This was printed in winter 2004 Tombo Times. Now that Tombo Times is no longer on-line, I've reprinted it here.
I really enjoyed Al Franken’s latest satire on the American political Right “Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them”. In fact it was one of those rare books that was so funny I found myself laughing out loud while reading it (causing me to make repeated apologies to my office).
But when I went on-line, and looked up reviews of this book, I noticed an interesting pattern emerged.
People who agreed with Franken’s politics found him really funny. People who disagreed with his politics would often complain: “and the worst part was that it wasn’t even funny.” Now anyone who has ever sat next to me at a bar, or ridden in a car with me, or been stuck in the elevator with me, or passed me in the hallway, was probably left with little doubt about my politics and my dislike for the American right. But in spite of that, I’m going to do my best to be fair in reviewing this book.
In a chapter entitled, “I Bitch-Slap Bernie Goldberg”, Al Franken satirizes Bernie Goldberg’s book about liberal bias in the American media (a frequent refrain of the American Right). Franken comes up with an interesting analogy: “I’ll admit that, from among the hundreds of thousands of hours of broadcast news over the last three decades, Bernie is able to cobble together a few instances of liberally slanted reporting. But even when Goldberg seems to have a point, it feels just the teensiest bit selective. It’s like accusing a library of having a murder mystery bias after only going to the murder mystery shelf.” The same analogy could well be applied to Franken himself. He ignores any intelligent voices on the American right, and only writes about the idiots, such as Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly. And of these idiots, he only quotes them when they say something stupid. Franken’s targets certainly give him no lack of material to work with, and they undoubtedly deserve the satirizing he gives them. But the reader is left with the impression that the entire American right is represented by the quotes in Franken’s book.
In reality, even Spinsanity, the source for much of Franken’s critiques against Ann Coulter, acknowledges that, “If readers can leave aside all of [Coulter’s fabrications] (admittedly not an easy task), Coulter is actually driving at something important about the state of political debate in the media.” But Coulter isn’t quoted in Franken’s book when she is telling the truth, only when he catches her lying.
But at this point we can come full circle because Franken is not a serious political commentator, but rather a comedian. If you want a serious discussion of the state of the American right wing, you won’t find it here. But if you are looking for a really funny satire of some of the less intelligent rhetoric of the American right, I recommend this book.
And, although I’m sure the right has no monopoly on dishonesty, it is amazing the number of lies Franken catches these guys making. I’ll certainly never listen to any political commentator in the same way again. Even President Bush (or perhaps especially President Bush) is caught telling several lies in Franken’s book.
Although this book is about American politics, the fact that it has become a best seller in Britian indicates that you don’t necessarily have to be an American to enjoy it. Also of interest is Al Franken’s previous book, “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot,” a satire of the infamous right wing radio commentator. Although somewhat dated now, this book is also a good read and available in the Oita Prefectural library.
Video Version
Showing posts with label Tombo Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tombo Times. Show all posts
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Tombo Times: Tezuka Osamu--Astro Boy and Beyond
This was printed in the Tombo Times (magazine for foreigners in Oita Prefecture) in Fall 2003. Now that they've taken down their website, I just reprinted it here.
Tezuka Osamu has been referred to as “The Walt Disney of Japan” and “The Shakespeare of Japanese Comics.” As the disparity between these two titles indicates, his work covers widely varied ground. This, plus the sheer volume of comics he managed to write during his lifetime, makes him a difficult artist to summarize in a short article. But here it goes anyway:
Tezuka’s most recognizable character is Astro Boy. And if you weren’t familiar with Astro Boy before you came to Japan, I’m sure you’ve seen his smiling face everywhere since you’ve arrived. Another of Tezuka’s series, “The Jungle Emperor” is thought to have been the inspiration for Disney’s “The Lion King.”
Despite the popularity of these children’s comics, it would be a mistake to dismiss Tezuka Osamu as simply for children. Much of Tezuka’s work is intended for an older audience.
There is for instance his much darker “Black Jack” series, about a mysterious unlicensed physician who is able to perform amazing surgeries. Although much of “Black Jack” is medical fantasy, Tezuka was able to draw on his own experience in medical school to create the series.
Tezuka also explored many religious themes. He produced a lengthy series (10 volumes in soft cover) on the life of Buddha. One of his earlier series retold the Chinese Buddhist myth about a mischievous monkey and his adventures in heaven. Another work took the most famous stories from the Christian bible, and retold them in comic form.
