Memoirs Of A Hot War

Ms. Zhang ZiYi, she of the hot crouching potato...

Hot Asian Babe Causes Stir

I found this article on Google news today. In it was this exploration of the new movie 'Memoirs of a Geisha':

The opening of the new movie, "Memoirs of a Geisha," for example, has stirred controversy in China because one of the country's best known actresses, Zhang Ziyi, stars in a movie that is essentially about Japan and its culture.

"The debate over Zhang's role in the film first started online, perhaps with a photograph of Sayuri and her lover, The Chairman (Japanese actor Ken Watanabe), cuddling and kissing," reports the China Daily. "That set the tongues, especially in Internet chatrooms, rolling. "

"'Why did Zhang accept the role of a Japanese 'prostitute?' 'Why did she allow a Japanese man on top of her?' These are some of the more common questions asked in the chatrooms. The responses were equally strong, the gist of which would be: 'It's an insult to national pride.'"

If that was going to cause a wound to the National Pride, what about this photo-shoot she undertook for FHM? You'd think the thought of a million pubescent boys around the world ogling her spread-legged-pose would be much worse.

I mean, that'd hurt me real bad in the national psyche too... not. LOL.
The real joke? She's native of Taiwan, and the last I checked they didn't really think of themselves as part of Communist China.

By The way, the makeup job on that FHM shoot is horrible. I almost couldn't recognise her. She's been tarted up to look like what a Westerner thinks an Asian woman ought to look like. It's always like this with makeup; Lucy Liu always has to be made up to be a self-parody too.

Even less edifying, the article had this section:

On larger issues the political language of normally polite Asia has become unusually blunt.

When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last month paid his fifth visit to the Yakasuni shrine where several World War II war criminals are honored, the People's Daily in Beijing ran a story quoting two European analysts describing his move as "stupid."

In response to the continuing controversy over the shrine, Asahi reports that members of the Japanese parliament are proposing a new shrine to the dead from all of Japan's wars that would be less offensive to China and South Korea.

Yes, less offensive to China and Korea; two nations which couldn't defend themselves from the West a mere 60 years ago. But boy, is 1930s style nationalism the vogue now.
For heaven's sakes, many Japanese soldiers died defending Chinese and Koreans from the Russians in 1904-1905. Nobody in China and Korea talks about that these days - would that be because the truth of their weakness and lack of foreign policy at the time be an even greater wound to their national pride?

As for this racist business of "How could she play a Japanese prostitute, it wounds our national pride", why beat about the bush when you're playing with race card? heck, lord only knows how they'd feel if they knew it insults the Japanese to cast a Chinese woman as a top class courtesan. Spielberg was amazingly insensitive there, but that's not surprising coming from the Jewish American baby-boomer director.
But you don't see the Japanese media writing about that; they're probably waitng to laugh at the movie tho'. :)

The rest of the article covers the granddaughter of Hideki Tojo who is obviously still flying the flag for the 'Greater East Co-Prosperity Zone'. The latter-day incarnation of which we call, APEC.

But other Japanese are increasingly unapologetic about past. The granddaughter of Gen. Hideki Tojo, one of the most notorious World War II war criminals, has emerged as an influential Japanese political commentator, notes a piece in the Asia Times.

Yuko Tojo says her grandfather, the man who ordered the Pearl Harbor attack, led a "war of freedom" in Asia. "Essentially he was a kind man who loved peace," she said. "He was defending his country against foreign aggressors. His greatest crime was that he loved his country."

Yuko Tojo, says author David McNeill, "articulates a set of views that resonate in a country floundering since the end of the Cold War and spooked by the rise of China," where the desire for "a more muscular, independent foreign policy backed by a strong military" is growing.

Several Japanese commentators call for moving away from the principles of the country's pacifist constitution. They endorse the Oct. 29 military agreement between Japan and the United States that calls for increased cooperation between the two countries.

"Japan needs to face up to the fact that the Cold War is not yet over in Asia and that new risks are increasing," says the Japan Times. A business leader writes in the Daily Yomiuri that "Chinese military power is undoubtedly a threat that must be squarely faced."

The U.S.-Japan military agreement, replied a commentator for the People's Daily last week, displays a "Cold War mentality that goes against the trend of the times." By mounting "the war chariot of the United States," Japan "will not make itself more secure, but instead will harm its long-term national interests."

