http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 5 Mar 2007 02:03:25 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/03/05/020325.php Robert BradyNo one's ever accused the LDP (Liberal Democratic machine Party) of being high on humanitarianism, but even that dim rep went down a notch when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said there was no proof that so-called "comfort women" had been forced into prostitution during the war. In other words, they were all in fact whores and all their complaints lies. The LDP is more like a party in big denial, running a country that claims to be democratic.Abe asserted his wishfully gossamer belief before addressing an LDP group of about 120 rightist lawmakers who were meeting to plan a retraction of Japan's 1993 apology to the comfort women. The group's position was clarified by its chairman Nariaki Nakayama, another LDP master of tact, who clarified the wartime government's involvement in the brothels by comparing it to a kind of simple business situation - no big deal. "Some say it is useful to compare the brothels to college cafeterias run by private companies, who recruit their own staff, procure foodstuffs, and set prices," he said, probably smiling and jingling the change in his pocket."Where there's demand, businesses crop up... but to say women were forced by the Japanese military into service is off the mark," he said (that "into service" says a lot more). "This issue must be reconsidered, based on truth... for the sake of Japanese honor." What type of honor is he talking about, I wonder. Clearly the type of honor that is blind to base wrongdoing. Ah yes: honor among thieves, of course.This all flies in the faces of the hundreds of thousands of women who, even in their old age, often bringing shame on themselves and their families through their public quests for justice, nevertheless go to court in Japan year after year, and have for decades. They are turned away unacknowledged and now are even scorned by alleged lawmakers in quest of the same dark honor under which still unrepentant crimes were perpetrated. Culture60511@blogcritics.org Mon, 5 Mar 2007 02:03:25 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/12/18/175440.php Robert BradyI really don't know what to say, Time, this is all so unexpected, I was just putting on my socks this morning as my computer booted up when I saw I'd been honored by your cover as Person of the Year. It was a bit of a shock, let me tell you.It's the first time for me, and needless to say I certainly never expected to be in the same company as Hitler and Khomeini, or to this year beat out candidates such as Ahmadinejad, Hu, Kim, James Baker and all those other individuals I'd rather not be lumped together with, if the truth be known. As I say, I hadn't expected this at all, ever since I decided I'd much rather hit the road than aspire to be CEO of a major corporation or run for the US presidency, so I can't really convey to you how unexpected this is... I've been blogging for nearly five years now, and youtubing for a while, though myspace never really did it for me...To tell you the truth, I've never thought of myself as "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse," let alone "seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game..." Fact is, I've just been putting one foot ahead of the other in a journey of general delight and discovery, with an eye always on the horizon, though of course no one conveys my own perceptions as well as I can, and the same goes for everyone, except perhaps salaried journalists. As a veteran traveler I've always known that distant news of local areas is sketchy at best, especially when you want to charge for it. I understand your difficulty.I owe so much to so many. First of all, I'd like to thank my motherboard, my keyboard, and server too. Of course, and how could I not mention silicon? I couldn't have done it without them and Farnsworth, Einstein, Edison, those guys, Maxwell, Newton as well, all the way back to Aristotle and his students, the inventor of the wheel for getting it all rolling, the woman who mastered fire, I'm standing on the shoulders of so many giants it's pathetic, I really don't deserve this, but then again it's only a dead-tree weekly cover, so I won't let it go to my head... thank you anyway, thank you, it's an honor, now if all you reporters and cameramen will stand back a bit so I can find my other sock... Culture57224@blogcritics.org Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:54:40 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/28/123458.php Robert BradyIsn’t most of America by now sick up to here of the Limbaughs, the Hannitys, the Coulters, the O’Reillys -- the stagnant, toxic side of human nature? Doesn’t just about every American know better than to listen to what those egomouths are jabbering off the top of their pinhole heads? Don’t most Americans care about polluting their airwaves with hatred and their minds with venom? Don’t most Americans desire emotional tranquility and rational thought? Don’t most Americans believe in building community, rather than unleashing pitbulls?Sure, at one time, way back in the beginning of the vast nervous breakdown that has culminated in this disastrous president and his apocalyptic war, these bizarre personalities were new; they were ciphers with industrial-strength opinions, they were different, clamorous, argumentative -- and in a true democracy, views of all kinds deserve to be heard -- but to give them a bullhorn in America’s living rooms?One sad implication of the success of these spirit-thieves is that the listening minds may be so vacant as to welcome the mindfill. This slick shield of acid innuendo, nuanced to resemble truth, has been corroding community airwaves for years now. It got the de facto failure elected and re-elected, and is still spreading bile throughout the ‘homeland.’ That these emotional hypos should be arbiters of community discourse at the heart of America’s noble ambition is beneath travesty; it is tragedy, and that is where it is leading America headlong.Every grownup remembers the bully in their schoolyard who belittled the weak, demeaned the righteous, and could only be silenced by courage. Now those bullies use the printed page or the microphone to put your opinion right where they want it. But surely, don't most Americans recognize these creatures for the sunless things they are? Most of us walked away from those schoolyard bullies, and only later realized what cowards they truly were. So how can it be that now we read and watch and listen to their shadows every day, build our lives, structure our communities in deference to their words? Have so many Americans sunk so low as not only to demean themselves, but to deserve it?Make a democratic vote and turn those malignancies off. Be a better person for it, and a better-informed citizen. Culture54973@blogcritics.org Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:34:58 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/15/094757.php Robert BradyThere's nothing wrong with longevity, if I have any left, but here in Japan I've had a glimpse of the future and I'm not all that sure I want to be there when it arrives. It's looking way too virtual for an insistently palpable individual like myself. I've always liked face-to-face, hand-to-hand, cheek-to-cheek, even cheek-to-jowl, if that's all there is. What they're planning for us elders, elderlings, and those who will follow is cold, metallic, and wireless, with all the emotional warmth of a silicon chip.They're already well along in developing robot caregivers (might as well use a bespoke forklift), but you really get the sense that the old ways are fading, the old meanings falling silent, and the old values losing their luster, when you read a newspaper article like the one I found at The Daily Yomiuri.Not that I am ever going to be conned into such a situation, mind you (no way; I'll circumnavigate the earth in a canoe first), but the fact of the steady distancing between the generations and what that portends, the growing desensitization regarding the issue of ignoring your elders to as impersonal a level as possible, already has me polishing my paddles.The market researchers are so sure of the social outcome that government and corporations are already turning elder-isolation into a marketing ploy! (Remember, Japan is the developed world's coalmine canary):The Tokyo metropolitan government's Waterworks Bureau is to offer a new service enabling families who live apart from their elderly parents to check on them, by sending relatives daily e-mails with details of the volume of water their parents have used. Such a security service has already been introduced for gas consumption and some models of electric kettles... In other words, the water company et al. will belatedly update you on the survival status of your forebears. Like I said, if a public utility is ever my go-between, I'm outta here. When it reaches that point I'll open the taps, turn on the gas, plug in my electric kettle, and launch my canoe. Anyone else who's interested, let's meet on some pre-arranged tropical islands and start our own government: World Elder Restoration Of Classy Karma. Culture52906@blogcritics.org Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:47:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/11/064736.php Robert BradyYou sure couldn't prove it by me or anyone I know here in Japan, the land of eros unsurpassed in the realms of subtlety, but according to the annual nosy survey that condom-maker Durex conducts every year ("Pardon us for interrupting at just this moment, but..."), the Japanese have the least active sex life in the world, for two years in a row. Preposterous.This in contrast to the Greeks, who according to the survey seem to have time for little else at pole position number 1, several lengths ahead of the staidly randy British, who nevertheless barely outstroked the understandably fading Americans, who even so tower at more than double the DIP (Demographic Intercourse Proportion) of the Japanese.That would perhaps explain the declining birth rate in Japan, but not the surge in profits from the tumescent growth of love hotels, which are often hidden away in discreet locations in keeping with the Japanese desire for privacy regarding the wanton expression of untameable passion when, for example, sequestered behind the folding screens atop the rocking motorcycle in the velvet room of the Candy Box hotel down that long road on the mountain...I think it's more likely, given the Japanese penchant for privacy, that the Durex folks, not being from around here, just didn't know where to look.Lowest DIP in the world? No way. Culture39377@blogcritics.org Fri, 11 Nov 2005 06:47:36 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/08/025308.php Robert BradyWhen you move from the city into the country, a considerable number of municipally peripheral things suddenly come into your life in a big way, such as the moon and the stars. Also insects, trees and animals, not to mention the sky as a whole. Also, general vegetation, and a welcome absence of the masses of concrete and asphalt and people that characterize city life, as do power and phone lines overhead.The moon doesn't play much of a role in city life, except as a kind of urban add-on one sees occasionally that is played up in movies as an extravaganza backdrop, the moon coming up between the skyscrapers. City folks actually don't have all that much to do with the moon, let alone the stars, except in a mythico-cinematico-derivativo kind of way. Isn't it mystical, they say in the park, that smattering of artificial countryside city folks resort to in their free time to evoke their roots with a distant wistfulness, like they do in a museum where they can touch the artifacts. And the sky -- in the city the sky is pretty much an artifact too, the less significant part of what metropolitans call the "skyline." Isn't it impressive, they say. Well, yeah, I guess so, if you like artifacts in your eye.Out in the country the sky stretches all the way from here to there (not the city "here and there"; such words resume their original meaning out in the country). And of course the country is where birds actually live and enjoy themselves. By birds I don't mean panhandling pigeons, but self-supporting warblers, wheatears, grosbeaks, ducks, thrushes, egrets, pheasants, finches, redstarts, hawks, swallows, wagtails, owls, the list goes on. Real birds. Not merely the species or two that can tolerate exhaust fumes for a discernible life span, like the trees the city plants along the avenues. And insects -- not cockroaches, which can live anywhere, the pigeons of the insect family -- but genuine broad-spectrum insects, buzz and hum and crawl, all going about their ancient business in their traditional ways in holes and hills and hives or just plain on the ground (there's actual ground out in the country) to the chirpings and trillings of cricket and katydid as evening comes, and through