Suihanki

"The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools"



After watching this video I was disgusted and angry, but due to the fact that the user, the non-profit organization, "American Family," had disabled comments on the video, I had nowhere to vent my frustration. I then considered writing a direct message to the YouTube profile it was posted under, only to find that I had to be friends with them first. I have requested to be friends but I'm not holding my breath, so in the mean time here is the message I will be sending if they ever do approve my request, edited for links in a few places.

"While I thoroughly enjoyed your slippery-slope argument about how "no God in schools" = "33 dead in Virginia," I was a little disappointed to see that comments had been disabled on the video. I was wondering if you might tell me why this is, because I had a few things to say in response, as I'm sure many other people do as well. If, of course, you don't really want to hear any comments then you will most likely ignore this as well, which frankly wouldn't suprise me at all.

About the video:

I like how you present it as created by an anonymous author, no doubt a 'concerned citizen' just like the rest of us, to give the video a feeling of legitimacy, as if you and your organization had absolutely nothing to do with it's production and just happened to stumble across it. This gives the viewer the impression that he/she can trust and believe in what the video presents because it comes from a source entirely separate from your organization and thus would be free of any kind of propaganda you might be interested in propagating. I am also highly amused by your move to sell this video on your website, a fact explained, I'm sure, by how the "anonymous author" graciously donated it to your cause.

As for the video's content, I have found its implications astounding and rather disturbing. It was a very smart move on the "anonymous author's" part to keep the message very vague and general. This decision benefits the movie in two ways, first, it allows the narrator to make very general statements whose implications are obvious to the astute viewer without ever having to clearly state its stance on the issues mentioned. When accused of making the negative and highly preposterous association between, say, "teen pregnancies/abortions," and "school shootings," the creators of the video can simply state that this was never implied, the narrator is merely posing open-ended questions, not putting forth a solid proposition. The second benefit is that by creating the video in this form, the author need not actually present any statistical evidence, or ANY evidence at all, to support his message. If the viewer has any sense at all, he/she will check to see if, for example, the aforementioned association between "teen pregnancy/abortion" and "school shootings," actually has any base in established fact. According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, "Between 1988 and 2000, teenage pregnancy rates declined in every state and in the District of Columbia." This fact is accompanied by a drop of approximately 20% in nationwide abortion rates from 1986 to 2002. What, pray tell, could teen pregnancy have to do with the various school shootings that have occured across the country? Even if it did have some connection, the study shows considerable drops in teen pregnancy/abortion rates nationwide from past years. Does this mean we are to assume that if the pregnancy/abortion rates rose there would be fewer school shootings? Simply ridiculous, as I'm sure any sensible individual might conclude from seeing these statistics theirself. If teen pregnancy/abortion has nothing to do with your point, then why mention it? This goes for the other erroneous and highly irrelevant associations the video attempts to make. I do not have the time to illustrate the errors in judgement involved in the other associations, but even if they were all correct, just one error such as the one mentioned above would be enough to discredit the video's legitimacy.

If you have made it this far, I thank you sincerely for reading my comments and I can only hope that they have not fallen on deaf ears. If this video is indeed by an anonymous author who has no association with your organization, I would suggest that you remove it from your site and your Youtube profile, as it makes a large number of erroneous conclusions and could possibly influence a viewer into believing something that entirely lacks supporting evidence.

Once again, thank you for your time.

Sincerely,"A concerned citizen"

P.S. the study on teen pregnancy rates can be found here:http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf"

I just got received an email the other day telling me that I've been accepted as a teacher for the JET program. While I wont know where I'm placed (or if I'm placed at all) until sometime in May/June (very vague, I know), I can safely say that it wont be in Tokyo, or any other big city. Honestly, I would love to be placed in some of the areas where I studied before, but I wouldn't mind a completely new area with all the new challenges it would entail. I just hope I'm not placed in the northern most islands where there are more Russian speakers than Japanese speakers, although that would undoubtedly be an interesting experience. In any case, I'm just happy to know that I managed to pass the mock lesson/interview that I described in my last post! I kept second-guessing myself afterwards, wondering if I had answered the questions or handled certain situations the best way possible, but it looks like I must have done something right so now I can stop all the wondering and worrying, and start worrying about something else!

