The world may be chaotic but we individually can remain whole and focused.
Our leaders may be amoral and manipulative but we individually can be respectful and sensitive to one another.
The daily stream of news reports can be filled with vileness, anger, confusion, and loss of hope but we individually can be fountains of joy, vision, clarity, fellowship, and positive change.
With the recent discovery that an old favorite around this time of year, a man who children have always looked on with delight and expectation — yes, THAT bearded old white man in a red suit — has refused to be vaccinated or take a PCR test, alarm bells have gone off and warnings are being issued across the globe. Anthony Fauci and the CDC have led the media blitz with a press release which was stark and unambiguous:
SANTA CLAUS MAY BE A SUPER SPREADER!
As expected, the effervescent and unflappable ambassador of Christmas cheer just laughed off what he characterized as ad hominem nonsense and returned to the formidable task of fitting presents for 3 billion children in a sleigh that, to be blunt about it, has seen better days.
Speaking of which, Elon Musk — with the generosity that has been his hallmark in his rise to stardom in the public eye — offered Santa one of his Tesla Cybertrucks for this year’s orgy of free gifts, bestowed with profligacy and limited irony on the spoiled kids in the countries topping the OECD. Santa demurred, citing hundreds of years of tradition and enigmatically quoting what he claimed were canons from tracts of the Essenes.
Personally, I have no way to judge the cautionary alerts on Santa. Several commentators on Fox News claim that the surprise announcement is just another attack on Christmas by the Christian-hating atheistic left wing. Others think that like the media feeding frenzy around the omicron variant, this is just more much ado about nothing. There’s one contingent of what’s been dubbed the lunatic fringe which just posted this on their website with links to a controversial alternative media channel called OpEdNews:
“All of the official bloviating is self-contradictory. Simply stated, what the CDC and NIH are saying all fails the much-touted PCR test, which is comparing their fantastical musings to what Paul Craig Roberts has to say on the matter. You lose, Fauci and Gates. Roberts is how we determine who’s a ‘super spreader’ and who isn’t. If anything, the PCR says you guys test positive as super-spreaders of the BS virus.“
Whatever you personally decide, common sense should prevail. If a strange man appears in your living room, put on a mask and rubber gloves and ask to see some ID. If he checks out, that’s no excuse for flirting with death by hugging or kissing him. For sure, no tongues.
I go out of my way to keep my readers and loyal fans ahead of the news, 1) by not just regurgitating the usual stuff that passes for BREAKING NEWS, garbage that mysteriously keeps “breaking” for months on end with panel discussions and tedious updates; and 2) by always providing accurate stories and insights that sometimes takes years for the typical mainstream media outlets to finally get right.
So I’m frankly getting tired of media outlets “scooping” my stories.
A truly aggravating example is the photo at the top of this page.
“A lunar rover has spotted a strange cube-shaped object and will alter its official course to check it out, needing 2-3 months to arrive.”
“The Chinese Yutu 2 lunar rover spotted a bizarre shape in its cameras while traversing a C-shape enclosure made up of ferocious impact craters on the moon’s far side.”
“The drivers zoomed in on the pictures, slowly admiring them one by one. Suddenly, an obtrusive cube on the northern skyline attracted their attention. This object pierced through the winding of the skyline, like a ‘mysterious hut’.”
Those comments are from an article about this under-whelming breakthrough in lunar exploration, on a site called Good News Network. It should be called Old News Network.
Not only is this amazing new discovery old news, but to put it mildly, it’s less than spectacular. What are we looking at here? A blurry photo taken with a camera with vaseline on the lens, pointed by robotic command from 240,000 miles away, probably using a refurbished Dell computer running Windows 95. You know how primitive those Chinese scientists are, still doing critical calculations with an abacus.
More to the point, why is this new news? Because over a year ago, I provided this photo.
You can’t help but notice the stark difference in the quality of the images. My sources are GOOD! And reliable! This incredible shot was posted by a dance team I follow on TikTok, and they’ve become an invaluable source of “hot off the press” information for me.
They also alerted me to the dangers of eating GMO-laced products, especially junk food and quick-and-easy meals like TV dinners and instant ramen. Here is the photo of a young man whose mother lived on Macaroni & Cheese In-A-Box for her entire pregnancy.
The point is, if you want to know what’s really going on in the world, you know who to turn to.
If on the other hand, you prefer getting compromised, ancient reports of inferior quality and dubious merit, just keep looking to the usual suspects: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, Washington Post, Rachel Maddow, and the Good News Network.
OMG!
