Nengajo 2013
Posted by ampontan on Tuesday, January 1, 2013
THE first greeting traditionally offered in Japan on New Year’s Day is Akemashite, o-medeto gozaimasu.
So, akemashite, y’all! And Happy New Year!
AMPONTAN
Japan from the inside out
- 難しいことをやさしく、やさしいことを深く、深いことをおもしろく、おもしろいことを真面目に、真面目なことを愉快に、愉快なことをいっそう愉快に
ー 井上ひさし
日本人が考えていることの一割も外国に伝わっていない。
ー 渡辺恒雄 （CSIS)
未来は予想するものではなく、創造するものなんです。会社だってそうでしょう。「自分の会社はこうなる」と予想してビジネスに励むわけじゃない。「自分の会社をこうしたい」と言って創りあげていくもののはずです。国だって同じです。
ー堀場雅夫、 最高顧問、株式会社 堀場製作所
独立の気力なき者は、国を思うこと深切ならず。
人民の独立の気力あらざれば文明の形を作るも 啻（ただ）に無用の長物のみならず、 却（かえ）って民心を退縮せしむるの具となるべきなり。
独立の気力のなき者は必ず人に依頼す。人に依頼する者は必ず人を恐る、人を恐るる者は必ず人にへつらうものなり。常に人を恐れ、へつらう者は次第にこれに慣れ、その面（つら）の皮鉄の如くなりて、恥ずべきを恥じず、論ずべきを論ぜず、人をさえ見ればただ腰を屈するのみ。いわゆる習い性となることはこの事にて、慣れたることは容易に改め難きものなり。
ー福沢諭吉 「学問のすゝめ」 Subscribe
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- In winter, I'm a Buddhist,
And in summer, I'm a nudist.
- Joe Gould
"My Religion"
In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.
- Oscar Wilde, aware in 1889 that popular conceptions about the country and its people are mostly fiction.
Not even 10% of what Japanese people are thinking is communicated overseas.
- Watanabe Tsuneo of CSIS
All foreign correspondents, whenever they desert statistics for judgments of opinion...become models of self-deception. They may call themselves, with proper gravity, ‘reporters’. But...they are nothing but quack psychiatrists who do not even know that this is the field they practise.
- Alistair Cooke
Where all news comes at second-hand, where all the testimony is uncertain, men cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions. The environment in which they act is not the realities themselves, but the pseudo-environment of reports, rumors, and guesses.
- Walter Lippmann
We want...a revolution - a turning of the wheel, so that the state becomes once again the servant of the people, and not the other way around. We are the progressives now, comrades, (and) you the reactionaries.
- Daniel Hannan
If the textbook says, "It is well known that...", you can be sure that is a very good place to begin a research inquiry.
- Isaiah Bowman, geographer and former president of Johns Hopkins University
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
- Cicero (55 BC)
We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. It is not we who silence the press. It is the press that silences us. It is not a case of the Commonwealth settling how much the editors shall say; it is a case of the editors settling how much the Commonwealth shall know. If we attack the press, we shall be rebelling, not repressing.
- G.K. Chesterton
You can see a lot by looking. - Yogi Berra
All text copyright 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 by William Sakovich
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ampontan
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Hazama Hisatake (@Hazama_Hisatake) said
Happy New Year, Bill. And RIP.
21st Century Schizoid Man said
Bill さん、明けましておめでとうございます。あなたはもうこの世にはいないのだけど、ちゃんとこうして新年のあいさつをしてくれました。このブログの他の読者も、わずかな例外を除いて、みんなあなたに感謝していますよ。2013年はあなたのいない年になってしまうけど、私はあなたとどこかでつながって生きていくと思っていますから、今年は不在のあなたとそうやって暮らしていく最初の年ですね。どうか、日本と日本人を見守ってやってください。愛してます。
Dearest Bill: Happy New Year! Though you are not here anymore, you throughtfully left us with your new year’s salute. Other readers of this blog, except for a few, all thank and miss you. 2013 will have to be a year without you, but I think I will live on being connected with you somehow in someway, so I take it as a first year to live with you that way despite of your absence. Please watch over Japan and Japanese. I love you.
