ISN'T SHE A REPUBLICAN?

Whoever that Ann Coulter person is, she sure seems to be making big bucks off the widows of those 9/11 husbands.

DAJ KANSAI MOVIE NIGHTS

In Osaka and Kyoto, the following films...

OSAKA -- Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
and
KYOTO -- President Mir Qanbar [Re'ees Jomhoor Mir Qanbar]

When: (Osaka) Monday, June 26, from 7:00 p.m.
Arabic, French, Hebrew & English
with English subtitles
(Kyoto) Tuesday, June 27, from 7:00 p.m.
Persian with English subtitles

Where: (Osaka) The Blarney Stone Irish Pub, Umeda, Osaka
(Kyoto) Tadg's Irish Pub, near Keihan Shijo Sta.
(doors open at 5 p.m., both venues)

Admission: FREE (500-yen donation appreciated from
US citizens)

Assorted foods and drinks are available.

Dems Japan

Dems Japan Event calendar (for more movie etc. details)

HOW COULD THE HARPOONER HAVE KNOWN IT WAS THE LAST WHALE?

"But Japan has done all the work. It marks the climax of a 10-year campaign of using substantial foreign aid packages to persuade small countries - often with no whaling tradition, or even a coastline - to join the IWC and vote on the Japanese side. While the world has been looking the other way, the pro-Japan vote has built up over the years towards a controlling figure.

Japan's 51 per cent majority... will enable it to make major changes in the IWC, such as stopping all its conservation work, stopping all discussions of animal welfare in relation to whaling, promoting the trade in whale products and reshaping the organisation in a more pro-whaling fashion."

"Japan buys votes to take control of whaling body"

"Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence."

---Herman Melville

THERE'S A BIG HUNGER OUT THERE

As an intrepid gardener I've always been sharply aware of the vast and constant hunger that is out there in the world, all the mouths there are to help feed with my feeble husbandry, mouths that will be fed whether I like it or not, and I usually don't. But when I went out to the garden just now to get some lettuce for my lunchtime salad, I couldn't help but be pleased at how much the little black and big green caterpillars love my mizuna and how rapidly they have manifested that love, to say nothing of their fattening delight that I was so kind as to plant such a delectable vegetable on their behalf. Like a tableful of hungry children, their gratitude was pretty nearly audible. I think if I could have safely held my ear right down there I would have heard the heartfelt crunch of larval joy. My mizuna must truly have been of the highest quality. Plus it was organic, which caterpillars appreciate.

I wasn't able to taste it for myself, though, since the colorful little gourmets, having instantly polished off the arugula (because I took all the radishes) scarfed every bit of the mizuna green parts in just the last day or two, leaving only the pale, naked leaf stalks sticking up in bunches like bleached punk hairspikes tipped with beads of big fat green and little fat black caterpillars, still hanging on to get the last little motes and quivering visibly at the prospect of crisp new lettuce just a short crawl away.

It wasn't very polite of me to act like a big fat caterpillar, but I took all the lettuce I wanted and ate it as though someone else had grown it for me.

Kyoto Journal #63

is now splendidly available.

THE SIGHTED CAN USE THIS EXCELLENT SERVICE TOO...

"We provide audio access to literary works for anyone with a reading access barrier. Talented volunteers record magazine articles and other short works which are then available for download or in our podcast. There are over 800 recordings from magazines like The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and Wired."

Assistive Media

via Metafilter

HOTARU WOODSTOCK

Yesterday we timed our entire day so as to arrive at Hotaru (Firefly) Grove on time. I call it Hotaru Grove because it has no name. Oddly, it's not distinguished at all by the fact that it's the best hotaru-viewing place around. Nominally, it's just part of the charmingly named Moriyama City Exercise Park. Ah, the sensitive nuances of bureaucracy...

Because we live up on the mountain with streams all around (some of them even natural!) we still have a few hotaru each summer, but in a corner of Moriyama City Exercise Park there is a stream whose deepish bed meanders as of old through an original grove of tall trees, creating the perfect dark, humid and protected place for hotaru to propagate, survive and show their stuff for 10 days each summer amidst the metropolization of everything.

According to the history explained in the little hotaru museum they have there, even back when this area was still rural it was famous for its hotaru. Folks used to come from the big cities to catch thousands of the flying lanterns each day, to watch sparkle in their homes and gardens at night.

Last time we went to Hotaru Grove, three years ago with Kaya, it was pretty crowded, but this time it was like all the roads to Woodstock. There was even a Hotaru Park and Ride system available. Traffic jams everywhere, as hotaru fans from all over tried to get to the last weekend of the light concert.

