It is Not Food

Japanese dolphin meat is toxic. It is not food.

It contains extremely high mercury and methylmercury levels. In fact, levels in dolphins were higher than some of the mercury-tainted seafood tested during the tragic Minamata mercury-pollution disaster of the 1950s.

Dolphins are not fit for human consumption and certainly should not be given to school children. It is simply "toxic waste."

This was the conclusion of two Taiji city assemblymen in 2007 who had toxicology tests done on the dolphin meat sold in local markets. It was also the conclusion of the filmmakers of The Cove that had independent tests conducted.

Nevertheless, dolphins near Taiji, Japan are still rounded up annually and killed to be used in school lunches and local restaurants.

Starting July 31st, The Cove, the award-winning documentary on the Taiji dolphin slaughter, will be shown in commercial movie theaters throughout the United States and Canada. The Arts section of the Sunday July 19th New York Times featured an extensive article on the making of the film. It highlighted the need for a "clandestine operations coordinator" in the film team. As the Times reported:

some of the filming was done at night, with the crew in camouflage and face paint and using military-style thermal cameras to film the fishermen and police officers who were trying to keep them away from the cove. Part of that material has ended up in the film, as has footage shot from unmanned aerial drones and a blimp equipped with a remote-controlled camera.

The newly nominated (6/25/09) U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is David Killion. He is currently the chief legislative adviser to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) on international organizations and the environment. His confirmation hearing is Tuesday, July 28th. Last summer, Mr. Killion as an official representative of Chairman Berman, visited Taiji.

The official movie site complete with the trailer and city openings is HERE.

After The Death Marches

World War II saw many death marches. The Bataan Death March was one of many forced treks Japan's Imperial Army imposed on its prisoners of war. In some respects, it may be the most famous because it had the most survivors and witnesses.

Like so many of Japan's war crimes, the marches were all strikingly similar in conception and execution. No matter where in the Pacific Theater, Imperial troops with their Korean and Formosan conscripts inflicted horrors upon those in their care. Neither disdain nor indifference succeeds in explaining the inhumanity.

The Sandankan Death Marches in North Borneo match if not surpass the miseries of Bataan. Of the 2400 Australian and British POWs involved, only 6 Australians survived. Originally, moved to Sandankan to build an airfield, many POWs in January 1945 were forced to began a series of marches away from possible Allied landings on the island. This was partly to dispose of them and partly to use the survivors as mules for a retreat. Those left in the camp were murdered.

This atrocity was considered so infamous that in the movie, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence about a Japanese POW camp on Java, the director included an indirect reference to it. Toward the end of the film, one group of Australian prisoners was marched off to "build an airfield." It was a subtle reference to more horrors to come in a film about confusing Japanese brutality, male honor and homosexuality. The movie, starring David Bowie, was based on a moving book on war and forgiveness by Larens van der Post, The Seed and the Sower.*

On the Western Front, the best known Death March of POWs was only recently recognized. This was by 350 mostly Jewish American POWs who unlike other POWs of the Third Reich were sent to a concentration camp, Berga, a subcamp of Buchenwald. In the last months of the war, these POWs became slave laborers building air defense tunnels. It was "death through work" one of the survivors said. Like the Japanese, the Nazis tried to hide these starving and sick POWs by marching them away from the advancing American forces. And like the in the Japanese POWs, nearly one-third of the POWs perished.

It was very unusual for American POWs to treated like this by the Nazis. Although typical for POWs of Japan, this appears to be the only case where Americans were slave laborers for the German military. The typical death rate in German POW camps was one and one-half percent, unlike in Japan's POW camps, which was over 30%.

Unique to these POWs, is that they were finally compensated for their work and suffering. Because Berga was a concentration camp** and not a POW camp, these POWs received settlements from the German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility, and the Future" Fund as well as some an award from a lawsuit against the German Government. Neither have been options for the American POWs of Japan.

Similar to the American POWs of Japan, the survivors of Berga were also forced to sign gag orders threatening prosecution if they talked about their experiences. They also were ignored by the US Government and their stories suppressed. Just this year new photos of the graves at Berga surfaced.

This weekend, the US Army, pressured by Congress, will honor the surviving Berga veterans. Maj. Gen. Vincent Boles is to present these men with some sort of special recognition and an explanation as to why the US government commuted the death sentences of the two Berga commanders, Erwin Metz and his superior, Hauptmann Ludwig Merz.

As noted below, last weekend the Japanese government made its first step toward apologizing to and acknowledging the American POWs of Japan. Unfortunately, the Foreign Ministry nor the Japanese Embassy in the US have not published any press release nor transcript of the Japanese Ambassador's apology. More surprising, the Japanese press has not reported the story. Even the Mainichi Shimbun reporter present did not have his story published.

Maybe soon, the Pentagon will so honor the POW survivors of Japan's death marches and explain too why so many camp commanders and guards were never executed or prosecuted. This is not just for the American POWs, but also for Japan. The Japanese need to understand that these apologies matter and that these histories with its most important ally cannot be ignored, nor remain unexamined.


