Jesus Engrish

One website I have enjoyed for a long time is engrish.com so I thought I would post a couple of Jesus items they have come across.

They also sell a t shirt they designed with that robot on it see here

Mom of 12 documents crowds at March for Life

Here is the article and here are her photos.   I have never had a chance to participate is such a march but certainly would if I could.  I dont even know if such marches are held here but if not they certainly should be.   Even if a group of people stood at a busy train station with posters I am certain they would get a lot of attention simply because most passerby would never have seen or thought of such a protest.

Workers urged: Go home and multiply

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) — Even before one reaches the front door of Canon’s headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m.

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

cnn article

Canon isn’t the first company to try to motivate their employees to produce future employees so this isn’t the first story Ive read about such incentives, however, with each story like this I read though I want to shout it is too little too late!

“Canon has a very strong birth planning program,” says the company’s spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. “Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it.”

Oh doesn’t that sound wonderful (sarcasm) a company birth planning program as if people are robots who need to be told to have kids.   Tell`em when to breed, tell `em when to stop.

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country’s low birthrate.

Unprecedented recession?  My impression is that the economic bubble burst of the early 1990s was worse but hey cnn doesn’t quote facts or sources so I will just go with my hunch too.

Keidanren, Japan’s largest business group, with 1,300 major international corporations as members, has issued a plea to its members to let workers go home early to spend time with their families and help Japan with its pressing social problem.

Will more family time really make that much difference when people need other things to raise a family too like money possibly from overtime at work.

One reason for the low birth rate is the 12-hour workday. But there are several other factors compounding the problem — among them, the high cost of living, and social rigidity toward women and parenting.

It isn’t just 12 hours at work people also have to commute, often by train over an hour each way to and from work so that makes it at least a 14 hour day.  The part about social rigidity toward women and parenting is the dumbest thing Ive ever read on cnn.  It doesn’t even make sense and anyone who knows anything raising kids in Japan knows that being a housewife is not looked down up here as it is in so many other countries it is still a title women can have pride in.  Yes the mom is expected to do a lot of the child raising while the father works long hours  to provide for the family but how is that social rigidity?  Please cnn define your terms!  Another factor in fewer children is that the extended family is often far away in another prefecture so the help parents might have received from Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles isn’t available because of distance.  Speaking of size people move to large cities for jobs but then have to raise a family in an apartment big enough for a family with two children and not really designed for more.  Basically everything is meant with two children in mind.

In addition, Japan’s population is aging at a faster pace than any other country in the world.

Wow I’m impressed that the elderly in Japan are somehow managing to age faster than other humans!  And here I thought all humans aged at the same rate each year being the same length for everyone but I guess not.

Analysts say the world’s second-largest economy faces its greatest threat from its own social problems, rather than outside forces. And the country desperately needs to make some fixes to its current social and work structures, sociologists say.

Canon says its 5:30 p.m. lights-out program is one simple step toward helping address the population problem. It also has an added benefit: Amid the global economic downturn the company can slash overtime across the board twice a week.

Like I said before I think simply going home early two days a week is too little too late.  Some local governments and companies here have even started to offer cash bonuses to people for each child they have but I read recently that that isn’t helping either.  The problem of not having enough population started sixty years ago in 1949 when abortion was allowed and promoted because people were worried Japan would have too big a population.  Sixty years later and over fifty million people killed through abortion source it is going to take a while cultural shift to a culture of life to fix things not a few less working hours or throwing money at people.

Vatican`s YouTube Channel

ROME, Italy (CNN) — Pope Benedict XVI launched his own channel on YouTube Friday in an effort to use new technology to reach a younger audience.

“With the YouTube platform, we now have the capacity to give young people direct access to the thinking, to the thoughts, to the words and deeds of the pope,” said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council. “That allows them to share that with their friends.”

article here

I am so happy and will subscribe right away.  Here is a nice little video from their channel about the evolution of the Vatican`s use of media technology.  I also thought the video of the Holy Father blessing lambs was adorable.  Here is the channel.Vatican youtube

Buddhist Priest irked by noise ‘exacted rusty revenge’

The Yomiuri Shimbun

site here

OSAKA–A 55-year-old head priest of a Buddhist temple in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, annoyed by the noise of a delivery company’s vehicles, allegedly sprinkled salt on the shuttered entrance to the company’s warehouse located in front of the temple to cause it to rust, it has been learned.