Just got a desktop alert about a talking zebra in the Amsterdam Zoo that channels Jesus.
Gotta go!
Why should I be ashamed to let people know about my books? I worked hard on them, am proud of my work, and honestly didn’t write them for glory and money — though I admit I certainly wouldn’t turn away either — but merely put a smile on some sad faces out there or a twinkle in a few eyes dulled by bad TV and too many computers and smart phones.
It’s genuinely hard to wrap my head around this literary excursion. It’s been thirteen years since I got serious about writing full-length books. Yes, it all started in 2008 while I was teaching English right here in Tambasasayama, now my permanent hometown. Little did I know back then I’d marry a lovely Japanese lady and then so enthusiastically embrace the idea of making Japan my permanent place of residence. Petrocelli was my first novel, written in my spare time between teaching classes. Now I have a total of 13 finished, published works, another novel coming out in spring 2022 — Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun. There’s also a completed travel/fantasy/cookbook which may never see the light of day called What Do Mermaids Eat? — I’m still looking for a publisher).
Wow! Fifteen books in 13 years! “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” (Why does that sound familiar?)
Anyway . . . moving on to the self-promotion, shameless or not. Until January 1st, all of the ebooks pictured at the top of the page are 50-75% off at Smashwords, a premium ebook sales channel. If you want to dive in, the links can be found HERE.
Oh . . . but there’s more! Amazon has a special on The Man Who Loved Too Much trilogy Kindle ebooks. Are you ready for this? Only 99 cents each!
Go for it! Here are the links . . .
Recognizing we’re closing in fast on Christmas, you still might want to look at this . . .
Okay … the title is hyperbole. No religion is actually fun. Most seem preoccupied with scary demons, suffering, sacrifice, gnashing, weeping, incantations, uncomfortable positions, and men dressed in funny clothes.
But at least some Buddhists have a sense of humor!
My lovely wife, Masumi, arranged a three-day holiday this past weekend to Shikoku. We ate great noodles — Shikoku is the world udon capital — visited shrines and temples, saw some spectacular landscapes, and were taken by surprise and incredibly charmed by the island’s largest city, Matsuyama. There we ate local cuisine at an area restaurant, walked the streets and visited the shopping arcade, a feature which is part of every decent-sized Japanese city. We spent the better part of an afternoon at Matsuyama Castle, one of the biggest in Japan, and from my experience to date, the most spectacular in every respect. It’s over 500 years old and its sprawling compound sits on a hill overlooking the city.
The castle was phenomenal but the high-point — literally — of our very short trip for me personally was our visit to the sprawling grounds of Jizou-ji Temple. It’s located in Itano, Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku (the northeast region of the island, shortly after crossing the bridge from Awaji). Mind you, this temple was founded over 12 centuries ago and even has a big, knobby gingko tree which is over 800 years old. I suggest it was the high-point because it is situated on top of the highest mountain in the area, requiring us to to take a ropeway lift just to get within hiking distance.
What makes this temple truly unique are the 500 life-sized statues of 500 arhats. These men are enlightened followers of Buddha. None of them have hair.
It seemed that just about every human emotion was on display, so I asked Masumi what exactly the point of this holy menagerie was. She explained that they were expressing the entire range of possible reactions to the idiocy of human behavior: their disbelief, shock, disapproval, bewilderment, disdain, disgust, mockery, denial, their resignation, horror, pleas for sanity, hope for improvement, futile escape from the undeniable truth.
These statues line the walkways, peak out from behind trees, sitting, standing, kneeling, offering their take on human folly and the ridiculous mess we tend to make out of things. You can see for yourself, their expressions are priceless.
As grim as many of them might appear, frankly it was impossible to not see the humor in the enterprise. A huge dose of irreverence tossed in with requisite piety.
This is sure a far-cry from the “religion” I got when I was growing up. Of course, this is a subject for a multi-volume tome — probably the most boring memoir ever written — but suffice it to say I grew up Catholic, even went to Catholic school for six years, under the tutelage of female sado-masochists, aka nuns. There are only two emotions entertained by Catholicism: shame and fear. I will confess, as the class clown for my elementary school, to at least trying to generate some comic relief. Which only lasted until either I was beaten with a ruler or long wooden pointer, or sent to the torture chamber of Mother Superior, the school’s official Reichsführer and final solution disciplinarian.
I realize there’s a pandemic destroying the economies, families and communities across the planet, but you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of it here in Japan. People are out and about having fun. Most of them are Buddhists. Some of them are just wild and crazy.
