083105
there will be a screening of the film, seoul train, this saturday at varsity theatre (10 p.m.) as part of the annual girl fest hawaii:

seoul train is a documentary about the life and death of north koreans as they try to escape their homeland and china via a secret undegound railroad. the harrowing geopolitical study looks at the complexities of international relations and the chaos that often results form the west's flouting of international law and the united nations' laconic bureaucracy. the film combines vérité footage, personal stories, interviews, government officials and activists who are giving their lives to save the refugees. winner of a number of international awards, seoul train is a must see.

082705
i've converted all my quicktime video files into wmv files (sorry, mac users), freeing up 350 mb of web storage.

all videos can be streamed now. broadband connection (minimum 700 kb/s) is required, however.

now for the hard part: getting all the blog entries up again.

and the harder part: getting people to actually care about all this.

082505
i'm out of web storage... all 1 gig of it.

under construction until i figure out what to do.

082505
now, this is quite a surprise. honolulu ranked only the 146th most liberal city in the united states, according to the bay area center for voting research:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 146.

detroit, michigan gary, indiana berkeley, california washington, d.c. oakland, california inglewood, california newark, new jersey cambridge, massachusetts san francisco, california flint, michigan cleveland, ohio hartford, connecticut paterson, new jersey baltimore, maryland new haven, connecticut seattle, washington chicago, illinois philadelphia, pennsylvania birmingham, alabama st. Louis, missouri new york city, new york providence, rhode island minneapolis, minnesota boston, massachusetts buffalo, new york honolulu, hawaii

081505

"this war, like the next war, is a war to end war."

- david lloyd george

japanese prime minister marks world war ii defeat with apology to asia:

prime minister junichiro koizumi marked the 60th anniversary of japan's defeat in world war ii on monday with an apology for suffering caused by japanese military aggression, and pledged that tokyo would never again go to war. sixty years after emperor hirohito exhorted his subjects to "bear the unbearable" and accept defeat, memories of the war that killed millions in asia still bedevil relations between japan and its neighbors, particularly china and north and south korea. "japan caused huge damage and suffering to many countries, especially to the people of several asian nations... with its colonization and aggression," koizumi said in a statement. "humbly accepting this fact of history, we again express our deep remorse and heartfelt apology and offer our condolences to the victims of the war at home and abroad," he said. koizumi later mourned japan's war dead at a secular memorial service. he stayed away from a controversial tokyo shrine where convicted war criminals are honored along with the 2.5 million japanese military who have died since the late 1800s. to the fury of japan's east asian neighbors, koizumi has made annual visits to yasukuni—literally "peaceful country"—since taking office in 2001, but never on the anniversary of the war's end.

081505

south korean lee yu-hui (73) tries to reach out to her brother-in-law chun yang-seok (73) in north korea during the first reunion via video link held at the national red cross in seoul on monday to mark the 60th anniversary of korea’s liberation from japanese colonial rule.

081505


august 15, 1945: the allies (the united states and the soviet union) liberate korea from 35 years of japanese colonial rule (1910 - 1945).



liberation?

as unification minister chung dong-young and president roh moo-hyun watch a north korean delegate pay his respects at the national cemetery, they wonder if it means south korean leaders will now have to pay their respects at the tomb of kim il-sung when they visit the north.

081305
zapatista rebels eye 2006 mexico election:

after four years of near silence, the ski-masked zapatista rebels suddenly have a lot to say as they try to build a national political movement and reshape the campaign for next summer's presidential election. but whether the rebels can recapture the attention of the world—and sway mexican voters—remains unclear. unlike the 1994 armed uprising in chiapas state that grabbed headlines and gave the zapatistas a romantic aura, their latest effort seems oddly timed. rebel leader subcomandante marcos has grown pudgy and quarrelsome, and mexico's left seems to have moved on, gathering around former mexico city mayor andres manuel lopez obrador, who leads opinion polls on potential candidates for the 2006 presidential race. marcos on saturday renewed bitter recriminations against the political establishment. "only tricks, lies, mockery and disdain were what we received from the political parties that now are competing for the presidency," he said, smoking a pipe behind his trademark balaclava.

read the rest on your own.

mexican zapatista rebel leader subcommandante marcos is showered with flowers as he walks past supporters in javier hernandez, in the mexican state of chiapas, saturday, aug. 13, 2005. the rebel group is holding its second in a series of meetings to discuss a new phase of its movement, this week inviting supporters from indian communities.