In other news, I recently went on a movie watching binge, making an attempt to see all the interesting movies that I had missed in the last couple years. The movie that had the most lasting psychological and emotional effect was by far, Harsh Times. It's set in modern day LA and it stars Christian Bale as an ex soldier who has just gotten off a tour of duty in Iraq. He is obviously haunted by his experiences there and upon returning to his native LA he resumes a life of deliquency, alcoholism, and avoidance of his psychological problems. He hooks up with an old friend and they band together under the auspice of job-searching, but mainly they end up consuming copious amounts of booze and weed while driving the streets of LA. The movie put forth such a realistic portrayal of the young man's trials and tribulations, as well as the general condition of people living in a lot of parts of LA, that afterwards I found myself almost depressed to the point of not wanting to go outside. But by no means should the gravity of the content stop you from seeing the movie. It is an incredible piece of work, with many beautiful scenes that will catch you off-guard. Directed and written by the same man who wrote "Training Day," one user on IMDB remarked that Harsh Times is like Training Day, except that it is more realistic, and the acting is much better. There are, of course, many different opinions on comparing the two, but either way, Harsh Times is certainly worth a look.

On another random tangent, I saw a great music video for a minor Japanese artist, DJ Kentaro. The concept in the video is that some time in the far future (a very retro future), records become outlawed for no apparent reason. The video is a combination of old black and white footage from protests (with some good photoshopping to change what is written on the signs) and new footage filmed in black and white made to look retro. One scene in particular caught my attention:



Here the DJ's/recording artists are one-by-one made to step on a record to prove they're not loyal to the pro-record cause. This is of course a blatant reference to Fumie, a process by which the Edo-period Japanese government would supposedly be able to find out whether or not someone was Christian and then prosecute them accordingly. The only difference being that people were made to step on a likeness of Jesus's face, not a record! I thought it was a clever idea to put that in, as well as to make the comparison between religion and vinyl-lovers. All in all a great video for a great track, which can be watched here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeOFZhdROok

Labels: dj kentaro, Harsh Times, japan, JET, movies, music video

YAH RLY!! I'm back after a ridiculously long hiatus. You uncultured masses may resume not reading my blog as usual, the only difference will be that I am going to post now from time to time.

Random happenings in my recent life, in no particular order:

1. An Interview with JET

30 minutes long with 20 minutes devoted to general interview questions and 10 minutes in the form of a mock classroom lesson. This is standard for JET interviews, as I understand, but it still amused me immensely when my three serious and focused interviewers suddenly became Japanese middle school children. To test my teaching mettle, and not just to get their rocks off I assume, they even went so far as to whisper things to each other while I was talking or writing on the board. Things such as "でっかいね、この外人！"(He's big isn't he, this foreigner!) and when I made a slight spelling error (quickly corrected on my part) "先生も間違えることあるんだ～" (Wow, the teacher makes mistakes too!). Their attempts to put pressure on me were uneffective though and I believe that I did quite a good job answering all the questions and explaining to one of the "middle school kids" that no, I do not own a gun, nor have I ever seen someone carrying one (other than a police officer) and no, people don't get shot right in front of me every day in Los Angeles. I also drew a damn fine pumpkin on the board when I was explaining Halloween to the "kids."

2. An Awesome Comedy Show

Almost two hours long, and worth every penny of the 10 dollars my friend paid for my ticket. It took the form of a stand-up comedy competition, with ten student and alumni comics competing for a slot at the Improv, judged by Jeffrey Ross and Russell Peters. I had no idea there were so many funny people at my school. I was highly impressed with the talent and originality of even the worst comics of the night. In fact I had to forcibly relax my cheek muscles with my hands a number of times throughout the night in the fear that they'd be stuck in a permanent smile long after the show.

Everyone was hyped up about the possibility of Russell Peters performing, but when he did (after Jeffrey Ross) it was kind of a let down. Don't get me wrong, he was damn funny, but he's almost got that celebrity attitude/aura going on. Jeff Ross, on the other hand, you could tell was having a great time and enjoying the audience reaction as well. I know of no other comic who could end his hilarious and raunchy set with a complete non sequitur; a poem written for his cat, entitled "Here Kitty." Granted if you don't have a cat, or if you're not familiar with the noises people make to try and get their cats attention it wont be as funny. He pulled out a few sheets of paper, on which he had supposedly written his poem, and proceeded in a very sincere manner to read each line, pausing for dramatic effect between each:

*a short burst of cat calling noises, kind of like the noises you make when you go "kissy kissy!"* [laughter from the audience]
*another short burst of cat calling noises*
[laughter again]
*cat calling noises, again*
[less laughter, a little confusion]
*cat calling noises, and he turns to the second page*
[laughter at the page turn, he's obviously holding two random pieces of paper with nothing remotely poem-like on them]
*cat calling noises, sounding desperate now*
[laughter]
*frustrated cat calling noises*
[laughter, expectation of a coming punchline]
And finally, a long pause followed by,

"#$%^ YOU KITTY!"

I just realized that this section of the post has become a painfully drawn out and in-depth example of why explaining a joke never makes it funny. But nevertheless, I feel compelled to share this joke with you, in the vague hopes that even a small part of its genius and humor will be transmitted to you, because, yes, it was that funny.

