I am working on a master's in liberal studies. Although it only requires taking one class each semester, it is a lot of work to do all the readings and writings, while working full-time and have a full-schedule volunteering.
Its hard work but I enjoy the class discussions and now that I'm near the end of the program (I have to still spend a year writing a 100-page paper to get the degree), I now realize how important each class is in relationship to another.
We start the program by taking "Introduction of Knowing." It was a lot of reading, Fouceault, De Certeau, Stuart Hall, etc. But even in the current class, we have to refer back to them.
The current class - "Analysis in Cultural Studies" - is not just interesting but relevant to my final research paper on "Why adhering to a strict Japanese culture is detrimental in propagating Jodo Shinshu Buddhism in North America." In fact, I have made notes to check up on some of the readings we did in the first class.
And to think I'm doing this for fun. What do I do for boredom? Go to Disneyland or something?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Inauguration
Well we are chaperoning the high school band to its music competition at the Inauguration.
On the day of the Inauguration, we got up early and our chartered bus took us from Chantilly to The Mall - a distance of 26 miles, but because of the bus traffic and street closures, it took us well over an hour to get in.
We didn't get quite close enough to our pre-designated parking area, although we think that was thrown out anyways...so we were able to get close enough (12th Street and D Street) to walk onto The Mall.
Which we did - little security - I guess because we far enough away from the Capitol? But we situated ourselves at 7:30 in the morning in front of a Jumbotron and waited in the freezing weather for the inauguration to start.
The Jumbotron was showing the HBO Inaugration concert from the Lincoln Memorial two days earlier. People were reacting as if was live.
We were able to see all the dignitaries enter through the Capitol and onto the steps on the Mall side to their seats. Members of Congress, the governors of all the states, the members of the Senate, the members of the Supreme Court, all living Presidents, all living Vice Presidents.
A short program when President-elect Obama arrived with his family. The Oath was administered in error by the Chief Justice, and then it was over. People were cheering and tearing - in tears at the moment. In an instant we were all part of history. Or at least a witness to it.
Immediately, people dispersed to warmer quarters, namely the museums of the Smithsonian Institution and it got real cold on the Mall. The Mall becams one dustbowl litered with newspapers and trash from 1.7 million bodies.
It didn't matter to use if the music combo of Itzhak Perlman and Yo-yo Ma was recorded or not...you couldn't tell the difference on the Jumbotron. It didn't matter if Chief Justice flubbed up his lines and caused him to be an asterisk in history. We were all part of the day - in that moment.
When Obama took office of the most important person in the world, at least, I know where I was at that time - huddled in a mass between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian and the Natural History Museum.
On the day of the Inauguration, we got up early and our chartered bus took us from Chantilly to The Mall - a distance of 26 miles, but because of the bus traffic and street closures, it took us well over an hour to get in.
We didn't get quite close enough to our pre-designated parking area, although we think that was thrown out anyways...so we were able to get close enough (12th Street and D Street) to walk onto The Mall.
Which we did - little security - I guess because we far enough away from the Capitol? But we situated ourselves at 7:30 in the morning in front of a Jumbotron and waited in the freezing weather for the inauguration to start.
The Jumbotron was showing the HBO Inaugration concert from the Lincoln Memorial two days earlier. People were reacting as if was live.
We were able to see all the dignitaries enter through the Capitol and onto the steps on the Mall side to their seats. Members of Congress, the governors of all the states, the members of the Senate, the members of the Supreme Court, all living Presidents, all living Vice Presidents.
A short program when President-elect Obama arrived with his family. The Oath was administered in error by the Chief Justice, and then it was over. People were cheering and tearing - in tears at the moment. In an instant we were all part of history. Or at least a witness to it.
Immediately, people dispersed to warmer quarters, namely the museums of the Smithsonian Institution and it got real cold on the Mall. The Mall becams one dustbowl litered with newspapers and trash from 1.7 million bodies.
It didn't matter to use if the music combo of Itzhak Perlman and Yo-yo Ma was recorded or not...you couldn't tell the difference on the Jumbotron. It didn't matter if Chief Justice flubbed up his lines and caused him to be an asterisk in history. We were all part of the day - in that moment.