What a drag.
Hideki Tojo's granddaughter is obviously too invested in recovering the lost honour of her grandfather; the same idiot general who penned the document imploring Japanese soldiers not to be captured but to die. He's certainly one buffoon Japanese history could have done well without. If she is indeed a patriotic as she presents herself, she might want to reconsider this line of reasoning and denounce her grandfather first.
Everyday, the Idiots are seemingly everywhere. Sometimes they come with 'names'. *Ugh*

Now, before you go away thinking I am sinking in to despair, one of the links goes to this article by one Zou Hanru at the China Daily.

Let us remind ourselves that it's not so easy to hurt China's national pride. But we will come to that later.

First, let's deal with "Memoirs" and Zhang's role. The accusation against Zhang reminds us of some Chinese actors who played the "bad guys" in films in the 1950s and 1960s. These dedicated professionals were not only married to the art of acting, but also were perhaps model citizens. But they were persecuted all the same by some misdirected people during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

The people, unjustifiably angry with Zhang today, are committing the same mistake as their predecessors. Apart from mistaking geishas for prostitutes, they have also failed to distinguish between acting and real life.

It's Zhang the actress, not Zhang the person, who kisses and cuddles Watanabe to bring Sayuri's character to life. And it's exactly what Konstantin Stanislavsky required actors and actresses to do in his "method" school of acting: reaching "believable truth" through "emotional memory."

Vsevolod Meyerhold disagreed with Stanislavsky's "method" and devised his own "biomechanic" mode of acting, seen in films such as "Strike" and "Battleship Potemkin" of the great Sergei Eisenstein. It's true, Jerzy Grotowski and Antonin Artuad wanted an actor to resent the complete psychological and emotional essence of his being in front of the spectators. It's also true that Bertolt Brecht wanted his actors to create a distancing effect: to merely demonstrate the actions of the characters they portrayed, rather than to identify with their roles.

The acting method or mode may differ, but the actor could be played by anyone.

China and Japan share a long history and, from Buddhism to scripts, our culture has greatly enriched theirs. This history also has its dark chapters, especially the years of Japanese occupation and their atrocities.

But we also share an economic past and present, with the two of us becoming increasingly interdependent. This should logically lead to increasing cultural exchanges. And "Memoirs" somehow provides a chance to serve that purpose.

Outside China, "Memoirs" has created a controversy of a different kind. Why did Marshall cast non-Japanese actresses in the roles of geishas? (Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh plays the guiding mother figure, Mameha.)

Spielberg and the other two co-producers have responded with another question: "Should the historical turbulence between China and Japan prevent her (Zhang) from being cast in roles she completely commands with elegance, talent and grace?" The instant reaction to Spielberg's question would be "yes." But we will change that once we think of it as a cultural exchange that can help heal historical wounds.

Coming back to national pride, many may again question that if it's not feeble enough to be hurt by Zhang's portrayal of a geisha, how can cultural exchanges heal the wounds of history.

Well, our national pride is born out of rich history and civilization, our heritage, our culture, our scientific, technological and economic advancements. National pride should suffer if evidence points to any of them not being true.

A Zhang Ziyi and a Gong Li playing the role of a geisha can, and should, never be a matter of national pride or shame.

It's acting, and as Brecht said, action reveals the character, not the actor.

So there are sane voices out there in the wilderness of Stupidity.

Empress of Japan

Mr. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa was the meeting chairman.

Turning Over Macarthur
There was a time when people were calling for the head of the late Emperor Showa (Hirohito) of Japan. Of course, that was straight after World War II finished and they were having a war crimes Tribunal in Japan. General Douglas Macarthur had other ideas about ruling Japan, so he let the Japanese keep the Imperial Family because he wanted the peace to be workable.

Many people have discussed the merits of that decision at great length but the fact remains, the occupation of Japan went very peacefully in contrast to what is going on Iraq today, and much of that was due to the fact that the Emperor stayed. Certainly, an Iraq-like outcome would have been disastrous for the allies, considering the outbreak of the Korean War only 5 years after WWII. Instead, Macarthur's GHQ figured that at some point the Imperial Family ought to be consigned to history and so, worked a clause into the New Constitution, a clause that said only a male could become Emperor of Japan.

Sure enough, the current Crown Prince and Princess have a girl and are not looking likely to issue more off-spring, so the Prime Minister has invited legal and history adivisers to review the clause, and surprise surprise, they have unanimously declared that there can indeed be an Empress of Japan.

