Quote of the day

"I fear that those of us who stand up in front of America’s children every day have made a Faustian bargain. In accepting history courses shaped by war and structured around war, we allow our students to internalize war as normal, constant, at times attractive. In telling stories about war, we fall back on noble explanatory devices and encourage our students to appreciate high moral outcomes over bodies on the ground." -- Dwight Simon

iPhone app helps you predict which seat will become vacant on the train

 A new iPhone app called Densha de Suwaru (sitting down on the train) by Velc helps you make a database of strangers you commute with regularly.  For every passenger you create a list of features, such as which stations they ride between, at what days and times and on which line, along with gender, age, and other identifying details.  The app allows you to make a cartoon-like image of each of your fellow passengers.

The more data you add, the better you will become at predicting which seated passenger will be the next to leave the train.

In Japan, particularly in Tokyo, where it is not uncommon for people to spend 2 hours or more commuting by train every day, finding a seat is an important concern.  In 2005, a book about how to find seats on packed trains became a best-seller book.

The app can be purchased at the iTunes store, but it is unclear whether it is available in languages other than Japanese.

Washington Times condemns Pearl Harbor Tea Ceremony

Sen Genshitsu offers tea to Pearl Harbor victims.

In an "Analysis/Opinion" piece titled "Crashing the Party at Pearl Harbor" in right-wing "propaganda sheet" The Washington Times on Friday, former editor Wesley Pruden condemns a historic tea ceremony conducted by Dr. Sen Genshitsu, who served in the Japanese naval air force during World War II, (though not at Pearl Harbor), the 15th generation grand master of the  Urasenke school, as "political correctness run amok" and "misplaced sentiment."

In a short piece throbbing with ignorance and barely disguised racism, Pruden writes:

"The grand tea master of something called the Urasenke School of Tea in Japan brewed up a pot of ceremonial green tea and presented two bowls of it to the ghosts of the 1,177 men whose names are engraved in marble above their ship as 'the gallant men here entombed and their shipmates who gave their lives in action on December 7, 1941.' Genshitsu Sen XV, now 88, was a Japanese airman during World War II, though not at Pearl, and said his tea ceremony was a gesture of respect toward the dead, an attempt to make sure sacrifice was not forgotten, as well as a few words of ritual blah blah about world peace, mutual understanding, reconciliation and all that good stuff. Gov. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii went all starry-eyed and applied more goo-goo in response . . . The governor thinks the tea pots even hold a lesson for 'other people and countries warring with as much enmity and mutual misunderstanding as we once experienced ourselves.' Maybe it does, though to expect such an example to make friends of radical Muslims in the Middle East is to expect a lot from a little tea and sympathy."

The Urasenke school, which dates to the 16th century, is the largest school of traditional Japanese tea ceremony on Earth.  The current grand master is the 16th hereditary head of the school, which has branches all over the world, and also runs two accredited universities. 

In Japanese tea ceremony, tea is not "brewed" in a pot, as Pruden would have learned had he bothered to do 30 seconds of research; instead, it is prepared ceremonially by whisking powdered tea and water, in this case in a ceremony over a millennium and a half old, specifically for honouring the dead.  "Ceremonial tea-sipping at the USS Arizona" (had it actually taken place; sources indicate that it did not: bowls of tea were presented to the dead and for world peace) is not, therefore, "akin to crashing the funeral, as Pruden writes; instead, it is performing a memorial.  Not one the painfully parochial Pruden bothered to try to understand, evidently, but no less appropriate, symbolic, and heartfelt for it.

Pruden then goes compare the ceremony to Ronald Reagan's remarks about "another old foe now friendly, sort of," invoking that president's remarks about German soldiers:

"The SS troopers were human, perhaps, but [Reagan] was more than a few inches over the top to mourn storm troopers. They were the crushers working for the 'vicious ideology,' not the crushees [sic] . . . The Japanese tea master said his ceremony was meant to 'heal,' invoking the favorite soothing syrup of the therapeutic age, and no doubt it was. (Cue applause.) But some wounds can't be healed by a pot of tea, hot or iced. A tea party aboard the remains of the USS Arizona, however well-meant, is sentiment misplaced, and a little bit creepy. To think otherwise demeans the sacrifice of the men at the bottom of Pearl Harbor."

Pruden is known for his racism.  On November 17, 2009, he published an opinion piece titled "Obama bows, the nation cringes," in which he railed about what he claimed were President Obama's breaches of etiquette committed on his tour of Asia, such as bowing to Emperor Akihito of Japan.  Since Obama was "sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii," Pruden wrote, he "has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what [America] is about."

