YOU'RE NO DOUBT AWARE OF THE REMARKS MADE BY DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL WANNABE BARAK OBAMA RECENTLY about rural, small-town and otherwise working-class "home folks" types having lost touch with both political parties for want of concrete issues they could rally around, instead driving such salt-of-the-earth types towards distractionary non-issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion and school prayer vis-a-vis elections.

Methinks the following (thanks to Think Progress for the hat tip) seems to be one of those "distractionary issues" proving more attractive to the Podunk Center and Doo Wah Diddy kind of voter, thus raising Obama's rightly-deserved concerns (emphasis supplied):

Recently, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) came under intense criticism for making a host of incendiary remarks toward gays. For example, she said gays are a "bigger threat" to our nation than terrorism. She also warned, "Gays are infiltrating city councils." As an example, she cited the town of Eureka Springs, AR, whose city council she claimed is now "controlled by gays."

The American Family Association (AFA) has joined in promoting this myth of the evil gay agenda in a new video called "They're Coming To Your Town." The poster advertising the DVD appears to have menacing rainbow-like lights in background. PageOneQ summarizes the trailer for the video:

The presentation in the AFA trailer…"They're Coming to Your Town," tells the tale of an uncharacteristically diverse resort town's government infiltrated by "a handful of homosexual activists" and bent to their will through the enactment of the town's domestic partner registry on June 22, 2007.

"Watch, and learn," says the trailer, "how to fight a well-organized gay agenda to take over the cities of America, one city at a time."

Watch the trailer here.

Eureka Springs is not pleased with people such as Kern, who claim that they have the city's best interests at heart. Responding to Kern, Eureka Springs's mayor said the city is "welcoming to all visitors and residents without regard to their race, color, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability or national origin. It is our hope that all people would aspire to this ideal."

This is not the first time AFA has launched a homophobic campaign. In 2005, AFA president Tim Wildmon backed a warning about "evidence of homosexuality and lesbian people on programs like HGTV and Animal Planet." AFA founder and chairman Don Wildmon also proposed a hypothetical trip to "the homosexual bathhouses," saying, "[W]e're going to confront these people…for what they're doing."

(Hoping, no doubt, to give the signal for the hand-picked droogs and malachicks in the tour group to, after Shakespeare, "cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war" in an orgy of Extreme Homophobic Ultraviolence which Rev. Wildmon could quickly excuse as being for G-d, Country and Family, if and when pressed to explain his involvement.

(The which could later be released on video scored musically, no doubt, to Link Wray's infamous 1958 insturmental hit "Rumble.")

In any case, such must make you wonder if homosexuals really pose a Clear and Present Danger to what Bill "No-Spin Zone" O'Reilly calls "the White Male Christian Power Structure," and the prepetuation thereof, same likely to be excused by overzealous interpretation of these remarks from Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) which upheld slavery by contending where blacks in general and slaves in particular

are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.

Which, in turn, such specimens of Zealotry and True Belief would like to see extended to Jews, Muslims, Asiatics, Catholics, "mental defectives," "chronic and habitual welfare queens"--and, of course, homosexuals.

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A BIT OF IRONY HERE OBSERVED BY YOUR CORRESPONDENT:

Then-Chief Justice John Taney, who wrote the opinion in Dred Scott, is namesake of Taney County, Missouri, where Branson--the cultural conservatives' preferred centre of Amerikanischer Realkultur in its "pure" and, hence, idealised form--is situated.

Taney County also happens to be the ultimate derivation of Lake Taneycomo, byproduct of Ozark Beach Dam near Branson, constructed in 1911-13 by the Empire District Electric Company to provide cheap hydro power to southwest Missouri (and still does, with generating capacity of 16 megawatts)--the first of the Branson Tri-Lakes to be created (Table Rock and Bull Shoals being the other two).

(Incidentally, Branson is not the Taney County seat; that honour belongs to Forsyth, about eight mile northeast.)

As for Eureka Springs, their Great Passion Play--byproduct of the mind of Gerald L.K. Smith, himself a notorious bigot in his own right with as wide a following among Those Who Should Know Better as Father Charles Coughlin--is a popular part of the cheap bus tours to Branson as are especially popular among the Fox Prolefeed crowd and others with hard-wired delusions of Kulturkrieg seeing in Branson's music shows the Acme and Perfection of an idealised Amerikanischer Realkultur.

One, methinks, having overtones of the folk-culture festivals which the Kraft durch Frude movement back in Nazi Germany sponsored wholesale for "patriotic" purposes.

Can you feel the irony inherent?    

AS THE WEEKEND APPROACHETH HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI REGION, it's getting to be cool and @ once rainy.

And it's been rather rainy since last evening, enough to prompt moi to leave the bike @ my flat this morning and walk to the motel with umbrella as well.

For now, the rain has let up ... but the weatherperson hath it that more could be likely in the afterlunch, continuing into early tomorrow morning.

Nonetheless, we must be feeling a little tired of all this rain, and could use a few decent days of mild, sunny weather for once to allow all this rainfall to properly percolate into the topsoil. And otherwise dry things out enough so the farmers and planters can get spring field work out of the way for once.

It ain't pretty having to get the plowing done in a wet, muddy field, only to realise the tractor is suddenly caught in mud.

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IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES ZIMBABWEAN MAJORDOMO ROBERT MUGABE SOUND LIKE MICHAEL "LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER" SAVAGE in terms of tone, nuance and volume levels vis-a-vis their xenophobically paranoid screeds?

In the case of Robert Mugabe, whose own political future could be hanging all the more in the balance, the BBC has graciously made available for your listening pleasure[?!] his Independence Day speech, as recorded earlier today, replete with all manner of dire threats and attacks against what Mugabe called "thieves who want to steal our country" from both within and without.

As the BBC elaborates:

Thousands of people gathered at the Gwanzura Stadium in Highfield, a suburb of Harare, to hear Mr Mugabe speak at a rally celebrating the anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from Britain and the end of white minority rule.

The 84-year-old played a key role in the 1970s war of independence and took power as Zimbabwe's first prime minister in 1980 on a wave of popular support.

Many of those in the crowd wore T-shirts decorated with Mr Mugabe's portrait or held banners showing their support for his government's policies.

"Defending our land from imperialists," said one poster, while another claimed "Zimbabwe has no place for sell-outs."

Mr Mugabe took to the stage to rapturous applause to celebrate what he described as the day on which the "nation finally shook off the chains of British racist settler colonialism".

"Our political history is well known, yet with time, we feel more challenged to recall it, especially for those who appear ignorant of it or are deliberately engaged in reversing the gains of our liberation struggle," he said.

Mr Mugabe brushed aside criticism by the British government of Zimbabwe's human rights record and political system, saying democracy had only been established there after independence.

"We, not the British, established democracy based on one person, one vote - democracy which rejected racial or gender discrimination and upheld human rights and religious freedom," he said.

The president called on Zimbabweans "to maintain utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations and the machinations of our other detractors, who are allies of Britain".

"Whereas yesterday they relied on brute force to subjugate our people and plunder our resources, today they have perfected their tactics to more subtle forms," he warned.

Mr Mugabe also said the government was attempting to deal with the hardships facing Zimbabweans, such as the shortage of food and high unemployment, which have been compounded by hyper-inflation.

'Saddest day'

On Thursday, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa accused Mr Tsvangirai of treason and working with the UK to bring about "regime change".

The state-controlled Herald newspaper paper said the details were contained in a "memorandum of understanding" between the MDC leader and "various right-wing groups" in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The UK embassy in Harare said the correspondence was "a forgery". Mr Tsvangirai also rejected the treason allegations, describing Mr Chinamasa as an "injustice minister" because he had lost his seat in parliament.

At a news conference in Johannesburg, Mr Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe was facing "the saddest independence day since our liberation from colonial rule" and that people were literally starving.

Later, Mr Tsvangirai told the BBC of the near-agreement between the MDC and Zanu-PF that would have removed President Mugabe.

"We were prepared to consider the issue of an inclusive government including some members of Zanu-PF," he said.

"In fact they were suggesting how many and they were talking about a panel from which we were going to choose."

