Guy's Books and Thoughts

I noticed a book in the ICR catalogue
THE ANNALS OF THE WORLD by James Ussher.
It was translated into English from the Latin
by Larry and Marion Pierce.
Archbishop Ussher was the one who dated the
earth at about 6,000 years old. Contrary to some
accounts he did not give the hour of Creation. I talked
to Mr. Ian Taylor and Mrs. Donald Chittick about the book.
They both say it is a good book.
Perhaps Bishop Ussher has been unfairly condemned by
secular historians.
I ordered my copy through Barnes & Noble. You can order
without obligation to buy. Ther price is about $ 69.
You can have the book shipped to home for about
$ 60, which
is a considerable savings. For ship to home you
have to pre pay. I don't know what the price is for the
book on Amazon, but I assume you can get it for less than
retail. It is a big book and I have not read the book in
it's entirety. I only glimpsed at sections. I think the editors/
translators
made a good point about not trying to bend the Biblical data
to fit current theories in Appendix D, "Evidentialism-The Bible
and Assyrian Chronology." They criticize
Edwin Thiele and others of massaging the Bibilical passages
to conform to current ideas of Assyrian history. I have not
read Thiele's book or carefully read Appendix D, so I am not in a position to comment. They seem to be on the side of presuppositional apologetics which they describe as an "axiomatic approach." Perhaps
they are right. Current archaeological theories could be mistaken.
Since we weren't there our attempts to reconstruct the past must be taken with a grain of salt. I read a book on
the Piltdown man entitled THE EARLIEST ENGLISHMAN by Sir Arthur Keith.
The book was written in 1948, about 4 years before it was exposed
as a fraud. It was amusing to read the habits and lifestyle of the
Piltdown man, knowing this was a fraud. Makes you wonder about the
attempts of archaeologist and paleontologists to reconstruct the past.
Perhaps what we are getting are fairy tales instead of faithul reconstructions of the past. Perhaps we ought to give the Bible
more credit.

Guy

I know Sunday should be a day of
rest, but I was in the bookstore and
saw the book on display. The author, who
I think is Philipino ancestry, discusses
the internment of the Japanese Americans
and the War on Terror today. People who
oppose Bush's war on terror cite the
internment of Japanese Americans during
WW II. While my family was NOT interned because
they were in Hawaii, I guess I am a bit sensitive
about the issue. But I think the author makes some
good points. I don't think she totally endorses the
internment of Japanese Americans, but she does point
out that there were people in the United States who
were pro Japan. Having done some reading, I recognize
some of her points. She mentions the Black Dragon Society,
a pro Japan group who threatened pro American Japanese Americans
in the camp. I rememeber reading Karl Yoneda's article which mentioned
the sabatoge caused by the Black Dragon Society in the camps. He wrote that the camp officials did nothing to stop the Black Dragon Society. Ms. Malkin also
mentions that the Japanese used the Buddhist churches to promote their
agenda. She quotes the memoir of the Senator from Hawaii, who said that
the Japanese language teacher who taught Buddhist ethics and Japanese
history give pro Japan speeches. I also read the memoir that Ms. Malkin
cites about 24 years ago. I should mention that Inouye tolearted the
teachers rants until the teacher attacked Christianity. Inouye responed
"Hey, man I don't pick on your religion, why pick on mine?" The teacher
had him thrown out of class and Inouye never returned. I DON'T think
Inouye is a Fundamentalist Christian, but I guess he upset by the teacher's attack. I guess Inouye would probably disagree with the
author's view of internment in spite of his experience with the teacher.
In addition I must add a good friend of mine informed me of an incident
where a Japanese neighbors of theirs was caught with a radio transmitter. My friend said they were hurt by the fact that their neighbor was spying for the Japanese. But for some reason it does not
get into the history books. So those who say there was no espionage
or sabotage among the Japanese or Japanese Americans in the U.S. are
either ignorant or dishonest. It is my impression that the U.S. tried
to hush up incidents of sabotage. I know that the Govt. imposed a news
black out when the Japanese sent some hot air balloons, loaded with explosives, accross the Pacific. One of these balloons landed in Oregon
and killed five people. But this was never publicized during the war.

