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In one of my earthquake posts I wrote recent articles in the title and at the side of the screen it was shortened to recent art. So for anyone who was hoping to see earthquake art and who was disappointed this is a great picture of Japanese superheroes helping out in the earthquake. If you recognize any of them please put their names in the comments! Check out the other cool pictures at that link too. We humans need all the help we can get.
We are all only human and maybe there is only so much earthquake news our brains can take in. But Japan is still in emergency mode and I don't feel comfortable yet doing a normal blog article about budo. So for a little longer here is some of the news from Japan. Sendai is the town of Masamune Date. He had an eyepatch and a cool helmet with a big crescent moon. So if you need a change from the sadness and tragedy of the news maybe you or someone you know might want to make a model of him (you need both pages I think). But don't forget the prayers.
There's no real news today. But there have been warnings that children and pregnant women should not drink tap water. Anyway some more interesting articles. Please keep praying and please keep doing whatever you can.
cool story about a real hero - don't read it if you are offended by profanity - or read it anyway if you think John McClane was tough in Die Hard http://badassoftheweek.com/akaiwa.html
il pleure dans mon coeur
comme il pleut sur la ville
it's raining in my heart
like the rain falling on the city
Paul Verlaine
It was raining today.
Black Rain has a meaning in Japanese - the fallout from a nuclear bomb. 黒い雨 Kuroi Ame was a 1965 novel by Masuji Ibuse about the aftermath of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. It was made into a movie with the same title directed by Shohei Imamura. The film was very well-received critically. The wikipedia entry about it says,
The film has a strong theme of the Buddhist beliefs on the suffering in life, that things are transient and the uncertainty of the time of one's death.
Then Hollywood used the same title for an action thriller directed by Ridley Scott. Black Rain is a cool title but in Japanese it's inextricably associated with the novel and with Hiroshima. The Japanese movie Kuroi Ame came out in May 1989 and the Hollywood movie Black Rain came out in September 1989. The American movie starred Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Yusaku Matsuda and Ken Takakura. It's not a great film but it is enjoyable and it's also memorable as the last performance of the cool and charismatic Japanese actor Yusaku Masuda. He had cancer and he died on 6 November 1989 soon after the movie's premiere aged thirty-nine.
This is another post about the serious situation in Japan. It is not about budo. Some random fragments from twitter and other places.
Great advice any time
"Please prepare for aftershock, control your activity and be careful not to put yourself into confusion." From the Kodokan (world judo headquarters) home page
Rip-off
British Airways. Return fare to the UK quoted to a guy before the quake: 55,000 yen (say $700) per person.
Return fare to the UK quoted to him after the quake (same flight, same day): 600,000 yen (say $7,500) per person.
Tears
Read on BBC. A nine-year-old boy who lost his family in the tsunami is searching for them. Of course he didn't have any photos. So he drew pictures.
Surprise
An Italian rescue group arrived in Japan to find that the level of radiation in Tokyo was lower than in Rome.
Double punch
When all this is over who is going to want to buy rice or fruit or vegetables from Fukushima?
Crisis (mis)management parallel
"A potentially catastrophic technological problem, an incomplete crisis response plan, misleading early information, divided private and public authority, ineffective initial actions." This is about the BP oilspill not Fukushima
Not confidence-inspiring
TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) and METI (the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) have a history of covering up nuclear incidents.
When experts warn you, listen
"Japan was warned more than two years ago by the international nucle
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This is a follow-up post about the serious situation in Japan. It is not about budo.
Since the earthquake on Friday 11 March and the devastation of the tsunami in the north of Japan things around Tokyo have been very still. There are still shortages of basic foods. Trains are still running very reduced services. There are still frequent aftershocks. The Japanese government is still very economical with information. The US Embassy and the British Embassy still tell people not to worry.
Now the French government has informed French people in Japan that they should leave Japan or go to the south of the country far from the affected areas. Extra flights are scheduled for evacuation of French nationals.
So that's the situation. No rice. No bread. Geiger counters. And the French government telling its citizens to get out of Dodge.
A British rescue team from International Rescue Corps came to Japan on Monday. They had helped in 32 countries before this and only ever had problems with the governments in China and Afghanistan. Here they couldn't get the right paperwork from the British Embassy. So they went back home on Wednesday. Disappointed probably wouldn't describe their feelings adequately.
We pray that everyone in Fukushima prefecture and Miyagi prefecture who doesn't have a home now has managed to find some shelter and warmth and food and water. Relief trucks don't have enough fuel. And tonight it is snowing with temperatures below zero Celsius/in the twen
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I live just outside Tokyo, several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake in Miyagi. We are far from the devastation and the tragedy. The photo (see details below) is a train forlornly stopped at an empty station. So this post is only about my personal experience and earthquakes in Japan, not about the terrible events still happening in the north of the country. These are the Yahoo and CNN links with information for people who want to help:
Please do what you can to help. In this thread and this thread Francis Takahashi Sensei and others are trying to find ways that the aikido community can help.
Everyone in Japan knows what to do in an earthquake. There is an earthquake day - disaster prevention day - on 1 September, the anniversary of the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. Schools and businesses have regular earthquake drills.
You learn the basic rules:
1.Turn off the gas and any appliances which could cause a fire to start.
2.Immediately secure an exit. Walls can buckle with the movement of the earth and you might not be able to open a door.
3.Stay away from the danger of falling objects - if necessary get under a table. If you have a helmet put it on.
4.Then after a really serious earthquake stay away from buildings - because of the danger of fal
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When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set
The Waste Land by T S Eliot (from The Game of Chess)
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Mack the Knife
Sometimes you lose
Sometimes you win
Kicked in the teeth again
AC/DC
Are those your own teeth?
Yes.
Do you like them?
Yes.
Do you want to keep them?
Yes.
Well brush and floss every day. And never tell me I'm wrong in front of my officers again.
Cracker - DCI Charlie Wise gives Fitz some friendly dental advice
14 March is White Day in Japan. Valentine's Day on 14 February is mostly one-way in Japan. Women and girls give men and boys presents, usually chocolates. And so on White Day the men and boys reciprocate, also usually with chocolates. In South Korea they even have a Black Day on 14 April so that people who didn't get anything on Valentine's Day or White Day can commiserate with each other.
In Japanese a gumshield is called a mouthpiece マウスピース. That's slang for a lawyer in English. Dentists recommend wearing a gumshield to protect your teeth for all dynamic contact sports. That means most martial arts including
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03-25-2011 09:00 AM 
This is another post about the serious situation in Japan. It is not about budo. Some random fragments from twitter and other places.
This is a follow-up post about the serious situation in Japan. It is not about budo. 
I live just outside Tokyo, several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake in Miyagi. We are far from the devastation and the tragedy. The photo (see details below) is a train forlornly stopped at an empty station. So this post is only about my personal experience and earthquakes in Japan, not about the terrible events still happening in the north of the country. These are the Yahoo and CNN links with information for people who want to help:
