ARE YOU A CULTURAL CREATIVE?

"First of all, we’re talking today about a quarter of the adults in the United States, 50 million adults, and probably 80 to 90 million adults in Western Europe. These people take the ideas of ecology very seriously, and they support slowing business growth in order to save the planet. They also take very seriously women’s issues and issues of personal growth and relationships. We found that the typical Cultural Creative cares intensely about the issues raised by post–World War II social movements. These movements include those focused on civil rights, the environment, women’s rights, peace, jobs and social justice, gay and lesbian rights, alternative health care, spirituality, personal growth, and now, of course, stopping corporate globalization. All of those concerns are now converging into a strong concern for the whole planet."

Whole interview

Are you a cultural creative?

Cultural Creatives

THE KOAN OF SILENCE

When this afternoon we visited Hiyoshi Taisha shrine in Sakamoto, one of our favorite places at any time of year, in an exquisitely beautiful sub-temple of Enryaku-ji all was at peace, no cicadas yet, some birds were chirping at first but when they saw us approach the massive sacred bell they began to whisper…

Echo grabbed hold of the rope that’s used to swing the big log that after a few good heaves will reach and strike the bell and sound the very air; the birds put their wingtips in their ears…

For indeed, what is more spiritually inviting on a warm Spring afternoon with its carefully attended silence than a huge shrine bell just hanging there nascent with noise in a quiet sleepy subtemple with no one around, the young monks all napping in their cells just a few meters away?

1 – 2 – 3 - she swung the log and whipped it forward but the rope had been tied to the bell frame so as to stop the log about 2mm before it struck the bell. Silence doesn’t get any bigger than that.

The rope hadn’t been tied so that the log was simply immobile; there would be no spiritual lesson therein: it had been tied so that someone could swing the log back and forth, slowly priming and readying for sound with every expectation of sonic spiritual uplift, and then the wham of S – I – L – E – N – C – E, drawn out slowly and to its fullest length the way a cat stretches.

It was a sort of reality koan, something like “What is the sound of a bell not ringing?” The sound is within you, your spirit reverberates…

PURE LAND MOUNTAIN TO BE DEFILED?

Though Japan is rooted strongly in its past, it has never been a tradition here to think environmentally about the future into which that past must advance. Thus in many ways Japan has become the canary in the coal mine for the developed world, as witness Minamata disease.

Despite the fact that Japanese city folks now routinely regiment their trash, little is being done to lessen the volume of trash produced, or to change public attitude toward how trash is disposed of: it's all being incinerated, as limited landfill areas run out. As a result, Japan has the most incinerators in the world (as of 1997 there were more than 1,850 municipal waste incinerators in Japan, compared with about 150 in the United States and 50 in Germany. Japan also has more than 3,300 privately owned (and poorly regulated) industrial incinerators – Source). Thanks to this approach, Japan is also the most dioxinated country in the world. To put some radioactive frosting on that celebratory cake, the country also now has 50 nuclear power plants (in one of the most tectonically volatile regions on the planet), is right up there in number of nuclear power accidents, and is reviving its plans for a plutonium processing plant, in a region that is already a nuclear hotbed.

But public attitude begins locally, where in the present instance the yellow and red "hantai" (‘against’) signs now showing up on houses and sheds and fences and poles around this neighborhood are being put up by locals who, for whatever reason (more power, more money, more jobs, it’s progress...) oppose dissolving the current town council for a new one that might cancel current plans to build just what Japan needs: another incinerator. But this time it's not just any old incinerator, for not just any old incineration, and not just in any old location: an essentially experimental gas plasma incinerator, run 24/365 (at tremendous expense), to burn industrial waste - than which the only waste more toxic is nuclear - right on the shores of Lake Biwa, the liquid heart of Japan.

You'd think something would have been learned by now, but general licensed depredation of all that is natural and genuine - for the particular advantage of a select few - seems to be the way of history, at least in the short term, though no short term has ever been as potentially deadly as the one we're now living through.

But as Mahatma Ghandi said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

GAIA (Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance)

Japan: Officials Blamed for Promoting Toxic Incinerators in Thailand

WORLD ECONOMY INDEX

These nights

fewer flashing jets
among the stars

DEAR TO OUR HEARTS

While Googling around with facts the other day I found that "women," a topic dear to all hearts, receives 266,000,000 mentions on Google’s catalog of web pages, in slight contrast to the 252,000,000 "men" gets, then one thing led to another as it always does and the subject of "sex" arose, so to speak: it got 317,000,000 mentions - many of them intimate whispers - more than for "men" or "women" alone, but less than for both combined, which will not be detailed here as we wish to preserve our General Audiences rating.

