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mele kalikimaka me ka hauoli makahiki hou!

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"life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."

- charlie chaplin

remembering sir charles spencer chaplin.



april 16, 1889 - december 25, 1977



a charlie chaplin biography by time magazine (where he was named one of the "100 most important people of the 20th century"):

every few weeks, outside the movie theater in virtually any american town in the late 1910s, stood the life-size cardboard figure of a small tramp—outfitted in tattered, baggy pants, a cutaway coat and vest, impossibly large, worn-out shoes and a battered derby hat—bearing the inscription I AM HERE TODAY. an advertisement for a charlie chaplin film was a promise of happiness, of that precious, almost shocking moment when art delivers what life cannot, when experience and delight become synonymous, and our investments yield the fabulous, unmerited bonanza we never get past expecting. eighty years later, chaplin is still here. in a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. he was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process—founding his own studio, united artists, with douglas fairbanks, mary pickford and d.w. griffith, and producing, casting, directing, writing, scoring and editing the movies he starred in. in the first decades of the 20th century, when weekly moviegoing was a national habit, chaplin more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art. in 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10,000 a week made him the highest-paid actor—possibly the highest paid person—in the world. by 1920, "chaplinitis," accompanied by a flood of chaplin dances, songs, dolls, comic books and cocktails, was rampant. filmmaker mack sennett thought him "just the greatest artist who ever lived." other early admirers included george bernard shaw, marcel proust and sigmund freud. in 1923 hart crane, who wrote a poem about chaplin, said his pantomime "represents the futile gesture of the poet today." later, in the 1950s, chaplin was one of the icons of the beat generation. jack kerouac went on the road because he too wanted to be a hobo. from 1981 to 1987, i.b.m. used the tramp as the logo to advertise its venture into personal computers. born in london in 1889, chaplin spent his childhood in shabby furnished rooms, state poorhouses and an orphanage. he was never sure who his real father was; his mother's husband charles chaplin, a singer, deserted the family early and died of alcoholism in 1901. his mother hannah, a small-time actress, was in and out of mental hospitals. though he pursued learning passionately in later years, young charlie left school at 10 to work as a mime and roustabout on the british vaudeville circuit. the poverty of his early years inspired the tramp's trademark costume, a creative travesty of formal dinner dress suggesting the authoritative adult reimagined by a clear-eyed child, the guilty class reinvented in the image of the innocent one. his "little fellow" was the expression of a wildly sentimental, deeply felt allegiance to rags over riches by the star of the century's most conspicuous horatio alger scenario. from the start, his extraordinary athleticism, expressive grace, impeccable timing, endless inventiveness and genius for hard work set chaplin apart. in 1910 he made his first trip to america, with fred karno's speechless comedians. in 1913 he joined sennett's keystone studios in new york city. although his first film, making a living (1914), brought him nationwide praise, he was unhappy with the slapstick speed, cop chases and bathing-beauty escapades that were sennett's specialty. the advent of movies in the late 1890s had brought full visibility to the human personality, to the corporeal self that print, the dominant medium before film, could only describe and abstract. in a sennett comedy, speechlessness raised itself to a racket, but chaplin instinctively understood that visibility needs leisure as well as silence to work its most intimate magic. the actor, not the camera, did the acting in his films. never a formal innovator, chaplin found his persona and plot early and never totally abandoned them. for 13 years, he resisted talking pictures, launched with the jazz singer in 1927. even then, the talkies he made, among them the masterpieces the great dictator (1940), monsieur verdoux (1947) and limelight (1952), were daringly far-flung variations on his greatest silent films, the kid (1921), the gold rush (1925), the circus (1928) and city lights (1931). the terrifyingly comic adenoid hynkel (a takeoff on hitler), whom chaplin played in the great dictator, or m. verdoux, the sardonic mass murderer of middle-aged women, may seem drastic departures from the "little fellow," but the tramp is always ambivalent and many-sided. funniest when he is most afraid, mincing and smirking as he attempts to placate those immune to pacification, constantly susceptible to reprogramming by nearby bodies or machines, skidding around a corner or sliding seamlessly from a pat to a shove while desire and doubt chase each other across his face, the tramp is never unself-conscious, never free of calculation, never anything but a hard-pressed if often divinely lighthearted member of an endangered species, entitled to any means of defense he can devise. faced with a frequently malign universe, he can never quite bring himself to choose between his pleasure in the improvisatory shifts of strategic retreat and his impulse to love some creature palpably weaker and more threatened than himself. when a character in monsieur verdoux remarks that if the unborn knew of the approach of life, they would dread it as much as the living do death, chaplin was simply spelling out what we've known all along. the tramp, it seemed, was mute not by necessity but by choice. he'd tried to protect us from his thoughts, but if the times insisted that he tell what he saw as well as what he was, he could only reveal that the innocent chaos of comedy depends on a mania for control, that the cruelest of ironies attend the most heartfelt invocations of pathos. speech is the language of hatred as silence is that of love. on chaplin's first night in new york in september 1910, he walked around the theater district, dazzled by its lights and movement. "this is it!" he told himself. "this is where i belong!" yet he never became a u.s. citizen. an internationalist by temperament and fame, he considered patriotism "the greatest insanity that the world has ever suffered." as the depression gave way to world war ii and the cold war, the increasingly politicized message of his films, his expressed sympathies with pacifists, communists and soviet supporters, became suspect. it didn't help that chaplin, a bafflingly complex and private man, had a weakness for young girls. his first two wives were 16 when he married them; his last, oona o'Neill, daughter of eugene o'Neill, was 18. in 1943 he was the defendant in a public, protracted paternity suit. denouncing his "leering, sneering attitude" toward the u.s. and his "unsavory" morals, various public officials, citizen groups and gossip columnists led a boycott of his pictures. j. edgar hoover's f.b.i. put together a dossier on chaplin that reached almost 2,000 pages. wrongly identifying him as "israel thonstein," a jew passing for a gentile, the f.b.i. found no evidence that he had ever belonged to the communist party or engaged in treasonous activity. in 1952, however, two days after chaplin sailed for england to promote limelight, attorney general james mcgranery revoked his re-entry permit. loathing the witch-hunts and "moral pomposity" of the cold war u.s., and believing he had "lost the affections" of the american public, chaplin settled with oona and their family in switzerland (where he died in 1977). with the advent of the '60s and the vietnam war, chaplin's american fortunes turned. he orchestrated a festival of his films in new york in 1963. amid the loudest and longest ovation in its history, he accepted a special oscar from the academy of motion picture arts and sciences in 1972. there were dissenters. governor ronald reagan, for one, believed the government did the right thing in 1952. during the 1972 visit, chaplin, at 83, said he'd long ago given up radical politics, a welcome remark in a nation where popular favor has often been synonymous with depoliticization. but the ravishing charm and brilliance of his films are inseparable from his convictions. at the end of city lights, when the heroine at last sees the man who has delivered her from blindness, we watch her romantic dreams die. "you?" she asks, incredulous. "yes," the tramp nods, his face, caught in extreme close-up, a map of pride, shame and devotion. it's the oldest story in show businessthe last shall yet be, if not first, at least recognized, and perhaps even loved.

