Since leaving America August 2006, I have traveled to sixteen countries. A great deal has happened. This site is to share my thoughts, photos, music, writings, travel experiences, and developing political/social commentary with you. I hope you find it interesting and informative.
Idiots in power!(I try not to judge people by their looks but I have to be honest. These people are scary!)
Above are just some of the people in positions of enormous influence and power who are promoting the war in the Ukraine. Make no mistake about it. They couldn’t care less about Ukraine or the Ukrainian people. What they truly care about is destroying Russia.
Contrary to what 111.99% of what is reported in the Western MSM, Russia did not want this conflict. Putin did not want to “invade” Ukraine. Putin and the Kremlin do not want to kill innocent Ukrainian citizens. Russia does not want to take over and occupy Ukraine.
Russia was FORCED intentionally into this military action. This nightmare is the product of US/NATO provocation, intimidation, aggression, all engineered at minimum to give Russia a bloody nose, at maximum to liquidate Russia as an independent country.
So where is this heading?
Everyone in the idiot gallery above is for sending more arms to Ukraine. Of course, arming Ukraine with lethal weaponry, the threat of Ukraine arming itself with nuclear weapons, is what made it necessary for Russia to destroy the Ukrainian military — which is what it is now doing — because it had become an existential threat. So what’s the solution proposed by the above brain trust for addressing the crisis? How do they propose fixing this mess?
More arms . . . more weapons . . . more threats to Russia!
“Gee, what started that apartment building on fire, chief?”
“Apparently, open cans of gasoline and kerosene in the basement.”
“Well, gosh darn, there’s only one option. Let’s pour more gasoline and kerosene into the building and see what happens.”
Several of the idiots in the scary collage above have moreover suggested that NATO and the US establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Which will mean — please give this your full attention — US/NATO planes and missiles deployed to shoot down Russian aircraft. Translation: Direct engagement, military conflict — yes, war! — with Russia.
Gee . . . how will this turn out?
After decade after decade of bombing; after twenty years of the War on Terror; a meltdown of the economy in 2008-2009; two years and counting of Covid-19 technocratic terrorism still hovering over us like a sledgehammer; with a coming economic meltdown which will make 2008 look like a rounding error; with the raucous, maniacal, increasingly fever-pitch pounding of war drums and shrill harangues against Russia and China; with a Congress and White House apparently inhabited by the certifiably insane (again just look at the above collection of whackos) . . . hmm. Whaddya think?
What will the future look like?
My prediction is that if we keep going the way we are, the future will indeed be . . . bright!
Very bright! And hot! Here’s how I imagine it’ll turn out . . .
I’ve made it abundantly clear that I LOVE JAPANESE FOOD!
Having said that does not exclude the possibility of occasional cravings for the tastes and textures of cuisine from the homeland.
I’ve already praised R-H Bagels, an excellent LOCAL restaurant, a leisurely bike ride from our house, for its New York-style bagels.
And I’m sure I’ve mentioned that Masumi and I make a pretty darn good pizza right here at home. We even bought a pizza oven, so we can get those required high temperatures!
What I haven’t mentioned are my shameful failures at recreating a truly genuine, mouth-watering hamburger experience, despite more tries than I want to confess to. The problem mainly seems to be the bun. I’ve even resorted to croissant burgers, since I simply cannot find a decent hamburger bun or good approximation of one. I’m over-simplifying, of course, maybe to let myself off light. Okay . . . it’s more than just the bun. It’s getting the hamburger itself right as well. Apparently, I’ve lost my touch! Boo hoo!
This has driven us over the 14 years we’ve been together, in a desperate search for a truly great American-style hamburger. One that oozes bloody juices, clogs the arteries just sitting on the plate, and creates visions of one of the few things the U.S. actually still gets right these days.
Our first breakthrough arrived somewhat unexpectedly, though the only reason I didn’t expect it is because I didn’t stop to think about it. Actually, it should have been obvious. This was during a summer holiday in 2016.