"Celibacy," in contrast, received a deservedly paltry 521,000 mentions, who brought that up.

Then the seeker’s thoughts graduated naturally to "love," which got a pretty respectable 266,000,000, the same as "women" though also less than "sex," but then there’s always been more sex than love, just stand around in Shinjuku for a while, or go for a night stroll in the Bois de Boulogne. "Love," as sadly it too often does, led to "hate," which had 31,500,000 strident mentions, a reasonable cosmic balance I guess, and then on to the relative relevance of some of our other iconic priorities…

Peace 68,000,000 War 234,000,000
Life 431,000,000 Death 117,000,000
Wealth 22,000,000 Poverty 24,000,000
Money 243,000,000 Debt 79,900,000
Einstein 12,400,000 Elvis 13,000,000
Jesus 50,600,000 Buddha 7,140,000
Christianity 13,200,000 Buddhism 5,320,000
Islam 22,000,000
Email 645,000,000 Internet 631,000,000
News 1,060,000,000

Interesting way of looking at it...

WHAT A CARPENTER!

In the early Spring of last year I was sitting out on the deck one evening having a glass of wine, when from above I heard a sound like a tiny wood rasp but couldn’t find the source. Then as I continued sitting there I noticed some tiny wood shavings falling down onto my lap. Looking up more specifically, I saw a perfectly round hole in the bottom edge of the eaveboard. As I watched, I saw what looked like a large bumblebee emerge. I headed straight for the internet. According to what I found out there about carpenter bees, there was no need to worry about it.

Then last night I heard the same sound, checked this morning and found that the bee (must be the same bee?) was making a new hole in the bottom edge of the same board, about 2 meters down from the old hole. The female carpenter bee bores straight in - in this case upward - then makes a number of lateral bores 90 degrees perpendicular to the main bore, to lay her eggs in.

This particular board is about an inch thick, and like the bee herself the hole is slightly less than half an inch in diameter, as must be the lateral bores, yet this amazing carpenter, working steadfastly there in the pitch dark, with only a quarter-inch of leeway on either side, has drilled over and over again along the narrow width of the board without ever breaching to either side.

In a natural situation, such as a log or dead tree, such a problem would never present itself. But here, in an artifactually narrow piece of wood, she seems to somehow be aware of the narrowness and does not err even slightly either way; with control in three dimensions, she bores straight perpendicular for many times her length… How does she do it, I wonder…

SHERLOCK HOLMES THE SECULARIST

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

"I see millions and millions of stars Holmes," replies Watson.

"And what do you deduce from that?"

Watson ponders for a minute. "Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Logically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?"

Holmes is silent for a moment and then says: "Watson you idiot, someone has stolen our tent!"

IS THERE IMMIGRATION AFTER DEATH?

In Japan it seems, once a foreigner, eternally a foreigner. There are cultural pioneers from abroad who have been permanent residents of Tokyo for well over a hundred years now, but their visas are no good. Many were here soon after Japan peeked out the gates after 300 years of isolation from foreign influence.

The foreigners in question reside in graves in the Gaijin bochi (foreign section) of Aoyama Cemetery (and others) in Tokyo. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government wants them out of there, to make a park amidst the Japanese graves. They say its simply because the foreigners’ grave fees haven't been paid, as required by law; after a certain date, control of the plots reverts to the TMG.

But a curious codicil to the law says that only relatives can pay the fees! As long-ago foreign residents, it’s unlikely that they'd have living relatives in the vicinity. Very convenient for mass deportation.

My own Permanent Residency was hard enough to get; may not be worth it, in the really long run…

Residents

Abroad

Foreign Section Trust

[Also posted at Blogcritics]

MONKEYS OBSERVE BRADY SPLITTING FIREWOOD


While I was splitting oak as the day headed for noon, every now and then I'd hear a loud thrash in the bamboo downhill east of the house; I'd look expecting to see some large animal come blundering out, but saw nothing, figured it must be an oddly careless wild pig forcing its way through the bamboo - unlikely to be a bear - went back to splitting, then again the noise and again. Finally, I saw a monkey silhouette rise up into the higher foliage, then another and another, a whole tribe of them had gone through the bamboo to get to the tall trees at the center of that bamboo grove, apparently to loaf at their ease in the sunny breeze amidst the ample edibles there - sort of a simian grandstand - while observing yours truly doing something that animals never did in all their history until one of our ancestors took an intelligent leap and became the first of us two-leggeds a few eons ago, which led to me in this particular instance.

