3 Day Whirlwind "Natsukashi, ne?" Okinawa Trip.

Considering this week's jaunt to Okinawa resulted in almost 180 pics or so, this blog post will just be a "greatest hits" of sorts. For all the pics, now with my ever-so-witty and delightful captions, go to the Picasa pics at the link below. [That's the smaller pic with Sandy's "happy to be in Okinawa" face.]

2007-08-18

Sandy lays flowers at the Himeyuri memorial. Via Wikipedia - "The Himeyuri Students... was a group of coed students formed into a nursing unit for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Okinawa. 222 students and 18 teachers of the former Okinawa Daiichi Women's High School and Okinawa Shihan Women's School were mobilized by the Japanese army on March 23, 1945. But, on June 18, suddenly they were dissolved. And in the early morning of June 19, most of them were killed during an attack by US forces on the Ibara third surgery shelter. The survivors threw themselves from the nearby precipitous cliff because of fears of systematic rape by US soldiers - propaganda spread by the military government of Imperial Japan. To mourn for them, the Himeyuri Monument was built on April 7, 1946."



At Okinawa World, for limestone cave hiking and Ryukyan/Okinawan history/culture. [And dress up, apparently.]







But the most important thing we learned? Deeez Nuuuts. Profound.


The Okinawan Prefectural Peace Museum.



Camp Kinzer, Gate 4, Maki Point, near the old Snider stomping grounds.

And then the old Snider compound.





Old style Ryukyan/Okinawan housing at the historical village in Ocean Expo Park.


This next pic of Sandy cracks me up, and I don't know why.




The dolphin show at the Ocean Expo was pretty cool, I must admit.



Sandy defeats the shark with cuteness.







Okinawan Rap, yeah, that's just for you Jr.


Sandy's new favorite tshirt.


Dr Pepper cans are certainly superior in Okinawa.


It really was "All American."


Sandy at Manzamo.



Eating Okinawan Soba [and crossing something else off Sandy's "to do" list.] Tasty.





Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters. Sobering.





At Shurijo Castle Park - via Wikipedia - "Shuri Castle (Okinawan: sui ugusiku, Japanese: 首里城 Shurijō) is a gusuku (Ryūkyūan castle) in Shuri, Okinawa. It was the palace of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroyed, with only a few walls standing as high as a few decimeters. In 1992, it was reconstructed on the original site based on photographs, historical records, and memory."




Blue Seal Ice Cream? Checked off the the "to do" list, in all its icy and creamy goodness

Adachi Obon.

But most importantly, check out Takeshi's "old man of the mountain" chin hair.

"I'm with stupid."

That's just perfect.



Via For Your Entertainment

One writer's journey through religion.

Just a great article.

Religion beat became a test of faith - Los Angeles Times:

"WHEN Times editors assigned me to the religion beat, I believed God had answered my prayers.

As a serious Christian, I had cringed at some of the coverage in the mainstream media. Faith frequently was treated like a circus, even a freak show.

I wanted to report objectively and respectfully about how belief shapes people's lives. Along the way, I believed, my own faith would grow deeper and sturdier.

But during the eight years I covered religion, something very different happened.

In 1989, a friend took me to Mariners Church, then in Newport Beach, after saying: "You need God. That's what's missing in your life." At the time, I was 28 and my first son was less than a year old. I had managed to nearly ruin my marriage (the second one) and didn't think I'd do much better as a father. I was profoundly lost.

...Some friends in a Bible study class encouraged me to attend a men's religious weekend in the San Bernardino Mountains. The three-day retreats are designed to grind down your defenses and leave you emotionally raw — an easier state in which to connect with God. After 36 hours of prayer, singing, Bible study, intimate sharing and little sleep, I felt filled with the Holy Spirit.

...The pastor asked those who wanted to accept Jesus to raise their hands. My hand pretty much levitated on its own. My new friends in Christ, many of whom I had first met Friday, gave me hugs and slaps on the back.

[That right there... classic brainwashing 101. Isolation, sleep deprivation, emotional stressors, group chanting/singing, implanting new belief structures reinforced by the peer group. Trust me, I was in the military. That is exactly how it's supposed to work. You can implant almost anything if you do it right. - Rob.]

...It took several years and numerous memos and e-mails, but editors finally agreed in 1998 to let me write "Getting Religion," a weekly column about faith in Orange County.

I felt like all the tumblers of my life had clicked. I had a strong marriage, great kids and a new column. I attributed it all to God's grace.