The government talks failed when it became clear there were "others in the establishment who did not want to accept that", he said.

=============

MAKING THE SITUATION EVEN MORE GALLING--which, perhaps, translates into another reason why you should boycott Wally World, considering where much of the cheapjack sold there is of Chinese manufacture--is the news that South African dock workers in Durban are refusing to offload a cargo of 3 million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds destined for Zimbabwe from the China-flagged An Yue Jiang, @ anchor off Durban.

Which begs the question of what kind of contacts Zimbabwe has in the world--contacts which can actually be weird, unwholesome and/or dangerous.

Now picture what America would face if reduced to similar circumstances Zimbabwe is going through approaching Indecision 2008.

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WHICH IS ENOUGH TO BRING UP @ THIS TIME A CALL IN CERTAIN SECULAR-PROGRESSIVE CIRCLES for a one-day General Strike across the United States coincident with the anniversary of the Unfortunate Events of 9/11, the better to demand that Indecision 2008 be fair, honest, impartial and transparent--especially in the wake of ongoing GOP treachery and scheming to pervert not just the electoral process, but also democracy and liberty.

News which Fox Prolefeed especially--and their droogs and malachiks in the conservative propaganda masheen--is not going to take lightly, come to think of it, perhaps dropping hints that such a strike call would amount to "industrial sabotage" and "dishonouring the memory" of the nearly 3,000 "martyrs" of what may really be nothing less than a carefully-scripted "false flag" campaign to excuse ur-RAHOWA in Iraq and Afghanistan, never mind the cost and compromised national honour and prestige.

*************

IF YOU ALREADY USE PAYPAL, YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER UPGRADING YOUR WEB BROWSER @ YOUR EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY more than anything:

In its ongoing efforts to fight "phishing" and "spoofing" scams invoking PayPal's good name and repute by elements weird and/or unwholesome, PayPal will start blocking access to the online-payments site from those using "unsafe browsers," in particular older versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox (users of Firefox 2.0 need an add-on to support Extended Validation SSL Certificates such as PayPal uses to protect user trust and confidence) and those using the Apple Safari browser for PC and Macintosh systems.

So if you have Internet Explorer versions 3.0 and 4.0 in particular on your PC, please upgrade to newer versions ASAP for your online safety where sensitive financial information is involved.

*************

HAS CHRIS "HARDBALL" MATTHEWS STARTED ADDING ANTI-SEMITISM TO HIS HATEMONGERING REPRETOIRE, in addition to his well-established pattern of misogynistic chauvinism in service to "winning of hearts and minds"?

Media Matters for America thinks so--just see for yourself:

So where's the outrage now?

FROM BRAVE NEW FILMS, THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU OUTFOXED AND OTHER SPECIMENS OF SECULAR-PROGRESSIVE DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING, comes the following montage of recent Fox Prolefeed coverage from Iraq presenting the Iraqi situation in a supposedly positive and glowing light:

Which, no doubt, is enough to raise some serious questions:

• Is Fox Prolefeed deliberately faking or otherwise staging certain stories dealing with Iraq to present a misleading or otherwise suspiciously-glowing "spin" on the Iraqi situation when facts suggest otherwise?
• How much is Fox Prolefeed spending on such faked or staged Iraqi coverage?
• Is Fox Prolefeed issuing "guidance" to Coalition of the Coerced forces on how such "stories" should be set up and presented, the approach to be used when it comes to ur-"casting calls" for same, the locations for filming these "positive and glowing stories***the liberal media doesn't want reported," usw.?
• Is word-of-mouth (as in carefully-scripted "whispering campaigns") the preferred medium of choice to announce these ur-"casting calls" for these "stories" being filmed?
• Are film crews, both working for Fox Prolefeed directly and those working freelance (or otherwise commissioned by Fox Prolefeed), receiving special military protection during these "news story" shooting schedules?
• Are said troops under orders not to disclose the true nature of these operations for and on behalf of Fox Prolefeed under pain of "serious consequences"?
• Are the troops in question receiving combat pay, or are they also receiving bonuses from Fox Prolefeed (the involvement thereof being kept quiet all along)?
• Are the "actors" appearing in these "stories" being paid in cash, and if this be the case, are payments made in Iraqi dinars, Euros or US dollars? How much is the average pay for such "actors" appearing in these staged "stories"?
• What exactly is the role of Keith Rupert Murdoch vis-a-vis the staging of "positive" Iraqi news stories? Is he directly responsible for ordering such "spin," knowing all along that such is nothing less than false, misleading or otherwise deceptive? And what is the patsy he's expected to use if and when pushed to explain?

