Post Election Blue...

I think Bush is immature and cocky...at least, that is the persona he presents to the media. He is over-passionate, like me. He is illogical, like me. He is tunnel-visioned, like me. He's melodramatic and stirs people up. He defaults to trying to define the Moral Conscience for everyone, like me.

Which is exactly why I didn't vote for him.

OK, OK, perhaps down deep he may be a good man Mr/Mrs. Moral Majority, but that is for God to judge--and ONLY for God to judge. In the here and now, we must analyze and assess people by their actions, not their worded values.

The day after the elections, I spoke with an American friend of mine. She said she had woken up with the feeling that there had been a second terrorist attack on America. I think that is what many of us are feeling.

President George W. Bush, LISTEN, LEARN, and GROW UP. Swallow your arrogance and pray that you are on God's Side, not that S/He is on yours. As you continue to lead this nation and lead the congress--be neutral, be wise, be stronger than might, money and power.

Having said that, I will make a renewed effort myself to be a better American--to the best of my conscience, to the best of my logic and to the best of my actions.

We've all got a lot of work to do.

natural and unnatural disasters...plus an election

I was in Akihabara, electronics capitol of Tokyo, when the big earthquake hit last week--the one that has created so much devastation in Niigata. I was sitting on a curb talking on my cellphone in a covered, well-lit alley way when the street began to roll and the walls and shop signs started to sway--with the clang of metal on metal, I raced out onto the street turning to watch the awnings and hanging lights shutter.

Severe aftershocks and torrential typhoon rain has kept many of those in Niigata staying in shelters away from their homes. One particular story that has gotten a lot of coverage was that of a mother and her two young children whose car was buried by a landslide. The youngest, a boy of around 2 years old, survived in the rubble for four days. The mother and her daughter weren't so lucky.

Their story headlined the evening news for several days this past week. Then came the news of the Japanese backpacker, Shosei Koda, the new hostage in Iraq. Horrifically followed by the discovery of his decapitated body. People here have asking, almost flippantly..."But what in the world was he DOING there anyway?" The footage of him held me; he could have been one of my students. Yet he had what I press and press to get out of my students every day. Curiosity. Yes, the obvious comes next, wry and cynical, "Curiosity killed the cat" afterall. We probably will never know why he was there, but I've backpacked around into unknown places and I do understand the desire to be where things are happening, to want to know first hand what is going on in this crazy, insane world. The desire to get beyond someone else's camera and see reality for what it is. I can understand this. Sometimes, sitting in my office and flipping through textbooks, I feel numbed by the system and wonder if I have become part of the numbing process by default. On those days I want to scream and break free, running...ANYWHERE to be beyond the humdrum, the daily grind, the systems of dispassionate logic which seem to control my life. Perhaps young Mr. Koda just had a passion to KNOW more about the people, the place and the culture of a corner of the world that is beginning to look like is becoming the birth place for the next paradigm shift in the modern world.

Terrorism vs....everyone and everything else.

And after yesterday's news about Shosei, I really started to wonder if, Bush or no Bush, Kerry or no Kerry, Pandora's box has just been flung too wide open. How can we forge ahead to conquer such an enemy without becoming like the enemy? Is it possible?! Or do we just keep creating bigger monsters?

We need a new paradigm...a Second Coming would be nice. The Second Chance. This chaos must stop for everyone's sake.

So I really don't know what Prayers to send out to the Universal Network for tomorrow's election...all I know is that we all need something BETTER, MUCH BETTER than all of THIS.

funny spellings, letter writing and politics from Shibuya

Just got this off an online chat. Hint: sit back and read this quickly; it's easier.

****

The Amazing Human Mind.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aodccrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dnsoe't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the hmuan mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azmanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuoht slpeling was ipmorantt

*****

So why bother trying to learn how to spell? Especially as we know that one doesn't need to be able to spell to make it into the White House, right Dan Q.? But yesterday I had to make use of all the spelling prowess I could muster to try to help get current leadership out of the White House...

Last night I trotted off to The Pink Cow (www.thepinkcow.com), a bar restaurant in Central Tokyo to meet with DemocratsAbroad to watch the 3rd and final presidential debate. Arriving an hour earlier than showtime, I ended up hand writing five letters to five women in Pittsburgh encouraging them to get out and vote--apparently, as part of a Democratic campaign, these women are registered Democrats but hadn't voted in the past few elections, thus, the objective was to remind them that their vote DOES COUNT!! While a few of us were sitting there scribbling away, one guy said, "Hey, where's the send button?!"...meanwhile, all I could think was, "Where is the spell check?!" My hand started to cramp in the middle of the second letter--wow, I used to write pages and pages when I was in college!!