We found a spot about a kilometer away and dodged insane cars in search of parking as we wended our way toward the mobs pilgrimaging through the dark, tiny flashlights here and there going down into the streambed and nudging along the special ramps built there for the purpose, the air filled with swooping flashes of pale green light from fireflies who couldn't care less about the crowds, they were head over thorax in love. Some of the folks in the shuffling mob tried to take flash photos(!) of the hotaru flashing, outromancing the hotaru and blinding everyone else seeking those tiny lights in the dark.

One of the folks in the little hotaru museum told us that last week was the peak (the light concert only lasts about 10 days), when one night they counted 150 hotaru, many fewer than last year (and the year we went there). After watching the museum video on the life cycle of hotaru, it's a wonder there are any of the little lanterns left at all.

And judging by the thousands of folks woodstocking through the dark and the madly weaving cars so that their kids could catch just a glimpse of the maybe few dozen hotaru that used to be so plentiful (agricultural toxins and urbanization are killing them off), those swooping flashes of pale green light at the heart of night may be about to go out forever...

US HOUSE CONFIRMS THAT MONEY = FREEDOM.

"By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.

'The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google... are going to have to pay taxes' to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change 'the Internet for the rest of eternity.'"

Why am I not surprised.

IS THAT DUPONT PIONEER LIBERTY LINK CORN YOU'RE EATING?

Pioneer Liberty Link corn was bioengineered to withstand high levels of the toxic herbicide glufosinate so that farmers could blast their corn fields with way more herbicide (enzymes in the GM corn break down the herbicide, making it less toxic to the plant), devastating surrounding weeds, but not corn consumers. At all. As far as we knew. Until yesterday or so.

Turns out that (and believe me, Dupont is just flabbergasted; they might even change the name of the corn) "enzymes in the human gut are likely 'reactivating' the herbicide... Glufosinate is known to cause nerve damage and is a likely endocrine disruptor. Scientists are also concerned that by reactivating the toxic chemical in the digestive tract, it is likely killing off beneficial bacteria necessary for healthy digestion." [from OCA newsletter]

If you've been having strange symptoms...

ONE DAY

One day the paddies are all brown stubble
then one day they're all water
then one day they whisper green
then one day they're all jade blades
then one day they're tall green banners
swaying in the wind
then one day they bend
and feed us all

REGARDING THE HADITHA GUILTY

"The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility: (a) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing; ...Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.”

Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter

FIRST TREMORS OF THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION?

I wonder how much of this election is being tallied by Diebold...

:::Later: Ostensibly, Ann Coulter's party won the gerrymandered seat, but--

It turns out that, yes indeed, the "Race to Replace [jailed for corruption GOP] Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham in San Diego Was Run on Hackable Diebold Voting Machines, Kept Unsecured at Poll Worker Houses Overnight Before the Election!"

(Diebold voting machines are Republican-built!)

Certainly no fishier than Florida or Ohio...

DREAMS AND MONKEY ARGUMENTS

This morning a loud and pointed monkey argument in the garden, probably over a lack of onions, woke me from a vivid dream in which I was just then telling Bill O'Reilly that he should bottle his program and sell it as rat poison...

Dreams can be as incisive as monkey arguments.

NOT IF, BUT WHEN

As a person who is not yet radioactive, I feel that the primary approach to resolving Japan's energy problems should involve lifestyle simplification and education, coupled with all-out support for research and development of alternative clean energy sources.

But then my thoughts are affected by the facts that the Japanese government, the world's longest single-party rule, is enthralled by nuclear power (a bottomless public works pork barrel), that tiny Japan has the third most nuclear power plants in the world (53, after the US and France [Addendum, July 2007: now second in the world, with 55]), that Japan is one of the most earthquake prone nations on earth and that of those 53 quietly seething nuclear facilities, 13 (and 2 in planning) are clustered together on the Japan Sea coast within a few dozen kilometers of my house. And immediately upwind of 30 million other people.

The extent to which the use of nuclear power in Japan depends on public ignorance and corporate-government callousness is apparent in these two articles:

"Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.

When I asked ERC [Emergency Response Center] officials how they planned to evacuate millions of people from Shizuoka Prefecture and beyond after a Kobe-magnitude earthquake (Kobe is on the same subduction zone as Hamaoka) destroyed communication lines, roads, railroads, drinking-water supplies and sewage lines, they had no answer."