小泉純一郎首相の私的諮問機関「皇室典範に関する有識者会議」（座長・吉川弘之元東大学長）は２５日、首相官邸で開いた会合で、最大の焦点だった皇位継承資格をめぐり、現行では男系男子に限っている資格を拡大し、女性・女系天皇を容認することを全会一致で決めた。１１月末までにまとめる最終報告に明記する。

　小泉首相は２５日夜、来年の通常国会に皇室典範改正案を提出する準備を進めていることを記者団に明らかにした。改正が実現すれば、皇室の在り方に大きな影響を与えることになる。

　有識者会議は、現行制度のまま安定的な皇位継承が実現できるかどうかを検証。男系男子の後継者が非常に少なくなりつつあることから「将来必ず後継者不足が生じる」との見方で一致し、皇位継承資格を女性や女系皇族にまで広げることにした。

　吉川座長は会合後の記者会見で「女性天皇は国民に受け入れられると思う」と述べた。

　有識者会議は（１）皇位継承順位は直系の長子（第一子）優先とするのか、男子優先とするのか（２）女性皇族が皇族以外の男性と結婚して皇籍を持ち続けるとした場合、増えすぎる皇族の数をどう調整するか−の点も協議し、最終報告に盛り込むことにしている。

　　女性・女系天皇　　女性天皇は文字通り女性皇族が天皇に即位すること。一方、母方からのみ天皇の血統を引き継ぐ皇族が皇位に就くケースが女系天皇で、いずれも皇位継承者を「男系男子」に限る現行の皇室典範では認められていない。

　女性天皇は歴史上十代８人の例があるが、いずれも男系女子で、皇后を経て即位したか生涯独身を通しており、女系天皇は皇室史上例がない。政府の「皇室典範に関する有識者会議」は、皇位継承の安定を図るため、女性・女系天皇を容認することで一致。政府は皇室典範改正案を次期通常国会に提出する方針だ。

Prime Minister Koizumi will be putting forward a bill to amend the Constitution on that clause. So much for GHQ's great plan.

Waiting On Brian Cashman Update
I know it's kind of weird sticking this in here, but I just saw it.

HOUSTON - If you believe the scuttlebutt from the GMs at the World Series, Brian Cashman's prolonged negotiation with Yankees general partner Steve Swindal is directly related to Theo Epstein's holdout in Boston.
"They're pals," said one GM, "and I'm sure they're both holding out as long as they can, if nothing else, to give Theo additional leverage so he gets what he wants from the Red Sox. In any case, Brian's going to get his money."

That's been pretty much a given. Money is not the issue with Cashman and the Yankees; mutual cooperation and understanding with the Tampa faction of the Yankee front office is. It's been generally assumed Cashman will command a raise from his present $1.15 million to a three-year deal somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.7 mil per year, which would put him slightly above the Braves' John Schuerholz as the highest-paid GM in the game. (The Tigers' Dave Dombrowski makes $2 million but he is also the team president.)

Schuerholz's contract is up after '06, at which time he undoubtedly will get a bump to $2million or more. Epstein, meanwhile, is looking for what Cashman is getting, or maybe a tad more. Last week, he rejected a Red Sox offer of three years, $3 million and has vowed to walk if a deal isn't reached by Monday, when his contract (at $400,000 per year) expires.

Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino is trying desperately to hold the line with his third-year GM - and there have been reports that commissioner Bud Selig has been monitoring the process behind the scenes out of concern for an escalation of the GM salary scale. But stuck in Epstein's craw is the five-year, $12.5 million deal Lucchino offered Oakland's Billy Beane three years ago. Lucchino has shrugged that off as "a mistake" - which, indeed, it has come to be if only because of the predicament it has caused the Red Sox. If Epstein walks, the Red Sox will come out looking like cheapskates, unless they up their offer to $1.2 million or so - which they can then justify as "Cashman money."

Meanwhile, it seems clear that Cashman intends to stay, although he is undoubtedly waiting to see what accommodations are made to Gene Michael down in Tampa. Michael, who had all of his scouting duties and player personnel input diminished this year, is seeking to either have them restored or be given the okay to talk to other teams.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, in particular, are interested in talking to him about being a VP of Player Personnel and mentor to 28-year old Andrew Friedman, a baseball neophyte who is expected to assume the GM duties for new owner Stuart Sternberg. In addition, Phillies CEO Dave Montgomery is holding off on interviewing anyone for his GM job until Cashman makes his decision to stay with the Yankees official.

