two articles
Mar. 18th, 2006 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukikageOld news, but still interesting news. "To Japanese Nationalists, Only the Y Chromosome Counts"
To Japanese Nationalists, Only the Y Chromosome Counts
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: March 12, 2006
IT was one of the biggest rallies in support of Japan's imperial system since the end of World War II: Some 10,300 men and women gathered at the Budokan martial arts arena to protest a proposal that would let women become empresses and pass along title to the Chrysanthemum Throne. At the end, the throng stood and raised their arms in unison while shouting, "Long live the emperor!"
What could possibly stir so much passion about monarchy in the 21st century?
The question of admitting women to the line of imperial succession, often presented outside Japan as little more than a curious anachronism, has been growing in importance for the last six months. The issue has been promoted by Japan's nationalist movement, whose influence has risen along with the controversy.
The nationalists, who offer the public a version of Japan's past that is cleansed of remorse for World War II, are now putting the issue of imperial succession — and the imperial system itself — at the heart of their appeals.
"Search all over the world, but you won't find any other family besides the Japanese imperial family that has maintained an unbroken male line for 125 generations," Takeo Hiranuma, a former minister of economy, trade and industry, said at the rally, which was organized by Nippon Kaigi, one of Japan's largest nationalist groups. "In other words, it is the precious, precious treasure of the Japanese race, as well as a world treasure."
The object of the crowd's ire was a plan by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to revise the Imperial Household Law to allow a female line to hold the throne. Never mind that Mr. Koizumi has shelved the plan, after a rebellion by lawmakers in his center-right party and after an unexpected announcement last month by Emperor Akihito's second son and his wife that she was pregnant.
If the baby, due in September, is a boy, the problem will be moot for another generation, even if the emperor's first son, Crown Prince Naruhito, and his wife, Crown Princess Masako, never have their own son. The birth of a girl, however, would bring Japan back to square one. So until September, at least, there are likely to be more rallies as conservatives try to keep the issue alive.
The opposition to a female line is part of a larger nationalist movement that seeks a tougher stance against China and North Korea, presses aggressively for a revisionist history of Japan's wartime past, and pushes the myth of Japanese racial exceptionalism. Indeed, many at the rally are the same politicians, scholars and journalists who contend that the Nanking Massacre was vastly exaggerated, that Japan invaded continental Asia to liberate it and that Japan was tricked into war by the United States.
Historians trace the start of Japan's imperial system to the fourth or fifth century, though Japanese myth says the first emperor, Jimmu, a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, began his reign 2,665 years ago. Political heavyweights like Mr. Hiranuma are now stating the myth as fact. In addition, the foreign minister, Taro Aso, has said that because Japanese soldiers died for the emperor, the emperor should visit the Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial to Japan's war dead and 14 Class A war criminals.
What these comments have in common is the belief that the imperial system stands at the core of Japan, defines Japan — is, in fact, Japan. To conservatives in a country that has been transformed by outside forces in everything from its laws to its social mores, the imperial system is the one institution that has remained purely Japanese.
In the imperial system, only a male relative who was a direct descendant of the imperial line could become emperor — a rule designed to keep the male bloodline pure. Eight women were allowed to reign as empresses, but only because age or marital circumstances had made them unable to bear children, which eliminated the possibility that a man outside the imperial line would father a successor, said Takeshi Hara, a professor specializing in the monarchy at Meiji Gakuin University here. An empress "had to have a pure body," he said.
Until the 20th century, concubines ensured that a male heir was born, but that practice died with the advent of modern social mores in Japan.
Nobody, perhaps, has symbolized such changes more than Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-educated, multilingual former diplomat who married the crown prince in 1993. Back then, she represented the new Japanese woman.
Once in the palace, however, she found that only one thing was expected of her: to produce a male heir. She gave birth to a girl in 2001, and sank into a long depression. The crown prince complained in 2004 that there had been a "move to deny Masako's career and personality."
Career? Personality? This outraged conservatives who thought any Japanese woman should devote herself to bearing and raising children. Princess Masako became the bête noire of the right wing and, especially in the last six months, the target of ceaseless attacks in the popular press.
Conservatives also oppose reforms that would promote gender equality — or what the Japanese call a "gender free" society. The result is that, compared to women in other advanced countries, Japanese women have little economic or political power.
They do, however, have power over childbearing. And Japan's plummeting birthrate suggests that many women are deciding not to have children, boy or girl.
What would Japan do if all current princes turned out to be sterile and they couldn't blame the prince's wives (nor concubines if they went back to that)? Not to mention, the royal family and those "supporting" them should be educated enough to remember that even if a parent had any control over the gender of their child, it's the sperm that determines the gender of the child, not the egg.
