Most of my friends know that I am no fan of Bush. I have never been really impressed with his speech writers either, and Tuesday’s State of the Union speech was no exception.
Around the world everyone who cared enough to listen were waiting to hear how soon the small “coalition of the willing” were going to go to war and whether the US had come up with any compelling reasons to do so. Unfortunately, there was much of the usual, though there was a promise to reveal evidence. I think the last time that was promised we were told of aluminum pipes that the IAEA believe can be unrelated to nuclear arms research.
The speech was, however, an interesting study in what has increasingly become the debate over America’s approach to foreign policy and the terms it uses…
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I installed the “Gallery” module for this web site. I can now upload pictures to the Muninn site. You can view the albums in my gallery here or by clicking on “Gallery” from the list of links at the left. I will not be adding all pictures I take in Japan as my space and permitted bandwidth is somewhat limited.
Koizumi whipped up controversy again amongst his neighbors by visiting Yasukuni shrine last week. Even today, days after the event, it is still making news in the Chinese media (Sina) although it has dropped off the scopes of the CCP’s People’s Daily.
In Japan, NHK and Asahi, did their usual critical approach, with emphasis on the reactions of Korea and China or critical voices at home but within a few days there were plenty of articles noting the “well planned” and “strategic” timing of the visit (See Mainichi Daily News and Yomiuri articles, both English, for example) which avoided the upcoming transfers of power in Korea and China and the need to visit again during the key August 15th date.
江藤隆美 (Et� Takami or perhaps Takayoshi), an LDP right-wing politician who is famous for losing his cabinet position with the 1995 declaration that “Japan also did good things for its Korean colony” declared on the 18th that since the Russian Prime Minister visits military memorials, why is it objectionable that Japan visits Yasukuni. Besides the obvious historical fact that they aren’t paying homage to convicted war criminals, on the pragmatic end he doesn’t seem to have noticed the different diplomatic climate which Japan continues to face. Your comments are welcome…
Sayaka just returned after visiting me in Tokyo for almost a month. The new year is here and I have lots of projects for this year. I’m going to try to be more skillful at balancing my time between them instead of my usual practice which is to attack them in bursts of enthusiastic effort…
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þó sjáumk meir um Munin
But I fear more for Muninn…
Muninn.net, which will serve as my online Blog (Web Log), is working after a fairly smooth installation. As I am an extremely forgetful person, anyone who knows the background of the name “Muninn” might find my domain name an ironic choice.
The Norse god Odin had a collection of pets whose names are recorded in legend and which have gone on to much success as trademarks. Muninn, also spelled Munin, is one of two ravens that Odin sent out into the world in search for knowledge each day. What we know of Huginn (Hugin), “Thought” and Muninn “Memory” are, as far as I can tell, only recorded in a few lines of the Grimnismál. However, I am going to try to find out where else one can find mention of them.
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The net is abuzz with word of the controversial Eldred v. Ashcroft hearing by the Supreme Court, an incredibly important decision with regard to the state of copyright law in the US. As a supporter of copyright reform, and more broadly the public domain and open source movements, I am as concerned as most people. Read more about this huge ruling:
O’Reilly.com Article
Lessig’s Blog
Salon.com Article by Siva Vaidhyanathan
After enjoying a delicious assortment of vegetable tempura at my local Tenya tempura shop, I went grocery shopping across the street at Seiyu.
When I was packing my groceries I couldn’t help noticing that the middle-aged woman standing next to me was staring at my groceries and smiling in a most peculiar way.
It wasn’t that she was pleased to see a (male/foreigner) doing groceries since she wasn’t at all staring at me. After she left I paused for a moment to figure out what it could have been.
I suddenly realized that the assortment of items that I had purchased could not have been more stereotypical Western if I had tried: Three liters of drinkable yoghurt, a bag of potatoes, a loaf of bread, and a pack of raw beef chunks.