Later: Here is the CNN Report on this past weekend's Berga reunion attended by Maj. Gen. Vincent Boles, an emissary from the Army. He told the group that "These men were abused and put under some of the most horrific conditions, It wasn't a prison camp. It was a slave labor camp." As one Berga survivor responded, "It means a great deal -- that it's being recognized and understood."

*Strangely, Japanese pop idol Utada took the award winning music from the movie and produced a completely unseemly and irrelevant song

**As an aside, recent scholarship on Nazi concentration and extermination camps have found that the number of 5,000 to 7,000 to be conservative. The count is more than 20,000.

White Men Are Back

It was family movie nite on Saturday. Well, my daughter refused to join us, as she is 12 and it would be just too embarrassing to be seen with her parents and older brother. And she had to watch Twilight for the 27th time. I have tried to make it clear to her that I do not want her dating the undead. But, as with most things, she knows I know nothing.

Anyway, we went to see Star Trek. It was great and we recommend it. It was fun, exciting, interesting, and very affirming for white Iowan farm boys. Not only will they still be in charge centuries from now, but the hot women will be even more mysterious and exotic--more colors, more facial types, more...

Don't get me wrong, there do seem to be several women in important positions. There are female students and officers; Spock has a mother; Kirk has a mother; and a green-skinned, red-headed girl takes Ensign Kirk to bed. Lt. Uhura still steams the screen with her boots and mini skirt. She also seems to have some talent with languages and oral stimulation.

James T. Kirk is extremely handsome, bold, strong, and assertive. He is a natural leader raised fatherless on an Iowa farm and the sort of bad boy that attracts all the ladies. His father was a hero and died in battle as his mother was giving birth. He has a swagger, but is vulnerable. You want to have his children and take care of him all at once. My daughter really missed something by not joining us. She did Google the actor, Chris Pine, and I believe I detected a sigh; from both of us.

Despite all the new worlds and cooperative aliens, the Federation still has to rely on American men to get the job done. When the rogue Romulan attacks it is always the steely blue-eyed American boy who becomes a man in the battle. First it is Kirk's father, and then himself. While extremely intelligent, in the end it is always his brute strength that wins that day whether it is hand-to-hand combat after a space jump or proving to Spock who is the better man. He bleeds but does not sweat.

In the end, so the movie shows us, there is something behind that self-assured white male that wants to right the world. If there is a crisis, especially one that needs seat of the pants improvisation and a fist-fight, our man is white and mid-Western. He is Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and now Chris Pine.

As Alex Baldwin in the popular sitcom, 30 Rock, reprimands his warring staff,

"I'll tell you who has it the hardest: White Men. We make the unpopular, difficult decisions - the tough choices. We land on the moon and Normandy Beach and they resent us."

So white boys, you are back. You are still needed. There is nothing like you; there is no need to change.

But, I am going to have to change. I have to figure out how to make myself more exotic.

In the Realm of Oshima

In the Realm of Oshima: The Films of Japanese Master Nagisa Oshima, a retrospective of one of Japan's most creative filmakers opened this week in Washington, DC. From March 6 - April 26, 2009 you can view all of his famous films free at three locations throughout the Washington area. These films of social disintegration and political protest seem as timely today as when they were made. So much of what Oshima critiqued remains.

Promotional materials note: "The filmmaker who ushered in the Japanese New Wave in the late 1950s, Nagisa Oshima (b. 1932, Kyoto), rejected the genteel tenor of Japanese filmmaking and chose as his métier the turmoil of contemporary politics and culture. Imperfect characters from society's fringes were his vehicles for complex and often controversial ideas, while his formal brilliance won accolades around the world. This series, organized by James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario, and The Japan Foundation, Tokyo, is presented in Washington at the Freer Gallery of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and AFI Silver Theatre." The website for the films includes movies synopses as well as times and locations. Harvard University also has an excellent selection of movie synopses.

On Saturday, The Washington Post presented a glowing review of works: A Panoramic View of Japanese Director's Dark Genius By Philip Kennicott, Washington Post Staff Writer (March 7, 2009; Page C01).

Most Americans, if aware of Oshima are either familiar with his artistic pornography such as In the Realm of the Senses or, more likely, the 1983 Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence that starred David Bowie and Beat Kitano about the brutality of a Japanese POW camp. It's award winning score by Ryuichi Sakamoto is haunting. As described on the Harvard website:

Oshima's unconventional adaptation of Laurence van der Post's celebrated memoir of imprisonment in a Japanese war camp [The Seed and the Sower] adds a lush and at times almost operatic dimension to the book, combining its moving tale of camaraderie and cultural difference with an unusual critique of masculine authority and the homoeroticism of the bushido code. Starring a mesmerizing David Bowie in one of his great film roles, Oshima's late masterpiece also features memorable performances by Ryuichi Sakamoto – who composed the film's incredible score – and Takeshi Kitano in his very first film screen appearance. Made at the height of Oshima's later international period, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence's exploration of the Japanese nation and image as seen by outsiders offers a fascinating counterpoint to the imperious and insightful scrutiny of the Japanese psyche that cuts across Oshima's work.

Others see the movie of as one of unrequited love and repressed heartbreak. In any interpretation, it is a movie about seeking shreds of humanity in calculated inhumanity. I am planning to take my son to see this film on April 25th. I will see what he thinks.