Richard Dawkins, father of the meme, on militant atheism

I have been doing some research on meme theory and applications, and recently read Richard Dawkins "The Selfish Gene," so I was interested when I saw that he had made a speech to TED. His talk was not specifically about memes, but was entitled, "An Atheist's call to arms." I think now that it was a hyperbole, aimed at jerking people out of their unexamined beliefs about atheism and religion, but it affected me differently. After I watched it last night, I found it was very influential as it served as a counterpoint to other ideas that I have been exposed to, and helped me to solidify some of my feelings. First it helped me to see that deep down, I am an Atheist, a Christian, a Buddhist, Shinto, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Pagan, and every other religion out there. Yes, I included Atheism in under the heading of religion as defined by The Free Dictionary, " Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe." The kind of rhetoric that Dawkins uses is effective in helping people understand that Atheism is another legitimate choice, and that the desire by some people, especially in the US, to exclude its believers from the process of nation building is as foolish and nearsighted as any other kind of exclusionism. I do not believe that Atheism is any more "true" or "right" than any other religion. 

I do not want to be ruled by an atheocratic government any more than I want to be ruled by a theistic one. I do not want to be told that a choice that I make is wrong because the Bible says it is any more than I want to told that the choice I make is wrong because it's "lacking any coherent scientific argument," a bit of circular logic in itself. The Constitution calls for a separation of church and state in the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." As I stated in the previous paragraph, Atheism should be seen as just another religion with its tenants of Darwinism, and belief in phenomena that can be shown empirically only. Empiricism shows certain things to be true to within a tolerable margin of error, so one is expected to make similar kinds decisions about whether to believe or not. One Gospel of Science shows that breast feeding is good at one time and not so good at another. Empirical Shrouds of Turin are disputed for ages. People believe in the healing power of medicine and are able to cast away their crutches and walk again. None of that is any more believable or unbelievable than any other act of faith in any other religion in the world.

If Mr. Dawkins really believes that Atheism is the one true way, good on him, but childish arguments about who is superior to whom are no more helpful than G W Bush's war on Islam. "I believe a true understanding of Darwinism is corrosive to religious faith." And a true understanding of religious faith is corrosive to Darwinism, so go corrode each other and stay the hell out of my life. I'll still read what he has to say and listen to his speeches, especially when he talks about something that interests me as much as his meme theory, and hope that his speech on TED was just a wakeup call.

Unesco Puts World's Major Works Online - NYTimes.com

This is really cool. You can look at Tales of Genji on line.
Give this a look!
Unesco Puts World's Major Works Online - NYTimes.com

Gender Discrimination and the Rule of Law in Japan

I remember when I and my colleagues were in labor negotiations with Prefectural University of Kumamoto, the president of the school at the time was a Law professor, and he protested at least once that Japan operated on the rule of law. Not only do I think that his interpretation of the rule of law was faulty (a generous understatement), but I think that Japan does not operate on the rule of law at all.

I was reminded of this fact last night as my class of advanced English learners discussed gender issues. It was an animated discussion where I had to act as referee several times. I rarely have those experiences here. Our discussion started with an article about a Tibetan woman who had struggled with discrimination in her life in-exile. Then we began to discuss life for women in this country. It was clear to everyone present that discrimination is pervasive and unchecked. The reasons for the pervasiveness were also clear. Discrimination against women is a concious choise by the society of traditional beliefs, superstition, and ad hoc decisions over the rule of law as outlined in the constitution.

To achieve the Rule of Law society envisioned by the council, legislation must set forth judicially enforceable rights and that parties may rely on rather than merely set a hortatory objectives for action and judges must look to legislation as setting forth the consensus of society rather than the amorphous society norms divined by the judicial system. The council's view appears to contemplate a more transparent system where everyone-- whether Japanese or not-- can look at the law as written in the Codes and Statutes and know that when they seek enforcement that they see it actually what they will get without having to divine rules based on a mythical past or a judge's view of what the particular social norm is when the case is decided. Until parties have judicially enforceable rights that are consistently interpreted and enforced, a Rule of Law society such as is contemplated by the Judicial Reform Council is difficult to envision.  The Rule of Law in Japan: A comparative analysis, by Carl F. Goodman

 More information on the Council is here.

Voluntarism in Japan: What is going on with Scouting here?

Having just gotten back from a weekend with the Scouts, I am once again thinking of what voluntarism and Scouting in particular mean to this country. I have been working with the Scouts here for a little over six years. I have worked as a leader for Cubs, Boys, and Ventures. This weekend there was a camping trip, and I went out the door Saturday morning and arrived back here this afternoon, leaving my wife to handle our three kids, who are not in Scouting right now, by herself. On returning our conversation turned to the sad state of voluntarism and Scouts in Japan.

