06.27.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:33 am by Administrator
Our media has pretty much forgotten or is ignoring the Fukushima nuclear accident even though it is still not under control. Every day more and more radiation is released in to the environment, yet it is not making headlines here in the U.S. I have had to search the internet and try to follow blogs or home videos of those who have more access to news on Fukushima. One such person reporting from Japan was recently censored, and all of his videos on Fukushima were taken down presumably by YouTube. Fortunately, he had quite a few followers who were able to upload copies of some of his videos. Here is one of his more recent videos. It’s a plea to his fellow Frenchmen to abandon nuclear energy. I spoke on this many years ago in an argumentation class back when I was in college. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much about nuclear back then. I’m sure my speech was not half as persuasive as Alex’s video.
We need more people like Alex. Please watch his video here.
Marlakins
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06.26.11
Posted in Anything goes, Book Reviews, Hmmm Moments, humor at 12:10 am by Administrator
Last week I was driving along when I found myself behind this vehicle . .
I couldn’t help but notice something unusual mounted on the back spare tire. Here’s a closer shot. . .
Yikes! That was not a picture! It was a taxidermed head of what, I’m not sure. This is the first time I’ve seen such a thing. Yes, I’ve seen taxidermed animals before, but not one mounted on a spare tire. Maybe because I live in the city, this is unusual to me, I don’t know. At first I thought it was a fox, but I think it’s illegal to hunt those, so I think this is a dog? I didn’t grow up doing or seeing this kind of thing, so it’s a bit weird to me, and thus why I had to take a picture of it.
Okay, so I didn’t see anything else unusual that day. We just went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant and did a little shopping. I’m still working on another one of my cross stitch projects and reading some of the library books I checked out. I’ve slowed down on the Hiroshima in America book because I ran into the portion where the author seems to be psychoanalyzing Truman to determine what his thought process was in deciding to go ahead and use the atomic bomb on Japan. Personally, it’s easier for me to just read the known facts and perhaps even use those facts to try to speculate why something was done but, I have a hard time psychoanalyzing people. I would make a terrible shrink! So instead I have been spending more time reading Weller’s writings from First Into Nagasaki. Included in the book is part of a daily diary written by a U.S. Marine who, along with a friend, managed to hide out on Wake Island after the Japanese took control of it.
Wake Island is very small, and there were about 3,000 Japanese troops occupying the island during the writing of Scotty’s diary (one of the two Marines, the other being Stevens). That made it tricky for those two Americans to evade capture, but they managed to hide out for about three months before turning themselves in. While they hid, Scotty wrote a daily diary. I found it quite interesting because it explained how the two men managed to hide and find food while the Japanese troops were literally all around them, almost stepping on them at times! They basically laid down all day long, then scrounged for food late at night and buried the cans (when the Japanese bombed Wake Island, the military rations got strewn all over the place). Luckily for them they had plenty of food that way, although he did complain that they were lacking starch, which he believed added to his weakness. Of course everything was canned, too, so I bet that didn’t help, either. One thing I couldn’t help noticing was at even amongst the danger and fear, these guys still managed to have a sense of humor. I found that while reading other books of POW accounts. Here’s one daily entry that I found humorous.
“Feb 4
Fred has a hunch help is coming soon–first time he has been optimistic about it. With planes up all morning half the day is licked, which is something to us as we are living from hour to hour now. Little lizards crawl over us catching flies. They are so tame now we have to brush them off while writing. Their heads and bodies are just 2 in. long and tails about 3 in., dark brown with three gold stripes from end to end of body. There are six on me as I write and I love them. One has a purple tail and one little fellow is speckled an has not stripes–I guess he’s just a private.”
Tee hee! Funny.
So I’m about 3/4ths of the way through the book and have just started the section regarding the “Hellships.” I had read a little about that from other sources, so I’m interested to learn what else others reported.
Okay, so other than that I’ve just been doing the regular family stuffs. I’ve been a bit disappointed with how the media has forgotten all about the Fukushima disaster and hasn’t updated much on the condition of the Nebraska nuclear plants, either. It has forced me to scour the internet for any info on those plants, which seems like such a shame. Normal citizens are doing the work that paid journalists should be doing. I saw “nothing” in our TV networks regarding the nuclear protests in Japan. It was only through the internet and home videos that I saw anything about those protests. At least Italy and Germany have come to their senses and are making the effort to go nuclear-free. The U.S., on the other hand, acts like nothing is wrong. Where are all the “environmentalists?” They seem very silent on this issue. . .