Well that would explain the lo-o-o-ong delay.

Japanese PM Visits Shrine

It's Always An International Incident
Yesterday's big news in Asia was that Prime Minister Koizumi visited he Yasukuni Shrine for the fifth time in his time as Prime Minister. immediately following the report, the state apparatus of Communist China issued rebukes and protests, while the Prime Minster of South Korea canceled a summit meeting with Mr. Koizumi.

Here's a detialed report on how his visit went and unfortunately it's in Japanese, but it offers some interesting insights.

小泉純一郎首相は１７日、東京・九段の靖国神社を秋季例大祭に合わせて参拝した。就任以来５度目で、今年は初めて。
首相は午前１０時すぎ、黒っぽい通常のスーツ姿で到着。前回までは正装で本殿に昇殿して拝礼、記帳したが、今回は昇殿も記帳もせず、拝殿前で一般と同じ略式の参拝。政教分離に過剰反応して拝礼は従来同様、一般参拝者も行う「２礼２拍手１礼」ではなく、１礼して手を合わせ、再度１礼するものだった。また前回までは献花料を納めたが、今回はポケットから賽銭を投じた。
公的な印象を薄めることで、参拝中止を迫る中国と韓国の内政干渉の矛先をかわしたい思いがあるともみられるが、首相は参拝後、「首相になる前は今回のような参拝をしていた。首相としての扱いを受けるより、一般国民と同じようにすることがいいと思った」と語った。
官邸に戻った首相は政府・与党連絡会議で「国民の１人として心を込めて参拝した。２度と戦争を起こしてはならないという不戦の決意で参拝した」と説明した。
この日に参拝したのは、靖国神社の最重要行事である秋季例大祭に合わせたもの。過去の多くの首相も春、秋の例大祭の参拝が多かった。
小泉首相は平成１３年４月の自民党総裁選で終戦記念日の参拝を明言したが、国内一部マスコミの過剰反応に連動した中国、韓国の干渉で別日程の参拝が続いている。首相はこの日も「心の問題。他人が干渉すべきでない。外国政府がいけないとかいう問題ではない」と言明した。
小泉首相が毎年参拝を続けることや中韓の不当な干渉などで、戦争の悲惨さと平和の大切さを見直す場としての靖国神社が見直され、今年の終戦記念日には近年にない２０万人以上が参拝した。
★秋季例大祭は２０日までの４日間
秋季例大祭は２０日までの４日間。１８日は午前１０時から当日祭として天皇陛下の勅使を迎える。１９、２０日はそれぞれ第２日祭、第３日祭が執り行われる。靖国神社広報課によると、期間中も一般参拝や昇殿参拝（午前１１時３０分−午後３時）は通常どおり。境内では菊花展（来月６日まで）、特別献華展（今２０日まで）のほか、日本舞踊、浪曲、古武道、詩吟、唱歌、津軽三味線、琉球舞踊などの奉納芸能が行われ、いずれも無料で鑑賞できる。
★参拝評価も複雑
日本遺族会の板垣正顧問は「昇殿しての参拝が一番良いが、拝殿前でも略式ではない。英霊に気持ちは通じたと思う。スパッと決断する小泉流が総選挙で賛同され、参拝にもつながったと思う。参拝は国内問題。かつては首相が春秋の例大祭に参拝した。ともかく参拝を続け、定着させてほしい」と話す。
訪米中の李登輝台湾前総統は参拝の報に「それはよかった」と述べた。前日に「一国の首相が自国のために命を亡くした英霊をお参りするのは当たり前。外国が口を差し挟むべきことではない」と話していた。
東京裁判で「Ａ級戦犯」とされたものの、政府が公務死と位置づけ、靖国神社に合祀された東条英機元首相の孫の東条由布子さんは「国に殉じた人を祭る靖国神社を参拝するのは特別なことではない。今後も毎年、国家の長として参拝してほしい」。首相公式参拝を求める「英霊にこたえる会」の倉林和男運営委員長は参拝を評価しながら「記帳やおはらいをせず姑息。国家国民の代表として正々堂々と参拝すべきだった」と指摘した。
日本経団連の奥田碩会長は「内外の諸情勢や国際関係などに慎重に配慮されたうえ、一般と同じような形で私的に参拝されたものと理解する」と談話を出した。

The gist of it goes like this:
He's been going all his adult life. This time, he didn't participate in the full autumn ceremonies, he just went as a private person. He didn't sign in the big visitor's book, nor did he go up the steps to the main hall, but stood back with the general throng. he says this is the way he participated in the ceremonies in the past. He explained his prayer was for peace, and never wanting a war again.
He also points out that it's his religious/spiritual life, and it realy isn't the business of another foreign state to intervene.