21st Century Schizoid Man said
Correction! (Bill used to correct for me and then erase this sort of request to correct, very thoughtful man he was) wrong: “you throughtfully” correct: “you thoughtfully”.
Avery said
This seems to have been the last post. Bill would have been chagrined that he wasn’t able to get one last potshot in at the NYT for their obituary of one Ms. Beate Gordon, who they fawningly describe as a “heroine in Japan” for writing their constitution with no credentials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/world/asia/beate-gordon-feminist-heroine-in-japan-dies-at-89.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
The Ampontan article practically writes itself. I’d write it myself but it’s a Sisyphean battle against the NYT and its ilk, one that only Bill could handle.
Marellus said
Ampontan,
Below is an article that is agitating for government intervention in the enrollment of more middle-class white males at British universities. Is there a similar phenomenon in Japan ?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/exclusive-treat-white-workingclass-boys-like-ethnic-minority-willetts-tells-universities-8436087.html
Happy new year.
Avery said
Marellus, I’m sorry to say that Ampontan has passed on.
By the way, my dad e-mailed me a link to that Beate Gordon article, so I did a full deconstruction here:
http://avery.morrow.name/blog/2013/01/why-japan-must-listen-to-a-22-year-old-american-jew/
Marellus said
@Avery.
This is terrible; when did this happen ?
My condolences to you, and your family.
Avery said
I guess comments are disabled or broken. Okay.
Avery said
…that one went through. Well, anyway. I never knew Ampontan, although I live just an hour from his house. But I’ll be making a tribute to him on my blog.
Mac said
Beate Sirota Gordon, especially the Beate Sirota Gordon who had some influence in the Japanese constitution, was not an “American Jew”. She was a Viennese Jew who largely grew up in Japan. The feministic influences which entered the constitution came primarily from Weimar and Soviet sources, not American … an America which was seriously lacking in women’s rights.
Can I suggest anyone interested in this topic starts with,
‘Pedagogy of Democracy: Feminism and the Cold War in the U.S. Occupation of Japan’ by Mire Koikari.
Far from being seen as a “American hero”, Beate was targeted and investigated for what was seen as her left wing and subversive influence at the time the USA were recreating Japan as a conservative bulwark against the spread of communism, vis-a-vis the CIA structuring and investing in the relationship between the LDP, Yakuza and big business, an enforcing the nuclear power option on Japan.
History is being re-written to reinforce the myth of the beneficial influence of aggressive and unasked for American hegemony within the Pacific-Asian region and beyond; and to portray Japanese, and Asia society in general, as needy of its power, and negatively.
In short, to justify America’s imperial aggression.
The changes in Japan fell far short because the primary intention was to bring about women’s rights but disempower the old political regime.
Mac said
Reading that article, I am amazed … this individual is serious stating that Japan and the Japanese were
“too immature or evil to be allowed their own constitution … long been producing an inferior, “feudal” mockery of Western civilization … foolishly allowed to operate as an independent nation.”
Beate is lauded as ” … the American hero who helped them become the servant state they are today.”
WTF … this person is trolling, right?
Ken said
Marellus,
As Avery does not seem to know the details of Bill’s death, I will inform you.
Read ‘Ichigen-Koji (268)’ and you will find Tony’s explanation. I am awaiting their notice on Bill’s memorial.
nipkilla592952959 said
rest in pieces fuckface
nipkilla592952959 said
Mac, hope you end up with a nice .50 CAL round through your brain
antinipa9529999 said
Mac, please catch aids
antinipa9529999 said
wanker
antinipa9529999 said
twat
antinipa9529999 said
waste of food
No.6 said
Debumping the vulture spammer assholes dancing on a dead mans grave.
Classy.
No.6 said
continuing to bump down 12-year-old spammer
No.6 said
continuing to bump down 40-year-old spammer who lives in his mom’s basement
No.6 said
Wait a sec, actually read the spammer, and he’s making DEATH THREATS?
Wow.
Mom’s gonna be pissed when the police show up at your door.
Leave the crap up for all to see. No more bumps.