutional meat of this country and left behind the meaningless husk for the rest of us to pick over. Two days ago a man named Steven Howards filed a lawsuit against a member of the Secret Service for a wrongful arrest this past June. According to the Rocky Mountain News, "Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people.

According to the lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Denver, Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards' lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had "assaulted" the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail."

It was a mix-up, you say, a one-time mistake and the charges were dismissed. Yes, they were dismissed -- three weeks later. Thankfully Steve Howards didn't roll over and plead guilty to a lesser charge like some other people might have; he remembers that people still possess the right to free speech in this country. Thank you, Steve, for pushing back.

This wasn't the first time something like this has happened, however. In Indiana in 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John Blair was arrested for holding a sign that read, "CHENEY-19th Century Energy Man" across the street from a convention center where Cheney was hosting a fundraiser for a local Congressman. Two weeks later, the prosecuting attorney dismissed the charges. Allegedly the arresting officers lied about the arrest. Read about Blair's Orwellian experience here, and lament the fact that Cheney and his smirking pet chimpanzee have two more years in office.

Hey Dick, go fuck yourself. It's our country, too.

The East Indian Webster

There are some things happening in my life and in the world right now that get me down. This is something that gets me up.

So, desu ne...

I've finally completed the traditional post-holiday task of uploading my photos to the internet, and now I humbly offer them up to the world. This time, however, I offer a choice of two different sites:


BUZZNET -- my time-honored and well established memory repository, with the ability to see the highest image resolution right next to the thumbnails


FLICKR -- the new and exciting challenger, with slideshow capability and a faster load time

The same photos are on both websites and they each have their pros and cons. I've been using Buzznet for years now and have almost 1,000 photos of trips around the world archived there. It has a vibrant but sometimes slow interface and a great user community. Flickr is clean and easier to navigate, but the interface seems a bit sterile to me. The advantage is that the thumbnails are much bigger than on Buzznet, and they include a small view of the title and description (on Buzznet the accompanying text is viewable only when looking at the image itself). The disadvantage is that to see the high resolution image that I uploaded, you have to click on the photo from the gallery, and then click AGAIN on "sizes". Seems counterintuitive to me, and on Buzznet the high resolution image is the only one available. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the snapshots on either site and if you feel so inclined, let me know which interface you prefer in this highstakes bout of photo-sharing communities.

Banksy comes to downtown L.A.

I just returned from the Banksy show in a warehouse south of downtown, and I was wondering how one could succinctly explicate Banksy's artwork to one who is unfamiliar with his antics. Do you know Shepherd Fairy's "Obey Giant" phenomenology experiment? Robbie Conal's political portraits or Space Invader's urban mosaics? No disrespect to any of those guys, but they are the surface dwellers of the underground art movement; Banksy is a Morlock in comparison. He is so far underground that he can't even come to his shows or let his identity be known lest he be arrested.

Recently, he installed what looked like a hooded Guantanamo prisoner at the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride in Disneyland. He also reverse-shoplifted 500 Paris Hilton CDs in something like 42 record stores all over the U.K., replacing them with his own discs (mixed by Danger Mouse) and artwork which carried the message that the heiress is vapid and talentless. Pretty obvious, but apparently there are people out there who don't know that yet. There is a video installation at the show (across from the live elephant spray-painted with a faux flocked wallpaper pattern) that explains how he accomplished these and some other guerilla art installations.

As I've previously posted, my camera was lost in translation, so I snapped these shots with my SLVR:





Much of his art works on several levels: there is one painting of a guy selling 'Destroy Capitalism' T-shirts for $30 in a booth, with people lined up to purchase them. That's a fine comment on our consumerist society in itself, but he also plays with the notion that many people are sheep and need to be told what to buy, where to shop, and who to follow -- the first few buyers in line could be anarchists or punks, but towards the end of the queue there's a suburban mom with a baby stroller.

It's a really interesting, subversive and thought-provoking show -- and naturally it's free. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys questioning the status quo. Or anyone who enjoys seeing pink and gold Indian elephants.