During questioning by the police, the priest initially insisted he had seen spirits and had been trying to purify the area with the salt, but he then admitted he wanted to cause trouble for the company since its vehicles were noisy from early in the morning.

The priest reportedly kept sprinkling the salt over 10 years. The police are to send papers on the case to the prosecutors office.

What an unusual story especially since it seems he was doing this for 10 years.  Maybe he should have invested in some ear plugs or better windows, or if he wanted to get revenge why not do something faster.

Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s Racist Founder

Of all the minutes you will ever spend watching videos on youtube the seven you will spend on this one are among the most valuable.  Too bad the new U.S president has not seen it nor likely ever will as he throws open the floodgates of abortion.

I will end with the following quote by a man who is being quoted a lot lately and a reminder to at least pray for the end of such evils as abortion.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Missionary devotes lifework to helping Tokyo homeless

Jean Le Beau says his decision to pursue a life dedicated to the benefit of others was inspired in high school when he read the story of Father Damien, a 19th-century Roman Catholic missionary from Belgium who spent his life caring for lepers cast out of normal society and quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.

“I felt that if you were going to do something for others, you should take it that far,” said Le Beau. And the French-Canadian missionary is indeed taking it that far, spending his own life with homeless Japanese — many of whom feel like social outcasts.

The article goes on about Jean`s work but it includes a couple of things that made me think what?  First of all the article never refers to him with the title Father or Fr which is usually the custom when writing about people with a title such as Rev, Dr, or Fr.

Secondly is this quote

“They are my family,” said Le Beau, 64, explaining his relationship with his team of volunteers and ojisan. “I feel most content when I am with them. We go on outings. We get drunk together. I plan on spending the rest of my life with them.”

Perhaps he meant he just has some drinks with them but to say he gets drunk… well thats  not acceptable behavior for a priest and I would hope he would be trying to set a better example than getting totally drunk.

“I spoke no Japanese whatsoever when I first came here,” he recalled. Soon after, a member of a local church introduced Le Beau to a cafe in Ginza, where he worked as a waiter during weekdays, attending a Japanese language school and helping out with church activities during his time off.

Le Beau proceeded to work in a bar in Kawasaki, and then as a used-car dealer.

This brings me to my third problem.  I thought priests were not allowed to do outside work anywhere such as working in a cafe or bar or as a used car salesman!

Full article here

In related news I found this article from January 10 saying

The nonprofit organization Sanyukai, which aids the homeless in Tokyo’s Sanya district, has been ordered by the metropolitan government to stop handing out its weekly free meals along the Sumida River because local residents are complaining, the volunteer group’s chief said Friday.

Little Known Christian History of Japan

This article makes many claims I take with a grain of salt, and am interested in doing more research on to prove or disprove the claims.

Some of the claims are

Joseph’s research has shown:
1. The tea ceremony (chado) is derived from Christianity’s communion service, and the master of the Ura senke School of Teas, Sen no Rikyo, was a Christian.

2. An Assyrian helmet with a cross is at the Gojikai Temple Museum in Fukuoka.

3. A Nestorian monument stands in the old cemetery on Mount Koya which was once the site of the Eastern Church. Monks continue to make the sign of the cross at the beginning of their early morning ceremonies.

4. Remnants of the New Testament, brought back from China in the 8th century can be seen in a temple in Kyoto.

article here

What you Never Knew About Barbie

I had no idea that that toy had those origins.

Wait dear reader! Stop! Before you say “It’s only a Barbie!” and toss this article aside like American toddlers toss aside headless, naked Barbies, stay with me please.

In the late 1950’s Barbie became the first “adult” doll for children. She was copied from a German prostitute doll name Bild Lilli, who was a character in an “adult” cartoon. The prostitute Lilli doll was sold, not to girls, but to men in bars and tobacco shops. Unaware of her prostitute background, Barbie’s American creators used the prostitute Lilli doll as a prototype for the first Barbie doll.

article here

Pill inventor slams … pill

Eighty five year old Carl Djerassi the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill now says that his co-creation has led to a “demographic catastrophe.”In an article published by the Vatican this week, the head of the world’s Catholic doctors broadened the attack on the pill, claiming it had also brought “devastating ecological effects” by releasing into the environment “tonnes of hormones” that had impaired male fertility, The Taiwan Times says.

full article

The assault began with a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard by Carl Djerassi. The Austrian chemist was one of three whose formulation of the synthetic progestogen Norethisterone marked a key step toward the earliest oral contraceptive pill.