First as a columnist and then as a reporter, I never had a shortage of topics. I wrote about an elderly church organist who became a spiritual mentor to the man who tried to rape, rob and kill her. About the Orthodox Jewish mother who developed a line of modest clothing for Barbie dolls. About the hardy group of Mormons who rode covered wagons 800 miles from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, replicating their ancestors' journey to Southern California.

...I had been on the religion beat for three years. I couldn't wait to get to work each day or, on Sunday, to church.

IN 2001, about six months before the Catholic clergy sex scandal broke nationwide, the dioceses of Orange and Los Angeles paid a record $5.2 million to a law student who said he had been molested, as a student at Santa Margarita High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, by his principal, Msgr. Michael Harris.

...While reporting the Harris story, I learned — from court records and interviews — the lengths to which the church went to protect the priest. When Harris took an abrupt leave of absence as principal at Santa Margarita in January 1994, he issued a statement saying it was because of "stress." He resigned a month later.

His superiors didn't tell parents or students the real reason for his absence: Harris had been accused of molesting a student while he was principal at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana from 1977 to 1979; church officials possessed a note from Harris that appeared to be a confession; and they were sending him to a treatment center.

In September 1994, a second former student stepped forward, this time publicly, and filed a lawsuit. In response, parents and students held a rally for Harris at the school, singing, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." An airplane towed a banner overhead that read "We Love Father Harris."

By this time, church leaders possessed a psychological report in which Catholic psychiatrists diagnosed Harris as having an attraction to adolescents and concluded that he likely had molested multiple boys. (Harris, who has denied the allegations, now stands accused of molesting 12 boys, according to church records.) But they didn't step forward to set the record straight. Instead, a diocesan spokesman called Harris an "icon of the priesthood."

...At the time, I never imagined Catholic leaders would engage in a widespread practice that protected alleged child molesters and belittled the victims. I latched onto the explanation that was least damaging to my belief in the Catholic Church — that this was an isolated case of a morally corrupt administration.

And I was comforted by the advice of a Catholic friend: "Keep your eyes on the person nailed to the cross, not the priests behind the altar."

IN late 2001, I traveled to Salt Lake City to attend a conference of former Mormons. These people lived mostly in the Mormon Jell-O belt — Utah, Idaho, Arizona — so-named because of the plates of Jell-O that inevitably appear at Mormon gatherings.

They found themselves ostracized in their neighborhoods, schools and careers. Often, they were dead to their own families.

...IN early 2002, I was assigned to work on the Catholic sex scandal story as it erupted across the nation. I also continued to attend Sunday Mass and conversion classes on Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights.

...As I began my reporting, I kept that in mind. I also thought that the victims — people usually in their 30s, 40s and up — should have just gotten over what had happened to them decades before. To me, many of them were needlessly stuck in the past.

But then I began going over the documents. And interviewing the victims, scores of them. I discovered that the term "sexual abuse" is a euphemism. Most of these children were raped and sodomized by someone they and their family believed was Christ's representative on Earth. That's not something an 8-year-old's mind can process; it forever warps a person's sexuality and spirituality.

Many of these victims were molested by priests with a history of abusing children. But the bishops routinely sent these clerics to another parish, and bullied or conned the victims and their families into silence. The police were almost never called. In at least a few instances, bishops encouraged molesting priests to flee the country to escape prosecution.

...I sought solace in another belief: that a church's heart is in the pews, not the pulpits. Certainly the people who were reading my stories would recoil and, in the end, recapture God's house. Instead, I saw parishioners reflexively support priests who had molested children by writing glowing letters to bishops and judges, offering them jobs or even raising their bail while cursing the victims, often to their faces.

On a Sunday morning at a parish in Rancho Santa Margarita, I watched congregants lobby to name their new parish hall after their longtime pastor, who had admitted to molesting a boy and who had been barred that day from the ministry. I felt sick to my stomach that the people of God wanted to honor an admitted child molester. Only one person in the crowd, an Orange County sheriff's deputy, spoke out for the victim.

...I understood that I was witnessing the failure of humans, not God. But in a way, that was the point. I didn't see these institutions drenched in God's spirit. Shouldn't religious organizations, if they were God-inspired and -driven, reflect higher standards than government, corporations and other groups in society?"

Much more at the link.

Always Look On The Bright Side of Life

There's really nothing better than a group of guys on crucifixes singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

Sweet, sweet blasphemy... I love you so.

One of the most deeply soulful songs EVER.