A message from Banksy, via fliers at the show:

There's an elephant in the room.
There's a problem that we never talk about.

The fact is that life isn't getting any fairer.

- 1.7 Billion people have no access
to clean drinking water.
- 20 Billion people live below the poverty line.
- Every day hundreds of people are made to feel
physically sick by morons at art shows telling them
how bad the world is but never actually
doing something about it.

Anybody want a free glass of wine?

Banksy, Los Angeles 2006

KCAL 9's story on the Pacific Electric body

His dog was dead, too. :(

"...Cops Are Actors, but Body Is Real"

For the past few days I've been trying to get over my lingering Japanese jetlag and catch back up with good friends. I've mostly succeeded in the latter, but as for the former -- it's currently 4:21am and I'm up typing this twaddle. Most of you who know me are aware that I live on the 4th floor of the Pacific Electric Building in downtown L.A.



Nice place, most of the time. Today I came home in the mid-afternoon, got my mail, and walked into one of the lobby elevators with Gary Sinise, sporting a badge. A lot of filming goes on in our building, and for the last couple days it's been a big crew from CSI: NY, shooting on our 7th floor and up by the rooftop pool. Yesterday I was also in the lobby around midday, and came across a bunch of what I initially thought were extras for the shoot: "cops" standing around chatting. I realized they were authentic, however, when I saw that one of their badges read "L.A.P.D.", not "N.Y.P.D.", like Sinise's. As it turns out, they were here for a very macabre reason: a quite dead body was discovered one floor above me. (Isn't that cute how the LA Times article lists the story under Entertainment News?) You'd think that after one or two months of not paying rent the management would try entering the apartment, but you'd be wrong. I haven't seen it yet, but according to my building's online blog, the coroner's sticker is on loft #538.

More buffoonery & shenanigans

I've been awake for over 24 hours; I've lost my camera and all the photos stored on its memory card in a Tokyo taxi; and I'm back in Los Angeles with a broken a/c and a dead succulent. Needless to say, I'm feeling quite glum. So I watch this to cheer me up:

Maid in Japan

Tonight, Mai kindly took me to a Maid Cafe in Akihabara, something you'll never find in the States. The joint was called Cos-Cha. They have an all-Nihongo website at www.cos-cha.com, but there are few pictures (just impossibly-proportioned anime maids). Here is another website with photos and English descriptions of some other maid cafes in and around Tokyo's Electric Town. Notice that some of the maids are wearing big furry rabbit or cat ears on their heads? Don't ask, just accept it. I would have thought that this kind of establishment would be rare and underground, but I was wrong. Representatives from different cafes are posted right outside of Akihabara Station, handing out flyers to any passing nerd who looks ready to be parted from his money. The first time I walked by I got no love, but as soon as I strolled back without Mai, a maid in a frilly pink dress neatly pressed a flyer into my open hand and smiled as if by reflex.



*The above image is actually one of only two photos buried deep in the lacy folds of Cos-Cha's website, but I don't know if the featured maid really works there.

Filled with otaku (Nihonjin nerds), the draw of this particular place Mai brought me to seemed to be purchasing some extra contact with the waitresses in the form of a game of janken -- the Japanese version of 'rock paper scissors'. The maid brings out a drink with about eight small bowls, each with a different ingredient. The divertissement then begins: each time the otaku wins a round the maid puts something pleasant into the drink, like strawberry jam or sugar. If the maid wins, she adds a raw egg or natto, or some other nasty shit. You may think the finale is when the fool has to drink the concoction, but you'd only be half right: if he can't down the whole potion (including chewing and swallowing all the fermented soy beans) everybody gets to watch and applaud while the maid hauls off and slaps him across the face. That's right, these guys PAY for this stuff. Sadly, it's verboten to take pictures inside the cafe, so all I have to show for it is what I can find on the internet. For some live-action maid service -- sans slapping -- check out this CNN report, courtesy of YouTube:



THIS is what I came to Japan for! Mad foolish shenanigans and buffoonery that you just can't experience anywhere else in the world. Again, thank you Mai for enlightening me. Kon ban, benkyo ni narimashita.

