SPIME WRANGLERS

"This is not an oversight, this is an inherent part of our contemporary civilization. A Gizmo is the classic form of our society's material culture at this point in time...

So this will require me to get kind of cosmic on you here. But this is California. The Governor here is a cyborg. You remember that movie where Schwarzenegger was a cyborg robot, with big shotguns, and he beat up a blobject? That big, formless, digital, silvery, supervillain guy? Somebody in your enterprise made a lot of money from faking up that big silvery guy and putting him on a movie screen. That was some SIGGRAPH-style industry dude hard at work there, making that silvery blobject guy in TERMINATOR 3. And now that actor, Arnold, he is signing the state budget of California."

From: When Blobjects Rule the Earth
a metaseminal speech by Bruce Sterling
SIGGRAPH 2004 Keynote Address

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PICTURE OF COMPLACENCY

Families used to swim near the Mihama Reactor. (APphoto)

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GAS STATIONS MAY POSE CHILDHOOD CANCER RISK

French research shows that living near a gas station may quadruple the risk of childhood leukemia.

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THE END OF A CULTURE

Think of it: for perhaps a thousand years now, maybe more, the wild pigs who have always lived in the forests on these mountains have each year just around late August-early September begun to drift in hoggy anticipation toward the big pigout, the ripening rice that has been faithfully planted on this rice-ideal mountainside precisely for the nighttime dining enjoyment of wild pigs (in occasional tacit exchange for the wherewithal of wild pig stew), but now things have changed in ways unforeseen by porky oracles.

For example, few around here eat wild pig stew anymore; there's a MacDonald's down the road moving closer, and the rest of the big globalization truck-plane-supertanker caravan is just careering around the corner, so the ancient pig-rice-stew tradition is heading for the cultural trash heap, along with so many other aspects of human/nature relations, here as everywhere. The old farmers hereabouts have tired of chasing pigs away in person all night every night for a month every year, and the young farmers in their radically diminishing numbers aren't all that interested in stalking wild pigs through the dense forest and killing them for gamy-flavored food in preference to a Big Mac with everything.

So as of a couple days ago there is a high electrified (mildly) fence surrounding those ancient rice fields, and I'm not sleeping well these nights, I think the relentless pig frustration is affecting my dreams. I picture them out there moving through the darkness with those old harvest-time hogsmiles on their faces, bearing historically tantalizing ripe-rice images in their timeless hearts as they and their ancestors have always done, nosing through the bamboo thickets toward the rich fatgrain scent that has been their dark dominion, their percentage of the take, salivating as they head toward the finest in dining, delicately sensitive noses outstretched in porcine anticipation and Z-Z-Z-AP!! The shock and porcine puzzlement must be profound.

They stop and think piggy thoughts: let's try over here: Z-Z-Z-AP!! Maybe down here then: Z-Z-Z-AP!! And so it goes unheard through the night, all wrapped in the scent of ready-to-eat rice, as the historic rulers of darkness are informed in no uncertain terms that history has unilaterally changed forever, that henceforth there will be, unthinkably, NO MORE NIGHT RICE. And the mama pig, who brings her two little piglets for the taste time of their brand-new lives: what will she tell them? Just think what this will do to their culture!

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ACTIVE DON'T MAKE IT

Haven't been posting photos here for some time because, as I just found out via a complex (and self-initiated) labyrinth, Blogger no longer serves FTP clients that support "Active" FTP mode, it only goes with "Passive" FTP mode. I guess Blogger would rather be fully in charge. Anyway, once I've pushed some buttons and downloaded some stuff... Till then it'll be words only, as they happen...

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THE STANDARD WAS SET IN OUR MYRTLE AVENUE APARTMENT

ALBANY, New York (AP) -- "The State University of New York at Albany returned to No. 1 on the list of party schools

The Princeton Review's report ranked Albany seventh in the use of hard liquor and marijuana, ninth in beer drinking and first in 'students (almost) never study.'
The annual 'Best 357 Colleges' survey, conducted since 1992, is based on responses from more than 110,000 students at campuses around the country...

It is the ninth time the University at Albany -- a state-run school with an undergraduate enrollment of 12,000 students -- has been on the party school list. It was No. 1 in 1998 and No. 14 last year. The University of Colorado at Boulder ranked No. 1 last year."

And to think it all began on Myrtle Avenue...

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IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUST

"Much of Florida's vote will be counted by electronic voting machines with no paper trails. Independent computer scientists who have examined some of these machines' programming code are appalled at the security flaws. So there will be reasonable doubts about whether Florida's votes were properly counted, and no paper ballots to recount. The public will have to take the result on faith."

From Saving the Vote
By PAUL KRUGMAN

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THE ONLY MALE KEPPATSU-SHI

"In less than 20 minutes, Ishihara whipped her hair into a massive sculpture of double wings, the masterpiece held in place with human hair extensions, stiff wax, silk ribbons, felt and inner bindings of rope made out of absorbent Japanese paper.

.........