A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke

Tracy Chapman

Jus' cause.

Fast Car - the ultimate "god I wan't something more" song.


New Beginning. "Whole world's broke... Ain't worth fixin'... We need to make new symbols."


runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun


Sandy hates this song. I love it. Such is marriage.


"I'm here to keep the peace."


The illusion that lied [layed?]... no, actually the past tense of "lie" is better... of every fucked up pseudo-relationship I'd ever had till I got married - "...if I told you the right words, at the right time, you'd be mine."


"At this point in my life
I've done so many things wrong I don't know if I can do right
If you put your trust in me I hope I won't let you down
If you give me a chance I'll try

You see it's been a hard road the road I'm traveling on
And if I take your hand I might lead you down the path to ruin
I've had a hard life I'm just saying it so you'll understand
That right now, right now, I'm doing the best I can
At this point in my life

At this point in my life
Although I've mostly walked in the shadows
I'm still searching for the light

...You see I've been climbing stairs but mostly stumbling down
I've been reaching high always losing ground
You see I've conquered hills but I still have mountains to climb
And right now right now I'm doing the best I can
At this point in my life

Before we take a step
Before we walk down that path
Before I make any promises
Before you have regrets
Before we talk commitment
Let me tell you of my past
All I've seen and all I've done
The things I'd like to forget
At this point in my life

At this point in my life
I'd like to live as if only love mattered
As if redemption was in sight
As if the search to live honestly
Is all that anyone needs
No matter if you find it..."

[The only vid of this I can find is, oddly enough, a Xena tribute vid. Still.]

The Federal Budget explained via the power of Oreos.

Never underestimate the power of a chocolatey snack.

Ghosts. Explained by a Star Wars reference.

Gotta love that.

You-Dope-ia: Afternoon Deelite.:

"...one of the theories behind ghosts. Ghosts are psychic residue imprinted upon the very location of an emotionally powerful, or traumatic event. These residual energies repeat their data, just like R2D2 did with, 'Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.' Ok?"

Bears repeating... it's all made-up.

SuicideGirls > News > Culture > The Sunday Hangover with Warren Ellis:

"...never doubt the power of seeing things that aren't there. Rene Descartes, the father of modern mathematics, had his whole method explicated to him by an angel he saw in a dream. Mathematical logic as we understand it today is a hypnogogic vision."

It's OK to have sex with your doppleganger.

And other wisdom, via BoingBoing.

For such a slight people, the Japanese take their McDonald's seriously.

I give you the Mega Mac.

Elliot S! Maggin runs for Congress.

Truth, Justice and... well, you know.

I'd vote for him.

Via Wikipedia:

Elliot S. Maggin, also spelled Elliot S! Maggin (born 1950) is an American writer.

...He attended Brandeis University, where he wrote a term paper titled "What Can One Man Do?" for a class during his junior year. When it received a grade of B+, Maggin disagreed with the assessment, remade it as a comic book script, and sent his script to DC Comics. It was passed around the DC offices, and Neal Adams chose to draw the script. Though the initial grade was not amended, Maggin became a writer for DC, selling his stories to fund a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He became the principal writer for Superman from 1971 to 1986. He also wrote for Green Arrow, where his sense of humour was allowed far more freedom in the loose dialogue of the main character.

My Pop Cultural Brethren:

"Among the assumptions I've always made in life has been that each of us Americans is a worker in a common cause. It was the job of each of us to make sure everyone for whom we were responsible had a chance to get a good education, had a chance to grow up healthy, had the chance to create a life as fulfilling and accomplished as it was in his or her soul to make it. Save the whales and the rest of us. To start with, each of us had roughly an equal shot and we lived our lives freely in pursuit of whatever we felt happiness to be.

Then, lately, a new thing began to happen. My country started to slip out from under my feet.

Now, in my fifties, I suddenly live in a country where people are born not to privilege or opportunity, but to enormous debt. The mind-spinning wealth that we still generate has been redistributed upward so few of us reap the benefits of a still increasingly productive system. Risk has been socialized while profit has become individualized. When you've got a strong, prosperous middle class you have a forward-thinking, innovative business community. When the middle class is under social and economic assault as it is today, the inevitable result is social torpor and political extremism. We approach a condition where a small group of enormously wealthy people are served by a growing community of servants, and opportunity is a foreign notion. And when anyone anywhere notices this out loud he is immediately accused of being a “class warrior” or a “blame-gamer” or a “conspiracy theorist” or some such centrally generated piece of tripe talk.