We were given a model letter but encouraged to adapt it to ourselves and explain a little more why we felt moved to write. It made me think. After all, wouldn't it be a bit odd to receive a letter in the mail with a postage stamp from Japan from someone you'd never heard of asking you to vote? I decided to open with, "Dear ________________, I hope you don't think it is too crazy to be receiving a letter from a fellow American asking you to vote--especially from as far away as Japan." I went on to mention the fact that with a sister and brother-in-law teaching in the public school system, I am as concerned about the effects of policies in the communities at home, as I am about the effects of America's current foreign policies. It was a great chance for me to clarify--not only for the women whom I was writing to--but for myself as well, what precisely is important to me and why I feel the need to become more active in my political outlook. While I didn't put this in the letters, I can sum up my feelings in one sentence:

We are not voting for just the President of The United States of America; we are voting for the Leader of the World.

Think about it; we are the richest, the strongest, the most powerful nation in the world. Decisions made by our leaders can break other countries economies as easily as they can make them, yet no one else has the power to do the same to us. We are in such a position of power that the only moral thing to do is to accept this responsibility and all the implications that come with it. Therefore, we must have a leader who can bring the world closer together; not deepen the fractures that isolate and damage us all. We can't afford to be ethnocentric anymore...that's what's got us in the trouble in the first place! Planting Americanism all over the world is NOT FREEDOM!! It is Americanization. We need a President who KNOWS the difference and can find a way to protect the difference.

It's a Small World after all....(hey, wasn't Walt Disney a Republican?!).

Have I mentioned before that there are 6 million U.S. expats? Apparently, that would make us the 6th largest state (we could call it Abroadicana and ourselves, Abroadicans).

Earlier this month on the UK-based Virgin radio station, the DJs were talking about the upcoming US elections and started asking that if you were an American voter who wasn't planning to vote, would you PLEASE send them your absentee ballot so they could vote for you (in return, they promised Virgin mugs and t-shirts!!)...do you ever wonder what would happen if the vote was opened up to the world?!?

But perhaps something more useful to think about is an interview with George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics, How Liberals and Conservatives Think. A very unique and in depth look at the psychology and core values behind the leading philosophies that make up our nation.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4105213

*****

I just want to wrap up with the strange personal fact that it took me to come to Japan to learn to appreciate jazz music, Los Angeles and become a Democrat. Go figure.

In memorandum

a friend
with whom
I could
disagree with,
even fight with,
and
make up with
within
the hour
because
he was
too old
too wise
to let
words
stop
the hug
goodbye.

with affectionation and respect,
and a hug and kiss,
I'll miss you Chuck.

Words, Realities and Haiku

"...Basho [Haiku poet] was a past master in not 'putting words between the truth and ourselves'." Harold E. Henderson

For a person with a deep inner world, words--man made symbols--perhaps words are stairs from which to climb out of the deep vast inner chambers in the mind in which to find and meet others. Words aren't the point; they are the vehicle from which to move out of the caverns, connect with others and find a truth in life outside yourself.

But for those with wide outer worlds, perhaps these same symbols are anchors that hold them close enough to earth so they don't float away or fly too high. For these people, words are evidence that they share something with humanity, that they belong to something, someone.

Many philosophical friends of mine believe true reality and communication is beyond language...is it? I've yet, as an adult, to find a stable reality that needs no language. As for the language of Love...perhaps we created language in the first place (after Rock, Fire, Water, of course!) to negotiate our way into a more stable Love.

Hummm. We've done a crappy job though, haven't we?

But I digress...back to Basho, 17 century Japanese Haikai/Haiku poet, often considered the "father" of the Haiku....close your eyes, take a deep breath, clear your mind...and read with your senses wide open....

***

Bush clover in blossom waves
Without spilling
A drop of dew

***

The Rose of Sharon
By the roadside,
Was eaten by the horse

***

Shake, oh grave!
The autumn wind
Is the voice of my wailing

***

From Haiku poet, Issa...

O snail,
climb Mt. Fuji,
but slowly, slowly!

***

The feeble plant
at last
has a wobbly flower.

***

And a lovely one by Buson...

A butterfly,
asleep, perched upon
the temple bell

***

For a top ten list of Japanese Haiku poets (can be read in Japanese, French or English): http://www.big.or.jp/~loupe/links/ehisto/eavant.shtml

"If you cannot understand my silence, you cannot understand my words."

