A Thought for the Day

[Ben Trovado]

God gave you 1 mouth and 2 ears.

He also gave you 2 kidneys.

[Pyrrho]

“Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.”

― Mark Twain

[Pyrrho]

https://i.imgur.com/pkwZgWN.jpg

[Pyrrho]

https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-futu ... -expensive

This is how NFTs make me feel: like the future is useless but expensive, and world-altering technology is now in the hands of a culture so aesthetically and spiritually impoverished that it should maybe go back to telling stories around the cooking fire for a while, just to remember how to mean something.

[Hotarubi]

Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness; that person will be our jailor. When we forgive, we take back control of our own fate and our feelings. ... We forgive for ourselves.

~ Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

[Doctor X]

No Desmond, that just rewards evil.

Just ask Werner and Ishi.

– J.D.

[Doctor X]

Reporter Babe: Wow. You give a really good guilt trip!

Pres. Avarasala: I practice a lot at home.

– The Expanse

– J.D.

[Hotarubi]

No Desmond, that just rewards evil.

Just ask Werner and Ishi.

– J.D.

More to do with the truth and reconciliation commission after Apartheid than a generic statement. Remembering that Evil was the majority of colonial RSA and that the benchmark for "punishing evil" was Zimbabwe, it was the saner choice.

[Doctor X]

Ah.

– J.D.

[Doctor X]

I sent out words like soldiers to battle and they never returned.

– Horace Rumpole, Rumpole à la Carte (Sir John Mortimer, C.B.E., Q.C., F.R.S.L.)

– J.D.

[robinson]

https://twitter.com/chrismartenson/stat ... 35969?s=21

[Doctor X]

Sarah Thomas became the first woman to officiate at a Super Bowl. At one point, she threw a penalty flag but refused to tell the players what they did wrong.

– Jed Babbin, "2021: From ‘MAGA’ to ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ in Twelve Miserable Months: Joe Brandon had an exceptional year, the first of many to come," The American Spectator

– J. "I Have No Shame!" D.

[Pyrrho]

https://twitter.com/McDowellMalc/status ... 4091792386

[robinson]

Same to you!

[Pyrrho]

“YOU COME RIGHT OVER HERE AND EXPLAIN WHY THEY ARE HAVING ANOTHER YEAR”
Dorothy Parker | Telegram to Robert Benchley, 31 Dec 1929

[Pyrrho]

https://twitter.com/GenizaLab/status/14 ... 0490816512

Princeton Geniza Lab
@GenizaLab
Next time you're the designated note taker for a Zoom meeting, a handy phrase from an 11th-century Jewish court clerk in Old Cairo:

"Then they said a lot of things that would take too long to explain" (وجرت بينهم خطوب يطول شرحها)

timoreilly
@timoreilly

Replying to @GenizaLab and @Ada_Palmer
Jimmy Carter told a story about a talk in Japan after the end of his presidency. He opened with a joke, which got a great reaction. But when he asked why the translation had been so short, the translator replied "I said 'President Carter told a funny story. Everybody laugh.'"

[robinson]

Superb

[Doctor X]

https://i.imgur.com/ny14mBB.png

– J.D.

[Doctor X]

But for us people born between 1932 and 1935, pretty much the only thing they were teaching us was dying for His Majesty. “100 million shattered jewels” and all the rest of it. They made us train with bamboo spears every day — there was a commissioned officer at our elementary school who said it was in preparation for us one day having to fight American troops “if push came to shove.” Thinking back on it now, one might ask what the point of us doing any of that was — they’d already dropped the atomic bombs on us.

– Tatsuya "Still Alive! Mother Fuckers!" Nakadai, Nakadai Tatsuya on the Golden Age of Japanese Film

– J.D.

[Pyrrho]

Well, at the time, there weren't any more atom bombs...

[Ben Trovado]

Well, at the time, there weren't any more atom bombs...

I always have to remind people when they discuss the morality of using the bomb . . .