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AAAH! MY DOMAIN NAME EXPIRED!!!

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"what baffled and saddened me during the writing of this book was the persistent japanese refusal to come to terms with its own past. it is not just that japan has doled out less than 1 percent of the amount that germany has paid in war reparations to its victims. it is not just that, unlike most nazis, who, if not incarcerated for their crimes were at least forced from public life, many japanese war criminals continued to occupy powerful positions in industry and government after the war. and it is not just the fact that while germans have made repeated apologies to their holocaust victims, the japanese have enshrined their war criminals in tokyo. "strongly motivating me throughout this long and difficult labor was the stubborn refusal of many prominent japanese politicians, academics, and industrial leaders to admit, despite overwhelming evidence, that the nanking massacre had even happened. in contrast to germany, where it is illegal for teachers to delete the holocaust from their history curricula, the japanese have for decades systematically purged references to the nanking massacre from their textbooks. they have removed photographs of the nanking massacre from museums, tampered with original source material, and excised from popular culture any mention of the massacre. even respected history professors in japan have joined right-wing forces to do what they perceive to be their national duty: discredit reports of a nanking massacre."

- iris chang

on december 13, 1937, the capital city of china, nanking, fell to the japanese imperial army...



for the next six weeks, an estimated 300,000 chinese (mostly civilians) were massacred...



an estimated 20,000-80,000 chinese women were raped...