When Obama took office of the most important person in the world, at least, I know where I was at that time - huddled in a mass between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian and the Natural History Museum.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Its Alan Kita World
Hello! This is my special day at Walt Disney World!
See http://livinginsocali.blogspot.com/ entry to view video....
See http://livinginsocali.blogspot.com/ entry to view video....
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Donny & Marie in Las Vegas
We are in Las Vegas again celebrating Thanksgiving with my parents. This has been annual thing. This time we were able to get tickets to see "Donny & Marie" at The Flamingo. Wow what a show! 90 minutes of putting it all out. It was fun, like when they were doing their own show, years ago in their 20s, except without those skits. For being around 50, they look fantastic.
It was a self-effacing homage to themselves, but that's what their fans wants to see and it was done tastefully.
Each had their own individual segment, presenting each stage of their lives, she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rocknroll. Both have been Broadway, both are exploring new stuff...and Marie is even into Opera!
They ended with their "country and rock" segment, still tease each other, and sang their hits, including ending the program with "It Takes Two." Actually they ended the show with, of course, their signature closer ...
May tomorrow be the perfect day,
may you find love and laughter along the way.
May God keep you in His tender care,
'til He brings us together again.
Good night, everybody!
They were renewed for two years .... so it would be worth coming back. Both are excellent at improv, so there will be something fresh and new each time you see their show.
It was a self-effacing homage to themselves, but that's what their fans wants to see and it was done tastefully.
Each had their own individual segment, presenting each stage of their lives, she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rocknroll. Both have been Broadway, both are exploring new stuff...and Marie is even into Opera!
They ended with their "country and rock" segment, still tease each other, and sang their hits, including ending the program with "It Takes Two." Actually they ended the show with, of course, their signature closer ...
May tomorrow be the perfect day,
may you find love and laughter along the way.
May God keep you in His tender care,
'til He brings us together again.
Good night, everybody!
They were renewed for two years .... so it would be worth coming back. Both are excellent at improv, so there will be something fresh and new each time you see their show.
A French Connection by Kenneteh C. Davis
From New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26davis.html?th&emc=th
Op-Ed Contributor
A French Connection
By KENNETH C. DAVIS
Published: November 25, 2008
TO commemorate the arrival of the first pilgrims to America’s shores, a June date would be far more appropriate, accompanied perhaps by coq au vin and a nice Bordeaux. After all, the first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French. And they beat their English counterparts by 50 years. That French settlers bested the Mayflower Pilgrims may surprise Americans raised on our foundational myth, but the record is clear.
Long before the Pilgrims sailed in 1620, another group of dissident Christians sought a haven in which to worship freely. These French Calvinists, or Huguenots, hoped to escape the sectarian fighting between Catholics and Protestants that had bloodied France since 1560.
Landing in balmy Florida in June of 1564, at what a French explorer had earlier named the River of May (now the St. Johns River near Jacksonville), the French émigrés promptly held a service of “thanksgiving.” Carrying the seeds of a new colony, they also brought cannons to fortify the small, wooden enclosure they named Fort Caroline, in honor of their king, Charles IX.
In short order, these French pilgrims built houses, a mill and bakery, and apparently even managed to press some grapes into a few casks of wine. At first, relationships with the local Timucuans were friendly, and some of the French settlers took native wives and soon acquired the habit of smoking a certain local “herb.” Food, wine, women — and tobacco by the sea, no less. A veritable Gallic paradise.
Except, that is, to the Spanish, who had other visions for the New World. In 1565, King Philip II of Spain issued orders to “hang and burn the Lutherans” (then a Spanish catchall term for Protestants) and dispatched Adm. Pedro Menéndez to wipe out these French heretics who had taken up residence on land claimed by the Spanish — and who also had an annoying habit of attacking Spanish treasure ships as they sailed by.