Because the main island of Okinawa, in particular the major city there of Naha, is overrun by Americans — the whole island, much to the outrage of the locals, hosts numerous U.S. military bases — we found a spectacular hamburger joint called Gordie’s. Gordie? Actually, in all my years in the U.S. I can honestly say I never met someone who called himself ‘Gordie’. There was a legendary hockey player when I was growing up named Gordie Howe. But he was Canadian. Whatever.
Gordie’s in Okinawa is pretty cool! I highly recommend it.
But let’s face it. Okinawa is not exactly convenient.
A little more convenient, but still not that convenient, is a hamburger restaurant we found in Himeji, a place called Lamp’s Bakery. This was late 2018 when our friend Alex Malherbe came back for his second visit to Japan.
Certainly, Himeji is a great place to visit and we’ve been there together at least three times. BUT it’s over two hours away. This has made it incumbent on us to find something a little closer to home.
There are two hamburger cafés right in town. We won’t talk about them. You know why.
But hope springs eternal! (Or is that infernal?) Because . . .
In nearby Sanda — about a 30 minute drive — right downtown near the main JR train station, is Alto Hamburgers. Don’t have a photo right now. It’s a tiny restaurant, seats maybe 16 people. Interesting story behind it. The place is owned by college students, who crowdfunded the whole project, and obviously did their homework. They have a number of very good deluxe hamburgers — bacon, avocado, mushroom, of course cheese, teriyaki, etc. — but in my book, the real draw is their onion rings, which are to die for!
Having lavished all this praise on Alto, I now confess that while it puts up some serious competition, the real #1 hamburger slinger is a restaurant/antique shop/farm way outin the country — which says a lot considering how far out in the country Tambasasayama is — in Kasuga, a forty-minute drive from our house, but one well worth every second of it.
Ladies, gentlemen, gays, lez, bi, trans, double-transitioned, pan, non-binary, non-indexed, no-preference, self-cancelers, and protoplasmic virtue signalers from every whispered and howling corner of the human genome, let me introduce you to Locasse Farm Lab!
And there you have it! Driven by my desire to recapture the joy of devouring an American hamburger, our search is a success. Let’s hope that Alto and Locasse remain in business for the foreseeable and my arteries don’t gunge up with saturated the meat-based calking compound delivered by their HMDs — hamburgers of mass destruction.
Likewise, an incompetent, historically ignorant, politically naive, diplomatically challenged, shallow, impulsive, narcissistic reality show host elected by a conned citizenry to the highest office in the land can occasionally get a few things right as well.
I won’t get into a spitting contest over whether the election was rigged to an extent necessary to “steal” it from Trump. Every election is rigged, to varying degrees. To deny that is to be out of touch with how fundamentally corrupt our electoral system is at all levels, and what an abysmal state our last-gasp democracy is in. Recall that on occasion, election rigging wasn’t up to the task, so a president was elected by judicial fiat.
Nor will I come anywhere near Trump’s motives or level of involvement in the shambolic insurrection that took place on January 6.
The important thing he got right was this: We should throw every last bum out of our legislative branch, both House and Senate. I didn’t say assassinate or torture them, although a good case could be made for “disappearing” the entire lot . . . for good! And for the good of the nation. At least barring them from public life. I include everyone, even Sanders, AOC, the rest of the squad, all of the virtue-signaling mannikins now in Congress who spend more time raising money for their reelection campaigns and their corrupt corporate-oligarchy political parties, than taking care of the business of governing and caring for the people.
A clean sweep.
A fresh start.
Yes, there have been a few promising initiatives. But overall, there is no evidence that any of the people in power, and I also include Biden, Harris, and just about everyone in the collection of self-serving mediocrities which populate this and past administrations, know or care the first thing about serving everyday citizens and “promoting the general welfare”.