'Teacher,' said Hisacho, a Tokyo junior high school graduate who debuted last March as a maiko after one year of intensive training, 'the head of my geisha house said the sides of my hair should be slightly larger today.' Her head mistress now wanted her to look more mature.
'You shouldn't rush to look older; you'll look too old soon enough!' he taunted.
She gasped in mock horror.
'Now, this won't hurt a bit,' he said wryly, raising his handmade, $300 comb designed specifically for geisha hair. He dragged it roughly through the remaining bits of wax in her tumbling locks. She had shampooed the night before in preparation for her session with Ishihara, who once a week sculpts the coiffure she will wear for six nights straight.
'Teacher,' she said, comically over-wincing as he tugged at her hair, 'with you, it never hurts!'"

From: The Geisha Stylist Who Let His Hair Down (subscription)

By Anthony Faiola

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BOBBY FISCHER CHECKS MATE IN JAPAN

Bobby Fischer announced his intention to marry Miyoko Watai, 59-year-old former Japan women's chess champion and current acting president of the Japan Chess Association. Fischer's overall strategy is to renounce his US citizenship and remain in Japan; marriage to a Japanese would definitely improve his endgame.

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THE PHYSICS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

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MAPPED

Just added Pure Land Mountain to multimap.

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MUSING

Sitting here on the deck at sunset watching the still sunbright egrets circle above the green paddies on their long elegant wings, chests stuck out with special pride, and thinking for a moment how wonderful it would be to be an egret apart from the fact that I'd have to eat raw bugs, frogs and lizards-- yeah I know I know, they'd probably taste like ambrosia to me if I was an egret but I'm doing the imagining here if you don't mind, so butt out. Man, you can be annoying with your interpolations, addenda, corrigenda, interregna, whatever. Yeah I know what it means, I just gave it a new plural twist, if you must know, like I'll do your nose if you stick it in again.

Yes, the egrets, spelling their slow white calligraphies on the blue air as they ride the sunset downmountain breezes in ancient expertise, settling at last on their long legs at the paddy edges, like the finest ivory being inlaid in jade, there to walk nobly among the tall green stalks with all the slow care they bear so well, now and then selecting a raw bug, frog or lizard and gulping it down without even chewing, I'd prefer maybe an occasional saute with olive oil and why not some garlic, which is probably one big reason why species don't intermingle, then they take off again and glide, as if riding the notes of the execrable Edelweiss the village loudspeakers play every evening at about this time.

Blue rude brood crude mood, must be Monday.

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ARE YOU INVESTING?

"Who are some of the big name insiders who are taking millions upon millions of dollars out of the market as CNBC keeps telling small fry investors to keep pumping their 401-K money into stocks? I see Bill Gates has taken close to $200 million out in the last few days. Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp. has been pulling tens of millions out day after day. Top bigwigs from Dex Media have pulled upward to $1 billion out over the past few weeks. Many more hotshots have not only been taking a few chips off the table but have been running like mad out of the market. I wonder where their money is going? Gold perhaps? That you won't find out until gold has its run to well over $1,000 per ounce. But no doubt these guys are also getting much of their wealth offshore so that when the fecal matter (the dollar) hits the rotary oscillator here in the U.S. when most Americans have seen their dreams of a comfortable retirement washed down the drain, the ruling elite will no doubt have their wealth already safely squirreled away in a Swiss account, quite beyond the reach of armed tax bureaucrats."

Jay Taylor

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Hawks circling
on the high winds
as souls do

[These are the days of Obon]

THE FIFTY-POUND FROG

Was awakened at dawn this morning by the teenage crow who wants to be a frog. He was practicing up in the cherry tree. He's only a year or so old, judging by his size, but he does a damn good imitation of a very large frog if you ask me, though I must admit that crow-as-frog criteria are practically nonexistent.

I first heard him trying to be a frog one morning when I was out early working in the garden and heard a very bass-voiced frog rapping an odd beat way up in a cedar tree, and I thought boy that frog is high up, that's unusual for what is clearly a major frog, which, now that I think of it, couldn't be a frog, it would have to weigh at least fifty pounds to get a bass that deep. What could be doing that? And crow didn't move or fly off at the time, which would have given the game away; he was just watching to see if his imitation was working. This was all later deduction on my part of course, when I came to know the guy so well.

Not long after that, one morning I heard then saw him way up there in a tall cypress, confidently pretending to be the same 50-pound frog, so I knew who it was. The why of it all I have no idea, how can a crow want to be something other than a crow? That's a matter for the avian shrinks. There are few human references on such aspects of corvine psychology. Teenage human ambitions in these regards are a matter of record.

This morning though, it all took a new turn. Apparently the crow is beginning to lose faith in his quest for froghood; now he wants to be a warbler. At dawn he was sitting low in the cherry tree, starting out as the frog, when as if in despair at ever realizing frogginess (much as I gave up on my rockstar ambitions), he suddenly lapsed into a deep and raw-croaking lilt, as of a laryngitic warbler the size of a hog filled with despair.