Please don't hesitate to share this with your friends who value Truth.

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AND COME TO THINK OF IT, Your Correspondent would love to see a compilation video of some of the "best" of Fox Prolefeed's "good news from Iraq" items choreographed to "It's Good News Week!" by Hedgehoppers Anonymous, vintage 1965.

Even if Your Correspondent still doesn't quite get the idea of "wrapping brains in metal trays/To keep us from the heat," whatever that means....

TAKING ATONEMENT TO A NEW AND EXCITING LOW, AND THEN SOME, courtesy of the Mainichi Daily News from Tokyo and their "WaiWai" feature of interesting items from the "gutter press" out Japan way (credibility not guaranteed under any circumstance):

The working day for those in the publishing industry begins at 1:00 p.m.--about four hours later than the average salaried office worker. Even at this post-noon hour, reports Nishinakajima Juso--a nom de plume created by amalgamating the names of two commuter rail stations in northeast Osaka--many desks in the publisher's office were still vacant.

Probably, Juso assumed, they were still sleeping off their hangovers--or sex-overs--from the previous night's "work," as they prowled urban red-light districts in search of new information on the sex trade with which to titillate their readers.

Anticipating that such a job would put him in touch with finger-licking sleaze, if not some glamour and excitement, Juso, aged 22 and just out of university, tells Jitsuwa Knuckles (April) [how he] succeeded in finding employment with one such publisher, whose magazines and tabloid sheets provide data on shops' slates of sexual services, prices, phone numbers and other useful information to enable readers [who]patronize such shops, either directly or vicariously, winding up wanking while reading about the wild whoopee being made therein.

On his first day of work, a senior staff member took Juso aside and sternly counseled him, "Whatever else you do at this job, watch out for money and women."

Such advice was eminently sensible. Manual labor in Japan has long been described in terms of "three K's"--"kitanai, kitsui, kiken" (dirty, difficult and dangerous). And as young Juso was to discover to his chagrin, working for a pink publication involves not three, but four K's: "kitsui" (difficult), "kitanai" (dirty), "kaerarenai" (you can't leave the office) and one more, which was "kijin koibito daishugo" (constantly beset upon by weirdo women who pretend to love you but are only faking it).

As for the incident that caused the trouble ...

"Five days after I was hired, I was assigned to do a story covering the services available in a certain sex shop," Juso relates. "And as is usually the case, I felt it was, um, essential to experience hands-on what sort of things paying customers would enjoy."

While many shops post signs on the wall warning customers that anyone found engaging in 'honban' (sexual intercourse) with a female employee would be subject to a ¥1 million fine, it seems this particular place is notorious for strictly enforcing the policy.

And Juso was just dumb enough to get caught romping in flagrante delicto.

After discovering his indiscretion, the infuriated shop management summoned a representative from Juso's employer. The supervisor had changed out of his usual T-shirt into a business suit and tie, and made his appearance with a box full of Japanese cakes, offered as a gesture of apology.

Arriving at the reception desk around 10:00 that evening, he was immediately set upon by a half-dozen scowling gentlemen, employees of the parent company, who sported colorfully loud suits, sunglasses, punch-permed hair and missing pinkies.

Jitsuwa Knuckles describes their appearance with the wonderfully creative term "yaku-zotic."

"He was forced to bow to them in a kneeling position and touch his head to the floor, while they cursed. They hauled him up on his feet and whacked him around, and cursed him some more. Then he knelt and cringed some more. This went on until 8:00 the following morning," Juso relates.

The supervisor's face following this ordeal was described as resembling a pomegranate, a large, lumpy red fruit.