Tezuka considered his lifework to be the “Firebird” series (“Hi no Tori” in Japanese.) Each volume of the series is seemingly unconnected to the other, the only reoccurring character being the magical phoenix or fire bird. And each volume takes place in a different period of human history, from the ancient past to the distant future. But no matter what time period the story occurs in, human nature appears to be unchanged. Tezuka used this series to focus on the negative aspects of human nature, and the problems of human society. It is largely based on this series that many have compared Tezuka to Shakespeare.
But despite the depressing nature of the Firebird series, Tezuka is known as an artist who celebrated life and peace. During the 1960s, Tezuka wrote about the anti-colonialism struggles in Africa and South East Asia. His work during this period features such stories as Astro-boy defending a Vietnamese village from American bombers, and Black Jack facing a moral dilemma when asked to save the life of an American general who had massacred a Vietnamese village. Numerous other stories deal with the anti-war movement in both Japan and the United States.
Tezuka also wrote about Japan during World War II and the following American occupation. Many of these stories are semi-autobiographical, and are among his most moving works. Tezuka, who was a teenager during World War II and lived through many of the bombing raids, wrote about his friends who were killed or disfigured by American bombs.
But Tezuka’s most famous work on World War II is “Adolf”. It is historical fiction about 3 men named Adolf, one the infamous Adolf Hitler, the other two childhood friends, one half German, half Japanese, the other Jewish.
Although themes dealing with Nazi Germany have been fully explored by other writers, Tezuka offers a unique perspective. Much of the story takes place in Japan, where the German Adolf experiences racism against him by the Japanese, many of whom suspect him of being an American spy. (“Ignorant Japanese,” he says at one point, “don’t they know the difference between their allies and their enemies.”) At the same time, even in Japan he is unable to give up his hatred of Jews. And he does his best to forget that he is half Japanese, and not fully Aryan himself. The story forces the reader to think hard about the nature of racism.
Where to find Tezuka Osamu’s work: It’s all over the place actually. If you are an ALT, chances are your school library will at least have the “Firebird” series. Otherwise the town library certainly will have something by Tezuka Osamu. Although Tezuka died in 1987, his work is still being reprinted and sold in local convenience stores all over Japan. Used book stores are a great way to get his work very cheaply. And the older prints sometimes include a short summary of the story in English, which is useful for those of us still struggling with Japanese.
Tezuka Osamu has been referred to as “The Walt Disney of Japan” and “The Shakespeare of Japanese Comics.” As the disparity between these two titles indicates, his work covers widely varied ground. This, plus the sheer volume of comics he managed to write during his lifetime, makes him a difficult artist to summarize in a short article. But here it goes anyway:
Tezuka’s most recognizable character is Astro Boy. And if you weren’t familiar with Astro Boy before you came to Japan, I’m sure you’ve seen his smiling face everywhere since you’ve arrived. Another of Tezuka’s series, “The Jungle Emperor” is thought to have been the inspiration for Disney’s “The Lion King.”
Despite the popularity of these children’s comics, it would be a mistake to dismiss Tezuka Osamu as simply for children. Much of Tezuka’s work is intended for an older audience.
There is for instance his much darker “Black Jack” series, about a mysterious unlicensed physician who is able to perform amazing surgeries. Although much of “Black Jack” is medical fantasy, Tezuka was able to draw on his own experience in medical school to create the series.
Tezuka also explored many religious themes. He produced a lengthy series (10 volumes in soft cover) on the life of Buddha. One of his earlier series retold the Chinese Buddhist myth about a mischievous monkey and his adventures in heaven. Another work took the most famous stories from the Christian bible, and retold them in comic form.
Tezuka considered his lifework to be the “Firebird” series (“Hi no Tori” in Japanese.) Each volume of the series is seemingly unconnected to the other, the only reoccurring character being the magical phoenix or fire bird. And each volume takes place in a different period of human history, from the ancient past to the distant future. But no matter what time period the story occurs in, human nature appears to be unchanged. Tezuka used this series to focus on the negative aspects of human nature, and the problems of human society. It is largely based on this series that many have compared Tezuka to Shakespeare.
But despite the depressing nature of the Firebird series, Tezuka is known as an artist who celebrated life and peace. During the 1960s, Tezuka wrote about the anti-colonialism struggles in Africa and South East Asia. His work during this period features such stories as Astro-boy defending a Vietnamese village from American bombers, and Black Jack facing a moral dilemma when asked to save the life of an American general who had massacred a Vietnamese village. Numerous other stories deal with the anti-war movement in both Japan and the United States.
