Mexico Reading: History of Japan

I had a wonderful experience reading R.H.P. Mason & J. G. Caiger’s A History of Japan while vacationing in Mexico. I know a good deal about this subject but thought that I needed to fill some holes and learn more. I was right.

This is a fairly dense and thick (400 page) book on the subject, but it is very well done. I found it fascinating to read, and the inclusion of many narratives and stories to spice things up increased my enjoyment of the tome.

The book deals with not just political, organization and geopolitical events, but also covers art, literature, architecture and common life during the periods it covers. This allows for a far more comprehensive view of the various periods that one is used to in such books.

I filled in a number of gaps in my knowledge about Japan that I found gratifying.
--The role of government centralization that was successful and then broke down during the so-called “feudal” period.
--The role of women in Japanese society, especially in literature, where there are several sections that spell out their unique contributions.
--The nature of the Tokugawa period of unification.
--The relationship of Japanese culture and society to other nations, spelling out the influence that was important as well as the isolation that was used to insulate Japan.
--The relationship between Korea and Japan where at one point Korea was a very important foreign influence on Japanese developments and then later was seen as nothing more than a vassal state and literal colony.
--The speed at which Japan developed during the late 19th Century during the Meiji Restoration as well as the promises for an open society that briefly flourished and then was shunted by the rise of Japanese nationalism and militarism. Oh, how things could have been different!
--The resilience of the Japanese people during difficult situations during many periods of history.
--The aura that surrounds “never being conquered” and than having it happen.

I would urge those interested in this subject to read this volume. It is full of information but it quite enjoyable to read. It avoided preaching about mistakes that may have been made and encouraged Westerners to consider a more balanced approach to Japanese history. I literally devoured it while overlooking the sea and the beach here in Mexico.

Mexico Reading: King Leopold's Ghost

Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost: the story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa is an engaging and surprising book. It tells an amazing story of how King Leopold of Belgium acquired a colony in central Africa through stealth and political maneuverings. This part of Africa drained by the mighty Congo River, was of little interest to the other colonial powers, but Leopold saw great potential there and took advantage of it.

Not since I red the three-volume Gulag Archipelago have I read such a sad and gripping document.

He organized his forces in such a way as to gain a small foothold, and then bribed and schemed for other powers to recognize his claim. But, it was no ordinary claim, as he established an independent state that was totally controlled by him, not by Belgium. His flag, companies and soldiers were recognized by all, with the USA playing a pivotal role in recognizing his authority because he promised to let American blacks leave the USA and some a Africa, a dream of many racist USA senators and governors.

The goal was to extract wealth by any means. Ivory and rubber became the main goals, and he pursued them relentlessly. He gained great wealth at the expense of totally dehumanizing the population.

Soldiers would roll into a village and take all women and children prisoner. The men were then told that they would be returned after they delivered huge amounts of rubber to the soldiers. This happened over and over again until almost all of the villages in the huge region were totally disrupted. Suicide often became a superior option.

If there were disruptions, the soldiers would cut off left hands, smoke them for preservation, and then show them as proof that they had brought punishment to those who would not collect rubber. Thousands and thousands of human hands were exchanged for cash for soldiers.

There were many truly evil individuals, and many like the figure of Kurtz from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Conrad used the Congo as his model, and a particular commander named Rom as an inspiration), but many, many more just went along and utilized the common European conception that Africans were not human.

“’Monsters exist,’ wrote Primo Levi of his experience at Auschwitz. ‘But they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are … the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.’”

Schools were grounds for recruiting soldiers from the boys and servants from the girls. Those who ran the schools seem sickeningly cooperative in this effort. One school was made to engage in a long forced march with no food, and many of the little girls died. Here is what one nun said:

“Several of the little girls were so sickly on their arrival that … our good sisters couldn’t save them, but all had the happiness of receiving Holy Baptism; they are now little angels in Heaven who are praying for our great king.”