As soon as he could get to a pay telephone, the man called the chief editor and resigned on the spot.

But that was not the end of it. As an additional apology for the Juso's indiscretion, the magazine was forced to run a series of glossy color articles promoting the sex shop's chain, plus free advertisements in every issue for the next 18 months.

"I thought I was going to have fun on the job, but wound up being a patsy for those hoods," Juso moans, full of remorse.

THERE IS NO ARGUING THE FACT THAT CONSERVATIVE ARTICLES OF FAITH ARE HEAVY WITH CONTEMPT TOWARDS THE LOWER CLASSES, especially so when it comes to the meme that "welfare basket cases" "are lacking any decent respect for industry, self-reliance and personal responsibility" which, in conservative thought, can only be remedied by requiring eligible welfare cases to find work as a "mere formality" for welfare eligibility.

Easier said than done under current socioeconomic conditions, made all the more worse by His Fraudulency's misadventures packaged as ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism, and his insistence that same can be supported by keeping taxes low in the name of "creating jobs" and, in its turn, "maintaining social order."

No doubt translating all the more into fertile opportunities for exploitation by "work-from-home" mountebanks taking unscrupulous advantage of an obviously vulnerable element such as is common among those on welfare--which these same Zealots and True Believers in workfare as a way of controlling the Lower Classes hope the "welfare queens" will respond to, and quickly, never mind the likelihood of their being scams.

Or, for that matter, scenarios such as that described in the following recent "WaiWai" item per the Mainichi Daily News (which, as per usual, needs to be taken cum grano salis--with a grain of salt, as it were--because of the original source being less than credible journalistically trans-Pacific):

Tokyo's once-thriving cabaret club hostess industry is teetering on the verge of extinction, thanks to a clean-up campaign targeting the street-side touts referred to colloquially as "crows", according to Nikkan Gendai (4/3).

Crows are the (usually) young men in trendy suits who hang around Tokyo's entertainment districts, accosting attractive female pedestrians with offers of work as a hostess in a cabaret club, the Japanese name for establishments where customers are plied with pricey drinks by pretty young women.

Revisions to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's ordinance outlawing people from creating a public nuisance already ban people from trying to get women to work in adult movies and sex businesses, but now it's no longer legal to ask them to work as a hostess, either.

Nikkan Gendai notes that an arrest of a cabaret club talent scout has already happened on April 1, the day the new ban came into effect. It says the clean-up of entertainment areas in the capital--like Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro--is aimed at making Tokyo look more pristine for its campaign to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

But the lowbrow afternoon tabloid daily says that even though many would welcome the disappearance of the annoying crows from street corners, materialization of such a phenomenon has many within the cabaret club industry fearing their business may be doomed.

"There are about 5,000 crows working the entertainment districts in Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro, some of them making upward of ¥30 million a year. A large majority of nightclub hostesses are recruited from the streets. A talented crow knows the kind of woman who's going to succeed in the business, and when a club gets a decent hostess, it livens things up and makes sure everyone has a good time," the manager of several famous cabaret clubs in Tokyo tells Nikkan Gendai on condition of anonymity. "If the talent scouts disappeared off the streets, it would be the death of the cabaret club industry. I'm already worried about whether we'll be able to maintain the quality of hostess we've currently got working at my clubs."

So ask yourselves, ye Zealots and True Believers of producerism as is @ the heart of your contempt for the poor and vulnerable:

• Would you rather that some "welfare queen" entered Mrs. Warren's Profession if she were reduced to such circumstances for want of approriate employment?
• Would you prefer that Vocational Guidance Counsellors (as your ilk would now prefer having welfare case managers now referred to) trick some of their problem cases unable to find honest work into selling Quixtar/Amway and suchlike, knowing full well that a number of "multi-level marketing" schemes like Quixtar are worse than rigged casinos?
• Would you offer "guidance" to certain "helpless welfare cases" that they get a one-way bus ticket out of town and move elsewhere (preferably interstate) just to find work because jobs just aren't available locally?
• How would you react to the likelihood that many people employed only because of workfare are discharged for "reasons" having nothing to do with the real such--i.e., the tax credits and incentives offered employers to encourage the employment of welfare cases having lapsed without incentives being offered to retain them after the credits lapse?
• Since you're the sort who sees mutual self-help as "the next wave" in social-welfare thought, what would prevent you from encouraging the establishment of mutual self-help initiatives as would fit in with your desires of helping the Lower Classes "develop a renewed healthy respect for industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift and a wholesome and simple home life"?
  Fear, perhaps, that such otherwise laudible initiatives would "only perpetuate dependency"?
  Fear that such might "undermine the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" by way of Knowledge and Enlightenment being spread?
  Fear that your very "antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers***entitled as of right" might be "undermined"?
• How do we know that your belief in mutual self-help as the Great White Hope for the Lower Classes isn't really hypocritical doublethink (as in your notion that certain mutual self-help models "tend to Socialism or otherwise un-American beliefs inconsistent with American heritage and experience")--or, put another way, mutual self-help "in theory"?
• What are your real concerns about mutual self-help actually seeking to empower the Lower Classes towards such lofty and noble goals of "empowerment" and "self-reliance" you expect out of them through workfare, but without real success?
• Would you expect to encourage the spread of "cashflow gifting clubs" as your preferred form of promoting "mutual self-help" in the Lower Classes, all the while (un)consciously (un)aware that these same "gifting clubs" are really closer to Ponzi schemes manipulated to favour only an "elect***entitled as of right" @ the highest echelons, expected all the while to maintain secrecy and discretion? What rationale have you for such pathetic lily-gilding?
• How do we know such initiatives you would have in mind as (theoretical) "mutual self-help" to "empower" (or so you hope) the Lower Classes aren't secretly involving the weird and unwholesome element, especially criminal and terrorist syndicates seeking ways to launder their Proceeds of Crime?
• How do you expect mutual self-help to be compatible with your other belief (perhaps xenophobic, come to think of it) that free-market capitalism with American characteristics is to be seen by the Lower Classes as the Great White Father, so to speak?
• Have you no sense of Decency, Sirs, @ long last?
• Have you left no sense of Decency?

But don't come crying to me if you see these questions as nothing less than "critical attacks," "innuendo" or "harrassment." It's a problem which you created--and which you need to resolve.

IMAGINE, READER, IF YOU WILL, THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT'S PROPAGANDA MASHEEN using a number of patriotically significant venues for their own notions of "patriotic" propaganda.

Including, no doubt, the obvious such of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts.

The various sites as make up the Freedom Trail in Boston, especially Fanueil Hall, the Tea Party Ships, Paul Revere's Residence and the Old North Church.

The "rude bridge that arch'd the flood" in Concord, Massachusetts where the opening salvos of the American Revolution were fired.

Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The Alamo.

The more prominent Civil War battlefields, particularly so Fort Sumter (where the opening salvos were fired), Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Vicksburg--and the site of the final surrender, Appromatox Court House.

--well, you get the general idea.

I mention this because a controversy is developing in Japan over a Sino-Japanese joint production documentary simply entitled Yasukuni, about the Tokyo shrine dedicated to Japan's war dead and a major thorn in the side of Japanese prestige since the end of World War II and the loss of the Emperor's traditional superdivinity.

Which the BBC documents thus:

An old man wearing a white tunic and a dark apron, steps into the frame from the right of the cinema screen.

From a scabbard he pulls a long ceremonial sword. Calmly and with precision, he carves an arc in the air above his head with the blade, before bringing it down firmly, deliberately in the space in front of him.

Naoji Kariya, who is 90, is the last living swordsmith at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, the place where Japan remembers its war dead.

He is one of the characters interviewed at length for a new documentary, simply entitled Yasukuni, made by Chinese film-maker Li Ying.

The film has attracted criticism from some lawmakers in Japan, who have described it as "anti-Japanese."

Those comments have been blamed for inciting right-wing activists to make threats of violence and stage protests against cinemas that planned to show the movie this weekend.

Five have cancelled screenings.

Publicly funded

For the moment, the film - which has won awards at festivals elsewhere in the world - will not be released in Japan.

But the criticism of his documentary has disappointed Li Ying - particularly the comments from some lawmakers, who demanded a special screening before it went to the cinemas.