"You know they had to drop a second one, right? And even then it was a close vote."

[Doctor X]

The Japan Teachers’ Union was taking a strong stance at the time… They were all communists so they’d always talk about how there should be zero disparity between people. “That’s what communism is all about,” they said. But even as they were saying that, they would send me out every day to buy them snacks for lunch. While I myself had absolutely nothing to eat, I would go out to buy them croquettes, hand them out to all the teachers, and when I did so, not a single one of them would offer me one. “To hell with communism,” I thought.

– Tatsuya "Hey! Fuckers! Look at Who's Still Alive!" Nakadai

From the above linkypoo. There is also this gem:

We believed everything we were told, and so we all thought of them as “Western savages.” But then in the space of just one day, 15 August 1945, the adults all suddenly became pro-American. In my young boy’s mind, I found myself deeply thinking about people — that is, the same people who had just been constantly talking about dying for the Emperor. I became very distrustful of others.

– J.D.

[shuize]

Well, at the time, there weren't any more atom bombs...

I always have to remind people when they discuss the morality of using the bomb . . .

"You know they had to drop a second one, right? And even then it was a close vote."

I think I'm going to start asking those people, "Of course you know how many Chinese civilians were dying every month the war continued, right?"

[Pyrrho]

https://i.imgur.com/1McSwNv.jpg

[Hotarubi]

Well, at the time, there weren't any more atom bombs...

I always have to remind people when they discuss the morality of using the bomb . . .

"You know they had to drop a second one, right? And even then it was a close vote."

I think I'm going to start asking those people, "Of course you know how many Chinese civilians were dying every month the war continued, right?"

No idea where you got that one from...

viewtopic.php?p=1023111&hilit=Chinese+c ... s#p1023111








:mrgreen:

Throw in the 150,000 korean women being raped on a daily basis as well. I'll let you use that one too coz I'm generous like that.

[shuize]

Well, at the time, there weren't any more atom bombs...

I always have to remind people when they discuss the morality of using the bomb . . .

"You know they had to drop a second one, right? And even then it was a close vote."

I think I'm going to start asking those people, "Of course you know how many Chinese civilians were dying every month the war continued, right?"

No idea where you got that one from...

viewtopic.php?p=1023111&hilit=Chinese+c ... s#p1023111


:mrgreen:

Throw in the 150,000 korean women being raped on a daily basis as well. I'll let you use that one too coz I'm generous like that.

Fairly sure I saw it a YouTube video.

Maybe one of Richard Frank's lectures.

I rarely read anything you write. (Ha! Ha!)

[Hotarubi]

I read all of your stuff too.

[Ben Trovado]

Throw in the 150,000 korean women being raped on a daily basis as well. I'll let you use that one too coz I'm generous like that.

150,000 a day . . . .

Imagine the actual beheading numbers if the officer corps hadn't been distracted.

[Doctor X]

Maybe one of Richard Frank's lectures.

I believe someone humble, yet magNIfIcent, posted his sort of debate. He very gently but definitively handles a famous Hiroshima survivor in the audience as he details how many civilians were dying at the hands of the Japanese every month. Add in all of the ones starving, then add in the Japanese civilians dying from the same, and one really can no longer appeal to the numbers.

Arguments against their use was early "virtue signaling."

That written, I think something like, "could they not have demonstrated it first," debate is worth entertaining, but I also think it has been settled. Even when the Japanese knew there were two actual nuculer [Stop it! – Ed.] weapons dropped, some complained, "well, they cannot have that many more." Hirohito, himself, confessed to Konoe, I believe, when asked if he would oppose a surrender that meant the loss of his throne: "勿論!"

– J.D.

[Doctor X]

This is a really good book:

I didn’t have any money to buy wigs for Haiyuza [Acting school – Ed.], so if I was playing a foreigner I would put peroxide in my hair to bleach it. Nowadays you’ll see people with blond hair all the time, but back then it was so embarrassing you couldn’t even walk outside with hair like that. But I had no choice, so I would go into the studio to do my radio drama job [Playing background voices. – Ed.] with bleached hair. Tsukioka [Yumeji– Ed.] just happened to see me like that and she found it funny. I had failed a film audition nine times, and yet I had now been noticed by Tsukioka herself — the famous actress! . . .

