You Talk Funny

I am going to recommend this article for two reasons:

First because it is a nice ode to a teacher and shows how good teachers can influence so many people's lives.

Second because the second paragraph contains the sentence "In his impenetrably thick Ukrainian accent, he would berate us for being out of tune..."

Why do I mention that? Why do you think? I believe this former students paean to a departed teacher illustrates an important connection that Japan is sadly missing out on; that people who were born in other countries can teach your children and positively impact their lives. You may think this is self-serving and I am just talking about me and my job status. I am, but the story is larger.

Japanese people live in a country synonymous with a language. That language has many accents, most of them celebrated. From Osaka comedy to Tokyo business out to thee barriers of Kagoshima and Aomori indecipherableness, Japanese regional accents each have their own character. What Japanese people have trouble with is people speaking Japanese as a second language. That is an accent that can only be celebrated through buffoonery, witness Bobby, or any other TV clown. Speaking to a good deal of the Japanese public is a bit like the bartender in Anchorman attempting to inspire Ron Burgundy only to be told, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish." It often isn't the quality or intelligence of what is being said, but rather the willingness and ability to hear it. I am not just making this claim as someone with hurt feelings but as someone who's job it is to teach a foreign language to people who have no concept of people being useful speaking a foreign language, usually with an accent.

Mr. K. in the article, had a rough life. He also had an uplifting life. If he has decided to ply his trade in Japan he would have been forced to teach outside his subject, switch schools every year or so and always be accompanied by a Japanese citizen. Why? Well, his brand of discipline, or any discipline for that matter, would be against the law for a foreigner to implement. Now, I know the contrary argument; Good thing he didn't teach in Japan, but anyone can choose to not teach in Japan. Well, yes and no. LIfe is complicated for lots of us and it isn't always choices about job equity that keep us where we are. A more larger argument that I would make is that I love my students and I feel bad that their country won't give them the opportunity to be taught and driven and inspired by teachers from various backgrounds.

Last week I was teaching a particularly bad 2nd year class. One of the boys was constantly flicking off a girl in class. I told him to stop what he was doing as it was rude. He asked, "What does this mean?" I answered that you probably shouldn't go around doing something if you didn't know what it meant, but that, as an American, I thought it was rude and not something you should do in class. He replied, "But this isn't America." "True, but I am American and I am teaching this class and I am telling you to stop." His friend chimed in from the back "Why are foreigners here teaching us anyway? Japan is for Japanese people." Now, this is a pretty silly argument and is far from offending my sensibilities. However, I felt kind of bad for them and their limited world and I felt bad about a school system that, in my opinion, reinforces these opinions. Reading this article I felt good about America and that, growing up, we do get to experience people from backgrounds that aren't our own. I only think it helps to make us better people and I think Japan will pay the price for its approach in the long run.

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Still February in Kyoto

Kiyomizudera



Jinrikisha- Higashiyama-ku



Kiyomizudera



Old voodoo doll tree- Kiyomizudera

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Animals Aren't Cute

I hate to jump up and down and yell "I told you so!" at a corpse with water still draining out of it, but there is no reason marine mammals should be in captivity. This is something I have been pretty adamant about since I went to a conference on it at UF during high school. There are many ethical and moral reasons that we shouldn't imprison these creatures to have show time for the rubes, but another, more pressing reason is that they are giant animals and can kill you with less effort than they use to take a shit. Speaking of shit, keeping marine mammals in captivity makes them bat-shit crazy. Think about it. "I want to get in the water with a giant, intelligent, carnivorous, toothed mammal whose name has "killer" in it, who has gone mental from its sonar bouncing off of concrete walls for the last 10 years." Bad Idea Jeans. One man enter, fish fucking kills you. I say it is par for the course. It is to be expected. Don't hate the killer whale, hate the fucking game. Really. Don't pay to see this bullshit spectacle unless you accept that somebody is going down.

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Econocalypse

I enjoyed this article on the economy, because one; It discusees the field of economics as being an advocate for hummanity in general. Two; it had pretty graphs.

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Pimp My Power Structure

I haven't been talking about the O'Keefe/Breitbart boondoggle at all, but it seems very representative of something. If you aren't familiar with the story, it is an extension of the Republican war against Acorn as Acorn has the temerity to register low-income voters. Of course, participating in democracy is not something that should go unpunished so Acorn has become a Republican punch-line, just like purple hearts and torture. In order to further undermine Acorn Andrew Breitbart employed neveau Nixonian dirty Trickster James O'Keefe to go around and secretly record low-level Acorn staff members trying to deal with his fictional problem. What was presented to the media were a pair dressed in outrageous Blacksploitation pimp regalia and hooker wear, respectively, going around and getting Acorn to instruct them in how to avoid paying taxes. What it turns out really happened is that a normal looking man in a dress shirt and slacks went to Acorn offices with a girl in a skirt and claimed that it was his girlfriend who was being threatened by a violent pimp and they needed help getting out of the situation. They then went back and edited the videos heavily and inserted clips of O'Keefe in the pimp get-up. It is obvious to almost anyone what lame frat-boy level racism goes into the whole structure of this prank. What is worse is that the media bought it completely. They have gone back on it slightly, but not enough. What is truly infuriating is that all of this led to congress trying to shut off all federal funding for Acorn while the NY Times refuses to retract the "dressed as a pimp" language in their reporting. The attitude expressed by The New York Times' independent Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, says about all you need to know about the power structure in America. The fact that his papers participation in the right-wing Acorn hysteria might have led to lower-class people having harder lives, doesn't seem to way on his mind to heavily. If you want to read the original transcripts of the Acorn tapes, then go here. You will also keep in mind that James O'Keefe is the same criminal who is facing federal charges for messing with Sen. Landrieu's phones.

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February in Kyoto

We happened upon a wedding in Yasaka Jinja.





Skyline from Kiyomizudera.

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Tyrany of the Minority.

This is something that has been making me nuts for a while. The author here makes the very solid point that preventing health care, or any other proposal, is a kind of no vote. So, with the Republicans scorched earth, guerrilla warfare style of preventative politics, they become the majority with 41% of the vote. Somehow this is rationalized in the press, with the complicity of lap-dog Democrats, to seem as the state of things as they have always been. Should 51%, a majority, somehow be considered not enough to get things done? If so, why? Does it only apply to Democratic policies. The answer to the latter would seem to be an emphatic "Yes!!!"

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