Mar 08
22
Did you know that people from the East and people from the West gauge visual cues of emotion differently? A new study seems to show that Asians tend to take the emotions of a group into account when determining the emotions of an individual in the group.
Spring has arrived in Japan, which means it’s Hanami — cherry blossom viewing — season! Of course, that means it’s also time for a variety of ahem other spring festivals. Nice weather for a bike ride.
Japan is, of course, on the earth’s “ring of fire“. Did you know that Mt. Fuji is a volcano? Like California, they are subject to earthquakes. Here’s an interview with an award-winning Japanese-American seismologist whose California home is built on a fault — and says that “But after [basic preparation and disaster supplies], I don’t think about it anymore.”
In a bygone age, the Kimono was a typical garment. Perhaps it did not occur to you that they don’t have pockets! So where was a gentleman to keep his pipe, his “pocket” change, his noontime medication? Why, in a container hooked to his belt strung to an elegant little sculpture called a netsuke (think of the u as being silent).
In closing: a shocking concept, living within your means; there’s no excuse for an error-ridden terror watchlist; the middle way on regulation vs deregulation; explaining the credit crisis so even a child can should understand it; why are we getting on the case of people for supporting a wacky black preacher without denouncing some of our wacky white preachers?; the 10th largest economy in the world won’t promise to comply with Real ID; Duhpartment of Research admits that while kids who eat healthy diets do better in school, kids who aren’t poor or who don’t have undereducated parents tend to eat healthier diets; and finally, states start to ask how exactly somebody can be mature enough to go to war and not mature enough to buy a beer when he/she gets back from the battle.
I can’t believe I’m seeing this whole drinking age thing begin again. I remember when I was a kid (I can’t remember how old I was – I believe it was in the mid-1970′s) the legal drinking age in Michigan was lowered from 21 to 18. The argument was “if the kids are old enough to fight in Vietnam” etc. The year I turned 18 the legal drinking age was raised back up to 21. My mother voted for the increase in the drinking age, then became upset because she could no longer use me as a courier for the family beer and liquor runs.
My dad told me once that when he was under the age of 21 back in the 1940′s, there was a guy who ran a party store who sold booze to my dad and his buddies through a Lazy-Susan device in the back of his store. My dad would be outside, the guy would rotate out his Lazy Susan, my dad would put his money in, then the guy would rotate the beer out to my dad.