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Holy cow! Long time no post. Oh Facebook, how you've made this blog so...lonely.

Dear Donald...

On the right is Rick Perry, current governor of the state of Texas, and running for the Republican nomination for president of the US of A. Below is Jim Perry, former major-league  baseball player, and Minnesota Twin. When I was a kid, I used to play Strat-o-matic baseball, and he was one of my pitchers.

And this, is you. You're an idiot.

Posters

I used to do this in Korea, but haven't done it much in Japan. My Japanese is still pretty basic, but I'm guessing the text is a translation of the English posters, which say "It all ends." (The first two characters (これ) are roughly similar to 'this,' so maybe "This ends" or something like that.) Time to hit the books, and study my日本語。

By the way, I loved the movie. Exciting and heart-breaking. I'm going to miss these characters.

Happy Rapture Day!

Missionary Positions

So let me see if I got this straight (so to speak.) According to some "good Christians," the massive earthquake and devastating tsunami that struck Japan last week happened because:

• Japan is shaped liked a dragon, and Japanese people worship dragons
• The emperor sleeps with a succubus on a special bed
• The Japanese aren't religious enough, or at least christiany enough

Many of these same people celebrated the 2004 tsunami that killed 250,000 people because a lot of Muslims were killed. And now these people want to send missionaries to Japan to convert them to Christianity, because this god that sent the disaster is the only way to...ummm...I don't know...go to heaven with this mean god or something. 

Social Networking in a Disaster

During the last few days, it became crystal clear what a valuable tool Facebook is. At it's best, such as we witnessed after the earthquake and tsunami here in Japan, it's the best way to let people 'back home' know you're alive and well. The support we received helped us all cope. I can tell you there is nothing more frightening than what I experienced on Friday afternoon, but it pales in comparison to the destruction and horror up north in Miyagi Prefecture. In the recent revolutions across north Africa, Facebook and Twitter were incredibly important tools.

But Facebook also became the tool for another group of people--people whose lack of humanity is shocking, and yet, perhaps, unsurprising. These people unleashed a torrent of hate and indifference, with not one ounce of compassion for those suffering on the other side of the world. I saw a collection of Facebook posts at a couple of blogs, a collection that enraged and saddened me. I don't know what makes people like this. I understand nastiness and hate on the Internet--that is not new. But usually that hate hides behind the anonymity of the Internet. These were people posting on their Facebook pages--showing names and pictures of the people unleashing this hate. Young people, old people. Most of these people seemed to think Japan deserved this horror, as some sort of 'payback' for the attack on Pearl Harbor, seventy years ago. Think about that for a minute. Some even brought God into this, somehow God was getting Japan back for Pearl Harbor. Think about that for a minute. I would take bets on whether these same people identified themselves as Christian on their Facebook pages. (Remember the awful people who were 'relieved' that most of those killed in the 2004 tsunami were Muslims, not Christians.) By the same logic, should the USA be punished for Hiroshima and Nagasaki? For Dresden? For the firebombing of Tokyo? For the internment of Japanese-Americans? For Vietnam? For the continuing killings of innocents in Afghanistan? By this same logic, what was America being punished for by Katrina? For 9/11?

This kind of hate unleashed is nothing new, perhaps just the delivery of it is easier than ever. But look at the other news filling the cable news shows--class warfare, union busting, political attacks on Muslims, gays, women--and this from politicians, and those who bring us the news. The hate that spews out of the radio and the TV is then echoed by those who listen to Rush and Glenn and Hannity and O'Reilly and countless other. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprise by what I read, but I am. And I am sad. And disheartened. And happy I live here, in Japan, and not there.

Remember that the title of this blog (SO IT GOES) comes from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-5, which is about the fire-bombing of Dresden, something Vonnegut himself witnessed as a prisoner-of-war.

Defense of Marriage?

These guys are all against same-sex marriage. They recently whined about the Obama-Holder decision on DOMA. They all love "traditional marriage" so much that they've done it a lot. Newt, three times. Trump, three times. Rash  Rush, four times. Way to defend marriage, douchebags gentlemen.