“American” = “Of the USA”

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This is a bit of a rant, but it’s something I hear from time to time that rather annoys me.

I first heard my seventh grade history teacher put forth the argument that the adjective “American” can never only apply to the United States of America but must apply to all of the continents of North and South America. I didn’t take issue with the argument then, but after continuing to hear it from a number of other people I’ve come to think that it’s stupid.

As stated, the name of the country is the “United States of America” or indeed simply “America,” so to refer to it’s people or culture as “American” is correct. Everyone should accept that it refers to a country and not a continent, if you say “American” to someone from Europe or Asia without a qualifier like North, South or Latin, they won’t imagine someone from Belize or Argentina.

Some people will insist that because there’s more than one country in North and South America, that people from America should be referred to as “from the United States.” However, the full name of Mexico is “Estados Unidos Mexicanos,” “Estados Unidos” meaning “United States” in Spanish. So if one were extremely anal they might reply to the statement “I’m from the United States” with “Which United States?”

To do so would be deliberately obtuse, but so is insisting that “America” must refer to both North and South America entirely. When we go against established conventions while speaking, we obfuscate our words and make communication much more difficult than it needs to be.

English Riots and Social Networking

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UK Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the House of Commons a few days ago, concerning the massive riots that have been going on across England:

In his speech he makes the following statement:

“Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

A blog post on Engadget compared this to ousted Egyptian president Mubarak’s crackdown on the Internet during the uprising there earlier this year. The comparison is flawed for two reasons: PM Cameron wasn’t calling for the means to disable countrywide Internet access entirely, only to stop certain people from using social networking to commit crimes when there was cause to do so. Secondly, the riots in England have not been a popular uprising against an oppressive government, but rather a widespread attack on the person and property of ordinary citizens and businesses.

The fact that so many young people took part in such widespread looting and arson is disturbing, and the circumstances that allowed it to happen need to be addressed. But in order to protect people in such chaotic situations, the pragmatic approach would be to give police the ability track suspected criminals’ activities on social networks and stop them from using them to coordinate attacks. Incitement and conspiracy to commit theft and arson are already crimes, after all, and committing them online is no different than by any other form of communication. The notion that giving police such power will lead to an oppressive police state is a rather daft slippery slope argument.

On Earthquakes and Nuclear Power

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It has been a black few days. Osaka and the rest of central and western Japan emerged barely affected by the tremendous Tohoku earthquake, but grim news continues to pour in about its impact in northeast Japan. I’ll not write about the details here, as they can be found elsewhere, but the destruction is immense and the death toll is likely in the tens of thousands. My thoughts go out to everyone in the affected areas, and I would like to help in whatever way that I can.

There is something that has been particularly bothering me amid all of the terrible news. That is the exaggeration, misinformation, and panic surrounding the events at the nuclear power plants in Fukushima. The situation is serious to be sure, but is not the harbinger of the apocalypse, nor it is on the level of the Chernobyl disaster. As explained in this blog post, there is little to worry about in terms of a large leak of radioactive material.

Even so, the opponents to nuclear power are inevitably being energized and starting to beat the drum ever harder to abolish it. To them I have a few questions to ask: Japan gets roughly 34.5% of it’s electricity from nuclear power. How much coal, oil, or gas would have to be burned to fill that gap in the absence of nuclear power? Opting for the cheapest by far, coal, what would be the long-term environmental and health cost from the highly toxic and indeed radioactive (coal contains radioactive thorium) emissions? Would it be less than a single incident involving a nuclear reactor? I’m not at all convinced that it would. As we have witnessed vividly in the past few days, there are a lot of things that can kill you that don’t involve uranium or plutonium. Indeed, the world’s costliest industrial disaster did not involve a nuclear reactor.

Renewable energy and conservation are all well and good, but are they enough to fill our needs? These are questions to consider, and recent events indicate to me that we need more rational and knowledgeable voices in the conversation. We have too many fear mongers and people who panic at the utterance of the word “radioactive.”

Further reading: Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries

2011

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Osaka Castle

According to Japanese custom, I sent out a handful of “nengajou,” or New Year’s greeting cards. If you’re lucky, maybe you received one from me. This year being the year of the rabbit, I picked a design that had a rabbit running in front of Mt. Fuji at sunrise. Inscribed on the card was:

初春のおよろこびを申し上げます
“Hatsuharu no oyorokobi wo moushiagemasu”

Roughly translated, that is: “I bring you tidings of happiness for the new year.” And I make that same wish for all the readers of this blog. Let’s hope this year is better than the last, anyway.

Happy New Year, 2011.

Life in Osaka

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Osaka at night

About six weeks ago I was transferred yet again, but this time I find myself in the big city at last. Since I first visited Japan, I have always enjoyed the city of Osaka. I went out of my way to find my own apartment so that whatever happens with my job, I know that my living situation will be long-term. When I’m not working, I’m often riding the subway around, walking the streets, going shopping, or eating delicious Osaka cuisine.