Ms Malkin also makes an interesting point about Bush's policy and that
of Roosevlet's internment policy. Apparently Bush's policy is closer
to J. Edgar Hoover, who opposed internment, than to Roosevelt, who
ordered internment. People who opposed the internment and opose internement will cite Hoover. But they don't mention his policy. While Hoover opposed internment, he did not belive
in sitting around waiting for trouble to strike and then ignoring the
problem. In other words Hoover was NOT Bill Clinton. Hoover favored
imprisonment of certain individuals without trial, not wholesale internment of a group of people. One should also note the policy of
Roosevelt was to move Japanese away from military instillations. People
not living in those areas were not interned. In other words people
NOT living on the West Coast were not interned. I talked to someone
who was in the army in Texas at the time. He was NOT interned, because
Texas was not part of the area to be evacuated.
There were some Japanese and Germans who were interned in Crystal city
Texas. It is interesting that the Japanese were eligible for "reparations" but the Germans were not. I guess that would undermine the charge of racism by the "Politically Correct" thought
police if the Germans were granted reparations. Yes, I think it was wrong and dumb to lock up loyal Americans. But I find it disturbing
that Japanese or Japanese Americans who sided with Japan or were
part of the Black Dragon Society would be eligible for repartions.
Sorry for sounding harsh, but I think those who sided with Japan should
be shot or at least sent back to Japan.

As a concluding thought, I was talking to someone at the end of an
anime convention. He stated that not all Japanese Americans sided
with the United States during World War II. It's not human nature.
He asked "How many Irish Americans support the I.R.A. ?" I believe he
had a point. Not everyone embraces this country some people live
in this country but have loyalties (perhaps romanticized) to their "old" country.

Guy

The book THE KAKURE KIRISHITAN OF JAPAN
by Stephen Turnbull is a study of the Kakure
Kirishistan ("Hidden Christians") who survive
to this day. They are descendants of the
Japanese Roman Catholics, who went underground
when Christianity was outlawed. The warlord Toytomi
outlawed but did not strictly enforce the ban. The
succeeding Tokugawa rulers enforced he ban on Christianity,
specifically Roman Catholicisms. During the approximately
250 years of underground existence, these Kakure Kirishitan's managed
to preserve prayers and parts of the liturgy. Unfortunately they mixed
with the surrounding religions and their belief system was changed.
The Roman Catholic missionaries reestablished contact with these
Kakure Kirishitans in the nineteenth century when Japan was forced
to end her isolation. The Roman Catholic church demanded that the
Kakure Kirishitan correct their beliefs before being received back
into the Roman Catholic Church. A majority of these Kakure accepted
correction and were received back into the church. A small minority
refused correction and continued to modern times. Stephen Turnbull
studied these modern Kakure Kirishitans for his doctorate. The book
is a result of his work. I think it is sad that the Kakure Kirishitan
who refused to accept correction became syncretistic and in Dr. Turnbull's view outside the pale of the Christian belief system.
On the other hand I found the preservation of the prayers and
parts of the liturgy to be most intriguing.

I think pages 144-155 are most interesting.
It deals with transmission of liturgy and
prayers. For the most part the transmission
is faithful. In the Japanese it is almost
identical. In the Latin there is some corruption
of the text. On the matter of hymns: Dr. Turnbull writes that it is even more
remarkable that the tunes
as well as the words to hymns have
also been preserved. . But apparently there
is some variation in the tempo of the tunes.
Unfortunately much of the meaning has been lost in the prayers
and liturgy. I think this has also happened with the
transmission of other faiths. Certain Buddhist rituals in Japan
are corrupt ions of the original so the rituals become nothing
more than gibberish. I guess it is easier to preserve the
Lord's Prayer in ones own language than a foreign language such as
Latin or Sanskrit because with one's own language, one has a reference point to correct one's self; unless a Latin or Sanskrit speaker
is readily available.

Here is a comparison of the Lords Prayer in Japanese
as mentioned on page 144.
I modified the format to side by side:

Original Catholic version Doctrina Christian 1590 Lords Prayer, ---------------------------------------- Ten ni mashimasu warera ga onoya Mina mo tattomaretamae Miyo kitaritamae Ten ni oite oboshimesu mama Naru gotoku chi ni oite mo Arasetamae

Kakure version Ikitsuki island Lord's prayer ----------------------------------- Ten ni mashimasu watera ga ono oya Mina mo tachitomaitamaite Ten ni oite mo omoshimeshi mama Narugotoku uchi ni oite mo Mawarasetamaiya

The next page (page 145) goes on to mention the corruption of the Latin text.

compare:

Original Latin ----------------------------------------- Ave Maria Gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus es benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus.

Kakure Kirishitan ------------------------------------- Ame Mariya karassa binno Domisu terikobintsu Tsuwaeshi moedebesu esu Berentsu furutsu Bentsutsutsu instu..

I think the preservation of the text is remarkable. I think that this
shows that contrary to our modern snobbery, our ancestors were
able to preserve information faithfully. I think too many people
have bought into the idea the oral tradition is inaccurate
and refer to the game of "telephone" where one person passes a message
and the message gets so garbled that it is unrecognized from the original. Please note the similarity of the Lord's Prayers in the
version printed in 1590 and the version kept alive through oral tradition. Scholars have been amazed at the preservation kept
alive over seven generations. I think this has relevance to the
preservation of Biblical texts. Also the novelist John Steinbeck,
remarked in correspondence his amazement how people were
able to preserve information. He wrote that human memory was
remarkable. See the correspondence in the back of John Steinbeck's
THE ACTS OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS NOBLE KNIGHTS. This was an uncompleted
novel of Steinbeck's. I think the correspondence in the back of the
book was more interesting than the uncompleted novel.