I played this juvenile delinquent type — a new face in the film industry with a great ambition to find some roles quick. He was making eyes at the lead actress, gradually approaching her. On the very first day of filming we shot a love scene on the beach at Chigasaki. I was shaking — it was my first movie, it was such an important role, and I was filming a love scene with a superstar actress! Seeing my nervousness Tsukioka slapped me on the backside, telling me to “be a man.”

– Tatsuya Nakadai

– J.D.

[Ben Trovado]

Maybe one of Richard Frank's lectures.

I believe someone humble, yet magNIfIcent, posted his sort of debate. He very gently but definitively handles a famous Hiroshima survivor in the audience as he details how many civilians were dying at the hands of the Japanese every month. Add in all of the ones starving, then add in the Japanese civilians dying from the same, and one really can no longer appeal to the numbers.

Arguments against their use was early "virtue signaling."

The arguments in olden times were often from posters based in Europe. And in addition to the above, also failed to factor in the number of American and Japanese casualties for an invasion - including the civilians being trained to repel the western beast-men with bamboo spears.

[Doctor X]

In the docudrama I and sparks mentioned, there is a quick scene as part of a montage where Japanese soliders/civilians are running about in white sheets. The Japanese Original voice-over is some officer encouraging them that the white will protect them from the atomic blast and, in fact, he heard that "many people" who wore white in Hiroshima and Nagasaki "survived!"

Therefore, he continues enthusiastically, "accept this gracious gift from your Emperor," "advance without fear," and work to "destroy one tank each!"

– J.D.

P.S. Whereas he should have been distributing refrigerators, but, what with the US air campaign, they were in short supply.

[Hotarubi]

The arguments in olden times were often from posters based in Europe.

Most of these arguments were driven by a dislike of the United States* rather than any research of facts. Still are.

[Ben Trovado]

The arguments in olden times were often from posters based in Europe.

Most of these arguments were driven by a dislike of the United States* rather than any research of facts. Still are.

Yep. It always had that feel.

[robinson]

In a book written long after, it was revealed the reason the Japs surrendered was the realized the Emperor could be killed by one of the new bombs


The Allies however did not want to kill him

[Doctor X]

Before we began filming, I invited Kinnosuke out for drinks in Gion and asked him, “Just how does one do a sword fight scene?”

So he said, “Oh, that? You just cut down the people who come at you.”

– Tatsuya Nakadai

– J.D.

[Doctor X]

But then there is

The war ended in 1945 when I was in the first grade of junior high school. Accordingly, when I was a child, it felt like running from air-raids was an everyday occurrence for me. One time, I was running away with this relative girl of mine, holding hands. Just when I thought we’d finally gotten away, I looked behind only to see that I was now holding only the girl’s severed arm.

– Tatsuya Nakadai

– J.D.

[sparks]

Fuck.

[Pyrrho]

Link: https://twitter.com/JordynMartinez_/status/1478524498177523714?t=4Ad0_1EL7GCa5KqM3BhQUg&s=19

[Doctor X]

“Nakadai-chan” — that’s how Kinoshita called me. “Come here for a second.” He went, “This actress — she’s revolting, isn’t she?” Now, just so you know, she was actually Kinoshita’s favorite actress! And yet, he was telling me to hit her with all my strength. “Hit her with everything you’ve got. I mean, she’s just revolting!” I asked him to make sure. “You seriously want me to hit her? As hard as I can?”

And so we did the scene, I gave her a good smack, and it was a cut. So then Takamine [Hideko – Ed.], she says to me, “That hurts. You can’t act to save your life, but at least you hit like a man.”

– Tatsuya Nakadai

– J.D.