Bon Vendredi
On April 16, 2007, total 33 (including the perpetrator) professors and students were killed by a single gunman on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
As total 33 miners were saved in the San Jose copper-gold mine, near Copiapo, Chile, this year, I suppose the tide turns.
But, do you feel anything mysterious related to the number 33.
According to common knowledge of history, in the year A.D. 33:
Saint Peter becomes Pope (according to Roman Catholic tradition).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33
SECTION I: A Story of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
In 1590, having won the last domestic war for him in the Kanto region, Hideyoshi united Japan.
It was a great achievement realized through numerous wars pursued after having succeeded Oda Nobunaga as the top leader in the most powerful camp of samurai lords, including even Tokugawa Ieyasu though after some conflicts. But, now there were too many samurai soldiers in Japan, in addition to the world largest number of matchlock guns of various sizes. Hideyoshi had to bother himself about how to reward them, though he had already collected a plenty of gold and silver as spoils of wars.
Then, Hideyoshi mobilized 158,000 troops to invade China through Korea in 1592. His troops occupied almost all the Korean Peninsula. However, before entering the Ming territory an envoy from the Ming Dynasty expressed virtual surrender to Hideyoshi and promised to satisfy Hideyoshi's demands; accordingly, he terminated the invasion. Samurai lords, generals, and troops on this great expedition returned to Japan across the sea.
Yet, soon after it, it was found the message from Ming was false. Officials on both the sides in charge of diplomatic negotiations tried to end the war, so that each reported that other side surrendered.
But, when an imperial mission the Ming court sent to Japan met Hideyoshi in person at his mighty Osaka castle, the startling truth was found. Through the imperial envoy, the then emperor of Ming intended to give a title of "King of Japan" to Hideyoshi as his subject like in the case of "King of Korea," which provoked Hideyoshi so furiously. So, the virtual samurai king of Japan proclaimed war again with the Ming empire, preparing 141,500 troops in 1596.
The second war with Ming was terminated when Hideyoshi died of illness at his Osaka castle in 1599, after a series of great battles where 110,000 troops of coalition between the Ming Dynasty and the Korean Joseon Dynasty had been completely defeated by Japanese samurai troops in the Korean Peninsula. So, Samurai lords, generals, and troops on this great expedition returned to Japan across the sea again.
Accordingly, nobody in Japan thought that Japanese samurai troops were defeated by the coalition of the Chinese empire and the Korean kingdom, but those military campaigns were thought to be futile or wasteful by many samurai lords including Ieyasu, since Beijing was so far over the Korean Peninsula and Koreans did not join Japanese samurais in invading China.
Yet, it should be however noted that Toyotomi Hideyoshi is the only Japanese who ever started war with a foreign country or countries, taking the full personal initiative and based on one's own personal motivation or anger, in the 2000-year Japanese history.
(Of course, there was emperor living in Kyoto at the time, but the emperor had no political and military power at all, though Hideyoshi was extremely happy to be given one of the highest titles in the Japanese Imperial court.)
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It should be also noted that Toyotomi Hideyoshi met four Japanese Christian youths who returned from their travelling to Rome for paying respect to a Pope.
In 1582 when there were 150,000 Catholics in Japan due to efforts by Vatican missionaries and Nobunaga's religious policy (though Nobunaga who controlled Kyoto and other major regions of Japan was assassinated in this year), four Japanese boys started for Rome, being led by members of the Society of Jesus.
After a long journey, they finally had an audience with Pope Gregory XIII on March 23, 1585, as the first Japanese that ever met a Pope. Then, in 1590 they came back to Japan eight and a half years after their departure for Rome. On March 3, 1591, the four Catholic Japanese youths were invited to Hideyoshi's gorgeous residence in Kyoto. They were accompanied by a Portuguese missionary called Luis Frois who later wrote a notable book titled "History of Japan."
http://old.japanfocus.org/_Inoue_Hisashi__R_Pulvers-My_Friend_Frois
At the time, Hideyoshi was gradually changing a policy on Christians he relayed from Nobunaga who loved Western culture. However, Hideyoshi loved profits brought in through trade with Spanish and other European merchants who sailed between India, South East Asia, the Philippines, and Japan. So, he did not persecute Christians, while restricting activities of Vatican missionaries.