Even the former President of Taiwan agrees. He says that it is natural for a head of state to visit the place that commemorates those who have fallen for the state. It's really none of anybody else's business.

There you have it.
It should be noted that there's been a lot of criticism for him from the other side for not going up to the main hall.

靖国神社問題に詳しい大原康男国学院大教授の話　「昇殿ではなく拝殿前参拝となったのはこれまでより後退した印象を抱くが、内外の反対に屈することなく５年連続して参拝したことは十分評価できる。来年８月１５日には公約通り参拝し有終の美を飾ってほしい。ポスト小泉の首相もこれにならってほしい」
　日本遺族会顧問の板垣正・元参院議員の話　「かつては首相が春、秋の例大祭に合わせて参拝しており、今回は参拝として正常な姿だ。今後は８月１５日も含めて定着させてもらいたい。スパッと決断する小泉流のやり方が総選挙で賛同され、靖国参拝にもつながったのだと思う。中国、韓国への影響は相手の出方次第だが、参拝は日本の国内問題だ」

　戦友らでつくる「英霊にこたえる会」の倉林和男運営委員長の話　「なぜ正々堂々と正式参拝できないのか。モーニングも着ず、拝殿前で賽銭(さいせん)を入れるなど、英霊に感謝の誠をささげる一国の首相のやることではない。二礼二拍手一礼をしなくても、最低限昇殿参拝すべきだった」

Clearly, there are uncompromising bastards everywhere. Politics being the art of the possible, is filled with compromise. I certainly respect a man who sticks to his guns tenaciously.

In some ways Junichiro Koizumi must be the most important Prime Minister of Japan since Shigeru Yoshida after WWII. For a start, he's a Prime Minister that has clearly been carried by the public vote for straight-talking rather than being a Prime Minister who emerged trough factional wranglings. His 5 years in office have been eventful and in some ways very defining of the way Japan has changed since even it's 'Japan as Number One' 1980s 'peak'. He's put into place massive amounts of deregulation and he's shaking up the old profit-interest groups that have made politics in Japan so unpleasant. When I was a kid, we'd laugh at somebody who wanted to be a politician. He is now offering a vision for kids that politics might be noble. In that sense, he is charismatic in a way no other Prime Minister of Japan has been for a long time.
Like it or lump it he's shaping the future and he's here for a while yet.

Mailbag Pickies

These came in the mail today.


Banal, but funny.


Oddly touching.


I think this must test for astygmatism.

Pleiades Mailbag Today
I haven't been posting regularly as I've been pretty busy with some stuff. About the only thing I've had energy for has been covering the Yankee Postseason disaster.

Anyway, this interesting link came in today regarding the political pressures applied to the NHK over a documentary covering the issue of 'Comfort Women'.

The documentary film on the tribunal was shown on NHK's second, or educational, channel on 30 January 2001. NHK, like Britain's BBC, is a public corporation, unable to take advertising revenue and heavily dependent on payment of a compulsory viewer license fee (the basic Japanese annual fee is approximately $220, as against the BBC's $195). Its educational channel does not attract a large audience, almost certainly less than 1 per cent of viewers. This January 2001 program was no exception. However, critics were appalled at what they saw as an incoherent and distorted account of the historical issues the tribunal had addressed. They criticized it severely and in due course launched a suit in the Tokyo District Court alleging major NHK improprieties. In March 2004 the court ruled that NHK had acted within its legitimate discretion, but in 2005 the case was continuing, under appeal.

The issue suddenly exploded into the public arena on 12 January 2005, however, when Asahi Shimbun, a national daily with a circulation of around eight million, published a "scoop" alleging manipulation and political interference in NHK's production process.[1] The allegations were repeated the following day in a press conference by Nagai Satoru, a director within NHK, who had become an internal "whistle-blower" one month earlier by launching a complaint of interference and political pressure to NHK's newly set-up "compliance committee."[2] The nub of the matter was that the documentary, originally prepared by an independent production company under a sub-contracting agreement with NHK, had been subject to a series of changes due to political interventions. The "in-house" editing process was conducted while the company was in a state of semi-siege, as rightists mobilized and sound trucks circled the NHK building blaring hostile messages and employees were jostled and abused as they entered or left the premises.[3]