"many of the chinese victims of the japanese were apparently murdered for no other reason than pleasure." *

"those in the first row were beheaded, those in the second row were forced to dump the severed bodies into the river before they themselves were beheaded." *

"many believed that raping virgins would make them more powerful in battle. soldiers were even known to wear amulets made from the pubic hair of such victims, believing that they possessed magical powers against injury. "the military policy forbidding rape only encouraged soldiers to kill their victims afterwards." *

"soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive into pots of boiling water." *

"a competition began among the soldiers—a competition to determine who could kill the fastest. as one soldier stood sentinel with a machine gun, ready to mow down anyone who tried to bolt, the eight other soldiers split up into pairs to form four separate teams. in each team, one soldier beheaded prisoners with a sword while the other picked up heads and tossed them aside in a pile. the japanese were laughing; one even took photographs." *

"two rows up from him a pregnant woman began to fight for her life, clawing desperately at a soldier who tried to drag her away from the group to rape her. nobody helped her, and in the end the soldier killed her, ripping open her belly with his bayonet and jerking out not only her intestines but a squirming fetus." *

"the japanese directed burial operations with the precision and efficiency of an assembly line. soldiers would force one group of chinese captives to dig a grave, a second group to bury the first, and then a third group to bury the second and so on. some victims were partially buried to their chest or necks so that they would endure further agony, such as being hacked to pieces by swords or run over by horses and tanks." *

"the japanese not only disemboweled, decapitated, and dismembered victims but performed more excruciating varieties of torture. throughout the city they nailed prisoners to wooden boards and ran over them with tanks, crucified them to trees and electrical posts, carved long strips of flesh from them, and used them for bayonet practice. at least one hundred men reportedly had their eyes gouged out and their noses and ears hacked off before being set on fire. another group of two hundred chinese soldiers and civilians were stripped naked, tied to columns and doors of a school, and then stabbed by zhuizispecial needles with handles on themin hundreds of points along their bodies, including their mouths, throats, and eyes." *

"the japanese subjected large crowds of victims to mass incineration. in hsiakwan a japanese soldier bound chinese captives together, ten at a time, and pushed them into a pit, where they were sprayed with gasoline and ignited. on taiping road, the japanese ordered a large number of shop clerks to extinguish a fire, then bound them together with rope and threw them into the blaze. japanese soldiers even devised games with fire. one method of entertainment was to drive mobs of chinese to the top stories or roofs of buildings, tear down the stairs, and set the bottom floors on fire. many such victims committed suicide by jumping out windows or off rooftops. another form of amusement involved dousing victims with fuel, shooting them, and watching them explode into flame. in one infamous incident, japanese soldiers forced hundreds of men, women, and children into a square, soaked them with gasoline, and then fired on them with machine guns." *

"thousands of victims were intentionally frozen to death during the rape of nanking. for instance, japanese soldiers forced hundreds of chinese prisoners to march to the edge of a frozen pond, where they were ordered to strip naked, break the ice, and plunge into the water to go "fishing." their bodies hardened into floating targets that were immediately riddled with japanese bullets. in another incident, the japanese tied up a group of refugees, flung them into a shallow pond, and bombarded them with hand grenades, causing "an explosive shower of blood and flesh." *

"the japanese saturated victims in acid, impaled babies with bayonets, hung people by their tongues. one japanese reported who later investigated the rape of nanking learned that at least on japanese soldier tore the heart and liver out of a chinese victim to eat them. even genitals, apparently, were consumed: a chinese soldier who escaped from japanese custody saw several dead people in the streets with the their penises cut off. he was later told that the penises were sold to japanese customers who believed that eating them would increase virility." *

"in the streets of nanking, corpses of women lay with their legs splayed open, their orifices pierced by wooden rods, twigs, and weeds. it is painful, almost mind-numbing, to contemplate some of the other objects that were used to torment the nanking women, who suffered almost unendurable ordeals. for instance, one japanese soldier who raped a young woman thrust a beer bottle into her and shot her. another rape victim was found with a golf stick rammed into her. and on december 22, in a neighborhood near the gate of tongjimen, the japanese raped a barber's wife and then stuck a firecracker in her vagina. it blew up and killed her." *

"little girls were raped so brutally that some could not walk for weeks afterwards. many required surgery; others died. chinese witnesses saw japanese rape girls under ten years of age in the streets and then slash them in half by sword. in some cases, the japanese sliced open the vaginas of preteen girls in order to ravish them more effectively." *