In 1597, Hideyoshi executed 26 Catholics for reasons still identified academically, though the four Catholic youths were not included in the martyrs.
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The Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan (***, Nihon Nijūroku Seijin?) refers to a group of Christians who were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597 at Nagasaki. Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of Roman Catholicism in Japan.
On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians – six European Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys – were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki on the orders of Hideyoshi Toyotomi.[1] These individuals were raised on crosses and then pierced through with spears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-six_Martyrs_of_Japan
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Hideyoshi must have well known that the earth was round, since Vatican missionaries must have brought world maps into Japan.
Hideyoshi must have well understood, too, that the Vatican was propagating its religion in a large scale all over the world. Yet, his noteworthy interview with the Japanese youths that had visited Rome and the Vatican as the first Japanese in history did not change his paradigm at all. Hideyoshi must have wanted to know whether the Pope could send mighty troops into Japan instead of peaceful missionaries in case anything had gone wrong.
Finally Hideyoshi, the then samurai ruler of Japan, died in the Osaka castle in 1598, worrying about too young son of his and asking favors of leading samurai lord Ieyasu so as to help him govern Japan.
In 1615, his bereaved son living in the gigantic castle in Osaka was defeated in the last battle in a series of wars over years with Tokugawa Ieyasu who subsequently started to govern whole Japan from his main castle in Edo (Tokyo) in the Kanto region, replacing the Toyotomi clan.
Nonetheless, this tragic son of Hideyoshi was a child between Hideyoshi and one of his concubines who committed a suicide by sword together with her son when Ieyasu destroyed the Osaka castle.
Hideyohi's lawful wife, Nene, survived all these incidents, wars, and tragedies till her death in Kyoto in 1624, while living in comfort at least outwardly. Though she could not give birth to a child for Hideyoshi, Nene's position as the sole legally wedded wife was never challenged by any of Hideyoshi's concubines.
She was also liked by Oda Nobunaga, respected by Tokugawa Ieyasu, and even praised by Luis Frois. It was so, since Nene married Hideyoshi when he was just a kind of young and poor farmer or something like that.
(Under the Tokugawa regime, Japan enjoyed almost complete domestic peace while sealing itself off to the outside world till 1850's. This disappearance of Japan and Japanese from the international stage over 200 years had significant influence on the world, Asia, the Far East, and Japan itself, as Western Powers were all the more engaged in invasion and colonization of Asia in these 200 years.
If Oda Nobunaga had survived the assassination attempt in 1582, he could have easily conquered whole Japan, leading Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, and other samurai lords. He might have even become a Christian after all without making war with the Ming Dynasty.
Yet, even Nobunaga's niece committed a suicide by sword at the Osaka castle with the young son whose father was fairly believed to be Hideyoshi, when they were fatally attacked by Ieyasu who once had a daughter-in-law who was a child between Nobunaga and one of his concubines.
So, you must remember that a harquebus was introduced into Japan in 1543 and then Christianity in 1549 during the Period of Warring States of Japan...)
SECTION II: Language Service
Now, let's change the mood!
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Apple: A fictitious company that does not exist.
China: The centrally planned communist economy that is the model for Free Market Economies in the West. alt. An idealized form of Capitalism;
European Union (EU): A soon to be dissolved association of Socialist states, whose sole purpose is to mislead investors into believing the United States is (comparatively) fiscally responsible.
Google: See Apple
Japan: A large manufacturing island in the Pacific, whose decades-long recession is the inevitable model for the United States
Money Supply: ∞, an imaginary number.
Subprime: The state of all credit in the US
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/
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In addition:
Chile: a nation with 33 heroes wearing sunglasses.
Goldman Sachs: a company with total assets of $883.000 billion earned without selling a single house or an apple.
Microsoft: a company with total assets of $86.113 billion earned without selling a single computer or an apple.
USA: Usually Satisfied Alligators
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(http://www.applebytes.info/twist.mid
http://www.midiedu.net/
After you get out of a dark, dark tunnel, twist and shout! "Come on, Come on, Come on, Come on, Baby Now!!")
Luk 10:14 But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you.
Luk 10:15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.
Luk 10:16 He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.