Leading this holy war with a crusader’s fervor, Menéndez established St. Augustine and ordered what local boosters claim is the first parish Mass celebrated in the future United States. Then he engineered a murderous assault on Fort Caroline, in which most of the French settlers were massacred. Menéndez had many of the survivors strung up under a sign that read, “I do this not as to Frenchmen but as to heretics.” A few weeks later, he ordered the execution of more than 300 French shipwreck survivors at a site just south of St. Augustine, now marked by an inconspicuous national monument called Fort Matanzas, from the Spanish word for “slaughters.”
With this, America’s first pilgrims disappeared from the pages of history. Casualties of Europe’s murderous religious wars, they fell victim to Anglophile historians who erased their existence as readily as they demoted the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine to second-class status behind the later English colonies in Jamestown and Plymouth.
But the truth cannot be so easily buried. Although overlooked, a brutal first chapter had been written in the most untidy history of a “Christian nation.” And the sectarian violence and hatred that ended with the deaths of a few hundred Huguenots in 1565 would be replayed often in early America, the supposed haven for religious dissent, which in fact tolerated next to none.
Starting with those massacred French pilgrims, the saga of the nation’s birth and growth is often a bloodstained one, filled with religious animosities. In Boston, for instance, the Puritan fathers banned Catholic priests and executed several Quakers between 1659 and 1661. Cotton Mather, the famed Puritan cleric, led the war cries against New England’s Abenaki “savages” who had learned their prayers from the French Jesuits. The colony of Georgia was established in 1732 as a buffer between the Protestant English colonies and the Spanish missions of Florida; its original charter banned Catholics. The bitter rivalry between Catholic France and Protestant England carried on for most of a century, giving rise to anti-Catholic laws, while a mistrust of Canada’s French Catholics helped fire many patriots’ passion for independence. As late as 1844, Philadelphia’s anti-Catholic “Bible Riots” took the lives of more than a dozen people.
The list goes on. Our history is littered with bleak tableaus that show what happens when righteous certitude is mixed with fearful ignorance. Which is why this Thanksgiving, as we express gratitude for America’s bounty and promise, we would do well to reflect on all our histories, including a forgotten French one that began on Florida’s shores so many years ago.
Kenneth C. Davis is the author of “America’s Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26davis.html?th&emc=th
Op-Ed Contributor
A French Connection
By KENNETH C. DAVIS
Published: November 25, 2008
TO commemorate the arrival of the first pilgrims to America’s shores, a June date would be far more appropriate, accompanied perhaps by coq au vin and a nice Bordeaux. After all, the first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French. And they beat their English counterparts by 50 years. That French settlers bested the Mayflower Pilgrims may surprise Americans raised on our foundational myth, but the record is clear.
Long before the Pilgrims sailed in 1620, another group of dissident Christians sought a haven in which to worship freely. These French Calvinists, or Huguenots, hoped to escape the sectarian fighting between Catholics and Protestants that had bloodied France since 1560.
Landing in balmy Florida in June of 1564, at what a French explorer had earlier named the River of May (now the St. Johns River near Jacksonville), the French émigrés promptly held a service of “thanksgiving.” Carrying the seeds of a new colony, they also brought cannons to fortify the small, wooden enclosure they named Fort Caroline, in honor of their king, Charles IX.
In short order, these French pilgrims built houses, a mill and bakery, and apparently even managed to press some grapes into a few casks of wine. At first, relationships with the local Timucuans were friendly, and some of the French settlers took native wives and soon acquired the habit of smoking a certain local “herb.” Food, wine, women — and tobacco by the sea, no less. A veritable Gallic paradise.
Except, that is, to the Spanish, who had other visions for the New World. In 1565, King Philip II of Spain issued orders to “hang and burn the Lutherans” (then a Spanish catchall term for Protestants) and dispatched Adm. Pedro Menéndez to wipe out these French heretics who had taken up residence on land claimed by the Spanish — and who also had an annoying habit of attacking Spanish treasure ships as they sailed by.