Tezuka also wrote about Japan during World War II and the following American occupation. Many of these stories are semi-autobiographical, and are among his most moving works. Tezuka, who was a teenager during World War II and lived through many of the bombing raids, wrote about his friends who were killed or disfigured by American bombs.
But Tezuka’s most famous work on World War II is “Adolf”. It is historical fiction about 3 men named Adolf, one the infamous Adolf Hitler, the other two childhood friends, one half German, half Japanese, the other Jewish.
Although themes dealing with Nazi Germany have been fully explored by other writers, Tezuka offers a unique perspective. Much of the story takes place in Japan, where the German Adolf experiences racism against him by the Japanese, many of whom suspect him of being an American spy. (“Ignorant Japanese,” he says at one point, “don’t they know the difference between their allies and their enemies.”) At the same time, even in Japan he is unable to give up his hatred of Jews. And he does his best to forget that he is half Japanese, and not fully Aryan himself. The story forces the reader to think hard about the nature of racism.
Where to find Tezuka Osamu’s work: It’s all over the place actually. If you are an ALT, chances are your school library will at least have the “Firebird” series. Otherwise the town library certainly will have something by Tezuka Osamu. Although Tezuka died in 1987, his work is still being reprinted and sold in local convenience stores all over Japan. Used book stores are a great way to get his work very cheaply. And the older prints sometimes include a short summary of the story in English, which is useful for those of us still struggling with Japanese.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Tombo Times: Kimigayo Blues
This was printed in Tombo Times in Spring of 2004. Since they took their archives down, I'm reprinting it here.
Graduation ceremony in Japan can be a bit of an odd affair. For me, the most interesting part was the “singing” of the national anthem. I have the word singing in quotes, because at the ceremony I attended, the number of people in the room actually singing could be counted on one hand.
I’m guessing the experience was the same for most of you. Maybe some of you even thought to yourself, “What is this strange song no one is singing, and why haven’t I heard it before?” In America, the national anthem is sung loudly, and sung often. In Japan, after a year of living here, perhaps graduation was the first time you even heard the anthem.
The reason is that just like our home countries, Japan has internal culture wars of its own. And the national anthem is in the middle of these wars.
The Japanese National Anthem, or Kimigayo, was made official in 1988. The words were taken from a tenth century poem. Although there is no official English translation, one interpretation reads like this:
Ten Thousand years of happy reign be thine
Rule on, my lord, till what are pebbles now
By ages united to mighty rocks shall grow
Whose venerable sides the moss doth line.
Although there is a theory that this poem was originally meant to be a love song, most people interpret the words as referring to the Emperor. For this reason, and because the national anthem is associated with Japan’s militaristic past, many socially conscious Japanese people refuse to sing Kimigayo.
In post war Japan, Kimigayo was not legally recognized as a national symbol, but continued to be in use unofficially. The ambivalent status caused years of debate between the Left, which wanted to do away with Kimigayo completely, and the Right, which wanted Kimigayo restored to its former status. The Japanese schools became the battleground as the leftist dominated teachers union refused to sing Kimigayo, and the rightists in government frequently tried to force it into the schools.
In 1999, Toshihiro Ishikawa, high school principle in Hiroshima, committed suicide because he could not successfully mediate between the board of education, which demanded that Kimigayo be sung at graduation, and the teachers, who refused to sing it. The right wing used this opportunity to push through a bill recognizing Kimigayo as the official national anthem of Japan. Despite student protests outside, and one protester who had to be forcibly removed from the Diet gallery, the bill was passed. (The Japanese flag, also controversial, was made an official symbol at the same time).
But the law did not end the controversy, as many teachers still refused to sing Kimigayo. And resistance has not been limited to the teachers. In 2002, graduating seniors at Minami high school in Sapporo attempted to stop the singing of Kimigayo at graduation by filing pleas with a human rights attorney. The students argued that the forced singing of Kimigayo violated their freedom of thought under the Children’s Rights Act. On graduation day, Kimigayo was played anyway. Only 6 students stood up to sing. More initially stood up, then sat back down again when they realized how many of their classmates remained seated. Some students later commented that the graduation ceremony was ruined because the student body was feeling divided instead of united.