Changes made at that phase of editing included the incorporation of the views of a hostile critic of the "comfort women" and the tribunal (the historian Hata Ikuhiko, an associate of the Tsukurukai group). Then, just days before the film was shown, a meeting was held between senior executives of NHK and two prominent politicians, Abe Shinzo, then deputy chief cabinet secretary and as of early 2005 acting secretary-general of the LDP, and Nakagawa Shoichi, then an LDP diet member and as of 2005 minister for economy, trade, and industry. Further, major changes were then made, adding new material while cutting the 44 minute film to 40 minutes. All reference to the emperor's responsibility was deleted (even though that had been central to the tribunal process), the testimony of the former "comfort women" witnesses was much reduced, the space for hostile comment on the tribunal increased. The process was completed hours before broadcast.

And so on.
It's a pretty disgusting thing to find that the equivalent of an MP can editorialise the equivalent of an ABC documentary.

Teach What?
A couple of thoughts on the never ending textbook 'debate'.
Asahi's line on history is self-flagellatory left-wing ideology. It has been a very motivated, biased media outlet for years, and nobody seems to question their odd stance. It's an old quibble that goes back at least 40-50 years.
There also has been a long tradition of power enjoyed by the Japan Teachers' Union which wielded massive amounts of power in the years since WWII, and combined with the Asahi line, managed to write some pretty 'masochistic history' as the revisionists comment.

Indeed, one of the hardest things growing up in the Japanese educational system as devised by centralised successive LDP governments and the Teachers' Union was what exactly did they want us to learn about history? The way the Japan Teachers' Union wanted it taught, it was a history of repression of peasants and exploiting the land badly and all sorts of horrible things, at the end of the line of which was the war in the Pacific. Now, this flew in the face of most books you'd find on history in the school library. There were a lot of interestnig lords and nobles and warriors that inhabit the history of Japan, just as such figures populate history books of any old country. It's hard to describe what this is like; it's like being able to read about Richard I and the Crusades, but being told in class that the point of the crusades was to exploit the working classes in distant lands. Well, that was the sort of line the Japan Teachers' Union took. It held a very dim view of the civil wars and the feudal wars; and really tried its hardest to suppress the names of some historic figures.

What really gets me is that unless one took a great amount of interest in history, a Japanese kid growing up under the Japanese education didn't get to learn about some important things in history. I still meet Japanese people of my age, who have no idea. No idea. And I think that's even more appalling than teaching what happened. Good or Bad. So I understand people getting upset that 'comfort women' are not in the junior high school history text books; but neither are some pretty important figures and events. I'd be happy to see a history textbook that had 'comfort women' in it, if everything else was in it too. More so, I'd also like to see proper sex education for junior high school kids in Japan so that they know what teachers are talking about when they start going on about 'comfort women' and why sex slavery might be a bad idea in the modern world.

Some Pictures

It Was 1978


The Year the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox last staged a duel to the end; and in the 1-game play-off, Bucky Dent hit that famous homerun that earned him a middle name starting with 'F'. I was watching it on TV and lept out of my seat with joy and amazement. Anyway, the Yankees went onto the World Series and my favorite Yankee of that era made some amazing, amazing defensive plays at third base, time and time again.

The photo here is from the Encyclopedia Britannica Year Book 1979 I happened to be flipping through. It's Graig Nettles, flying through the air sideways like Superman, snatching bullet liners down the third base line. You'd better believe it; it was just amazing. He was the slugging third baseman of the New York Yankees; just like A-Rod is today (only better, of course).
In another life, that's what I'd be.

The Battleship Yamato





I found these pickies of the battleship Yamato on the net. As a kid back in 1978, I was really into the warships of the late Imperial Japanese Navy. If you were going to build a battleship in the late 1930's, this was how you did it. Nine 45cm Canons 273m long. 70,000 tons. 27knots. All muscle and punch.
I know, it's a big contradiction that I'd be into readng about the IJN, but also cheering on the New York Yankees. But you see, life was always complex for me.