If there's really a conspiracy behind a thing, then it's no longer a theory.

The 24th district in California takes up most of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, just north and west of Los Angeles. Currently -- and for the past twenty-odd years -- a man named Elton Gallegly represents the district in Congress. Elton has generally been a reliable, if lackluster, operative of the conservative agenda. He supports tax cuts for people earning over 200-thousand dollars a year, and has voted to make those tax cuts, including the elimination of the estate tax, permanent. He voted to declare the war in Iraq part of an ongoing war on terror without an end date, and against earmarking funds to provide troops in the field either with armor or bomb-safe personnel transports. His votes are consistently anti-labor, with a 7 percent AFL-CIO rating, including completely de-funding OSHA's ability to enforce workplace safety regulations. He supports making the so-called Patriot Act permanent, and as far back as 1996 he voted to deny the right of habeus corpus in appeals of convictions. His rating from NARAL is actually 0%: he opposes funding for health care providers who give counsel on abortion, and opposes all stem cell research. He buys the whole package.

I'm running to oppose this guy, and I plan to win. This time, I'm going to make very clear who I am and who I've been. “Truth, justice and the American way” is my personal torah and I'll say so everywhere I go. I'm asking the community of people who have, over the years, shared my thoughts and many of my values, to get this thing started.

It makes me very sad to see a generation of Americans coming of age, many of whom are never exposed in the public forum to traditional American values: doing right for its own sake, being responsible to a common spiritual authority, striving to create a world where opportunity truly is equal for all and where all of us -- even the jaded -- consider integrity a virtue.

...Well I've got another campaign for you. I hope you're ready."

Jackie Karma seems like it will rock.

The '76 Blog: Rejected "Cool" Promo #2:

"Shot of Pete slumped at a table littered with beer bottles.

Text:

Bruce Wayne is a billionaire who uses his fortune to wage a one-man war against crime.

Pete Walker bounces checks at Pizza Shack and wages a one-man war against sobriety.

Fuck Batman."

Positively Orwellian doublespeak from Rudy Giuliani.

It's double plus good!

Seriously, he said it.

Brilliant image via the always amusing and edifying BeaucoupKevin.com.

BeaucoupKevin(dot)com. BlogMachineGo.

In tonight's presentation, Dr. Doom will be quoting from the collected works of Rudolph Giuliani, Presidential Candidate.

The Universe is Information.

Maybe.

Rigorous Intuition (v. 2.0): Author, Author:

"Vallee, who is both a computer scientist and a UFOlogist, invested his energy in Information Theory, which led to his model of an Associative Universe.

The Melchizedek incident that I experienced on February 21, 1976 suggested to me that the world might be organized more like a random database than like a sequential library... Alternative explanations are equally inadequate, unfortunately. I did not discuss my research with the driver, so a hoax is out of the question. There could be a well-organized conspiracy against me, of course, to put lady taxi drivers on my path with names related to my current reading interests, but the motivations of such conspirators would be rather obscure! Fortunately, another avenue of explanation exists.

If there is no time dimension as we usually assume there is, we may be traversing events by association. Modern computers retrieve information associatively. You "evoke" the desired records by using keywords, words of power: you request the intersection of "microwave" and "headache" and you find 20 articles you never suspected existed. Perhaps I had unconsciously posted such a request on some psychic bulletin board with the keyword "Melchizedek." If we live in the associative universe of the software scientist rather than the sequential universe of the space-time physicist, then miracles are no longer irrational events."

Every. God. Damn. Day.

My man-love for Joss Whedon continues.

Joss Whedon | The A.V. Club:

"With Buffy, I needed closure, because she, poor girl, had earned it. Buffy is about growing up. Angel is really about already having grown up, dealing with what you've done, and redemption. Redemption is something you fight for every day, so I wanted him to go out fighting. People kept calling it a cliffhanger. I was like, 'Are you mad, sir? Don't you see that that is the final statement?' And then they would say 'Shut up.'"

Pick Your Candidate - Cool way to find out what candidates views match your own.

Unsurprisingly, I ring up Kucinich, Gravel and Paul. I am way the hell outta the mainstream, clearly.

Pick Your Candidate:

"Okay, here's a really simple way to find out which candidates share your views. This script is composed entirely of data collected by www.2decide.com. Enter your choices below and hit GO to rank the candidates.