So there we were, the self-styled homo sapiens with axe and the self-nonstyled toolless monkeys, together on the mountainside for a few moments of special interchange, the latter chattering away at their leisure in their tree-arm easy chairs as I sawed and lugged and chopped and sweated.

After observing my activities in silence for a few moments, the lesser monkeys asked the Alpha male (I'm translating here): "What the hell is he doing?" Alpha responded: "Looks like he's breaking up those big trees into little pieces for another one of those pointless human reasons. Hand me a couple of those berries. Breaking up trees? He doesn't look angry. Say is that the same guy who was doing this yesterday? How come he's blue today? He was brown yesterday! He can change his skin. Why? Who knows with humans. He's the guy used to grow onions, now he's breaking up trees into sticks; who can explain what the hairless do? More berries. Must have some influence though, he got all those trees to lay down like that. Male No. 8, check out his garden. Wife No. 4, get me some nuts."

No. 8 tries to sneak into the garden on the south side of the house; at once I race for my supply of AMBMs (Anti-Monkey Ballistic Missiles, known in times of peace as "rocks"); loud screeching from the trees: "8, he sees you! Get out of there fast!" I've only planted radishes, spinach, lettuce and ginger so far, though, none of which monkeys like, and the tomato plants are still small, so there's nothing for 8 to find anyway. Still, it's good to fire away at the neophytes, teach them that entering my garden is a matter of hefty risk. 8 speeds back to the tribe in the trees and nibbles on a stick as he listens to Alpha pontificate:

"Unknowable creatures those humans - grow stuff we don't want - I'll never figure them out; who else would grow spinach one day then spend days breaking trees into small pieces, only to just stack the pieces up? Wood's not food; all beyond wisdom, if you ask me. More berries. Some of those tasty buds, too. Now this, this is the life. I can't imagine why there's a want to be humans, though; sure can't be fun. Look at that guy sweat!"

SLOW ADVERTISING II

Two months ago at about this time I went to Takashima up the road along the Lake and visited 'Village' there, where I took took a photo of the still green sugidama (cedar ball) hanging in front of the local sake maker's roadside emporium, which foto I included in my post titled Slow Advertising.

Went there again yesterday and took the foto at left. Judging by the brownness of the sugidama, the sake must be about ready; I would have bought some, but the place was closed up on Sunday.

Had something instead at the Irish Pub. I'll try for sake again when the sugi is even browner.

ROBERT SHECKLEY GRAVELY ILL

I've just learned that Robert Sheckley, unpretentious genius sci-fi author and a good friend of mine from when we both lived in Ibiza in the late 70s, has fallen gravely ill in Kiev while attending a sci-fi event. May he soon recover and keep on keeping on with his unique mastery. I keep him in all my upward thoughts.

Peacefully pruning
temple pines -
yet so grumpy

FASCINATING THINGS JUST KEEP ON HAPPENING

Many soul-stirring things boiling up into the brain to relate here, like Kaya’s trip to the mountaintop above us via the red gondola and how she loved being on top of the world for the first time in her nearly 5-year life; the 14 logs (13 oak and 1 camphor) now stacked deck-high in front of the house that were delivered by Mawaribuchi-san; his superior firewood-woodstove-woodtool service, Maxwood; the subsequent morning intervals spent as but one elder man with splitting maul in hand staring at the 3 tons of logs as I grab a few moments in the excellent shade of the now richly green plum tree while resting from bucking the 4-meter logs into stove lengths with my toylike non-Stihl chainsaw, which plaything quality it acquired when I saw how Mawaribuchi-san’s 265 Stihl chainsaw cut through half-meter oak logs like I slice bread for toast; how I really appreciate having purchased my Gransfors Bruks splitting maul, its material and form the products of careful work and experienced thought with the intended task in mind; the fragrance of camphor when it is split, how it and my sense of smell have known each other for eons; and up along the Lake, Watertail Shrine that we’re going to visit this pm as soon as I dash this off, but I’ll try to get to all these things and treat them one by one; trouble is, fascinating things just keep on happening, you can never catch up to life...

