Notices by Minoru Saba (minorusaba@toad.social)

Visited Mugon-kan (無言館, "Speechless Museum"), the Museum of the Fallen Art Students, in Ueda City, Nagano Pref where paintings & sculptures left by art students who fell in WW2 are displayed. Most were in their 20's & early 30's. Some returned to Japan, but died in hospital. Last portraits of loved ones, sketches, graduation certificates...glimmers of what might have been, of what was lost.
https://www.nippon.com/en/features/c03306/?pnum=1
#art #Nagano #Japan

@photography

The statues of Jizo, also called O-Jizo-san or O-Jizo-sama, the guardian deity of children and travelers.

https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/what-are-jizo-statues-22197

#Japan
#Jizo
#autumn

"Planet Earth is parting company with an asteroid that’s been tagging along as a “mini moon” for the past two months"
https://apnews.com/article/earth-mini-moon-adfb22fa82a01d168c1b663acf10eb92
#MiniMoon #asteroid #2024PT5

I'm heartbroken.

The first round of presidential elections in #Romania ended. First place: a pro-russian, fascist candidate, who has been peddling for strengthening our ties with Russia. A candidate who repeatedly said that the Iron Guard fascists of Romania, those who enacted pogroms, are heroes.

Second place - the candidate of the opposition to the establishment. A woman. Her discourse has become more progressive as the campaign went on.

(1/N)

@Thumper1964 @benroyce @drahardja @rodhilton well really everyone who is not a MAG-HAT should see it coming. This will be a terrible 4 years and the US may be unrecognisable when the MAG-HATs are finished.

@rodhilton I think the industry needs an exploited labor force *if it were to maintain its profits*. I believe it’s entirely possible to provide food to the public with well-paid labor *if you remove the profit motive*.

The problem is, once again, capitalists exploiting labor to extract profits from a monopolized audience.

Thought Hiro Arikawa's "Library War" was just #fantasy, but not sure now:
"The premise involves the govt passing the Media Betterment Act (MBA)...which allows #censorship of any media deemed...harmful to...society by deploying agents...to go after individuals and organizations that are trying to exercise...freedom of expression activities"
"...local govts opposed to the MBA establish armed anti-MBA defense force units to protect libraries from being raided"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_War
#libraries

While Israel was never actually a democracy, it successfully pretended to be one by pointing to institutions that are democratic (for Jews) and a society that is liberal (for Jews). Despite systemic discrimination at every level against Palestinian citizens of Israel (not to mention endless occupation and war against Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza), Israel successfully made it seem like it was a democracy.

2/n

Was puzzled how Black Friday invaded #Japan (with no Thanksgiving Day tradition) from USA where it was "associated with workforce absenteeism post-Thanksgiving [though] the term ”Black Friday” solidified by the 1980s, referring to the pivotal point where retailers purportedly shifted from loss...to profit (”in the black”)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)

Seems the original culprit was Toys "R" Us-Japan in 2014😡
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%96%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%83%87%E3%83%BC_(%E8%B2%B7%E3%81%84%E7%89%A9)
#excess #commercialism

Is there a list of Mastodon servers that are not in America

OTOH it would seem a grouch like me would pass the screening😓

"Keio Uni and Saiseikai Yokohamashi Tobu Hospital researchers asked 3 questions [to detect Alzheimer's]:
1. Do you feel that you have more difficulties in your daily life than you used to?
2. Could you tell me about your daily pleasures or pastimes?
3. What are the most notable current/recent news/topics?
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241121/p2g/00m/0li/028000c
🔸Wondering if clinics will be flooded with worried callers who failed to see the tests were carried out by trained people as media didn't provide a caveat?🤔
#Japan

@Bette Walz was the real deal, Vance was the poseur, and yet America went for the douchebro.

Apple’s trajectory makes me sad: I used to root for the company because they are doing a lot of things right: tech as something that has to be useful, focus on accessibility, etc.

But it’s become clear how cut-throat, greedy and anti-user they are. Their devices could be much more repairable (incl. fewer design changes over the years) and be supported much longer. They treat developers awfully too.

And I’m not anti-corporate. Companies are not evil per se. Linux has its own set of issues!

@RoboticistDuck @Spoon @samlitzinger That the title "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" ended up as "博士の異常な愛情 または私は如何にして心配するのを止めて水爆を愛するようになったか [The professor's abnormal love or how I stopped worrying and came to love the hydrogen bomb]" always struck me as a "strange" mixture of direct & appropriate translation.😎

@RoboticistDuck @Spoon @samlitzinger
"...in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove...the character General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear war in the hope of thwarting a communist plot to ”sap and impurify” the ”precious bodily fluids” of the American people with fluoridated water"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy
🔸"Dr. Strangelove" was aired recently in #Japan. Missed the fluoridation reference while trying to pick out all the Peter Seller characters; parody becoming reality is hair-raising🥶

"The targets of the [#intimidation & #defamation] attacks were mainly members of a special committee that is investigating accusations of power harassment and corruption against Motohiko Saito, who won the [#Hyogo] governor’s race"
Also:
"the official X...account of support group [of Kazumi Inamura, a rival candidate to Saito] was suddenly suspended on Nov 6" apparently due to "a coordinated effort to report her support group’s accounts to X"
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15519504
#ElectionObstruction #Japan

"Hyogo Prefectural Assembly plans to ask the national govt to take measures against online slander and misinformation...after an assembly committee set up to investigate allegations of power abuse by Gov. Motohiko Saito was attacked online...with derogatory and misleading comments..."
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241123/p2a/00m/0na/010000c
#Hyogo #disinformation

Daikon?! What’s daikon?
Some sort of radish? Google
says a compact car.

#dailyhaikuprompt - daikon
#haiku 
#poetry 
#poem 
#poetrycommunity 
#writing 
#writingcommunity 
#amwriting

First heard "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on late night BBC Radio 4 in 1978. It was comedy, but Douglas Adams' keen observations ring true now as it did then.

"...lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from
the trees in the first place."
#H2G2