I realize the reader may disagree with my point about faithful transmission of a message. But I think it's remarkable that a group
of people under such trying circumstances were able to closely preserve
a text over 200 years by oral transmission. I guess it is matter
of interpretation if the glass is half empty or half full.

Guy

I ran accross an interesting book
entitle GHOST SHIP by Brian Hicks. This book is about
the famed MARY CELESTE, which was found
drifting in the ocean with no people.
The author
attacks the myths surrounding the story.
It is interesting how tall tales develop.

The author offers a plausible explanation:
The ships was carrying industrial strength alcohol.
And four of the barrels leaked out. To air out
ship, all the hatches were open. The crew left the ship
and moved to a life boat which was attached to the ship.
The crew made the mistake of leaving the sails up. This would
not have mattered if the weather remained calm, but the weather
changed and the ship started picking up speed eventually the line
holding the lifeboat to the ship snapped and the people in the lifeboat
were set adriff.

In exploring various scenarios as to what happened to the MARY CELESTE
the author mentions an interesting phenomenon which I would say
is puts uniformitarian geology into question. Near the cost of Africa
there is a phenomenon of "temporary" islands. The author mentions
someone on a ship called the GIRL PAT which suddenly got stranded in
the ocean. on an island of sand. Then they noticed another island of
sand rising up next to them. After an hour or so the "island" next
to them sank. They were still trapped, and the crew of the GIRL PAT
thought of leaving the ship, but decided to stay based on what they
observed of other sand "islands." So the crew stayed put and the
"island" sank and the ship was free. One of the people on the GIRL PAT speculated that perhaps the MARY CELESTE got caught on one of these
islands and left the ship. These temporary "islands" are a result
of sand from the Sahara desert which somehow forces its way out to
sea. The speculation is that there is an underground river which
runs beneath the Sahara desert. The river deposits sand. Sometimes
the river gets clogged, I guess there is a buildup and the clog
or dam bursts releasing the sand and creating these temporary islands.
The Afrcians refered to these islands as "Phantom" islands.

The MARY CELESTE did see service after its discovery in 1872. It
was deliberately sunk in 1885. I think for insurance. Clive
Cussler and crew claims to have discovered the wreck embedded
in coral off Hati. Wood from the ship, copper sheeting and ballast
stones were recovered. I guess I would feel better if they had
recovered the nameplate. Then I would be sure of their discovery.

Guy

The
book was the Winner of the LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE and
a finalist for the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. So I don't think one
can simply dismiss the book as some sort of "right wing" propaganda.

It's a scary book. Page 204 mentions that more than a hundred
communist agents had infiltrated the State Dept, the War Dept,
the Treasury Dept, the O.S.S and the F.B.I. by 1943.

Chambers himself was a Communist agent who turned against
that ideology. Unfortunately when he defected, he withheld
information from the authorities such as the F.B.I. He did
not give all the information away because he wanted immunity
from prosecution for his past activities. I guess he wanted
to use the information he withheld as a bargaining chip.
But since he lied to the authorities denying that he had
engaged in Soviet espionage. The author says this was to
cost Chambers later, which it did.

I remember many years
ago seeing a T.V. program where Alger Hiss was portrayed as some sort
of inocent victim. Of course with later revelations such as Venona and
archives in Eastern Europe we no know Hiss' claims
of innocence were bogus and he was as just plain GUILTY.

I remember reflecting on the fact that a number of traitors where
of the upper class: Burgess, Philby, McLean (Britain) and Hiss (U.S.A). John Le Carre, though not an ideological anti-communist pointed this out on TV when his work TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER,SPY
was aired. The witty, controversial Ann Coulter makes the same point
in her book TREASON.

I finished a book ON KILLING by
Lt. Col. David Grossman.
I must be begin by saying I don't like his
affinity for secular psychology and its practitioners. But while I have
questions about his worldview, I thought
he made some interesting points. The author,
while a military person, has not seen actual
combat, but has interviewd a number who have.
He also has done research on the topic. It is
interesting that one source which he recommends
is the magazine SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

He points out that only 15 to 20 percent of the soldiers
fired their weapons in World War II. The number climbed
to 55 percent in the Korean War and 95 percent in the Vietnam War.
He attributes this to the type of training after World War II.
The training after that war aimed for more "realism." Instead of
a bulls-eye, recruits aimed at figures or ballons. In other words
the targets were made to resemble real people. According to Grossman,
it was "conditioning" which raised the firing rates.