Last night, I took a walk up Midosuji Boulevard from Honmachi Station and around Osaka City Hall on Nakanoshima to see a light display called “Osaka Hikari no Renaissance.” While not quite as beautiful or well-known as neighboring Kobe’s “Luminarie,” there were still some nice things to see.

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Grinderman 2

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Grinderman 2

There’s something about minimal, noisy and distorted rock ‘n roll that stirs something on the inside. Albums like the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, and the Magnetic Fields’ Distortion all hit the spot with their no-holds-barred overdrive. It’s been three years since legendary balladeer Nick Cave decided that kids these days just don’t know how to rock, called up three of his buddies from the Bad Seeds and dropped the ten-megaton nuclear bomb that was Grinderman.

Now they’re back with another more refined but equally ferocious rock ‘n roll storm. Grinderman 2′s opening track, “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man,” starts out with some quiet guitar noodling before Jim Sclavuno’s drums and Martyn Casey’s bass punch in and the song gradually builds into a harrowing rampage. Things stay hot with the diesel-powered voodoo grind of “Worm Tamer” and the howling “Heathen Child” (the albums first single) before finally slowing down with the oddball and double entendre laden “When My Baby Comes.”

Lyrically, the album is wry, ironic and notably sleazy, with lyrics such as “I keep hanging around your kitchenette/I’m gonna find a pot to cook you in/I stick my fingers in your biscuit jar and I crush all your gingerbread men.” There also also some uncanny yet poignant moments, the song “Palaces of Montezuma” is a dark devotional in which Cave offers up such things as “the spinal cord of JFK wrapped up in Marilyn Monroe’s negligee.”

The album closes with the swirling psychedelic slow jam “Bellringer Blues,” in which more of Cave’s persistent storytelling style of singing shows through. Grinderman 2 is the rock album to beat for 2010.

The Japanese release includes two bonus tracks: “Super Heathen Child,” an alternate version of “Heathen Child” with leads from legendary guitarist Robert Fripp, and a plaintive acoustic ballad called “Star Charmer.”

Some highlights:

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International Burn a Koran Day

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Floating near the top of the headlines on my Google News page are stories about Rev. Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, Florida and his plans to burn several copies of the Qur’an on this year’s anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attack. BBC has a nice profile page with all of the information here. Among his reasons for staging this event are because “Islam is of the devil,” the Qur’an is “full of lies,” and “We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats.”

On his first two points I’m partially tempted to send him a copy of the Bible with a note attached reading: “While you’re burning books with morally reprehensible contents, you should burn this one as well.” Condemning the Qur’an while revering the Bible strikes me as the pot calling the kettle black. But I don’t approve of this sort of iconoclasm. All Mr. Jones is doing is lowering himself to the level of those he claims to oppose. On the last point, Mr. Jones that he’s trying to hoist the Islamic world out of it’s medieval mindset. That’s rather like trying to cure a person of violent tendencies by repeatedly insulting their mother, it doesn’t work.

I’ve also noticed quite a few people claiming that Mr. Jones’ “Burn a Koran Day” is at the same level of decency as Feisal Abdul Rauf’s planned Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. If Rauf was planning to burn a stack of Bibles or American flags at ground zero they might have a point, but he’s planning on building the Islamic equivalent of a YMCA. They aren’t comparable at all.

Bad Communication, More Upheaval, and Other Updates

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I haven’t come near this blog in a few months now. I should make a concerted effort to write more, but lately I don’t have much to say that won’t fit in a tweet or a Facebook update.

My friend Hiroki and I have started a weekly video podcast called “Bad Communication,” named after the song by J-pop duo B’z. In it, we talk about stories related to Japan and whatever else strikes our interest. Here are the first and second episodes:

The show page can be found here. Hiroki does most of the heavy lifting with the editing and presentation, I just provide a few stories and some dry wit.

On a new personal note, I am being transfered to the city of Miki, a suburb of Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture. The new owners of GEOS, G.education, decided that the Fukuchiyama school was not worth keeping open and are closing it. It’s tough to be uprooted so soon after settling in here and starting to make friends, but I have to make the best of it and go with the flow for the time being. To be honest, I feel worse for my coworker and my students than I do for my own situation.

Upheaval

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Three weeks after moving to Fukuchiyama and still not quite settled in, GEOS Corporation has filed for bankruptcy. 99 schools are closing down. The remaining 230 schools (Fukuchiyama is fortunately one of which) will continue operating under the ownership of a company called G.communication.

So as of yesterday I am unemployed. Tomorrow I will go to the school, sign an employment agreement with this new company, and continue to teach lessons according to my schedule. What remains is the question of when and if I will get paid for the time that I’ve put in here, as the remains of GEOS Corp. likely doesn’t have enough money to go around. I am also unsure of what will become of the company apartment I’m currently living in.

All I can do is go to work tomorrow and try to reassure the students that neither I nor the school are going anywhere. しかたがない, as they say in Japanese.

Anyway, here are some pictures that I took around Fukuchiyama Castle while the sakura were still blooming:

castle1

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