"'Anti-Japanese' was a phrase that was used here often before the Sino-Japanese War," the director says.

"It was used to encourage nationalism. It's a very dangerous phrase. Those who use it are irresponsible."

The joint Sino-Japanese production was partly financed by the Japanese taxpayer. The film-makers were given a grant of ¥7.5 million.

Some politicians have questioned whether this was an appropriate use of public funds, claiming that the film should have been more balanced.

In all, Li Ying has spent 10 years, on and off, making the film.

During visits to Yasukuni he says he was at times threatened, abused, and on occasion had his equipment confiscated. Newspapers here have reported that he has received death threats.

He says he set out to try to understand better what the shrine means to Japanese people.

Those who gave their lives in the service of the Japanese emperor are honoured at the shrine. Among them are 14 class A war criminals, convicted after the end of World War II.

It was the place where the kamikaze pilots promised each other they would meet again once their deadly missions were complete.

To many it is one of the most sacred places in Japan. To others it is a place they feel glorifies war.

Legacy of war

Li Ying includes both supporters and opponents of Yasukuni in his film.

Some incidents are hard to watch. In one scene, left-wing activists trying to disrupt the singing of the national anthem during a public meeting at the shrine are pulled away and beaten up by right-wingers.

Others incidents are compelling. The camera lingers as it watches the swordsmith carefully sharpening the blade of a ceremonial sword he has fired in a brazier.

Shinto priests stride through the darkness towards the innermost sanctum of the shrine to carry out their devotions.

A lone soldier, dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Army marches through the rain to salute his fallen comrades.

"The subject of the film is the aftermath - the legacy of the war, as defined in the space of Yasukuni," Li Ying says.

"The debate over Yasukuni is a debate over symbols. That's why I focused on the swordsmith. The sword is the symbol of Yasukuni."

Some cinemas have been reluctant to show the film due to the public debate surrounding its content.

One is the Humax Cinema in Tokyo, where Akio Nakamura works.

"We had right-wingers with a loudspeaker van outside the cinema for three days," he says.

"Since we can't stop them and it annoys our customers, we have had to give in."

Right-wing objections

Japan's right-wing activists are noisy - and sometimes violent. Although they are a tiny minority here, they know how to intimidate.

"Yasukuni has become the touchstone of the Japanese right wing," explains Professor Phil Deans, from Temple University in Tokyo.

"They are very concerned that a documentary made by a Chinese film-maker, a foreigner, will be critical, and that's why it is such an important issue for them."

But Masahisa Sato, a law-maker from the governing Liberal Democratic Party who is a defender of the shrine, believes the fault lies with the cinemas, not with the politicians who criticised the film.

"I don't think the pressure of the protesters was that great," he argues.

"Lots of cinemas decided themselves to cancel the film to avoid trouble. Those who say politicians added to the pressure on them are wrong."

However, the row may yet backfire on the film's detractors.

Plans to show the film this weekend might have been dropped, but the distributors are confident that once the dust has settled, the film's new-found notoriety will mean it gets shown in more than 20 cinemas nationwide.

(Your Correspondent would like to suggest, in closing, that Yasukuni be screened in the United States with dubbed Engrish narration, never mind the "elitist" and "New World Order" memes likely emanating from the Fox Prolefeed crowd.) 

see more crazy cat pics

THAT MAY NOT EXACTLY BE THE CASE UP HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI REGION HOME OF YOUR CORRESPONDENT, even considering the fact that we may be seeing a net drop in the maxima temperature of 15 degrees or thereabouts cf. just yesterday.

As in today's maxima likely being only around 55-56 degrees with rain likely in the afterlunch, whereas yesterday it was 72 degrees under sunny, if windy, skies.

Still, though, with milder weather affecting areas "up north" as have seen record snowfall this late into the season, in their turn translating into substantial snow melt feeding into streams and rivers as have yet to see ice out in some instances, there's always the possibility of flooding downstream, Winona included, within measurable distance.

Or is there?