KNOWLEDGE AS LIQUID

Last night around 4 am I was awakened by an unusually strong, oddly constant wind. Wind is never that constant, it waxes and wanes like everything else does. That intense constancy puzzled what there was of my intelligence. As my mind threw a few more sleepwebs off, I went through the usual fuzzy strong-night-wind routine: had I left anything outside that might blow over or away? (We’ve lost a number of potted plants, tarps and firewood covers over the years.) At once I realized I had left the tall Madagascar jasmine sitting sunward in its brand-new pot on the deck railing above the perilous rocks that edge the herbs.

Wincing for the imminent crash, at about one-third IQ I got out of bed and stumbled downstairs in the hissing dark (turning the lights on makes it harder to get back to sleep), opened the door to the garden and stepped out to get the plant. But as it turned out there was no intense and constant wind; rather, there was a very intense and large-dropped rain, that now fell equally upon me as upon all the land around. By the time I’d lugged the potted jasmine to the safety it did not after all require, my IQ had been restored to peak tremolo by the massive icy-cold 4 am shower I’d just been given. Dripping with new knowledge regarding the craftiness of rain, I went back to bed shivering and warming, awaiting dreams of my childhood visit to Niagara Falls.

KANSAS BOARD OF EDUCATION MUCH LESS EVOLVED THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT, SAYS RESEARCHER

Extensive DNA research has revealed that education board members in certain states, particularly Kansas - not to mention Tennessee, a state famous for the original Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial - are evolutionary 'throwbacks.' "In fact, some of these people have actually devolved during the 80 years since the Scopes ‘Monkey' trial" says Bill Thornton, chief DNA specialist with the National School Board Evolution Analysis Project.

"And it isn't just a couple of base pairs we're talking about here; they've devolved a whole couple of limbs lower on the big tree, so to speak. Up until now, this whole throwback thing was just a theory, but now we have scientific evidence that devolution is possible, perhaps even relatively common among school boards. We all see signs of devolution in daily life, but that sample is too massive for short-term analysis. That's what makes the Kansas Board of Education the perfect case study. These people are probably the best example we could have had of the way in which evolution can actually reverse itself, if you want go backwards badly enough.

It's likely somehow related to the placebo effect, only with much more profound results, since it directly reverses familial evolutionary progress -- even though the retrograde Board members don't believe in evolution, which goes on whether you believe in it or not. Wait till they see the charts, though.

DNA-wise, some of them are much further back than we've ever seen in our extensive Education Board DNA database. We've noted similar tendencies in California as well, and of course in many elected officials. In fact, we're conducting a similar study of the US executive branch at the moment, with what look to be very interesting results."

[Just posted this at Blogcritics. RB]

"Ignorance is God's gift to Kansas." Richard Dawkins

MADA DA YO...

Every American (I don't know what they think about this in Europe) who comes to Japan and sees children playing kakurenbo is deeply shocked, even more so an American who raises children here, and grandchildren, and watches them participating in it all unaware of the horror that attends the violation of childhood's fundamental rules at whatever age.

The way we used to play it when I was a kid - and these are strict rules, you don't fool around with these rules - was that the one who was 'It' would count loudly to ten or whatever assigned number, while all the other kids ran in absolute silence (who would do otherwise?) as far away as allowed by the count to find a really sneakily deviously unfindable hiding place that would lead to victory for the hider and defeat for the seeker. That's the name of the game.

'It,' upon reaching the agreed number count, would then say loudly (heavy penalties for whispering) "Here I come, ready or not, anyone around my goal is It!" (to catch the sneaks who ran zero feet away), then begin to seek as sneakily deviously as the hiders had hidden. Contrast this with the way kakurenbo is played in Japan, a comparison perhaps revelatory of fundamental international differences, as the hiding-and-seeking children of these two noble cultures grow up to become the hiding-and-seeking leaders of their respective nations.

In Japan, for some reason I have never been able to fathom, 'It' shouts "Mo ii kai?" ("Is it ok yet?") over and over and over in response to the hiders, who as they seek their hideaways repeatedly say "Mada da yo!" ("Not yet!") thereby regularly revealing their direction of travel; then at the end, when at last they are satisfactorily hidden, do they remain silent? NO! They yell out "Mo ii yo!" ("It's ok now!") thereby giving away their exact location to 'It,' who immediately heads straight for where the hider's voice last emanated. Try as I might, as an experienced former child I cannot see the charm in this.