I’m sure I’ll get a barrage of comments defending these lackluster sock puppets of the ruling elite. Let me just recommend in advance: I’m not talking about measuring these phonies by the vapid standards we’ve become accustomed to. The bar has been lowered so many times, it’s not a bar anymore. It’s a broken pipe laying in the mud. Reach deep inside, folks. Use your imagination. Recall the dreams and idealism of your youth. Imagine what the U.S. could be instead of trying to decide how much humiliation and misery we should tolerate.
I don’t have to defend the necessity of an occasional revolution. As you can see from the above quote, Thomas Jefferson did it for me. By his measure we’re about 12 revolutions overdue.
Even John F. Kennedy recognized that when confronted with extreme abuse of power, we are left with no alternative.
What he said was unambiguous. If the system isn’t able to self-correct, then the system gets a big bloody nose. In extreme cases, we skip the left hook to the nose and go right for a decapitation. I hear Chanel makes a nice line of designer guillotines. How timely.
Let’s be clear. At no time in recent history has the need to replace those in power been so urgent and obvious. Real democracy is dead in the U.S. and the country is ruled by oligarchs. Not very smart oligarchs. Not oligarchs with a shred of decency. But money talks. The ruling elite have the money. Most everyday people are scrambling to survive. There’s no contest.
As much as many of us prefer to ignore or deny, Donald Trump got a few things right. Unfortunately, he suffered from a debilitating case of ADHD. He’d say the right thing, then either contradict himself in action or appoint opponents of his ideas to key positions, who then went on to sabotage whatever occasional flash of brilliance he had. Plus he was an unbroken stallion, and the Deep State realizing they couldn’t control him, deep-sixed his presidency. Most of us are grateful for that but we have to keep in mind that the cure in the long term might be worse than the disease. Turning more power over — perhaps the entire control of our nation — to the invisible autocrats of our intelligence agencies and the untouchable puppet masters of technocratic tyranny is not a very smart idea. If that’s our strategy, we might as well just get it over with and take a blow torch the Constitution. How about during half-time at the next Super Bowl.
In some incredibly twisted way, Trump was the voice of the people — at least some people — probably not the kind of people anyone here would want to hang out with. But he had (and still has) a lot of fans. His campaign was the first time in a long time that it was publicly acknowledged that a lot of regular folks were tired of getting screwed by a rigged system. Yes, Trump couldn’t have been a worse bearer of this torch. But at least we got a fleeting glimpse of the flames.
Now we’re back to the default setting: Guys like Biden and gals like Harris spouting slogans that are ear candy and brain anesthetics, woke gender-blenders like Buttigieg striking poses to get a third-leg up on the next presidential election, fake progressives cheerleading their walk-in-place approach to solving the most serious problems in history, and hapless, hopeless, pathetic voters looking at fake radicals like the Squad as the flickering pilot lights for real change. What all of this screams is form without substance. We get fooled again. New boss is the old boss with a focus-group tested bumpersticker on his BMW.
The sad thing about January 6 — and everybody knows what I’m referring to because the Alice in Wonderland narratives around are still being milked by pundits and politicians alike — is that it had both sides working to make sure it flopped, that instead of representing an actual challenge to power or a wake-up call to the public or a warning label for the buffoons and criminals now holding office, it was a huge embarrassment, an unfunny joke, a reminder that politics is Pro Wrestling, only without sexy ring girls.
Joe Biden calls January 6 “The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
Liz Cheney — talk about strange bedfellows, Cheney and Biden — claimed the forces behind January 6 “represent a threat America has never seen before.” Which is certainly easy to say if you’ve never picked up a history book in your life.
The Congressional resolution which established the investigation of January 6 called the mob assault “one of the darkest days of our democracy.”
The Democratic Party elites are calling January 6 the domestic equivalent of the 911 attacks.
Did all of these people get their education watching Saturday morning cartoons?
What are these pathetic snowflakes going to do when some tech-savvy insurrectionist strolls onto the national mall carrying a suitcase nuke and turns DC into a caramelized crater?