Although the publicity surrounding these atrocities was that thy were fighting the “Arab slavers,” it was all too clear that this was slavery on a much larger scale than ever before, as all Congo Africans were slaves. Here is an excerpt from an investigation:

Question: Did M. Hottiaux (a company official) ever give you living women or children?
Answer: Yes, he gave me six women and two men.
Question: What for?
Answer: In payment for rubber I brought into the station, telling m I could eat them, or kill them, or use them as slaves as I liked.

As the era ended, Leopold took as much care as he could to cover up his crimes.

Stinglhamber sat down on a radiator, then jumped to his feet: it was burning hot. When the men summoned the janitor for an explanation, he replied, “Sorry, but they are burning the state archives.” “I will give them my Congo,” Leopold told Stinglhamber, “but they have no right to know what I did there.”

But it was unmasked, and the book is also a testament to those who fought long and hard against these crimes, average people who did amazing things to bring the truth to light and disgrace the Belgian king. Many of them paid the ultimate price in their struggle for justice, and in so doing laid the groundwork for the efforts that organizations like Amnesty International undertake today.

The ultimate cost in human lives was huge:

During the Leopold period and its immediate aftermath the population of the territory dropped by approximately ten million people. P.233

The USA continued to victimize the Congo, which is where the uranium came from that murdered hundreds of thousands at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Leopold set the stage for later neocolonialism that tolerated and used leaders like Mobutu to continue the victimization of the Congo and its people. The only brief democratic hope, elected leader Patrice Lamumba, was assassinated by the CIA, which then installed Mobutu. In just he last few years two million more have been killed in Congo civil strife and struggle over new resources, mostly valuable minerals. In many ways, the tragedy continues.

Leopold is still glorified in his museum of Africa in Belgium, where his reign is still celebrated. A statue of him on a horse looking out to sea is surrounded by other statues of young Africans thanking him for all he had done for them. However, an anarchist group sawed off of the hands of the Africans. That seemed more appropriate to them.

If you can stand the truth, thus book is a must read, and the darkness is slightly balanced by the heroic stories of those who opposed and unmasked this great evil.

One Month in Mexico

As soon as classes ended and my grades were turned in I headed to Mexico. There was a flurry of activity in the week before my departure as I tried to get everything done so that I could leave (without incipient collapse of my task environment) and I did a pretty good job of it, though nothing is every really complete. I got on a plane and headed west with two full bags a lot of equipment (computer, cameras, two iPods, XM satellite radio and a lot more).

The flights were acceptable given that my low-cost ticket had me go from Burlington-Philadelphia-Charlotte-Phoenix-San Diego. I got to San Diego at about 5:30 PM and called Dave Sempsrott, my friend who stores my west coast car while I am not using it. We drove to his house; I had a brief visit with him, Scott Sempsrott and Randall before jumping in and heading off.

I filled the gas tank (gas is very expensive in California, much more than Vermont), got some quick excellent Mexican food (carnitas are my favorite) and then drove East to the town of Calexico. The drive is beautiful but it was dark and I could not see much of it. I got to Calexico and checked in to the John Jay Inn (my usual spot) and conked out, as I was in need of sleep.

The next morning I got up, had a light breakfast, and then went off on my errands. These involved shopping at the Food4Less for part of my stay, filling up on gas again and then stopping by at the Baja Duty Free to buy some rum. You may already know that I am an aficionado of fine rum, but I also think about price. They had liters of Appleton VX Estate rum for $7.99 a bottle ($15 for 750 ml in Vermont) so I grabbed some. They watch you drive across the border (duty free, you see) and so I did.

Into Mexico itself, through Mexicali (it keeps changing very time I drive through it, and mostly for the better) and on down to the town of San Felipe, a small fishing and tourist town on the Gulf of California. I gassed up again and stopped at Rice and Beans (my usual stop) for a nice Mexican lunch. Of course, I had made a brief stop at a small spot called La Ventana (the window in Spanish) to drink a single beer in memory of my father (who is really responsible for my attachment to Mexico) because we would always stop there and drink one beer, usually a Tecate roja or a Mexicali.

The big news in the final part of the drive, from San Felipe to Puertecitos, where my house is, is that the road is now finished except for about one mile of it that is now being completed. Previously it would take 2.5 hours to make this 52-mile drive because the last 20 miles of the road was VERY BAD. Now, it is all paved with just a few serious dips in the road to watch out for. I made it in an hour, which is an amazing feat. Some 35 years ago they had paved this road and a major storm had wiped it out, and only now are they getting around to repairing it. It was sweet.