Problems in the "civilized" world...

Too many ideals, no time for honesty and ignorance of self.

"The great enemy of communication is the illusion of it." W.H. Whyte

Communication is not the disclosing of information, not even the exchange of information, but the fulfillment of a mutual need to know which gets thwarted by misplaced delicacy, arrogance, fears and assumptions.

Everybody needs a Ground Zero within, so they know where they start from.

alone, sitting next to a cactus

raspy wind, gritty sand

a forever sky going nowhere

Tokyo Station Breakfasts & James Bond Cellphones

I am now an expert on the places to get good breakfasts in the "town" underneath Tokyo Station! Having spent the last two weeks taking the early bus into Tokyo to do a training course, I would arrive in town an hour and a half earlier than necessary, so I spent the time having breakfast and reading--along with all the millions of Japanese salarymen having a smoke and a coffee. (I found a place with the best bread! Despite looking like the usual thick slab of white Wonder bread, it had texture and and you could actually CHEW it!) ANYWAY, yesterday I was in said restaurant having breakfast when I looked up from my newspaper, and directly in front of me, leaning dangerously back in his chair, was a Japanese salaryman who had finished his "burekufasuto seto" and fallen asleep. I watched for for about two minutes wondering if I should get into a better position to make a dive for him should his chair begin to slip. Fortunately, he woke up with a snort, finished his coffee, paid and left. I went back to reading, amused and sympathetic.

* * * * *

Just in from the news: A new feature has been designed for the ever evolving multi-purpose multi-functioning cellphone. Now, no matter where you are in Japan, if you hear a song blaring on the street corner, in a coffee shop or on any random intercom system, all you have to do is press the correct function button and hold your phone up to the sound. With in minutes, after calling a special number, the title of the song will register as text on your cellphone screen. This, on top of the recently advertised karaoke song feature which allows you to program in the numbers of your favorite karaoke tunes, so that when you go to karaoke, you can just point your phone at the karaoke machine and, badda bing! badda boom! "Oops! I Did It Again..."

Personally, I am waiting for the cellphone that is equipped with a stealth water pistol device that allows me to put out the cigarettes of Tokyoites who light up mid-stride in the middle of a crowded walkway at 7:30 a.m.

Commitment, Boxes and Doors

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

* * * * * *

Commitment--work, a project, a friend, a lover, religion--shouldn't be a box, it should be a door.

Find your key.

This online communication thing...

Did I just spent three hours reading online dating bios? I think I did...am I now a geek or breaking through to the next level of modern socialization? I wonder what Jung would make of it, or what any of the "fathers" of psychology would make of it.

Speaking of psychology, I heard Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences guru from Harvard, say at a lecture in Tokyo that psychology has only given us two things; the means to create dubious intelligence testing and the means to create manipulative advertising. For someone so high up in his field, he doesn't give it much credit...did I mention that I trust the man?

But at the end of the day, I think the "fathers" of psychology just created psychology to avoid the responsibility of learning from Womanly Wisdom. But have you noticed the Return of the goddess? Take a read through the controversial The Da Vinci Code. That Mr. Dan Brown, though not a particularly good historian, is one heck of a feminist, bless him!

Hello to anyone who might be reading this--my first entry in my first blog. I am an American female teaching at a Japanese university wondering what the h*** is going on with the world. I mean I have my theories and my solutions, but it is hard to get people to listen; we are all so busy being intelligent, creative, savvy, successful, communicative people.

A poem:

PSYCHO

psycho

Freud

sex

and the

universe.

motivation,

motives

come from

the

survival instinct

which

is basic

and natural

though

we don't

survive

anymore

we only

think

we do

which

is

mind

motivation.

we'd

survive

it all

if we

could

ever

get down

to it

instead

of pretending

that

we

love.

*****

Japan is an interesting place. What is also interesting is the phases that we foreigners living here go through to cope; how we perceive who the Japanese are, what Japan is. I've been reading blogs of expats living in Japan. They are all so clever and perceptive to the bizarre cultural dichotomies (such as having to change into special slippers to use the toilet yet bathing naked with multiples of your gender in a public bath). But more often than not, I find most people here have their angry period; anger that boils your blood and makes you want to scream at the standard norm of Appearance for the sake of Appearances, go-by-the-book mentality that drives 90% of its population. I think that what makes us rage is that to LIVE here and SURVIVE with any success, we DO IT TOO, without even realizing it! Because, when in Rome, do as the Romans...right?!! Perhaps a better motto for a cosmopolitan is: When in Rome, Know When to Go Home.