A library of smells?

Think of some of your most powerful memories, and there’s likely a smell attached: the aroma of suntan lotion at the beach, the sharpness of freshly mown grass, the floral trail of your mother’s perfume. “Scents are very much linked to memory,” says perfumer Christophe Laudamiel. “They are linked to remembering the past but also learning from experiences.”  But despite its primacy in our lives, our sense of smell is often overlooked when we record our history. We tend to connect with the past visually - we look at objects displayed in a museum, photographs in a documentary, the writing in a manuscript. Sometimes we might hear a vintage speech, or touch an ancient artifact and imagine what it was like to use it. But our knowledge of the past is almost completely deodorized.
It seems far-fetched to think we could actually start to smell the past - or somehow preserve a whiff of our daily lives. But increasingly, technology is making it possible, and historians, scientists, and perfumers are now taking the idea of smells as historical artifacts more seriously. They argue that it’s time to delve into our olfactory past, trying harder to understand how people experienced the world with their noses - and even save scents for posterity. Their efforts have already made it possible to smell fragrances worn a century ago, to re-create the smell of a rare flower even if it goes extinct, and to better understand the smells that ancient cultures appreciated or detested.

Read the whole article.

Sen Genshitsu donates $30,000 to Pearl Harbor memorial

Dr. Sen Genshitsu, 15th generation grand master of the Urasenke school of Japanese Tea Ceremony (pictured second from left), has donated $30,000: $5,000 for the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Aloha Chapter and $25,000 to Pacific West Regional Director Christine Lenertz of the National Park Service for the continued upkeep and maintenance of the USS Arizona Memorial.

On Tuesday, Sen, a former member of the Japanese naval airforce, performed a Japanese Tea Ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial to honor the deceased of the USS Arizona and all Americans who lost their lives and to pray for world peace (see our reports here and here).

Historic Japanese Tea Ceremony at USS Arizona memorial

As we reported on Monday, a historic Japanese Tea Ceremony was held yesterday at Pearl Harbor, at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial.

Fifteenth generation Grand Master, Sen Genshitsu, former head of the Urasenke School of Tea, perform the ceremony in honour of those who died in the Japanese attack 70 years ago. About 150 dignitaries and Pearl Harbor survivors attended, including current Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie; former Governors George Ariyoshi, John Waihee and Ben Cayetano; Pearl Harbor survivors Ray Emory, Sterling Cale and Alfred Rodrigues; Consul General of Japan Yoshihiko Kamo; and Admiral Patrick Walsh, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet.

Dr. Sen prepared two bowls of tea, the first as a tribute to those who died at Pearl Harbor, and the second for world peace.

Sterling Cale, 89, said the ceremony filled him with joy:

"They had the tea ceremony on the Arizona to honor the men who are still there - those 900-plus men are the heroes of World War II and Dec. 7. Having it there was a good deal. I liked that," said Cale, who was a hospital corpsman assigned to the shipyard dispensary at the time of the attack.

The Urasenke school's Hawaii chapter was established 60 years ago.

See more photos here.

Grand master to perform Japanese Tea Ceremony in honour of Pearl Harbor victims

Implements for Tea Ceremony on display in Poland.

Honolulu—in a historic event, Sen Genshitsu, grand master of the Urasenke school of Japanese Tea Ceremony, will perform a tea ceremony at the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor tomorrow.  The event is to honor Americans who died when Japan attacked Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941.

Two Pearl Harbor survivors are expected, along with the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Patrick Walsh. Kamo Yoshihiko, the Japanese Consul General in Honolulu, will also attend.

The 88 year-old Sen, who served in the Japanese naval air force during World War II, is the 15th generation grand master of Urasenke, which dates to the 1600s. His son is the current head of the school, which is the largest of the three best-known schools of traditional tea ceremony.  Sen lived in Hawaii in 1952, and has studied and taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Harry Potter breaks record

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 made $US 92.1 million in ticket sales yesterday in its North America debut.

Fame top value among TV shows popular with US youths

According to a study from UCLA, "fame" is the leading value promoted by TV shows popular among 9 to 11 year-olds.

"Community feeling" (group belonging) was the number 1 value in 1967, 1977 and 1997, and the second in 1987, but had dropped to 11th in 2007. In 1997, the top five were "community feeling," "benevolence," "image," "tradition" and "self-acceptance."

Following "fame," the top values in 2007 were "achievement," "popularity," "image," and "financial success." Benevolence dropped to 12th and tradition 15th, and a frequent trope is young people achieving great fame despite little hard work or sacrifice.