3. A Failed Attempt to Make Jello Shots 75% vodka is indeed nearly the highest percentage of vodka one can mix with Jello and expect firm, Jello-like results. However, it is not recommendable. Let me just say, Blegh. And furthermore, Yuck. I'd rather just take my vodka straight, thank you. I think the next time I'm inspired to create a novelty alcoholic concoction, I'll do the watermelon and impress all my mates at the next barbie.

4. A Massive Raid on the School Library

Books looted include Black Swan Green, No Country for Old Men, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, and Wake Up, Sir!.

A few days ago I realized that for some reason I had never read any Lovecraft, despite having heard about "The Call of Cthulhu" ad nauseam, since as long as I can remember being intimately involved in the dark underworld of sci-fi and fantasy nerds. My somewhat carnal desire to scare the shit out of my self has now found a new outlet, one that is entirely superior to watching formulaic Hollywood horror movies. Lovecraft is a genius with suspense and even though his short stories share many qualities, each one manages to keep your interest in horrible new ways. I especially love the narrator's frequent assurances that he is actually quite a skeptical and scientific man, and that if he hadn't witnessed the purported events of the story himself, he wouldn't believe in them either. I've got to remember to use that device if I ever write anything more than a blog entry. However I'm not so sure about one of his narrators having a cat, who figures quite prominently in the plot, named "n*****man." I almost did the awkward turtle by myself while reading that story for the first time.

On a side note, Cthulhu, being the omnipotent, tentacled, and all around bad-ass ancient God that you are, why the ridiculous amount of consonant clusters in your language? I bet your followers would love you a lot more if they didn't have to recite such choice phrases as "mglw'nafh" and "fhtagn" every time they wanted to have a canaballistic dance party in your honor. A few vowels here and there wouldn't hurt your bad-ass reputation, in fact they'd even increase the ease of production and perception. That's all I'm saying.

5. A Discovery of the Relevance Fallacies Section on Wikipedia

My favorite is Chronological Snobbery, what's yours???

Labels: books, comedy, cthulhu, jello, JET, kitties, pumpkins

Someone beat me to it...

http://www.geocities.jp/youtube_hiphop/baysidecru.html

Just watch it, and be amazed/disgusted/horrified!

...and then dance along!

*EDIT: This video has long since been taken down by the Youtube authorities. It is in short a Japanese hip-hop/R&B music video by a white artist called "Big Ron."

Two more... 'things' I've written, both involving Japanese cinema:

Pop+Politics

and

Chanpon

The essay makes me blush reading over it again, but it's ok, there's still some interesting material there.

Sorry for the lack of updates!

I'm back in the states now. Yeah. That's about it. I'm not really sure how I feel about the last nine months yet, except I know it was incredible.

As a way for me to maybe find some closure, here are some pictures I found on my cell phone from before I left Japan:

WARNING - Lot's of pictures of my host family's black lab, "Bess"! I used to detest the kind of people who could post a plethora of mind-numbingly similiar-looking pictures of their lovable "Fluffy" or "Sweetums," but now look at what I've become! :O











...and finally, here are some humans!

My host father, examining the fish at a sushi restaurant in a rare moment of pensive stillness:



Oops! Bess managed to work her way into another picture, this time with my host mother trying doggedly to get Bess to stop dropping her bone on the floor after chewing it for only a few seconds:



A couple punks I know:





And some weird crazy lady at a department store:



One of my last breakfasts, accompanied of course by my host mother's delicious home-made bread:



And finally... some random Engrish, which I translate to be "According to my 'dawgs,' I'm a genius of playing (pimping?!?!)" Probably not material suited for a little kid's shirt, I thought to myself, but then again, there are some little pimp and pimpette juniors out there doin' it up in the 小学校's, all like, "You KNOW I was fly with my little yellow cap tilted gangsta style and my ランドセル hung all low and dirty. Girl was all like 'DAAAAYAAAAAAAM boyyeeeeeeee!' Straight acted like she never saw a 礎石 befo'!"



...and I'm out like Oscar Meyer and sauerkraut!

...but at least I'm not behind the times! Or, wait... maybe I am :S I just discovered "Google Current," an awesome 3-4 minute TV Show, if you can even call it that, on the top searches for google and basically just all kinds of blogger/nerd/internet subculture stuff. I first found it through a link to this clip, about Stephen Colbert's satirical speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner a few weeks ago. It's a good summary of what happened and also gives you an idea of just how much of a response that speech got in the internet community (massive) as compared to the press at large (downplayed and labeled as mean-spirited).

Here is another great clip, a digital video homage to "Gary Brolsma," the original "Numa Numa Dance" video guy. It's actually great work, although I pity the soul who had to sift through the hundreds, nay, thousands of versions of that video! Go have a look for yourself if you haven't already!