I came over the hill and could see a paved road leading into the town of Puertecitos, something I had long hoped for. I got to the house and rejoiced at the sight of the bay and my home intact. I talked to Leon Sempsrott, who is a regular and watches over my place, and got the key from him (friends had used a key to termite=treat my home last year) and I was happy to open it up and find everything intact and ready for occupancy. It had been a year since I was last here, and you never know what can happen in that time.

I fired the refrigerator up (most important), took the window covers off and started playing some music to celebrate. A bit of the Appleton VX helped as well.

Now I am here. The bay is beautiful, the temperature is perfect (78-84 degrees (and the water is great for swimming (at least three times a day). Hmm, that seems like a good idea. I will go swimming now.

I am back. The water is nice and cool but not too cold. Very refreshing. I also brought two buckets of seawater up to use in the flush toilet (well, it flushed, but you need to bring buckets of water to do that).

The house itself is a modest three bedroom stone house built right on the beach by my father over a period of about 35 years. It is lovely and it is the only remaining place-link I have with my family and my childhood. This place is very previous to me.

So, I am here. I am alone for the first week and then Bojana joins me. We will take one weekend to go to Kansas for the wedding of my daughter to Justin Green, but then it is right back here. That sort of thing is easier now that the road is finished.

For a little better understanding of the way of life here, I suggest you consult my musings from last year at
http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/Blog2006/3803ED46-1E72-48FD-9473-FA8AA7AB3731.html

More to come.

Strange News Stories for April

While the global vanishing of the bees is still holding much of my attention as I prepare to depart for Mexico tomorrow for five weeks, there are still a number of news stories that deserve some attention. These are the strange stories that I saw during April that I archived and saved just so I could share them.

<=== Keep reading to find out about this little guy.

AMOROUS CAMELS THREATEN ONE OF THE LARGEST STRUCTURES ON EARTH

The Independent 22 April 2007

One of the world's biggest man-made structures, Australia's Dog Fence, is under threat from amorous wild camels barging into it in search of partners.
The 3,500 mile-long fence, stretching into Queens land from the Great Southern Bight in Western Australia, was built in the 1950s to keep dingoes and wild dogs out of sheep-grazing areas in the east. Kangaroos and emus regularly damage it, but the camels - descendants of animals brought to Australia in the 19th century to open up the interior - have become the biggest problem.
The wild camel population, already the largest in the world, doubles every eight years, and the mating season is now under way. Michael Balharry, manager of the South Australian segment, said that frustrated males were ramming their way through the fence to reach females.
The problem with the barrier - twice the length of the Great Wall of China - is that camels could get their heads over it, he said. "If you add a bit and electrify the top of it, maybe this will stop them."

I warned about feral camels last month, please remember that.
FALLING WOMAN SAVED BY PILE OF SHIT

Reuters 4 April 2007

A Chinese woman survived a plunge from a sixth-floor balcony thanks to a convenient pile of excrement which broke her fall, local media said.
The accident happened when the woman was hanging out laundry on Monday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, the Kuaibao tabloid said on its Web site (www.kuaibao.net).
"Workers happened to be emptying the building's septic tank, which had not been tended for a long time and had regularly blocked sewage pipes," the newspaper said.

OFF WTH YOUR HEAD FOR FAILING TO MILK COWS

Reuters 30 April 2007

An employer in eastern India beheaded one of his workers for failing to milk his cows, police said on Saturday.
Neighbors watched in horror as Upendra Yadav was dragged out of his house in Jharkhand state on Friday by his angry employer.
The employer's father and brother held Yadav down before he was beheaded with a sword, police said.