For better or worse, the whole thing was pure spectacle — that’s the way Trump and the MAGA crowd see the world — a pathetic attempt at symbolism wrought by morons. The government was in no danger of being overthrown by such a disorganized, ragtag bunch of urban hillbillies. The real danger lay in the weaponization and politicalization of this non-event by the Democratic Party and the intelligence agencies, which had a number of embedded provocateurs, on the scene as the PR stunt devolved to its disastrous denouement.
Granted, I can’t prove this. It’s impossible in an era of fake news and fake justice to prove anything. But if a little logic and common sense are applicable here, it’s axiomatic that our internal intelligence agencies knew exactly what was going to happen, and if they didn’t actively engineer this embarrassment, then they let it unfold knowing they could use it against their current and future enemies — that would be the American people. This is a classic, well-established, and usually effective drill.
Where is this headed? A bill authored by truly one of the most lackluster congressmen in our history, Adam Schiff, will open a second war on terror, this one targeting domestic terrorism. More surveillance, more eavesdropping, more curtailing of free speech and dissent, more false flags, more fear, more anxiety, the final nails in the coffin of what was once for the world the beacon of civil liberties and respect for human rights. Yes, it’s 911 all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
With friends like these, who needs enemies? With people representing us like Adam Schiff, who needs a foreign enemy to destroy our democracy and turn our citizens into slaves?
Put the right label on it: MADE IN AMERICA! The destruction from within of our country, its ideals, its constitution, its promise of government by the people, its self-anointed role in the world as defender of human rights, guardian of human dignity, promoter of democracy.
There’s only one remedy . . .
A clean sweep.
A fresh start.
Maybe these “extreme” ideas are starting to make more sense?
But you ask: “What will happen? Congress has all sorts of protocols and procedural precedents, established rules and guidelines for committee assignment and processing of legislation. What about all that legislative infrastructure?”
Exactly! What about it, folks? How about throwing out the babies AND the bathwater? Is any of it serving “we the people”? Sometimes you have to completely raze a building and start from scratch. YES . . . THAT IS WHAT I’M RECOMMENDING!
It’s either that or a constitutional convention or . . . uh-oh . . . we’re back to what Jefferson and Kennedy said.
Here’s a pop quiz. Do these words ring a bell? If they do, do they resonate?
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
If that’s too arcane and brainy, then tune into something more street hip, if somewhat less precise.
Some of our greatest traditions come out of the Wild West, a rough-and-tumble time that forged America into the greatest country in the world. A formative time that gave Americans that hard no-nonsense edge that is universally respected far and wide.
Moreover, some would say that the cowboy ethic is still alive and well and drives not only our dealings with the pitiable nullities who aren’t fortunate enough to live here in the “land of the free, home of the brave” — you know, foreigners — but is the key to understanding ourselves, what makes us tick.
So here’s a little yarn for you all to enjoy and get educated with. There will be a question at the end — only one — but I know the kind of smart people who would read something like this here at my website. I have no doubt you’ll all get it right. Or set me straight if I’ve got it wrong.
Here goes.
It was late summer 1859. Billy Balalaika had just arrived in town and was sitting at the bar of its only tavern. The place was noisy, packed with a lot of grisly fellows wearing dusty chaps and smelling like they hadn’t had a bath in three months — because they hadn’t.
Billy was the only guy in the place wearing a black hat. Everyone else had a white hat. That was a weird story in itself. Billy had owned a beautiful stetson he had bought in Durango but a strong gust of wind had blown it into a ravine. So the first thing he tried to do when he got to town was buy a new hat.
The store had an excellent selection. All white. He chose one but the lass at the store said, “Sorry. Can’t sell you that.” She reached behind the counter and pulled out a black hat, the one he was wearing right now.
“But I want a white hat.”
“Can’t do it. I’ve been given instructions. We know who you are. It’s this black hat or no hat.”