Marlakins
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06.19.11
Posted in cross stitching, family stuff, hobbies at 1:01 pm by Administrator
Last Father’s Day we were at a restaurant with Dad. This year it’s a quiet day. Brian slept in, so that gave us a chance to prepare him breakfast and serve it to him in bed. He enjoys little things like that. I’m so glad I have a low maintenance husband! LOL And now he and Aaron have run off to their Aikido lessons, so I have more quiet time for myself. What to do? Heheheheh, what else but crafts!
The other week I finished off these little ornaments for my nieces and nephews in the Philippines. One of them saw me working on one of these and was happy when I said I’d make one for him. So I figured I better make one for the other little ones in his circle, too. Here’s what they look like.
There are many ways to finish off this little pillows, but for these I decided to use this method that looks clean to me. See the close up picture below. I still want to stitch their names on the back, but I’ll do that later.
After I finished Andrew’s graduation cross stitch, I decided to pull out my old needle punch project and try to finish it off. This was my first go at needle punch, so it’s basically a practice piece. I didn’t know how to finish it off, so I sewed it into a pillow ornament (what else? Ha!) But it turned out messier than I like, so I won’t show any closeups of the edging, heheheh. It did inspire me to try another one and decided to try it using some old jeans. I cut up a piece, and it worked out pretty good! Here’s a pic of the work in progress.
The nice thing about needle punch is it goes pretty fast. Last night I practically finished it up and sewed it into another pillow. I did use some different colors on the second one just for variety. Here are the two side by side. The one on the left is the one done on denim with my ad lib colors, and the other on the right is done with the fabric that came with the kit and their colors. I “think” the fabric from the kit is some kind of cotton, but I’m not sure, it didn’t say. I know their colors look a bit more serious than the more playful colors I chose for the second one.
I have always wanted to try making my own designs, so now that I think Ive got the hang of it, I’m inspired to try my own design. Just a moment ago I watched a video showing how to mount your own needle punch. Now I want to try it! Actually my middle son, Matty, made this drawing years ago that I saved because I liked it and felt it would make a nice craft project one day. While I may not make this exact design, it has inspired me, and I plan to try a series with this flare. Here’s a pic of Matty’s old picture.
I’m jazzed that the old denim seemed to work just fine. Being the pack rat that I am, I have a “lot” of old jeans that I haven’t had the heart to “throw” away. I’ve given away the ones that were in good shape that the boys grew out of, but the old holey ones, I figure there’s so much good material in other spots, I didn’t have the heart to throw it out. So now I have a use for some of it! Woo hoo! I’ve already started cutting more old jean material, and have pulled out a note pad to start some sketches. . . Hope it works out okay. . .
But before I sign off, I might as well share the pics of the little pillows I made for my dad’s year anniversary. We’re gonna have dad’s Babanluksan (year anniversary gathering to mark the end of mourning). The ones I made for Dad’s memorial were all given away, so I had to make more for the gathering coming up in the Philippines. These were actually a tad smaller and simpler.
This time mom wanted me to put on the full dates instead of just the year like the first batch I made. So there’s less cross stitch design on these. Here’s a closer shot of one of them.
I can’t believe it’s almost a year now since dad passed. Time sure does fly. I do still miss him a lot, tho. I guess that’s the way it will always be, tho.
Anyway, that about does it for me right now. I found while uploading these pictures that I have tons of other pictures on my camera that I can share, but I guess I’ve been lazy to do it. Maybe on days when I have nothing to do(ha ha! huh?), I’ll go back to those. Course I still have my book reviews and comments to write, but those are often doom and gloom types of topics, so thought a craft blog would be more pleasant for a change! So, toodles for now!
Marlakins
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06.12.11
Posted in cross stitching, family stuff, food and restaurants, hobbies at 8:09 am by Administrator
Yesterday was a busy day! Andrew officially graduated with his BA! Woo hoo! Congratulations, Baby! The ceremony started at 8AM, so Andrew had to be there by 7AM. We still had to pick up grandma and all, so in order to get there on time we all had to get up at 5AM. I’m not an early bird anymore, so that was early for me, hehehehe. But we all made it there on time regardless. There were so many people there that they had to have a big screen up so that we could see the grads. I managed to get a shot of Andrew coming in, but it’s a small shot. I’ve placed a yellow arrow above his head, tho.
It was nice to see how happy everyone was. I could feel the excitement of the guests. Maybe it was all the flowers, balloons, and gifts they were all carrying that tipped me off, heheheh. I enjoyed looking at all the different flowers and balloons. This was my favorite balloon.