(Actually, given current weather and stream flow conditions here in Winona, as per the National Weather Service, it's highly unlikely that the river will reach flood stage of 13'/3.96 metres anytime soon. Expect a more realistic estimate of 9.4'/2.865 metres for the peak river level in the next fortnight or so.)

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CONSIDERING THE PECUILARITIES OF THE JEWISH LUNAR CALENDAR (AND THEN SOME), it seems rather ironic that the first day of the Jewish festival of Passover (actually beginning the evening previous @ sundown) coincides this year with the birthday of Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

The irony of which is not lost upon the Anti-Defamation League, which has issued the following press release expressing concern about the coincidence being exploited by the weird and unwholesome element:

Neo-Nazi Groups Plan Events Commemorating Hitler's Birthday

New York, NY, April 16, 2008 … In an annual rite of spring, white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups across the United States are planning to hold events to commemorate the April 20 birthday of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, where he will be celebrated for his legacy of racism, anti-Semitism and hate.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says several well-known domestic extremist groups are planning to hold racist rallies, marches, cookouts and other events in Washington, D.C., Chicago, IL, Portland, OR, Houston, TX, and Morganton, NC, in conjunction with Hitler's birthday.

Many of the planned Hitler birthday gatherings coincide with the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins on April 19.

"There is always a concern when the extremist groups use a calendar event as a rallying point to recruit members and to promote anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.  "Hitler's birthday has a special resonance for extremists, not only because of what Adolf Hitler represents, but because there have been violent and deadly attacks directly associated with this date in the past.  It is especially troubling since Hitler's birthday falls on the first day of Passover this year."

One of the events on April 19 is being billed as an anti-immigrant rally.  Anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Hispanic rhetoric have become one of the calling cards of white supremacist groups in recent years, according to ADL, which has issued reports on how extremist groups have used the national debate over immigration to recruit new members and spread hate.

The League has provided a list of upcoming Hitler birthday events on its Web site along with links to more information on the neo-Nazi and white supremacists groups behind them. 

Among the events being planned:

•  Washington, DC:  Members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, who are known for dressing in Nazi uniforms and making Nazi salutes, are planning an April 19 rally and march "against illegal immigration."

•  Morganton, NC:  Members of Stormfront, an Internet forum popular among white supremacists and anti-Semites, will hold a "racialist cookout" that is being advertised as "family friendly."

•  Chicago, IL:  The neo-Nazi American National Socialist Workers Party has scheduled a gathering in honor of Hitler's birthday featuring various "pro-white" speakers, including a former German SS officer.

•  Portland, OR: Volksfront, the most active neo-Nazi group on the West Coast, is hosting a gathering.  One of the group's goals is to establish a whites-only living space in the Pacific Northwest.

•  Houston, TX: Crew 38, a group associated with the neo-Nazi Hammerskin Nation, will host an "Adolf Hitler Memorial and BBQ" in Houston with live entertainment and a swastika lighting.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

And let's not forget, folks, that the April 19th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Incident, which was hoped to be a call to arms among the pitchfork-wielding peasantry Who Should Know Better against a corrupt and out-of-control Big Brother-Stylee Police State, has also been used in recent years by those taking advantage of the crude and easily-exploitable patriotism in the Great Silent Majority.

As in poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced "white trash" resident, for the most part, in lower-income or otherwise "culturally deprived" ZIP+4 areas with few or no realistic opportunities for jobs or empowerment. Let alone plenty of time to guzzle beer, eat junk food wholesale and watch Fox Prolefeed on the satellite TV ... or engage in orgies of wasteful and unnecessary shopping @ the local Wally World without due regard for whether they're getting value for money.

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WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT DELTA AND NORTHWEST AIRLINES ARE CONSIDERING MARRIAGE, CONTINUING UNDER THE DELTA NAME AND STYLEE, some are expecting nothing short of a quick, Gretna Green-stylee ceremony and getting things over and done with all the sooner.

But then again, expect already-high air fares made all the more so by high jet fuel prices to be even more so thanks to reduced competition, as experience anecdotally illustrates and reminds us.

Not to mention increased and increasing frustration on the part of air travellers complacent in our air-mindedness being one with the supposed "moral superiority" of the American People and Nation.