Grossman states that people have an aversion to killing other human
beings, but there are ways to overcome this inhibition. As mentioned
before "conditioning" was one of the factors in overcoming this inhibition. Other factors include not letting one's fellow soldiers
down (i.e. ACCOUNTABILITY to buddies or comrades), not being sure who
fired the fatal shot at the enemy ( ANONYMITY in a group) and DISTANCE.
This last factor of DISTANCE encompasses different types of distance:
physical distance and emotional distance (cultural, social etc. ie.
they're different).

For some reason the discussion on physical distance made me think of
abortion. People who kill from a distance such as those in high altitude bombers, do not see the people they kill and are less traumatized than those who kill face to face. Those who advocate abortion are often times not the ones
doing the abortion or conveneintly do not want people to see the
results of the abortion. As I write, I wonder if the abortion advocates
want to "distance" the American people from seeing the reults of abortion. I understand that the Truth truck which showed pictures
of aborted babies, offended some people who did not want to see such pictures. Actor/ law professor Ben Stein wrote that abortionists do not want people to see the fruits of their labor. But it is interesting
that even though people who have abortions do not generally see the
results of the abortion, they are traumatized. I wonder if there is
a spiritual link between mother and child? Someone who had four abortions told me her body was telling her abortion was wrong, while
society was saying it was o.k. Could this be an example of God's law
written on our hearts. The person was not a Christian at the time of
her abortion, so you can't really say her body which was saying abortion
was wrong was due to her Christian upbringing.

If Grossman is right, there is a strong inhibition against killing a fellow human being. I would argue it is God's law written on our hearts. Grossman claims that 98 percent of people are traumatized
by killing other people. He says the other two percent are not.
This two percent are not necessarily born criminals. Some in this two percent just view themselves as "sheepdogs" protecting the sheep and do not feel remorse for killing.

Grossman expresses concern over the violence in the entertainment industry. He feels that this violence in TV and cinema is hardening people to violence. He may be right. I must take exception to his
pontificating on gun control. He should remember that he had earlier
pointed out that Canada has a climbing crime rate in spite of strict
gun control. Also violent crime has actually gone UP 40 percent since
the govt. confiscated peoples' guns! To be fair this happened after
Grossman wrote his book. He also cites the book GIVING UP THE GUN which
is about how Japan gave up the use of firearms in the 1600's and passed
laws against owning firearms. What he does not mention is that those
gun control laws did not stop Choshu han ( the present day Yamaguchi prefecture) from secretly buying arms such as American Civil War weapons. These weapons gave Choshu the technical edge in its battle
with the Shogun's forces. Choshu was one of the provinces or han which lead the overthrow of the shogunate. Grossman also fails to cover
the case of Switzerland which has the highest per capita gun ownership.
Men in Switzerland are considered part of the militia and are issued
a military rifle, which they keep at home. But in spite of Switzerland's high gun ownership, it is a relatively safe society.

As a personal aside my maternal grandparents are from Yamaguchi prefecture or Choshu han, so I guess could say with pride that our
prefecture led the way in overthrowing the shogunate. Many of the
earlier leaders in the Meiji era came from Choshu.

I ran accross a book entitled
NO ONE'S PERFECT by H. Ototake.
ISBN 4-7700-2500-9
The Japanese edition was published two years
earlier in 1998 as GOTAI FUMANZOKU
This is a recollection or autobiography
of "Oto" Ototake who was born with very short
ams and legs and how he managed to
thrive in spite of his handicap. I think Mr. Ototake was
forturnate to have supportive classmates and a supportive
teacher. But supportive did not necessarily mean the teacher
always let him use his wheelchair. "Oto" feels having to
struggle made him stronger. He has an interesting quote
concerning his teacher :
"True strictness is true kindness"
I have not yet
finished the book. I think someone ought to make
the book into a movie or TV series.
John Leo in his paper on Japanese Dorama (Drama)
mentioned that "handicapped" dramas was one ot the
types of series being shown in Japan. KTSF recently
aired BEAUTIFUL LIFE which featured a woman in a wheelchair
who worked in a library. I ran accross someone in a wheelchair
at the bookstore and told her she reminded me of the actress in that
series. It turns out that she has been watching the series.
Unfortunately
the series is not subtitled in English here. I think it is subtitled
for KIKU in
Hawaii. Anyways this lady had been watching the program subtitled in
Chinese. So I guess one can rent the program subbed in Chinese but
not English. How frustrating.
I had been watching TEN URARA till it ended. The main character , Urara
was concerned with "barrier free" housing. "Barrier free" is an
English
term which has made its way into the Japanese language. I don't think
we use the term in the United States. I think we use terms as
"handicaped"
or "wheelchair access".
I guess Mr. Otaotake is one of many people who show that handicapped does
not mean that one's life is not worth living.