Unfortunately, it rained. Man, can you say “June gloom?” And as you can see, the ceremony was held outdoors. We all tried to hang in there as long as possible, but the ceremony was cut short because everyone was starting to get soaked. Basically, they waited until all the grads collected their certificate holders, and then we all ran out of there. It ended up cutting the ceremony down by a half hour. Before we left campus, we managed to get a shot of us by the history building.
From left to right, Mom, me, Andrew, and Brian.
After we came back from lunch we dropped mom off at her house and took more pictures. After all, this day only comes once! Here’s Andrew and me, 
.
Later we had a dinner for Andrew at La Petite Greek. Here’s the gang. I missed my dad, tho, and wished he could have been here yesterday. I know he would have been very happy.
After the main meal Andrew opened some of his presents. I thought this card was so cute.
One of the presents I gave him got finished just in time. I picked up the frame just last Friday due to some complications. But it worked out just fine in the end. Here’s the project when I first started it.
I worked it over even weave linen. Here’s another picture of it in progress.
And here’s the finished piece with Andrew holding it last night.
I know it’s hard to see it in this picture, but on the bottom I stitched in Andrew’s name and year and university. So here’s a closer shot of that part of the cross stitch.
Well, that about wraps up yesterday for us! It’s still gloomy this morning, and everyone in this household is still sleeping. So I think I’ll go find something to munch on for a quiet breakfast while they snooze. There’s more activities scheduled for today because my sister’s having a gathering for her birthday in a few hours. It shouldn’t be long before things spring back to life here. But for now. . . a nice quiet breakfast for me.
Marlakins
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06.08.11
Posted in Book Reviews, History at 5:36 pm by Administrator
Yesterday my boys and I popped into the Little Tokyo Public Library. Aaron wanted to look for some Japanese books, so I tagged along, and to my delight, I found the Japanese history section. From my readings of the dropping of the first atomic bombs, I seemed to find so much more on the Hiroshima bombing than the Nagasaki bombing. I wasn’t quite sure why that was, but from reading Hiroshima in America
, I learned that media was strictly censored during the war, and after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those two locations were “off limits” to the journalists. They were only allowed on “guided” tours of prisoner camps and such, so what they saw and reported was very controlled. There were only two journalists who dared to defy those restrictions–an Australian journalist, Wilfred Burchett, and American journalist George Weller. Burchett managed to sneak into Hiroshima and report what he saw there, and Weller managed to sneak into Nagasaki and write what he found there. The reason I say “write” is because none of what Weller wrote made it past General MacArthur’s censorship committee, while Burchett managed to get his articles out because it is believed he wrote mainly for a British publication, so it may have inadvertently slipped by and got published. So that seems to explain why we got some information from Hiroshima, but not much from Nagasaki.
While browsing through the history section, I came across a book title, First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War
, by George Weller. . . That title made me jump because it had been believed that those first writings on Nagasaki by George Weller were destroyed by MacArthur’s censor office, and thus Weller’s account of what he saw was lost. So I pulled down the book and read the inside insert which explained it this way,
“Weller died in 2002, believing it all lost forever. Months later, his son found a fragile copy in a crate of moldy papers. This historic body of work has never been published.”
Oh my! The copyright was in 2006. I checked out the book (along with several other books pertaining to the same subject and era, and some craft books, hehehe) and began to read. Not only was I curious as to what Weller saw and learned, but I wanted to know what could he have possibly written that was worthy of censorship? In Hiroshima in America (published in 1995), it was explained that the government wanted to make sure that they controlled the images of the U.S. involvement in the war and especially the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did not want to appear brutal or doing anything unethical, etc. After reading some of the reports, I can see why they would not want this material out because it revealed that many civilians, including women and children were killed and injured from the bombs. Not only Japanese civilians, but also foreigners such as missionaries (there was the American Mission College called Chin Jei that was nearly destroyed) as well as some allied prison camps and were affected by the atomic bomb. Of course what do we expect during war, right? My dad’s hometown in the Philippines was also bombed by allied forces (the Americans) because the Japanese had heavily infiltrated the area. Many Filipino civilians died as collateral damage. During WWII it is estimated that 55 million civilians died and 22 million military personnel died. Civilians always die in wars.
Anyway, I just wanted to share with anyone interested that George Weller’s first account of Nagasaki was not lost after all, but now published in book form, First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War. I should also mention that the second half of the book shares Weller’s writing of the “hellships” that carried allied POWs to Japan. I haven’t finished reading the book yet, but so far, two thumbs up!
Marlakins
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