Aeronautical Marvels




While I'm at it...
I've found these pickies of Mitsubishi's final interceptor design for WWII, 'Shinden'. Some real buffs have been creating some images in 3D. If these things had seen operation... ...oh what the hell. It's not like it would've changed the outcome one tiny bit. :)

Anyway, for those who ever wondered about how 'out there' the avionics understood by the Japanese wer ein 1945, take a good look at it; 6-blade rear-mounted turbo props. After WWII, the Americans under Macarthur forbade the Japanese from developing any planes of any description. Indeed, even in the 1980s, there was enough American paranoia about the Japanese developing their own fighter Jet. So they told the Japanese to develop it from a F-15. Then US Congress got paranoid some more and legislated that the Japanese had to work off a F-16. I don't know if the 'FSX' ever got finished. If you ever wondered how much Congress was in the pockets of the MIC, you only had to look at that wrangling to realise that no US pollie is ever going to say, "who cares if the Japanese develop their own fighter jet?"

Pleiades Mailbag-Drop

"A Conspiracy Is Any Plot You're Not Part Thereof"
Or so the joke definition goes.
Pleiades sent in this interesting ittle link to some guy defending the cause of conspiracy theorists. It's a good little read.

Today, in the communication age, people have much greater access to information, particularly via the Internet, the world´s greatest public access channel. Therefore it is much easier to discover, share and promote conspiracy theories and expand them to include more current events. Like everything else in our society, conspiracy theories have become hyper-accelerated--every time a major figure dies, or a major event happens, conspiracy theorists are there to point out the connections and explain what happened in sinister terms. Although the Internet is free speech at its best, what we have gained in quantity, perhaps we have lost in quality--anybody with anything to say can build a web site and say it, and it carries some credibility precisely because it is published.

The result is noise. One could argue that with so much noise, with so many theories, conspiracy theory itself loses more credibility even while real conspiracies may actually be happening. Conspiracy theories have become so accelerated that the theorists are the boy who cried wolf. Investigative journalists, once considered something of conspiracy theorists themselves, are continuously taking themselves more seriously and conspiracy theories less seriously, and now deride them in print. Stories about alleged connections between the CIA and the crack epidemic are met with open hostility and ridicule by the media (although the Director of the CIA took them seriously enough to hold a televised town meeting with LA residents). Plots to take over the government are met with laughter.

To be fair, it IS amusing. The world IS going to hell in a basket; it doesn't seem pertinent which conspiracy is driving it that way. And there's also Occam's razor: maaybe there's a simpler explanation to all this crap?
Anyway, I like conspiracy theorists, probably more than their theories; while not necessarily bellieving everything I read what they write. :)

Nazis Exploded A-Bomb?
This was in the SMH.
Here's a classic: The Nazis may have done their own nuclear tests successfully. So Albert Einstein was right when he went and taalkeed to FDR and told them what could be on the cards. It's not all 'Oppenheimer's deadly toy' as Sting sang in the 1980s, after all.

On October 12, 1944, Romersa, then a 27-year-old war correspondent, was taken to the island of Rugen, where he watched the detonation of what his hosts called a "disintegration bomb".

"They took me to a concrete bunker with an aperture of exceptionally thick glass. There was a slight tremor in the bunker; a sudden, blinding flash, and then a thick cloud of smoke. It took the shape of a column and then that of a big flower.

"The officials there told me we had to remain in the bunker for several hours because of the effects of the bomb. When we eventually left, they made us put on a sort of coat and trousers which seemed to me to be made of asbestos and we went to the scene of the explosion.

"The effects were tragic. The trees around had been turned to carbon. No leaves. Nothing alive. There were some animals - sheep - in the area and they too had been burnt to cinders."

When he wrote of his experiences after the war, "everyone said I was mad". By then, it was universally accepted that Hitler's scientists had been years away from testing a nuclear device.

However, documents published recently by Mr Karlsch and a US scholar, Mark Walker, have punctured this consensus. Russian archives have shown one of the German scientists lodged a patent claim for a plutonium bomb as early as 1941 and, in June, the two historians published an article in Physics World that included what they said was the first diagram of one of the bombs Hitler's scientists were trying to build, a device that exploited both fission and fusion.

Well, this kind of adds credence to the notion that there is evidence of suppressed information a-plenty when this sort of information surfaces 60 years later. After all it would explain the speed with which the Russians acquired a plutonium bomb, having captured the better German scientists.

Here's a question. There was a tech exchange between the Germans and Japanese where the Japanese acquired plans for the Me262 Edelweiss, Me163 Komet and other interesting things. Did the Japanese get the plans this A-Bomb? We'll never know, but I've never seen any evidence thay did, I've seen War Ministerial discussions about the bomb after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not prior to it.