Leading this holy war with a crusader’s fervor, Menéndez established St. Augustine and ordered what local boosters claim is the first parish Mass celebrated in the future United States. Then he engineered a murderous assault on Fort Caroline, in which most of the French settlers were massacred. Menéndez had many of the survivors strung up under a sign that read, “I do this not as to Frenchmen but as to heretics.” A few weeks later, he ordered the execution of more than 300 French shipwreck survivors at a site just south of St. Augustine, now marked by an inconspicuous national monument called Fort Matanzas, from the Spanish word for “slaughters.”
With this, America’s first pilgrims disappeared from the pages of history. Casualties of Europe’s murderous religious wars, they fell victim to Anglophile historians who erased their existence as readily as they demoted the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine to second-class status behind the later English colonies in Jamestown and Plymouth.
But the truth cannot be so easily buried. Although overlooked, a brutal first chapter had been written in the most untidy history of a “Christian nation.” And the sectarian violence and hatred that ended with the deaths of a few hundred Huguenots in 1565 would be replayed often in early America, the supposed haven for religious dissent, which in fact tolerated next to none.
Starting with those massacred French pilgrims, the saga of the nation’s birth and growth is often a bloodstained one, filled with religious animosities. In Boston, for instance, the Puritan fathers banned Catholic priests and executed several Quakers between 1659 and 1661. Cotton Mather, the famed Puritan cleric, led the war cries against New England’s Abenaki “savages” who had learned their prayers from the French Jesuits. The colony of Georgia was established in 1732 as a buffer between the Protestant English colonies and the Spanish missions of Florida; its original charter banned Catholics. The bitter rivalry between Catholic France and Protestant England carried on for most of a century, giving rise to anti-Catholic laws, while a mistrust of Canada’s French Catholics helped fire many patriots’ passion for independence. As late as 1844, Philadelphia’s anti-Catholic “Bible Riots” took the lives of more than a dozen people.
The list goes on. Our history is littered with bleak tableaus that show what happens when righteous certitude is mixed with fearful ignorance. Which is why this Thanksgiving, as we express gratitude for America’s bounty and promise, we would do well to reflect on all our histories, including a forgotten French one that began on Florida’s shores so many years ago.
Kenneth C. Davis is the author of “America’s Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation.”
Monday, September 29, 2008
$700 billion
$700 billion is a tremendous amount of money. The issue is complicated because the economy is complicated.
It is frustrating that businesses would speculate on the home mortgage market to engage in such a risk. Sure for awhile there were buyers who would buy the home when the mortgage owner could no longer support the mortgage payments.
But that speculation keeps growing upward and begets itsself. Houses became more expensive, the mortgages became more riskier but on the thought that if the house was sold, then the money could be recovered.
By taking over the morgages, can the government survive? We cannot sell these mortgages to some holding company on the stock market. Will the government still foreclose?
What a vicous cycle. The equity in the homes, based on a perceived value of the home, is invested in consumable goods - people bought things with the money instead of long-term investments.
Sure homeowners could stop buying consumable goods - which isn't healthy for our nations' retailers. So we are going back to being broke all over again.
The fix is temporary and arbitrary. There are deeper issues that we as a nation must take care of. $700 billion is a lot of money - we could be investing in things instead of homes. We don't have to take care of the foreigh companies that are providing the real capital, do we?
We do need jobs...so will the $700 billion go towards creating and keeping jobs? No, not really. What would happen if we invested that $700 billion in jobs? Public works? We all could use a mass transit system. It will provide jobs and income for people, who would then buy a house that they can afford, instead of speculating. They will buy goods that they need, not just what they want.
It is frustrating that businesses would speculate on the home mortgage market to engage in such a risk. Sure for awhile there were buyers who would buy the home when the mortgage owner could no longer support the mortgage payments.
But that speculation keeps growing upward and begets itsself. Houses became more expensive, the mortgages became more riskier but on the thought that if the house was sold, then the money could be recovered.
By taking over the morgages, can the government survive? We cannot sell these mortgages to some holding company on the stock market. Will the government still foreclose?
What a vicous cycle. The equity in the homes, based on a perceived value of the home, is invested in consumable goods - people bought things with the money instead of long-term investments.