I amazed at the general apathy shown by the majority of Japanese people toward Scouts. The country thrashes around creating school curricula to teach "patriotism" in schools, and I am out with a group of kids involved with an organizations whose foundation is based on loyalty to ones country. I teach kids how to handle their national flag, how to properly display and honor it, and it isn't even my flag. Of course this is only one part of Scouting; the other pillars of Scouting is regard for self and others, so that is no problem for me. There should be people, especially the Scouts' parents, lining up to volunteer. Nothing. The more I write, the more I am convinced I have to rethink my dedication to this group.

One of our conclusions yesterday is that volunteering is a higher-order behavior that some people are not ready to do. Giving blood goes against all biological instincts by donating essential body fluids for the sake of someone we do not even know, so I looked at blood donation as measure of altruistic behavoir and compared blood donorship in the US and Japan. According to a Japan Times article, 1.54 million Japanese people made 200-ml donations and 2.73 million made 400-ml donations in 2000 for a total of 4.27 million donations. According to the American Red Cross, 8 million donors gave 15 million donations in 2001. 


On 9/11 I was in sunny Arizona, getting ready to head back to Japan. My plane was canceled, and I had a strong feeling that I had to do something to help. I thought about getting in the car and driving to New York, but I had my very small son with me at the time, and rejected that idea. I decided to go give blood, so I found the nearest donation center and drove down. The line outside the building stretched for fifty yards in the 100 degree heat. I got in line, and then food and water started to arrive for the people in line. An empty shop next to the donation center was opened as an extra waiting room, and there was food and drink there for dozens of people, all donated by shops and individuals. I am type O, so they told me to come back the next day, but they sent everyone else home, because they had enough of all other types. I went back the next day, but was told to wait until they called me. They did call me two days later. That is how many people were giving.


The US has problems, but let me tell you, the willingness to line up and get to work when there is a need is not one of them. Japan has serious issues.

Texan lawmaker says Asians should adopt surnames that are 'easier for Americans to deal with' - Telegraph

Wow, I'm surprised. Texas politicians are usually so much better informed. Maybe Mrs. Brown would like us all to be named Brown. That would be easy for her to remember. Just cut out all those difficult to remember names like Smith, Jones, and Obama, and just go straight to Brown.

In reality, Asians have difficulty with Asian names. She probably just forgot that Asia is a continent, not a country called China. Chinese students who come here as international students have their names rendered into Japanese pronunciations based on the Chinese characters for their names. It is my understanding, though I have not had direct experience with this, that the same thing happens to Japanese people who go to China. My name is rendered into a more easily understandable Japanese syllabary called katakana, making my name something like Kaku. In fact they wanted to put that on my childrens' Japanese passports, because all names must be written in Roman letters. I held that their family names are not spelled that way, and they have the right to have their names spelled correctly. They are spelled correctly on their passports.



Names are hard work for anybody, and a politician who expects to garner votes from citizens with a population as diverse as America's had better get with it. Immigrants to the US don't have to go through Ellis Island anymore, thankfully, where there names were erroneously transcribed by lazy functionaries. Otherwise there would probably be alot more Browns.

Texan lawmaker says Asians should adopt surnames that are 'easier for Americans to deal with' - Telegraph

On the Twitter Experiment

A month ago I posted a blog about starting to mess around and find out what Twitter is about. I have messed around for a month, starting Thursday, March 5, with 152 posts, or 4.34 posts each day on average. I have sent 45 @ messages, and have received 29. I am following 39 people, and am being followed by 27. I would quit my twitter account today, but for some potential projects in the future for which an account may be useful. Twitter is limited in two ways. There is not enough interaction with the people that I follow or who follow me. The posts are too short to be useful.

First, there is not enough interaction with the people that I follow to make it interesting. There are people being followed by tens of thousands of people.  This may be what is called social networking, but it is all going one way. My definition of networking would include the expectation that information is flowing both ways. For some people, that would be alright in a limited way. For example, it would be interesting to require politicians to post. One of the big reasons that it isn't very interesting to me is that most of my family, friends and colleagues, if they are using social networking at all, are using Facebook, not Twitter.

The posts are too short to be useful is the second reason that it isn't interesting for me. Of the 18 posts on one page, 13 include urls. I don't have time to check out each url to see if it's worth reading. For example, one person I'm following, and a person who I think has valuable things to say normally, has posted, "I'm hungry. Watch out," and has attached a url. I have no idea what he is on about, and will not check to find out what the url is.

I will focus more of my networking time on writing longer pieces for my blogs and reading and commenting on blogs that are interesting and useful to me.

This week's plan

At the nursing school I have three classes a week, all freshmen, so I have to teach them all as much the same stuff as possible. Of course there is some variation from one class to the next.

Even though I have written outlines for what I want to do with each class, the content varies slightly. On my first day of class I used the concentric circle diagram of English varieties to show that there is no monopoly on Enlgish, and that Japanese is on its way to becoming a recognized variety. Today, I forgot the graph, and just talked about it. (Of the two, Mondays was the prefered pattern.)

We all did an icebreaker activity, an alphabet circle where students get into a circle in alphabetical order based on first their last names, then their first. Then we talked about the past, present and future of the English language, and I don't mean grammar. Finally, we talked about our classes and the opportunities for learning English here at this university.