But deeper than the anger, a love for Japan gets under your skin--like a much loved, but very disfunctional relationship. It's not just the creature comforts such as warm toilet seats in the freezing cold winter or the trains that run with clocklike regularity to any potential destination you want to visit. It's the dusky floral scent of incense that you smell as you walk by a tiny shrine tucked in between two highrises on a cool autumn evening that reminds you of the very first time you arrived in Japan; your senses sharpened by the newness of the sights, tastes and smells. It reminds you of the enormous wood beams of Kiyomizudera in Kyoto, of taking off your shoes the first time to reverently step into a Buddhist temple to listen to a group of monks chanting and of sitting seiza style in your socked feet feeling like you had just walked back in time and were witnessing part of the Creation of God.

But then you live here for a while. You hear about how wretched and horrible the politics of each religious sect is, and you lose what you'd already lost in your own country--Respect for the Sacred. But for that brief time, when you first came, it was there, real, tangible. And it smelled mysteriously alive and necessarily complex--older, wiser, comforting. It is a hard feeling to let go of, but you try to study more Zen so you can; the need the hold on to the philosophy of letting go.

There will be more on Japan. There will be more on psychology and philosophy. There will be more poems. There will be more zooming from one topic to the next...did I mention noodles?!

Harry Spiders and brooms...

Just so you know, roach spray does not work on hairy
tarantula-like spiders.

I found this out at 4:45 this morning having woken up
early--my sense of timing all out of whack due two
11-hour flights and three time zones in the past 2
days? 3 days? The calendar does not help. (London/Los
Angeles/Tokyo...how cosmopolitan does that sound?
Funny, after flying that much, the LAST thing one
feels is savvy and on top of the world! All I could
think was, "Boy, this just ISN'T NATURAL!")

Since I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed already, I
figured I might as well get up and unpack. But upon
flipping the light switch in my little living room
area, lo and behold, paralyzed on my wall was one of
the those hairy, 4 inch-in-diameter spiders I had oft
seen strolling around outside in the humid Japanese
summer. Ooohhhh, YUCK!!!!!!!!! Not being a noise
maker in the morning, I didn't scream. All I could
think was, "Too big...for shoe...too big...for
shoe...too big..." So I quietly tiptoed to the
cupboard for the once-in-two-years-used can of roach
killer. I figured anything formulated to knock out
the "gokiburi" would surely penetrate the knobby furry
knees of this creature. But oh no. By the time I'd
returned, Mr. Hairy Spider was already on the run. I
must have sprayed him/her 6 times while chasing it
around my little living room. Fortunately, s/he must
have been aware of its size to the point that it
really didn't bother to hide, it just RAN! I kind of
just stood in the middle of the room pointing and
shooting at it when it appeared. S/He never even
slowed down!! So much for the spray.

I was still thinking, "Too big for shoe..."--at least
with me holding the other end of one. I thought
briefly about which pair of shoes I had that would be
best for throwing, then of course, it finally occurred
to me. A BROOM!!

Speaking of brooms, let me just insert here that I
fell asleep last night on the last page of Harry
Potter, Book 5. You know, that children's book about
things like HUMONGOUS SCARY SPIDERS that WRAP YOU UP
IN ITS HAIRY ARMS AND BITE YOUR HEAD OFF...stuff like
that.

So I grabbed my magic broom and after a second go
round the room, managed to annihilate my furry
opponent. (You know, they REALLY SHOULD make this an
Olympic sport! If so, would one be disqualified for
being too scared to pick up its guts in the first five
minutes or so?)

I had a celebratory glass of water...then went back to
bed, exhausted.

It's have past six now. I am up again having my usual
morning cup o' tea. I've noticed that I'm a bit
jumpy. Any sensation on my skin, such as a single
strand of hair, an itch, and I about manage to hit the
ceiling. Feeling a bit wussy at the moment.

As for you people who live in the wild and battle more
dangerous creatures like West Nile virus carrying
mosquitoes, Black Widow Spiders, real Tarantulas, and
snakes (thanks for the pics, Lara!), etc. on a more
regular basis, hats off...and a broom to ya!

* * * * *

Adventures, Part II will feature my holiday
highlights, though, frankly speaking, nothing in my
holidays made my adrenaline rush quite like my Welcome
Home.

Peace--even to the furry multi-legged creatures! So
long as they are not INSIDE my house.