081305
go pick up mr. orange undercover's latest!

081305
this weather is fucking obscene!



god hates hawaii.

081105
hawaii stands out in racial diversity, according to u.s. census bureau :

hawaii maintained its status as the nation's most racially diverse state in the latest population estimates released today by the u.s. census bureau. according to the estimates, 76.7 percent of hawaii's population identify themselves as minorities, the highest proportion in the nation. three other states and the district of columbia also are "majority-minority": texas, which has a growing hispanic population, california and mexico. in hawaii, asians are the largest group, with 58 percent of the state's population, which also is tops in the nation. hispanics make up the largest minority group in texas, california and new mexico, while in the district of columbia african-americans make up the largest group. hawaii had the largest number and largest proportion of native hawaiians and other pacific islanders: 279,700, or 22 percent of the state's population.

081005
against me! playing with the soviettes and smoke or fire on october 21 and 22 at pink cadillac.

it's better than nothing, i guess.





080605

"no government fights fascism to destroy it. when the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges."

- buenaventura durruti

from "a people's history of the united states":

on august 6, 1945, came the lone american plane in the sky over hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning. three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of nagasaki, with perhaps 50,000 killed. the justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of japan. such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said. estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people. japan, by august 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. if only the americans had not insisted on cunconditional surrender—that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the emperor, a holy figure to the japanese, remain in place—the japanese would have agreed to stop the war. why did the united states not take that small step to save both american and japanese lives? was it because too much money and effort had been invested in the atomic bomb not to drop it? or was it that the united states was anxious to drop the bomb before the russians entered the war against japan? the russians had secretly agreed they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the european war. that turned out to be may 8, and so, on august 8, the russians were due to declare war on japan. but by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one would be dropped on nagasaki; the japanese would surrender to the united states, not the russians, and the united states would be the occupier of postwar japan. truman had said, "the world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima, a military base. that was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." it was a preposterous statement. those 100,000 killed in hiroshima were almost all civilians. the u.s. strategic bombing survey said in its official report: "hiroshima and nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population." the dropping of the second bomb on nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? were the dead and irradiated of nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment? true, the war then ended quickly. italy had been defeated a year earlier. germany had recently surrendered, crushed primarily by the armies of the soviet union on the eastern front, aided by the allied armies on the west. now japan surrendered. the fascist powers were destroyed. but what about fascism—as ideas, as reality? were its essential elements—militarism, racism, imperialism—now gone? or were they absorbed into the already poisoned bones of the victors? a. j. muste, the revolutionary pacifist, had predicted in 1941: "the problem after a war is with the victor. he thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. who will now teach him a lesson?" the victory were the soviet union and the united states. both these countries now went to work—without swastikas, goose-stepping, or officially declared racism, but under the cover of "socialism" on one side, and "democracy" on the other, to carve out their own empires of influence. they proceeded to share and contest with one another the domination of the world, to build military machines far greater than the fascist countries had built, to control the destinies of more countries than hitler, mussolini, and japan had been able to do. they also acted to control their own populations, each country with its own techniques—crude in the soviet union, sophisticated in the united states—to make their rule secure.

080405

"the concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. it presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. when this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative."

- george jackson

"animal liberation: history in the making" trailer, with exciting footages of the animal liberation front in action:



go pick up the dvd at www.rootsofcompassion.org.





080405

"time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. you don't need anything else."

- malcolm x

i.w.w. strike, 1912.