Billy was baffled. But he needed a hat.
So here he sat, brand new black hat tipped back on his head, sitting at the bar, sipping a beer, chatting it up with the bartender, trying make conversation with the two smelly blokes on either side.
Making a dramatic entrance that commanded everyone’s attention, in walked Sam Unkel, the roughest, toughest, meanest badass west of Topeka.
Sam drew his gun, walked right up to the bar, roughly turned Billy around, and pointed his six-shooter right at Billy’s face.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Are you sure you have the right person? I’m Billy Balalaika.”
“I know who you are and what you’ve done. Everything that’s gone wrong in this town is your fault. Everything that’s wrong with this world is your fault. So you’re going to die. Right now.”
Billy knew he wasn’t kidding. This guy was obviously insane. His reputation had proceeded him. He had killed many others, most of them innocent people. Sam thrived on being the roughest, toughest, meanest badass around. He was a very sick man.
Billy managed to keep his composure.
“Listen. I’m just having a beer. Why don’t you just sit down and enjoy the evening. Look at this place. Full of fine people, just having a little fun after a hard day’s work.”
“Nope. I’m going to kill you. I hate you. And everyone in this town hates you. I’ve told them all how evil you are. In fact, the only reason I ain’t pulled this trigger yet, is I want to see you suffer. I want to see you squirm and cry and beg. When I’ve had enough of your groveling, then I’m going to splatter your f*cking brains all over that mirror behind the bar.”
It was now apparent there was no reasoning with this lunatic.
Billy then did something so amazing, some people these days would call it “playing three-dimensional chess.”
Billy smiled at Sam Unkel, then at full volume in a beautiful operatic baritone broke into the Russian national anthem — IN RUSSIAN!
Sam, of course, had no idea what he was hearing. But it completely gobsmacked him. For the briefest second, his mind wandered as he tried to process what was going on.
In that instant, Billy drew his own weapon, and fired a perfect shot which blew Sam’s hand clean off. The hand, still grasping the Sam Unkel’s weapon, flew across the room and landed in the middle of a table where a poker game was in progress.
Sam, the roughest, toughest, meanest badass around, went running out of the tavern, screaming in pain, blood shooting out of the stump, all over his beautiful white hat. He didn’t die. But he’s still trying to learn to shoot left-handed.
Billy finished his beer. The bartended comped his drinks. Billy tossed his black hat in the trash on the way out the door. He left town in the morning.
That’s my tale of the wild west, folks. Wasn’t that fun?
Okay, here’s the question. Ready?
We know who fired the only bullet. But who started the gunfight?
All of the bleating bloviators, all of the hand-wringing virtue signalers, all of the misguided misinformed peace lovers condemn Russia for its “invasion”. But somehow they don’t ever get around to mentioning the 100,000+ Ukrainian troops in the conflict zone. They don’t mention the huge deployment of lethal arms on the line of contact with the Donbas republics. They don’t mention the increased shelling and killing of innocent citizens by the barbaric Azov Battalion troops. They don’t mention the declared intention of Ukraine to invade and occupy Crimea against the will of the citizens there, who voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia rather than be subjected to persecution by the Russia-hating neo-Nazis in control of the country after the US-orchestrated Maidan uprising and coup. They don’t mention the statement by Zelensky about Ukraine obtaining nuclear weapons — just what the world needs, eh? Another nuclear-armed state controlled by oligarchs, mobsters, and power-drunk sociopaths.
Or after the chaos caused by coronavirus, gain-of-function, the whole pandemic mess, do you think it’s just hunky-dory that the US has hundreds of bio-weapons labs across the globe? If so, I nominate your hometown for building one of these “research” facilities.
I’m going to give Putin the benefit of the doubt on this and wait to see how the military campaign unfolds and is finally resolved. I’ll take him at his word when he says Russia cannot tolerate a hostile military presence, nuclear weapons, NATO-trained hostile troops and armaments, and US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE BIOWEAPONS LABS in a country that borders on Russia. Putting the shoe on the other foot, e.g. similar threats in Canada or Mexico, his request for a binding security agreement seems reasonable and constructive, for everyone involved.