This year the controversy was renewed when the Tokyo metropolitan board of education issued an order requiring all teachers to stand and send Kimigayo. The Tokyo board of education sent officials to school ceremonies to ensure that the law was being followed.
Many students begged popular teachers to give in and sing Kimigayo to avoid being fired. But despite the students’ efforts, 200 teachers were disciplined for failing to sing the song. Of those disciplined, teachers on annual contracts were not rehired for the next year.
The debate spilled into the larger Japanese society. The conservative newspaper, “Yomiyuri Shimbun” demanded that the teachers correct their thoughtless behavior. The more liberal “Asahi Shimbun” defended the right not to sing.
The issue is far from over, and as of the writing of this article, it is still making news as officials in Tokyo are watching the entrance ceremonies very closely. The Japanese right will probably never give up Kimigayo, so this is controversy that is likely to stay in Japan for a long time. It is a battle that will be played out in high school and junior high school graduations for years to come.
Graduation ceremony in Japan can be a bit of an odd affair. For me, the most interesting part was the “singing” of the national anthem. I have the word singing in quotes, because at the ceremony I attended, the number of people in the room actually singing could be counted on one hand.
I’m guessing the experience was the same for most of you. Maybe some of you even thought to yourself, “What is this strange song no one is singing, and why haven’t I heard it before?” In America, the national anthem is sung loudly, and sung often. In Japan, after a year of living here, perhaps graduation was the first time you even heard the anthem.
The reason is that just like our home countries, Japan has internal culture wars of its own. And the national anthem is in the middle of these wars.
The Japanese National Anthem, or Kimigayo, was made official in 1988. The words were taken from a tenth century poem. Although there is no official English translation, one interpretation reads like this:
Ten Thousand years of happy reign be thine
Rule on, my lord, till what are pebbles now
By ages united to mighty rocks shall grow
Whose venerable sides the moss doth line.
Although there is a theory that this poem was originally meant to be a love song, most people interpret the words as referring to the Emperor. For this reason, and because the national anthem is associated with Japan’s militaristic past, many socially conscious Japanese people refuse to sing Kimigayo.
In post war Japan, Kimigayo was not legally recognized as a national symbol, but continued to be in use unofficially. The ambivalent status caused years of debate between the Left, which wanted to do away with Kimigayo completely, and the Right, which wanted Kimigayo restored to its former status. The Japanese schools became the battleground as the leftist dominated teachers union refused to sing Kimigayo, and the rightists in government frequently tried to force it into the schools.
In 1999, Toshihiro Ishikawa, high school principle in Hiroshima, committed suicide because he could not successfully mediate between the board of education, which demanded that Kimigayo be sung at graduation, and the teachers, who refused to sing it. The right wing used this opportunity to push through a bill recognizing Kimigayo as the official national anthem of Japan. Despite student protests outside, and one protester who had to be forcibly removed from the Diet gallery, the bill was passed. (The Japanese flag, also controversial, was made an official symbol at the same time).
But the law did not end the controversy, as many teachers still refused to sing Kimigayo. And resistance has not been limited to the teachers. In 2002, graduating seniors at Minami high school in Sapporo attempted to stop the singing of Kimigayo at graduation by filing pleas with a human rights attorney. The students argued that the forced singing of Kimigayo violated their freedom of thought under the Children’s Rights Act. On graduation day, Kimigayo was played anyway. Only 6 students stood up to sing. More initially stood up, then sat back down again when they realized how many of their classmates remained seated. Some students later commented that the graduation ceremony was ruined because the student body was feeling divided instead of united.
This year the controversy was renewed when the Tokyo metropolitan board of education issued an order requiring all teachers to stand and send Kimigayo. The Tokyo board of education sent officials to school ceremonies to ensure that the law was being followed.
Many students begged popular teachers to give in and sing Kimigayo to avoid being fired. But despite the students’ efforts, 200 teachers were disciplined for failing to sing the song. Of those disciplined, teachers on annual contracts were not rehired for the next year.
The debate spilled into the larger Japanese society. The conservative newspaper, “Yomiyuri Shimbun” demanded that the teachers correct their thoughtless behavior. The more liberal “Asahi Shimbun” defended the right not to sing.
The issue is far from over, and as of the writing of this article, it is still making news as officials in Tokyo are watching the entrance ceremonies very closely. The Japanese right will probably never give up Kimigayo, so this is controversy that is likely to stay in Japan for a long time. It is a battle that will be played out in high school and junior high school graduations for years to come.
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