MYSTERIOUS DWARFISH ALIEN BRUTALLY MURDERED IN RUSSIA

They always keep killing them, those rural Russians.No different here as Pravda reports 5 April 2007

Ufologists regarded the Kyshtym dwarf as a clear-cut case of the extraterrestrial. The clergy believe the dwarf was a demon. The creature was still alive when it was found by an old and barely literate woman. She was the only one who gave the dwarf a human name – Alioshenka (a diminutive of the Russian name “Alexei” – ed. note).
The curse of Alioshenka
The dwarf from Kyshtym did not do any harm to anybody while he was in the land of the living. Some really weird things began to happen following the death of the creature. The old lady, a “godmother” of Alioshenka the Alien, died in a hit-and-run accident. The woman was knocked down by a car just a few days before a team of researchers arrived in the town from Moscow.
The body of the dwarf vanished without a trace. An investigator assigned to the case is reported to have handed the corpse to some perpetrators who walked off with it. A Japanese TV crew arrived in Kyshtym to do a documentary on Alioshenka. The Japanese posted a reward of $200,000 for information on the whereabouts of the stolen creature. However, their attempts to locate the body of the dwarf ended in failure. A minute piece of the dead body was the only hard evidence the Japanese somehow managed to recover. The Japanese displayed the object for the benefit of the cameras.
Fortunately, the police videotaped the body of the dwarf before it was stolen. Major Bendlin managed to locate some people who had seen the “alien” while he was still among the living.
The dwarf was reportedly found near the village of Kaolinovy by Tamara Prosvirina. She told her neighbors that she had found a “handsome boy called Alioshenka.” The neighbors believed the old woman was raving again. The point is she had been previously treated for a mental disorder. The neighbors called an ambulance, which took the woman to hospital. One of the paramedics later described the object lying in bed in the woman’s apartment as a “cat wrapped up in rags.”
The woman was admitted to a mental hospital. Meanwhile, her relatives leased the apartment to one Vladimir Nurtdinov. He came across the dead body the size of a cat while cleaning up the apartment one day.
“I was about to throw it away like a piece of trash. But that thing looked like a real alien, I kind of liked it. Finally, I put it on the garage roof,” Nurtdinov said.
The sun desiccated and tanned the body of Alioshenka to the utmost. Then Nurtdinov hid the body in a garage. Later Nurtdinov was taken into police custody under suspicion of stealing electrical wire. He promptly told the police about the strange object hidden in the garage.
Below is an account by Tamara, the old woman’s daughter-in-law, who claims to have seen Alioshenka while he was still alive:
“I used to visit my mother-in-law twice a week. She was living on her own. On that day I brought her foodstuffs just like I did before. I was about to leave when she told me: ‘We’d better give some food to the baby too.’ Then she showed me to the bed. I took a closer look at it and saw him. He was on top the bed, squeaking some funny sounds. I could see his mouth shaped like a small pipe. His tiny scarlet tongue was moving. I also spotted two teeth inside. In a way, he looked like a little baby. His head was brown, and his body looked gray. I didn’t see any eyelids. He didn’t have any genitals either. His head looked like an onion. And the pupils of his eyes were widening and narrowing just like the cat’s eyes do when you turn on the light and turn it off again several times in a row. The fingers on his hands and feet were pretty long. I only bothered to ask my mother-in-law where on earth she’d got the monster from. She told me she’d found him in the forest. She kept calling him ‘Alioshenka.’ She gave him a candy and he started sucking on it. I thought it was some kind of animal.”
Researchers believe that Tamara’s account is a true story. She has been repeating it word by word for years without adding up any new details.
“He was giving off that smell, you know, one of a kind. You can’t take it for any other smell. Actually, the smell was pretty agreeable yet somewhat nauseous at the same time. And he didn’t pass any liquid or solid waste matter. He was sweating, and that was all. I saw the mother-in-law wipe the sweat off his face with a rag,” Tamara added.
The old woman died in a hit-and-run accident in August 1999. She was knocked down by a car just a few days before a team of researchers arrived in the town from Moscow. Researchers phoned her relatives shortly before the accident occured. Academician Mark Milkhiker was going to put Prosvirina in a state of hypnosis, a method used for helping the patient recover information buried in his subconscious.
Prosvirina’s relatives are confident that the death of the old woman was not an accident.
“You can hardly see a vehicle crossing this town during the day. Where the hell did that car come from?” Tamara asked.