***

"It was clear that most Commission members were either pro-nuclear or felt that to encourage spirited discussion of basic issues like the necessity of nuclear power was not part of their mandate. After all, they had a five-year plan for Japan's nuclear power industry that they had to compile by late 2005, and since nuclear power was already providing about a third of the nation's electric power needs overall, what was the point in arguing with people who didn't want it? The result of the meeting was not a lighthearted farce, but something that looked as rigged as a pro wrestling match.

And so it was. Just a few weeks later, on November 12th, the Atomic Energy Commission released an interim report on nuclear fuel recycling and concluded that it should go forward. Virtually none of the facts presented by the anti-nuclear activists were acknowledged. But when it comes to Japan's nuclear power industry, inconvenient facts often do not matter."

Am I glowing yet?

HEAVY: CHINA GONNA CUT OFF JAPAN'S CHOPSTICKS

"For more than two decades Japan's addiction to disposable chopsticks has been the ultimate indication of its success. What other Asian nation, runs the unspoken boast, can afford to throw away 25 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks every year after only a single use?"

When disposable chopsticks is a symbol of national growth, maybe it's time to review your symbols and your national growth...

"...the Japanese company that makes plastic chopsticks, has had some very lean years but has doubled production to 2 million pairs a year, and is anticipating an increase in sales if Japanese can overcome their prejudice about using chopsticks that have been in other people's mouths. 'There are going to be people who object even when they know the chopsticks have been washed properly,' a spokesman said. 'It's a sort of mental problem.'"

Bet this is related to the lack of ice cream flavors...

Chopstick tussle adds bite to Orient's diplomatic spat

APHID REVOLUTION

A few evenings ago I sprayed Aphid Vegas with the wormwood, garlic and chili insecticide I'd received from a friend, but being at work during the daylight since, had to wait till this morning to observe the devastating effect on the sybaritic orgy; I got quite a surprise.

As I bent over to look closely, I beheld not Aphid Armageddon but the Aphid Riviera, crowded with plump and prosperous aphids strolling the leafy avenues or lolling in thongs and shades on the sunny green beaches of my broadbean plants, reading Da Aphid Code as their fat ant overlords moved among them, hustling production for their next blockbuster. It was aphid decadence, and as beanlord I am at a loss. All my natural insecticide has done is get the ants stretch limos and the aphids designer beachwear and bestsellers.

Its not that I want zero aphids, or even aphid ghettos, we all have to make a decent living and support a family. What I would like to do is maybe start an aphid revolution, in which the green underlings overthrow the despotic ants and start a small but prosperous community of their own, with their own leaders - ethnic roots are important - so that they can find their own place to live, other than in broadbean tyranny. But as in the human world, the plump do not revolt.

I know the ants defend the whole racket as a trade off, but it's just the old protection racket writ small; that's how Mussolini got his start, to say nothing of the mafia... As for the ants, they can get jobs anywhere. Anybody have some aphid propaganda on tape, some tiny loudspeakers? Or maybe I could airdrop some nanoleaflets and nanoarmaments, foment an aphid resistance, headquartered in a mountain stronghold of noxious weeds across the road.

But all that takes time. First I want my beans.

HI, MONA, BEEN A WHILE... HOW YA DOIN', LEO...

It's been quite a few centuries, but now, thanks to Japanese forensics, Mona and Leonardo can talk...

Though it probably won't be a pleasant conversation, since he never returned the painting...

I NEVER GOT MY BALLOT EITHER...

THE BALL IS NEARLY COMPLETE WHEN IT STARTS SHINING

I've never seen any hikari dorodango [shiny mudballs] in schoolkids' hands around here, or noted students comparing the lusters of their orbs on the train, I'm sure I would have noticed an increased incidence of mudballs in my vicinity. The local mud couldn't be inferior; it's used to make world-renowned pottery... The whole thing is very mysterious...

"Inside his office at the university, Kayo keeps a dorodango in a wooden box, wrapped in cloth. The shiny ball of dried mud is eight centimeters (about three inches) in diameter and is amber colored with a touch of dark green. Professor Kayo developed his own scale for measuring a dorodango's luster, and this one rates a '4.' The shiniest dorodango rates a '5,' and Kayo keeps one of these at home."

If you happen to have some suitable mud lying around and want to make an advanced-level mudball of your own...

via Metafilter

RUSH HOUR EPHEMERA

The suited commuter on a bicycle coming directly toward you at high speed out of the morning rush hour crowd on the narrow Osaka sidewalk deeply bowing his head to atone for the offense of seeming to be about to impose extreme physical violence on your person before at the last instant zipping expertly under the impinging stairwell and around the jutting street sign while as the other expert in this exchange you have made no reflexive moves in the face of this potential threat to your life so as to enable all to occur with the utmost fluidity