"Project Reteachers National Anthem" - frankly, I'd rather we not have a national anthem
Project Reteaches National Anthem
By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: March 14, 2006
Correction Appended
PHOENIX, March 10 — Consider little Dean Nunley, 3 years old and warbling in a breathy, singsong voice at a "Star-Spangled Banner" singing contest at the Phoenix Zoo on Thursday: "Ooooh, say kin yooseeeeee?"
His treatment was touchingly intelligible before running into trouble at the ramparts and the perilous fight. He came back strong at the end, a feat of memorization and tune over comprehension. Dean, who had learned the song at hockey games, smiled at the applause and waddled off with his mother.
The problem, it has been suggested, is that little Dean is about as good as it gets in this country. The National Anthem Project, undertaken by a group of the nation's music teachers, says most Americans have largely forgotten the words to the national anthem and the story behind the song.
A Harris poll of 2,200 men and women conducted for the group found that 61 percent did not know all the words. For example, when asked what follows "whose broad stripes and bright stars," more people than not tended to mistakenly place phrases like "were so gallantly streaming" (34 percent) or "gave proof through the night" (19 percent).
The National Anthem Project is touring the country with a singular mission: to reteach a nation its anthem. The effort is much like the way the song first spread, state by state, though this time it has corporate sponsors, led by Jeep. The tour began in January in Florida, and Thursday's visit to the Phoenix Zoo was its 17th stop.
"Of all the millions and millions of songs that Americans are exposed to, the national anthem is our national anthem, the one piece that people should know how to sing," said David E. Circle, president of the National Association for Music Education, the teachers' group that came up with the idea.
And Cliff Siler, the tour manager, said: "This song is the spirit of America. We lost a lot of that at some point along the line."
As the girls from the choir of Cordova Middle School in Phoenix just learned, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814.
"Something about Fort McHenry," said Bianca Nevarez, a seventh grader. "It was actually a poem, but they made it into a song."
Bianca is correct: struck by the sight of the American flag amid the smoke and flames of a battle with the British on Sept. 13, 1814, Key dashed off a poem on the back of a letter. The first verse became widely known as the anthem, but there are three that follow. The poem, "Defence of Fort McHenry," was published in newspapers around the country.
(The later verses maintain the hopeful tone while examining the effects of all those rockets and bombs bursting in air. "Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution," Key wrote of the enemy, a line perhaps not ill suited for hockey games, but difficult to imagine teaching 3-year-olds. "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.")
Another choir singer, Kassandra Rosas, 12, said: "It was a beer-drinking song. They made it into the national anthem."
Kassandra is correct: it is believed that a relative of Key got the idea to sing the words of the poem to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," an English song popular in taverns. In fact, the first known performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" took place in a bar the month after the battle, sung by a Baltimore actor, Ferdinand Durang. The song became the national anthem in 1931, having been performed at military and sporting events for many years.
There have been earnest attempts to drop the song as the anthem, and replace it with something more benign, like "America the Beautiful." A major problem with "The Star-Spangled Banner," experts say, is that it is all but unsingable.
Steven Blier, a vocal coach at the Juilliard School, rattled off four reasons: "It's rangy, it has that legato phrase on a high note, the climax ends on a high note with a bad vowel, and the word setting is bad at some crucial spots." The song's lowest note, at the word "say" in the first line, is an octave and a half below its highest notes, at "red glare" and "free" toward the end.
So, paradoxically, the song may arouse feelings of humiliation and embarrassment rather than pride. "It's an awkward song to ask untrained people to belt out," Mr. Blier said.
The song's pitfalls did not dampen the spirits at the Phoenix Zoo, where several children and adults took turns before a microphone in unseasonably warm weather. Lynda Holly, 56, a former lounge singer who is a train operator at the zoo, was among the first.
"It's always been my mom's dream," Ms. Holly said, quoting her: " 'If I ever had a last wish, it would be to have my daughter sing at a ballgame.' "
The tour manager, Mr. Siler, is a father of five in Fort Worth, a stuntman and performer at live-action shows for children. "This is the job of a lifetime for me," he said. "I love this song."
At each stop, the tour sets up tents with literature, games and musical instruments. Two young men from Flint, Mich., operate the 48-foot tractor-trailer that hauls everything to the next state.
"I was in school, and I needed a break from that," said one of them, Mike Kirkwood. Mr. Kirkwood hears more of the anthem than he would prefer — "It haunts me," he said — but what drew him out of Flint might have made Key proud.
"I just wanted to see the country," he said.
Correction: March 15, 2006
An article on Tuesday about a project to teach Americans to sing the national anthem misstated the range between the song's lowest and highest notes. It is an octave and a fifth, not an octave and a half.
Thanks,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
conuly.
Uch, my neck hurts, I have a headache, I have too much to do... What else is new? But at least I had a yummy "dinner" of two cheddar and turkey sandwiches. ^_^ I'm definitely looking forward to the dining halls opening tomorrow, though.