Since Russia mounted their operation, the US/NATO aggressors have since shown their true colors by promising more lethal weaponry to Ukraine to further inflame the conflict and promote a larger war, presumably to exhaust and bankrupt Russia. Which has been their intent and raison d’être all along.
Mind you, I’m categorically opposed to war and unprovoked aggression. But when all the weepy honk-for-world-peace folks out there demand an end to war, maybe they should start with their own belligerent governments and build out from there.
* The original link was blocked, which went to a video discussing the various biolabs in Ukraine and other nearby countries. Several other links which took me to sites, where I saw with my own eyes discussions of this open secret, are also blocked. I noticed now there are scores of fake news alerts about the biolabs claim, a red flag in my view. Apparently, this has been deemed taboo. Here are more links and you can judge for yourself whether the claim has any validity: VIDEO … US Embassy in Ukraine … Algora Blog … South Front.
Our kitties (right to left): Jennifer, Arthur and Sophie.
Every language has its own version of the sound a cat makes when, as we say in English, it meows. Here’s a sampling . . .
Now the plot thickens. Notice the Japanese . . . nyān [にゃーん]. Well, the number ‘2’ in Japanese is ‘ni’ [に]. And someone — who decides these things? — made the conceptual leap to suggest that ‘ni – ni ni – ni ni’, that would be 2-22-22, sounds like a cat doing it’s verbalizing/singing/reciting poetry, whatever cat’s do when they meow.
I’ll confess that I don’t quite buy the logic but who cares. It’s fun!
So TODAY — February 22, 2022 — here in Japan is National Cat Day!
As a bonus to this touching story, here’s a video my expert wife found on YouTube that should put a big smile on your face, especially if you, like Masumi and I, love cats!
40 kg (88 lbs) of aid from Tambasasayama to get through a 10 day lockdown!
Someone in our village tested positive for Covid-19 recently. The person didn’t get that sick and recovered fairly quickly. No one else in the family got ill.
However, the protocol here is that the family has to self-quarantine for ten days to keep from spreading infection. Japanese are very organized and prudent. At the same time, such a sudden lockdown can catch a family short on supplies.
Pictured at the top is what almost immediately arrived on their doorstep. It was a huge box, containing all sorts of food items, health and energy drinks, toilet and tissue paper, menstrual pads, disinfectant hand soap and alcohol, trash bags, tooth paste. I’m sure I’m leaving something out but you get the idea.
This comes as no surprise to me. The community spirit here, the thoughtfulness, sense of concern for others is what I’ve seen over and over. I’ve talked about this before.
It helps restore my faith in others. A better world is possible, if we take the time.
It’s been a cold winter here this year. Maybe not by Michigan or Siberian standards. But for this part of the world, we’ve gotten more than our share of sub-zero temperatures and the white flakes from the heavens.
I’m not complaining. But I can’t help but think about that glorious time of the year when everything comes back to life and I don’t have to ride my bike around town dressed like Matthew Henson, the first man to actually reach the North Pole, contrary to popular myth.
Yes, I do ride my bike come rain or shine, snow or tsunami, every day. What choice do I have? I don’t own a car and buying groceries has become one of the greatest thrills of my life these days. The sense of shared community. The purposefulness. The attainability of stocking up on those things we need for nourishment and culinary delight. I can’t stop war but I can select some fine veggies for one of my legendary salads!
Hmm . . . where was I?
Ah . . . the splendor of spring!
Kasai is a small town about an hour-and-a-half southwest of Tambasasayama. There’s a splendid rose garden there. We go almost every spring. Here are some photos from our visit May 2020. Masumi, her daughter Azusa, Azusa’s Black Labrador, JiJi, and I, arrived during the peak of the rose blossoms.