I gotta give him that, he really tried. And he was good, as far as he could take it. He went for the rhythm and the pacing, the tonal variation and the lyric fluidity, the optimism and swelling hope of dawn, he'd clearly heard it all before and been enthralled to the point of really wanting to be a warbler, which might be a lot better than being a frog, since a warbler is another bird after all, but let's face it, optimism is not a big part of the crow character, which tends heavily toward the dark side.

So when I looked out the window and saw the big black lunk hunkered on the cherry branch, awk-squawking for all the tiny delicate warbler finesse and swelling hope that were nowhere to be found in either voice or body, I could only wish that sooner or later he'd grow up and try to be a crow, he'll be damned good at it and find a fulfilling career in the field, though I'll definitely miss the only 50-pound frog and hog-sized warbler I've ever heard.

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A SUBSTITUTE FOR US

This morning I saw an interesting flash of where society as we know it may be headed apace. A group of three got on the train, a young man and two young women. The two women, office ladies, were clearly husband hunting (an older man can tell these things), and the young man (new salaryman) was clearly (judging by the women's attitude toward him) a very eligible bachelor.

The two women started chatting the fellow up right there, cornered in the corner by the door, apparently for the duration of the ride. He carried on gamely for a while, not really interested for whatever unbelievable reason, and soon whipped out his sleek silver cell phone, flicked it open between the women with a swordlike click and commenced looking absorbedly into the screen, mumbling some vague and dismissive response to the conversation.

The women were thus forced to talk to each other, which they did half-heartedly for a while-- neither fulfilling the other's dreams, exactly-- as the young man gazed deeply into his miniscreen the way I recall men used to look into women's eyes. The conversational spirit had clearly departed, and soon one of the young women whipped out her own cell phone and merged with it, her presence virtually disappearing, leaving the third woman virtually alone, with no one to talk to but her cell phone, which promptly flashed into the light to rescue a damsel in distress.

We now have a ubiquitous personal and immediate substitute for present company. What an insult to ourselves. Given the circumstances of this little drama, I couldn't help but wonder what effect the cell phone will have on Japan's already plummeting birthrate. Must a woman (or a man) now be more appealing than a cell phone? Will the cell phone replace marriage? I don't and never will own a cell phone-- I can't imagine being 'reachable' everywhere I go-- nor can I imagine using a cell phone to replace female company. Not to mention the very real danger of having one's spirit stolen, en masse, nationwide.

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US EXPATS: HELP ELIMINATE PRESIDENTIAL EMBARRASSMENT!

OVERSEAS VOTE 2004

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ARE WE PREPARED YET?

U.S. to launch National Preparedness Month on September 9, not quite a full three years after 9/11.

September 9~October 8? (Or maybe early Novemmmmber?) Oddly delayed timing for an extremely orange, perhaps even reddening emergency...

Kids! See the National Preparedness Month Calendar of Events! (pdf) Fear can be fun!

readykids.gov goes online September 4!
take the Preparedness Quiz!! Flunk and you're a target!

In-school Ready Deputy Contest launches September 2, from americaprepared.org! Report your friends!

Or in the midst of the imminent pan-national catastrophe that will affect all voters individually, you can wrap yourself in vinyl and then duct tape it all up, you'll be safe from everything... Flag up in the corner, in case you were doubting...

w/Thanks to This Modern World

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FAHRENHEIT 9/11 OPENING NIGHT IN OSAKA!

Democrats Abroad Japan will conduct voter registration at the Garden Cinema in Umeda,Osaka on Sat, Aug. 21. Start time: between 4:30 and 6:30 (still unable to confirm starting time, but this is the slot aimed for.)
Location: Garden Cinema, Umeda Sky Building, Osaka (English map)
1500 yen reserve ticket, otherwise 1800 yen
Voter registration in the lobby before and after the showing. Japanese media will be present and want to see Americans applying for their absentee ballots!
A post-movie discussion is also planned.
Inquiries to: adisgar@ybb.ne.jp

[With thanks to Ron Andrews]

[NOTE: see important additional info from Ron in comments, below]

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HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT, THE QUESTIONABLY RICH 'PRESIDENT' OF THE UNITED STATES ACTUALLY SAID THAT!!

"Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because 'the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.'"

Paid any taxes lately?

PURE LAND MOUNTAIN NOT YET RADIOACTIVE, BUT THEY'RE WORKING ON IT

The Mihama reactor, only a few dozen kilometers northeast of Pure Land Mountain, was under at least the same degree of governmentally monitored professional care that will go into ensuring the safety of the Plasma Incinerator planned for the local neighborhood by the same type of people, i.e., who live elsewhere:

PIPE THAT CAUSED NUKE ACCIDENT WASN'T INSPECTED IN 28 YEARS

MIHAMA, Fukui -- "A ruptured pipe responsible for a nuclear power plant accident here that killed four people and left seven with burns had not been inspected for 28 years despite being an important part, it has been learned.
Even though the plant's operator, Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), was notified in November last year that the part needed to be inspected, it failed to implement safety measures ahead of tests scheduled for Aug. 14.
Inspections carried out after the accident showed that the thickness of the pipe had worn down from 10 millimeters to just 1.4 millimeters at the thinnest section. The minimum thickness to maintain proper safety was reportedly 4.7 millimeters..."

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