Geisha, Interrupted

Dumb and So Much Dumber

For Many years now, the Japanese pro-whaling/dolphin hunting community and the largely foreign groups who staunchly oppose these activities have been engaging each other in a constant, unending, epic battle to discern who can be the most annoying.

Take last year, when the conservationist Peter Bethune takes his expensive, high tech protest boat Ady Gil and stations it right in the path of the Shin Maru 2.

Annoying.

Yet the Shin Maru 2 doesn`t stop or slow down, slicing the Ady Gil in half and leaving it to sink.  

Very annoying.

Some time later, after it has already been ruled that both parties had been at fault in the collision, the former captain of the  boards the boat to make a citizen`s arrest and present the whaling captain with an invoice for the destruction of the Adt Gil.  

Obnoxious.

Then, instead of kicking him off their ship the crew of the shin maru arrests Bethune and brings him back to Japan, causing much unnecessary drama.

Quite very obnoxious.

To retaliate, in an editorial entitled "Captain Peter Bethune- The Last Samurai!," the  Sea Shepard conservation society claims not only that Peter Bethune is a prisoner of war, but that he is also "the only true samurai presently residing in Japan."

WOW that is obnoxious!

So when Bethune arrived in Japan, the ultra nationalists gather to demand he be given the death penalty, as if that wouldn't not lead to any international repercussions.

This is quite possibly the most annoying of all. For when it comes to pure unadultered obnoxiousness, bear in mind that the Japanese right wing is hardly ever outdone. This is the citizens brigade, mind you, that camps outside foreign residences and schools blaring god-awful WW2 battle hymns and shouting racially charged insults through megaphones.

But wait, hold that trophy.  Just today, just now, I have read about what might be the most annoying action ever taken by anti-whale/dolphin hunting activists, ever.  

Get this, the star of the dolphin-hunting documentary "The Cove," Ric O`Barry, will come to the city of Taiji next week at the start of the town`s annual dolphin hunt to:

"lead a prayer ceremony in Taiji for people who have died in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster and for the dolphins about to die in the hunt. He is traveling by bus with two dozen people who are all dolphin-lovers, he said."

I hate to spoil the opportunistic nature of this "vigil," but it seems that some people are too busy loving dolphins to even bother looking at a map.  Taiji is in Wakayama, which is all the way down on the southern end of Honshu, nowhere near the areas of northern Japan that were ravaged by the tsunami!  

Given the cute and cuddly nature of dolphins, is difficult for anyone who hasn`t been brought up in the tradition to actually support the dolphin hunt in Taiji.  Still, these "vigil holding" protesters are driving me alarmingly close. 

My Name Is Lea And I Am Addicted To Volunteer Work.

I never would have imagined this site would turn into a sporadically updated volunteer blog, but hey, shit happens.     

Last weekend was spent in Kesennuma, the port town that rose to an unfortunate fame after being inundated by the tsunami in under seven minutes, then burning for four days straight afterwards.

And yet, over this past weekend there was a summer festival at the volunteer center, where I did my part to run a craft workshop for kids.  I got to see BEGIN perform nada sou sou live, which was a very special treat for me seeing as before that day I had only heard the song performed by drunken old men in hostess bars.  

ANYWAY... there were these huge sunflowers growing everywhere in the town, even in and around the wreckage.  The faces of those flowers reminded me a lot of all the amazing people I have recently met in Tohoku, especially the tsunami survivors who organized and ran the festival over the weekend.  So I made a new video =)