To Japanese Nationalists, Only the Y Chromosome Counts
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: March 12, 2006
IT was one of the biggest rallies in support of Japan's imperial system since the end of World War II: Some 10,300 men and women gathered at the Budokan martial arts arena to protest a proposal that would let women become empresses and pass along title to the Chrysanthemum Throne. At the end, the throng stood and raised their arms in unison while shouting, "Long live the emperor!"
What could possibly stir so much passion about monarchy in the 21st century?
The question of admitting women to the line of imperial succession, often presented outside Japan as little more than a curious anachronism, has been growing in importance for the last six months. The issue has been promoted by Japan's nationalist movement, whose influence has risen along with the controversy.
The nationalists, who offer the public a version of Japan's past that is cleansed of remorse for World War II, are now putting the issue of imperial succession — and the imperial system itself — at the heart of their appeals.
"Search all over the world, but you won't find any other family besides the Japanese imperial family that has maintained an unbroken male line for 125 generations," Takeo Hiranuma, a former minister of economy, trade and industry, said at the rally, which was organized by Nippon Kaigi, one of Japan's largest nationalist groups. "In other words, it is the precious, precious treasure of the Japanese race, as well as a world treasure."
The object of the crowd's ire was a plan by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to revise the Imperial Household Law to allow a female line to hold the throne. Never mind that Mr. Koizumi has shelved the plan, after a rebellion by lawmakers in his center-right party and after an unexpected announcement last month by Emperor Akihito's second son and his wife that she was pregnant.
If the baby, due in September, is a boy, the problem will be moot for another generation, even if the emperor's first son, Crown Prince Naruhito, and his wife, Crown Princess Masako, never have their own son. The birth of a girl, however, would bring Japan back to square one. So until September, at least, there are likely to be more rallies as conservatives try to keep the issue alive.
The opposition to a female line is part of a larger nationalist movement that seeks a tougher stance against China and North Korea, presses aggressively for a revisionist history of Japan's wartime past, and pushes the myth of Japanese racial exceptionalism. Indeed, many at the rally are the same politicians, scholars and journalists who contend that the Nanking Massacre was vastly exaggerated, that Japan invaded continental Asia to liberate it and that Japan was tricked into war by the United States.
Historians trace the start of Japan's imperial system to the fourth or fifth century, though Japanese myth says the first emperor, Jimmu, a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, began his reign 2,665 years ago. Political heavyweights like Mr. Hiranuma are now stating the myth as fact. In addition, the foreign minister, Taro Aso, has said that because Japanese soldiers died for the emperor, the emperor should visit the Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial to Japan's war dead and 14 Class A war criminals.
What these comments have in common is the belief that the imperial system stands at the core of Japan, defines Japan — is, in fact, Japan. To conservatives in a country that has been transformed by outside forces in everything from its laws to its social mores, the imperial system is the one institution that has remained purely Japanese.
In the imperial system, only a male relative who was a direct descendant of the imperial line could become emperor — a rule designed to keep the male bloodline pure. Eight women were allowed to reign as empresses, but only because age or marital circumstances had made them unable to bear children, which eliminated the possibility that a man outside the imperial line would father a successor, said Takeshi Hara, a professor specializing in the monarchy at Meiji Gakuin University here. An empress "had to have a pure body," he said.
Until the 20th century, concubines ensured that a male heir was born, but that practice died with the advent of modern social mores in Japan.
Nobody, perhaps, has symbolized such changes more than Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-educated, multilingual former diplomat who married the crown prince in 1993. Back then, she represented the new Japanese woman.
Once in the palace, however, she found that only one thing was expected of her: to produce a male heir. She gave birth to a girl in 2001, and sank into a long depression. The crown prince complained in 2004 that there had been a "move to deny Masako's career and personality."
Career? Personality? This outraged conservatives who thought any Japanese woman should devote herself to bearing and raising children. Princess Masako became the bête noire of the right wing and, especially in the last six months, the target of ceaseless attacks in the popular press.
Conservatives also oppose reforms that would promote gender equality — or what the Japanese call a "gender free" society. The result is that, compared to women in other advanced countries, Japanese women have little economic or political power.
They do, however, have power over childbearing. And Japan's plummeting birthrate suggests that many women are deciding not to have children, boy or girl.
What would Japan do if all current princes turned out to be sterile and they couldn't blame the prince's wives (nor concubines if they went back to that)? Not to mention, the royal family and those "supporting" them should be educated enough to remember that even if a parent had any control over the gender of their child, it's the sperm that determines the gender of the child, not the egg.