"the japanese violated many who were about to go into labor, were in labor, or who had given birth only a few days earlier. one victim who was nine months pregnant when raped suffered not only stillbirth but a complete mental collapse. at least one pregnant woman was kicked to death. still more gruesome was the treatment allotted tosome of the unborn children of these women. after gang rape, japanese soldiers sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the fetuses for amusement." *

"chinese men were often sodomized or forced to perform a variety of repulsive sexual acts in front of laughing japanese soldiers. at least one chinese man was murdered because he refused to commit necrophilia with the corpse of a woman in the snow. the japanese also delighted in trying to coerce men who had taken lifetime vows of celibacy to engage in sexual intercourse. a chinese woman had tried to disguise herself as a man to pass through one of the gates of nanking, but japanese guards, who systematically searched all passing pedestrians by groping at their crotches, discovered her true sex. gang rape followed, at which time a buddhist monk had the misfortune to venture near the scene. the japanese tried to force him to have sex with the woman they had just raped. when the monk protested, they castrated him, causing the poor man to bleed to death. some of the most sordid instances of sexual torture involved the degradation of entire families. the japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing chinese men to commit incest—fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers." *

* from iris chang's "the rape of nanking"

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the late joe strummer and johnny cash has been nominated for a grammy (best pop collaboration with vocals) for their cover of bob marley's, "redemption song."

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i found some old banners while i was going through my files.































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"it was not hitler's attacks on the jews that brought the united states into world war ii, any more than the enslavement of 4 million blacks brought civil war in 1861. italy's attack on ethiopia, hitler's invasion of austria, his takeover of czechoslovakia, his attack on poland—none of those events caused the united states to enter the war. what brought the united states fully into the war was the japanese attack on the american naval base at pearl harbor, hawaii, on december 7, 1941. surely it was not the humane concern for japan's bombing of civilians that led to roosevelt's outraged call for war—japan's attack on china in 1937, her bombing of civilians at nanking, had not provoked the united states to war. it was the japanese attack on a link in the american pacific empire that did it. "so long as japan remained a well-behaved member of that imperial club of great powers who—in keeping with the open door policy—were sharing the exploitation of china, the united states did not object. it had exchanged notes with japan in 1917 saying 'the government of the united states recognizes that japan has special interests in china.' in 1928, according to akira iriye, american consuls in china supported the coming of japanese troops. it was when japan threatened potentional u.s. markets by its attempted takeover of china, but especially as it moved toward the tin, rubber, and oil of southeast asia, that the united states became alarmed and took those measures which led to the japanese attack: a total embargo on scrap iron, a total embargo on oil in the summer of 1941. "as bruce russett says: 'throughout the 1930s the united states government had done little to resist the japanese advance on the asian continent.' but: 'the southwest pacific area was of undeniable economic importance to the united states—at the time most of america's tin and rubber came from there, as did substantial quantities of other raw materials.' "pearl harbor was presented to the american public as a sudden, shocking, immoral act. immoral it was, like any bombingbut not really sudden or shocking to the american government. russett says: 'japan's strike against the american naval base climaxed a long series of mutually antagonistic acts. in initiating economic sanctions against japan the united states undertook actions that were widely recognized in washington as carrying grave risks of war.' "putting aside the wild accusations against roosevelt (that he knew about pearl harbor and didn't tell, or that he deliberately provoked the pearl harbor raid—these are without evidence), it does seem clear that he did as james polk had done before him in the mexican war and lyndon johnson after him in the vetnam warhe lied to the public for what he thought was a right cause. in september and october 1941, he misstated the facts in two incidents involving german submarines and american destroyers. "one of the judges in the tokyo war crimes trial after world war ii, radhabinod pal, dissented from the general verdicts against japanese officials and argued that the united states had clearly provoked the war with japan and expected japan to act. richard minear sums up pal's view of the embargoes on scrap iron and oil, that 'these measures were a clear and potent threat to japan's very existence.' the records show that a white house conference two weeks before pearl harbor anticipated a war and discussed how it should be justified."

- howard zinn

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"political freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie."

- mikhail bakunin

capitalism is hate

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this is kind of neat: www.ffxiplayers.com.

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ummm... should i be worried?

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*breathes a sigh of relief*

THANK THE LORD.

life is fucking beautiful at the moment.