In the American version, the object is clearly to give yourself all the breaks you can possibly get, thereby to stay hidden in what is nitty-gritty competition for victory; in Japan, by contrast, it seems that the object is to be found, to be of material assistance in your own defeat!

So each time I see the game played here I am sorely tempted to tell my young relations to say nothing in response to the call of 'It' and just hide quietly, but that would bring the Japanese version of the game to an instant halt, since 'It' would never receive the signal to begin seeking, so would stand there forever, presumably. For whatever reason, that ploy has never been allowed to survive here...

As to what this means at the international level, all I can say is mada da yo...

SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT

On Sunday's beautiful morning we went north to our favorite kiddy beach just south of Matsu-no-ura, where there's a long narrow shaded lawn with gazebo and table right beside the sandy stretch of beach that segues into Matsu-no-ura proper (just go north along the beach shore road that starts at Horai and take a right at the police box, then a left; park close by the stone wall). You gotta get there early though in beach season, which we can do since we live only 5 minutes away.

There Kaya got down to serious beach business with all her digging and sand moving equipment while Echo did yoga and I explored the beach for a while and took some pictures, then laid down on the lawn and herded Zs in the shade until lunch. Only the leading edge of the summer tourist throngs have arrived, so we had the best of it all.

REAL LIGHT

The oak leaves have reached the size at which the Great Mother is once again cutting off my satellite television privileges, just in time for Golden week. And it's not because I've been bad (not that I haven't been, mind you; a few wisely selected vices afford moral perspective), but because I've been good (yes, there have been times).

When I relate this seasonal phenomenon to city folks who watch too much tv they say why don’t you just cut the oaks down - as if I’d rather have tv than oak trees! When values reach that point they're not values anymore, just passive reaction - like reaching for the potato chips.

I take this green oaken statement instead as a recurring and necessary reminder of a deeper truth than we can carry in ourselves, that what is every day created out there beyond us is more important than what a certain few of us can spin into extended distractions, some of which are now even called 'reality' tv!

Thus each Spring as the wintry glaze of accreted entertainment is lifted I soon realize (returning clarity of mind) that in fact it is a reward to be cut off from that spiritually toxic stuff; in lieu of most of it I’d rather watch oak leaves grow, which I’m doing right now. Beautiful new green, and alive, the way the real light shines through…

SOME MEMES YOU CAN'T FORGET

It was well over a month ago, as I recall, that Anna Scott kindly asked me to take part in this reading meme and I said I would, gladly, and started to think about it, got a couple portions decided then turned around and blinked and to my amazement well over a month had passed, as I recall, when Ronni Bennett sent me an email kindly asking me to participate in this reading meme, so I figured I'd better get my act together while I still had one with available parts; for me, some things just take more than well over a month:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

ULYSSES by James Joyce


Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Anna Karenina


The last book you bought is:

THE BLIND WATCHMAKER by Richard Dawkins


The last book you read:

THE CREATORS by Daniel J. Boorstin


What are you currently reading?

(rereading) IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS by Junichiro Tanizaki

(rereading) THE JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK ed. DeVoto

AMERICA IN 1492 ed. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.


Five books you would take to a deserted island:

WALDEN by H. D. Thoreau

BEYOND GEOGRAPHY by Frederick Turner

ROUGHING IT by Mark Twain

THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J. R. R. Tolkein

LEAVES OF GRASS by Walt Whitman


Who are you going to pass this meme to (3 persons) and why?

Ronni Bennett too late...
Shirley Mills ex post facto...
M. Sinclair Stevens
Indigo Ocean

Because I'd love some book recommendations from people whose taste I respect.

AMAGASAKI

From the crushed train
cell phones ringing
ringing

A PATRIOT ACT

Featuring on the BIG SCREEN in May, the 2004 film...

"A Patriot Act"

When: Sunday, May 15
General meeting starts at 5 p.m.
Film starts at 5:30 p.m.
(doors open at 4 p.m.)

Where: Tocca a Te, in Umeda

Admission: 500-yen film admission, which includes a drink &
the best free popcorn in Kansai, plus a 500-yen requested
donation from US citizens. The meeting is free.

Assorted foods and drinks will be available.

Open discussion after the film.

For more info and to order the DVD:

For more info or a PDF of this month's flyer (A4 or A5 size),
contact: kansai-movies@demsjapan.jp