the night, the fragrant night. And then at dawn vast webs are strung with beads of dew and hung with warbler notes in the pink sunrise from way down at the bottom of the sky.And in the spring and summer eve and morn, the oratorio of the frogs, of course, in their timeless worship of all things high and low; such worship, in all its many forms, goes on all the time in the country but is pretty much extinct in the city. And then there's the occasional snake draped over a branch in the sun like this was the garden of Eden or something, not to mention brief glimpses of ferret fox boar stag raccoon monkey bear, and there are actual fish in the waters, waters which, by the way, in the country you can drink without even once thinking of wet laundry.And fireflies, of a summer night! Or a rainy summer night, when the underneaths of leaves are lit by thousands of tiny lanterns as the firefly party goes on despite the downpour. Rain, too, in the country is different from rain in the city, where it is a wet bothersome thing serving no natural function (except maybe to water the park), only an artificial one when in the summer it sometimes brings desperately needed relief to what city officials, and I guess everybody by now, calls heat island syndrome, which is when the sun and the city work together to form a kind of sidewalk inferno. And I probably don't need to point out the difference between a city summer night and a country summer night, nor dwell at length on the differences between the other seasons as experienced in these respective locales, but I will.In the country summer the nights are cool, there is tree breath everywhere, and you can breathe its perfume beneath a sky broadcast with all the diamonds of the universe for you,. And you sleep better too, since you're so much more at home, because we all came from the country. And when autumn arrives, who can describe what is more beautiful than all the masterpieces of all the museums in the world put together? This is the very beauty painters chase to the grave. And this isn't just oils on canvas on walls in museums next to the park; this is the real thing -- you can go out and walk right in it for hours, and there's no admission fee.And then comes the country winter, with its majestic, sweeping calligraphies of snow just sitting there on silent show, gleaming with sunlight for days and weeks in tree- and stubble- and furrow- and grove-shaped whiteness-impeccable sculptures, and the blue-blue air is so big that the snow show is but a small part of it all, and not in the way, as it is in the city where pretty soon after snow falls and makes headlines it gets slushy and ugly or dangerously icy; country snow, soft and plush, is by contrast a big down comforter mother nature always throws over the countryside about this time, and whereas in the city the snow merely treacherizes pedestrians and vehicularians, and taxes the sewage system with often excessive volumes of what is called "runoff," in the country snow has actual natural functions, among others of insulating the soil from the chill of late winter and watering it in spring the way spring is in the country, for in the country spring is exactly where it belongs, its green songs up out of the ground swelling in time into chorales of wildflowers and all kinds of random demonstrations of the beauty nature can build if left on its own, the way it is out in the country.Edited: bhw Tastes32235@blogcritics.org Fri, 8 Jul 2005 02:53:08 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/23/080523.php Robert BradyWell, I took the broken new cheap power saw back to the big farmer-tool store where I'd bought it a couple months ago, of course taking the receipt along (I would never in a million years be so efficient as to save a receipt for a cheap tool, let alone find it some months later, but my Minamoto-clan wife is; always amazes me). As I drove to the store, in that still some-decades-ago-US part of my mind where my American resides, I was expecting that basically suspicious response from an incipiently surly clerk: "You got the receipt?" (From under hooded eyes) "You sure you didn't remove those screws yourself, you know what the warranty says," etc. with all those tacitly intimidating implications, then maybe "Ok, we'll send it back to the manufacturer see what they say, be a few weeks, we'll let you know, just be sure to press hard when you fill out these triplicate forms completely with the stuttery ballpoint pen attached by a chain to the powerful spring coil on the low-level, uneven desktop," and so on in my American's head. (I'm sure it isn't really like that in the US any more, I'm sure customer relations have become much more loving and personal, arm-around-the-shoulder buddy-caring and we're-all-in-this-together-y, with much better and unfettered pens, since my goods-returning American's time there.)Went in to the store, found the hardware clerk busy pricing some stuff; showed him the saw, where the blade screws had come out and probably shot down the mountain and the blade had come off but fortunately lockstopped; he bowed and said "Please wait here," took the saw into the back of the store, likely to get a higher up who could take me properly to task... A couple minutes later the manager found me, bowed deeply, said "We are very sorry for the extreme shock you must have suffered at this mishap" or words to that effect. And still to that effect, bowing as to a very important person, "Please accept our profound apologies and be so good as to select one of these more expensive brand-name power saws as a token of our deep regret and respect for your patronage of our humble store." I picked out a very nice Ryobi: more power, lighter etc. The still-bowing manager threw in an extra new blade as well, never even asked for the receipt. Despite many similar experiences here in Japan, my American was dumbfounded yet again. Culture29963@blogcritics.org Mon, 23 May 2005 08:05:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/14/084600.php Robert BradyEvery 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... Gaming29485@blogcritics.org Sat, 14 May 2005 08:46:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/10/030251.php Robert BradyIn 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... Culture29263@blogcritics.org Tue, 10 May 2005 03:02:51 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/05/213638.php Robert BradyExtensive 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." Sci/Tech29088@blogcritics.org Thu, 5 May 2005 21:36:38 EDT