"Project Reteachers National Anthem" - frankly, I'd rather we not have a national anthem
Project Reteaches National Anthem
By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: March 14, 2006
Correction Appended
PHOENIX, March 10 — Consider little Dean Nunley, 3 years old and warbling in a breathy, singsong voice at a "Star-Spangled Banner" singing contest at the Phoenix Zoo on Thursday: "Ooooh, say kin yooseeeeee?"
His treatment was touchingly intelligible before running into trouble at the ramparts and the perilous fight. He came back strong at the end, a feat of memorization and tune over comprehension. Dean, who had learned the song at hockey games, smiled at the applause and waddled off with his mother.
The problem, it has been suggested, is that little Dean is about as good as it gets in this country. The National Anthem Project, undertaken by a group of the nation's music teachers, says most Americans have largely forgotten the words to the national anthem and the story behind the song.
A Harris poll of 2,200 men and women conducted for the group found that 61 percent did not know all the words. For example, when asked what follows "whose broad stripes and bright stars," more people than not tended to mistakenly place phrases like "were so gallantly streaming" (34 percent) or "gave proof through the night" (19 percent).
The National Anthem Project is touring the country with a singular mission: to reteach a nation its anthem. The effort is much like the way the song first spread, state by state, though this time it has corporate sponsors, led by Jeep. The tour began in January in Florida, and Thursday's visit to the Phoenix Zoo was its 17th stop.
"Of all the millions and millions of songs that Americans are exposed to, the national anthem is our national anthem, the one piece that people should know how to sing," said David E. Circle, president of the National Association for Music Education, the teachers' group that came up with the idea.
And Cliff Siler, the tour manager, said: "This song is the spirit of America. We lost a lot of that at some point along the line."
As the girls from the choir of Cordova Middle School in Phoenix just learned, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814.
"Something about Fort McHenry," said Bianca Nevarez, a seventh grader. "It was actually a poem, but they made it into a song."
Bianca is correct: struck by the sight of the American flag amid the smoke and flames of a battle with the British on Sept. 13, 1814, Key dashed off a poem on the back of a letter. The first verse became widely known as the anthem, but there are three that follow. The poem, "Defence of Fort McHenry," was published in newspapers around the country.
(The later verses maintain the hopeful tone while examining the effects of all those rockets and bombs bursting in air. "Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution," Key wrote of the enemy, a line perhaps not ill suited for hockey games, but difficult to imagine teaching 3-year-olds. "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.")
Another choir singer, Kassandra Rosas, 12, said: "It was a beer-drinking song. They made it into the national anthem."
Kassandra is correct: it is believed that a relative of Key got the idea to sing the words of the poem to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," an English song popular in taverns. In fact, the first known performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" took place in a bar the month after the battle, sung by a Baltimore actor, Ferdinand Durang. The song became the national anthem in 1931, having been performed at military and sporting events for many years.
There have been earnest attempts to drop the song as the anthem, and replace it with something more benign, like "America the Beautiful." A major problem with "The Star-Spangled Banner," experts say, is that it is all but unsingable.
Steven Blier, a vocal coach at the Juilliard School, rattled off four reasons: "It's rangy, it has that legato phrase on a high note, the climax ends on a high note with a bad vowel, and the word setting is bad at some crucial spots." The song's lowest note, at the word "say" in the first line, is an octave and a half below its highest notes, at "red glare" and "free" toward the end.
So, paradoxically, the song may arouse feelings of humiliation and embarrassment rather than pride. "It's an awkward song to ask untrained people to belt out," Mr. Blier said.
The song's pitfalls did not dampen the spirits at the Phoenix Zoo, where several children and adults took turns before a microphone in unseasonably warm weather. Lynda Holly, 56, a former lounge singer who is a train operator at the zoo, was among the first.
"It's always been my mom's dream," Ms. Holly said, quoting her: " 'If I ever had a last wish, it would be to have my daughter sing at a ballgame.' "
The tour manager, Mr. Siler, is a father of five in Fort Worth, a stuntman and performer at live-action shows for children. "This is the job of a lifetime for me," he said. "I love this song."
At each stop, the tour sets up tents with literature, games and musical instruments. Two young men from Flint, Mich., operate the 48-foot tractor-trailer that hauls everything to the next state.
"I was in school, and I needed a break from that," said one of them, Mike Kirkwood. Mr. Kirkwood hears more of the anthem than he would prefer — "It haunts me," he said — but what drew him out of Flint might have made Key proud.
"I just wanted to see the country," he said.
Correction: March 15, 2006
An article on Tuesday about a project to teach Americans to sing the national anthem misstated the range between the song's lowest and highest notes. It is an octave and a fifth, not an octave and a half.
Thanks,
conuly.Uch, my neck hurts, I have a headache, I have too much to do... What else is new? But at least I had a yummy "dinner" of two cheddar and turkey sandwiches. ^_^ I'm definitely looking forward to the dining halls opening tomorrow, though.