Sure homeowners could stop buying consumable goods - which isn't healthy for our nations' retailers. So we are going back to being broke all over again.
The fix is temporary and arbitrary. There are deeper issues that we as a nation must take care of. $700 billion is a lot of money - we could be investing in things instead of homes. We don't have to take care of the foreigh companies that are providing the real capital, do we?
We do need jobs...so will the $700 billion go towards creating and keeping jobs? No, not really. What would happen if we invested that $700 billion in jobs? Public works? We all could use a mass transit system. It will provide jobs and income for people, who would then buy a house that they can afford, instead of speculating. They will buy goods that they need, not just what they want.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Kumano Road - Old Japan and a World Cultural Heritage Site
The Kumano Road traverses the mountains of Southern Kii Province, modern-day Wakayama Prefecture. The road is part of the pilgrimage path from the ancient capitals of Japan to this sacred part of Japan, in fact it has been recorded that the Japanese Imperial families have done this pilgrimage.
What makes this area sacred? Its mostly rugged mountain and coastal area. The tallest waterfall in all of Japan can be found here, and thus many Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples were founded here. Not far from this area is the Grand Shrines of Ise dedicated to Amaterasu, the founding god of Japan and the Mt. Koya complex of Buddhist temples.
There are deep gorges and tall mountains and because of the shrines and temples, logging was kept to a minimum so the old growth forests here go back hundreds of years.
In addition, there are many hot springs although the volcanoes have long been dormant. A few hours by train from Osaka, Kyoto or Nara can bring you to this area.
The three Kumano shrines are the area's main attractions. The symbol is the three-legged crow, which is also the the bird of Amaterasu and is mentioned in the Kojiki. However, it is not mentioned in the Kojiki as three-legged but is depicted as such. The symbol for the J-League (as the founder is from the Tanabe area) is a three-legged crow.
In Shinto Japan, rock formations have a spirit as there are various unusual rock formations in the area. Doro Hatcho, or Doro Gorge is also in this area and is accessible by flat bottom boats.
The coastlines are very rugged and also have unusual formations, from pirate coves to hot springs. The Japan current runs closests to this area bringing the world's fish just off the coast.
The Kumano Road has been designated as a World Cultural Heritage Asset, and can still be traveled today.
It will take about a week to cover most of the road and to enjoy the sites along the way. The pilgrimage includes all three shrines and the shrine at Nachi Falls, the highest in Japan. It is a very leisure walk with many stops and the elevation is not difficult.
http://www.tb-kumano.jp/en/
for more information.
What makes this area sacred? Its mostly rugged mountain and coastal area. The tallest waterfall in all of Japan can be found here, and thus many Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples were founded here. Not far from this area is the Grand Shrines of Ise dedicated to Amaterasu, the founding god of Japan and the Mt. Koya complex of Buddhist temples.
There are deep gorges and tall mountains and because of the shrines and temples, logging was kept to a minimum so the old growth forests here go back hundreds of years.
In addition, there are many hot springs although the volcanoes have long been dormant. A few hours by train from Osaka, Kyoto or Nara can bring you to this area.
The three Kumano shrines are the area's main attractions. The symbol is the three-legged crow, which is also the the bird of Amaterasu and is mentioned in the Kojiki. However, it is not mentioned in the Kojiki as three-legged but is depicted as such. The symbol for the J-League (as the founder is from the Tanabe area) is a three-legged crow.
In Shinto Japan, rock formations have a spirit as there are various unusual rock formations in the area. Doro Hatcho, or Doro Gorge is also in this area and is accessible by flat bottom boats.
The coastlines are very rugged and also have unusual formations, from pirate coves to hot springs. The Japan current runs closests to this area bringing the world's fish just off the coast.
The Kumano Road has been designated as a World Cultural Heritage Asset, and can still be traveled today.
It will take about a week to cover most of the road and to enjoy the sites along the way. The pilgrimage includes all three shrines and the shrine at Nachi Falls, the highest in Japan. It is a very leisure walk with many stops and the elevation is not difficult.
http://www.tb-kumano.jp/en/
for more information.
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