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"Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."
-- Alexander Hamilton
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August 06, 2004 - "Hiroshima"

Neko

I think I have these monsters on the run at last. I find them utterly disgusting and used to panic when being around them. I still do sometimes...

This has not helped my nerves dealing with these pesky detestable disgusting filth! Atleast I was out and about today, and wrote some in my other journal as well. Still there is a hole tearing at me inside, a black hole. The worst part about that is I have no answer as to what to do about it. I just feel sad thinking about everything in my life right now. Sometimes I just wish this "hole" I feel inside would swallow me.

Today is the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan (sadly though as if anyone actually cared). I read an article today about the work of Keiji Nakazawa whom is one of my favorite authors (he's a cartoonist in Japan).

We are all blessed that humanity has not destroyed itself as of yet. We must never forget what horror the human race is capable of, and that it can still happen. I highly recommend "Thirteen Days" (the book and the dvd) as well as the film "the Fog of War"(dvd).

There is one japanese masterpiece made in the late 1980's named Black Rain directed by master filmmaker Shohei Imamura that really hits the mark. The following describes the true horrific reality of what that day did to the people of Japan: On the morning of August 6, 1945, a young woman named Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) catches a ride with a neighbor who is evacuating from Hiroshima in order to transport her family's formal clothes and sentimental possessions to a friend's home for safekeeping on a nearby island in Furu�. At 8:15, during a tea ceremony, Yasuko and her hosts witness a sudden, blinding flash of light and hurry outside to observe the surreal sight of an ominous mushroom cloud rising from the island. Concerned over the plight of her supportive and compassionate guardians, uncle Shigeko (Etsuko Ichihara) and aunt Shigamatsu (Kazuo Kitamura), Yasuko boards a boat returning to Hiroshima and, along the way, encounters the radioactive fallout from the atomic bomb in the curious form of black rain that discolors her clothing and face. Arriving home, she unsuccessfully attempts to wash the indelible stains from her clothing (which Shigeko innocently surmises must have been caused by the explosion of an oil vessel), but is soon scuttled away by her guardians in order to escape the rampant chaos and continued danger of falling debris and uncontrolled fires raging through the center of town. Yasuko and her family eventually find refuge in Shigeko's place of employment - a factory on the outskirts of the island. A few years later, as the family struggles to rebuild their life amidst the ruins of Hiroshima in the rural village of Takafuta, Shigeko and Shigamatsu attempt to find a suitable husband for Yasuko in the grim realization that they have begun to exhibit initial symptoms of radiation poisoning. However, despite reaching marrying age and receiving a clean bill of health from the neighborhood doctor, Yasuko's marital prospects prove bleak, marred by the experience of the atomic bomb that invariably drives suitors away in fear of the unknown long-term effects of the island's exposure.Based on the serialized novel by Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain is a somber, visually distilled, and deeply affecting portrait of the human toll and uncalculated tragedy of nuclear holocaust. In contrast to Shohei Imamura's characteristically unrefined, primitivistic, and subversively bawdy cinema, the film is shot in high contrast black and white, creating a spare and tonally muted chronicle of dignity, survival, community, and human resilience. Through recurring literal and figurative images of regression, Imamura conveys a dual meaning, not only in the community's noble attempt to rebuild Hiroshima and return to a semblance of normal life after the annihilating bombing but also in their collective gradual and systematic erasure from Japanese society through long-term effects of radiation sickness, infertility, cultural (and geographic) isolation, and social stigmatization: Yasuko's inability to wash the stains from the black rain that tainted her clothing; her evening chore of resetting the clock; her multiple, unrealized marriage proposals; her grandmother's senility. The theme of futile cyclicality and repetition is further illustrated in the threatened use of nuclear weapons during the Korean War, an irresponsible comment that causes a dispirited and embittered Shigeko to remark, "Unjust peace is better than a war of justice". In a memorably sublime and surreal episode, Yasuko and Shigeko observe an oversized carp swimming upstream in the village pond. It is a haunting and transcendent reflection of the community's own metaphoric struggle as well - a poetic image of tenacity and determination against an inalterable current of recklessness, ignorance, and myopic vision.

Black Rain, like Keiji Nakazawa's work must been seen and felt. Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen novels will leave you weeping as you read it again and again. If anyone did not they must not be human. I wish I could buy those books for every man and woman across the entire globe. Humanity would be better for it, that I know.

If anyone is interested in any of the material I discussed email at:

[email protected]

I am disappointed that I did not otherwise hear or read any news of the anniversary of this disgracefull event in human history today. Nuclear war in any form should not be tolerated and must be looked upon historically with the utmost negativity to help ensure the survival of the human race. For that reason as well ethically, morally and being just plain righteous. Robert S. McNamara asked the most important question of all in his book Blundering Into Disaster- Surviving The First Century of The Nuclear Age: "Is it not our duty and obligation to assure, beyond doubht, the survival of civilzation?


Here are a few quotes:

I am convinced that if you(President Harry Truman), as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."--President Herbert Hoover

"Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."--President Dwight Eisenhower

"I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria."--President Herbert Hoover

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."--President Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."--President John F. Kennedy


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