Scads of Scat

I`ve spent the last day and a half in Nara, Japan`s first ancient capital. Today I saw, oh nothing, just the world`s oldest wooden structure (Horyuji Temple), as well as the world`s biggest all-wood structure (Todaiji Temple, above). There are seven Unesco-designated World Heritage Sites here in Nara alone, and I don`t even know how many Japanese National Treasures. But forget about that: there`s also a few thousand tame deer walking around the temple grounds and parks and gardens. Do a Google image search for `nara` and `deer` and you`ll begin to get an idea. They`re considered sacred messengers of the gods, so nobody molests them. In fact, it`s quite the other way round -- one large male bit my crotch today while I was feeding him. Don`t worry, daijobu desu. Can you picture all the beautiful temples, buddha statuary, sacred primeval forests and graceful deer scattered throughout? Can you imagine what the result of all that is? That`s right: deer shit caught in the treads of your sneakers. I was walking with my guide today (an archeological student) and had just stated how beautiful it was here, when I stepped in a bunch of turdy marbles. Mendokusai! I realize now how the Japanese tradition of removing one`s shoes before entering one`s house must have started.

I'm in Japan at the moment

(adapted from an email I just typed)

...My uncle took me to a sushi-ya called Kyubei tonight for dinner. Oh, nothing, they're just the INVENTORS of the gunkan-maki method of rolling sushi. According to him it's one of the top few sushi restaurants in Tokyo, which would logically make it one of the best in our Solar System, right? After eating there I find that very easy to believe. I've never tasted its equal. The sushi chef gently placed our fish, wasabi, and ginger onto the cedar bar before us; there was no plate on the raised platform. We had toro sashimi that was like pats of butter, negi-toro (two orders, it was so good), anago x2 ways, ebi x2 ways, maguro sashimi with garlic and minced onions inserted into the slices, and uni (sea urchin). It was my first time trying it, and I hesitated for a split second; Like monkfish liver, which I tried once (and only once) at Echigo, I've heard it's an acquired taste. When I put it in my mouth, though, it was like a burst of sunshine and brine in my head. Like my finest dreams of a clean, crisp ocean. It was like a superlative caricature of what delicious sushi should taste like. My uncle related to me that once while he was in Cebu on holiday the boat boy brought live sea urchins up from the ocean floor, cracked them open and served them up raw -- he said the uni at Kyubei tasted even fresher. Apparently Kyubei is so old and respected that the daily fish market at Tsujiki reserves their best stuff for them.

Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land

"Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics."

"Bush's Fondness for Fundamentalism..."

Dnice just forwarded me a great article about how Bush and his Fundamentalist base are screwing the whole country. Again. Check it out at the Guardian -- here's the link. It was written by Karen Armstrong, an author who I admire greatly (I read her book A History of God last year). I'm tired of being sickened by this country. I want the America of my youth, an America of which I can be proud. Granted, I was only complacent then because I was ignorant of many harsh realities; it should be obvious, however, even to rational Republicans, that things have gotten much worse in the last 6 years.

Bush's policy on stem cell research is hypocritical. He appears to care more for blastocysts consisting of 50-150 cells than for fully-formed American children. Of course he wouldn't say that (though Tony Snow might), but the facts can't be ignored: Our infant mortality rate is "only the 42nd best in the world; the average baby has a better chance of surviving in Havana or Beijing." Bush's fanciful hallucinations of invisible beings ("God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did...") and evangelical inclinations are making a mockery of what this country once stood for as the first secular republic in history.

In my extensive experience, the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike*. I hereby declare myself a Bright.

It's your fault that this happened.

How crazy are the Japanese? Who else would think to combine Parappa the Rapper, Tai Bo, and English lessons? And I mean crazy in a zany-next-door-neighbor-in-a-sitcom way, not the Heaven's Gate way. The kind of crazy one can laugh at, not fear.



I can't wait to go back.

Tippi: 07/15/93-04/14/06

"My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today."