Here's how it works, if you want to know. If you agree with a candidate, he gets point(s). If you disagree, take point(s) away. Unkown/other results in no points. The number of points given or taken depends on the weight you set. "Meh" is worth 1 point, "important" 2, and "key" is worth 5. The items you disagree about will be listed directly underneath each candidate (if they score greater than zero).

--
[My results. - Rob]

Kucinich 45 No Child Left Behind, Assault Weapons Ban

Gravel 41 (you have no disagreements with this candidate)

Paul 26 Abortion Rights, Embryonic Stem Cells, Citizenship Path for Illegals, Border Fence, Net Neutrality, Same-Sex Marriage, Universal Healthcare"

California offices seem cool.

Overheard in the Office | Or Should It Go Under "B" for "Bubble"?:

"Admin: We received a brochure for a fog and bubble machine in the mail today... This is cool! Why are they sending us this?

Coworker: Oh, Alan* saw that at the trade show and wanted it. If we had a bubble party, would you show up in a bikini?

Admin: Of course! We'll file this under 'Awesome.'

San Luis Obispo, California"

"...a perfect storm of arrogance and ignorance."

Sounds about right.

ComicMix.Com:

"...The Bush Administration has, at least, understood the concept of using the power accrued; they’ve just made a terrible hash of it. Can we all agree that the WMDS were always an excuse, that 9/11 had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, and that the Bushies knew it, know it, and didn’t and don’t care? The real basic premise of the Bush Neo-Cons was to get rid of a murderous dictator that even the other Arabs didn’t much care for and, in his place, create a functioning democracy that, by its success and example, would begin to change the face of the Mideast. 9/11 simply offered a justification. All in all, it was a seemingly laudable goal but it was attempted by a crew that didn’t know the language, didn’t know the culture or the people, and couldn’t be bothered to learn. There was no contingency planning. It was a perfect storm of arrogance and ignorance.

...So what’s going happen next? I don’t know but I can tell you what I fear is going to happen. For the rest of the Bush Administration, our military will be in Iraq. There won’t be a political solution because the Iraqi government is too divided to create one. In the long run, I think you’ll see an Islamic government run by the mullahs and clerics.

So – who’s to blame for all this?

The first and most obvious choice is the Cheney Administration – sorry, the Bush Administration. Their stupid plan, their rotten execution, their stubborn unwillingness to face up to the truth and make it right.

The Republican Party also gets high marks. It used to be that the Republicans could be counted on for some fiscal sanity and an unwillingness to get into foreign entanglements. Not no more. They let their party get hi-jacked by Right Wing Jackasses. Same for the Conservatives. Bush and Company aren’t really Conservative or Republican but were embraced by both because, frankly, they were in power and Republicans and Conservatives were both hungry to have someone from their political philosophy in the White House. They let themselves get bamboozled.

Bush’s Administration made the media into their whipping boy; they kicked their asses and the media went belly up in surrender. “Access” is their lifeblood – their power – and they were afraid of being denied it so they published the lies right along with the truth in an effort to be “balanced.” That’s not being “fair,” that’s being complicit. Yes, there are exceptions and they’re notable because they are exceptions. The media only really got back to their jobs as Bush’s approval ratings fell and they felt they could do so without too much danger.

Let’s not forget dem Dems...

The Dems lost control of the Congress and then lost the White House and that’s because, in my eye, they’re lazy. They didn’t think Bush could beat Gore (and maybe he didn’t). They assumed that anyone could beat him for his second term by virtue of Not Being Bush and so they nominated Kerry. They take things for granted.

Nor am I taken with any of their candidates for next year’s presidential race. Hillary Clinton – when did our two party system become a two family system? For the past twenty years the President has been named either Bush or Clinton. I’m also not certain she’s electable – I come from the Midwest and I’ve talked to a lot of people there and they just plain don’t like her. At the least, she’s a polarizing figure. Barack Obama – like him but not enough experience. OTOH, the legendary JFK wasn’t all that seasoned, either, when he ran for President. The one I like most, I think, is Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico. He’s had world political experience under a previous administration and he’s had executive experience as governor. But I don’t think he’ll get within a stone’s throw of the Democratic Nomination.

My concern would be that, once again, the Dems are making the fatal mistake of assuming that whomever they nominate will win (sort of like the Chicago mayoral primary, now that I think about it) except for the Republican field of Presidential nominees. Rudolph Guiliani is leading the pack right now? Cross dressing, thrice married Rudy is going to get the Republican votes out? Well, maybe – if his opponent is Hillary Clinton. Do not underestimate how deep some voters hate Hillary..."