"Go thy way" - 100 Year Old Japanese

Tokyo...

100 Year Old Japanese

There lives a man near Fukushima Daiichi who became 100 years old this April.

He lived in Okuma Town where the Fuksuhima Daiichi nuclear power plant is situated.

Mr. Yoshida now lives in complex housing in Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Fukshima Prefecture, 100 km west of the crippled nuclear power plant.

When Mr. Yoshida was an elementary school boy, he moved to Tokyo with his family from Okuma Town.  Then he experienced the historic 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that took on tens of thousands of Tokyo citizens.  So, he grew up in Tokyo to become an English teacher and get married.  However, he was  drafted to be sent to Manchuria in 1941 when the Second World War started.

As air raids by US air forces were intensified in Tokyo, his wife decided to move to Fukshima Prefecture though it was not easy to get a ticket of a train going out of Tokyo at the time.  In February 1945, she got a chance to get on a train for Fukushima; it was one month before the Great Tokyo Air Raid where 100,000 Tokyo citizens were killed by bombing from B29s.  She now thinks that if her trip had been delayed, she should have been killed.

When the war was over, Mr. Yoshida was taken captive by Russian troops.  He was forced to work in mines in Siberia for three years.  But he had a luck to return to Japan in 1948.  He started to teach English in school in Fukshima City, 70 km west of Fukushima Daiichi.  After retirement, Mr. Yoshida moved to Okuma Town, his home town, where he started to spend the rest of his life with his 75-year old son and great-grandchildren.  Then, in March of the last year, the nuclear power station in Okuma Town got into a big trouble within an hour of an M9.0 earthquake; the Fukushima Daiichi plant invited a huge nuclear accident when it was attacked by 15-meter-high tsunamis.

When the big earthquake occurred, Mr. Yoshida was in his home.  A tsunami drove sea water up to a location 100 meters from his home.  But he had to leave his home due to the nuclear accident leaving his estate behind.

Nonetheless Mr. Yoshida plans to go back to Okuma Town if it is more than five years from now that he is allowed to return to his home so close to Fukuhshima Daiichi.

As of September 2012, there are 51,376 people in Japan who are 100 years old or older.  Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida are two of them.



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Act 9:15 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:

"he saw a great multitude about them" - Dangerous Syria

Dangerous Syria

A Japanese journalist Junpei Yasuda flew to Syria to cover the civil war.

His reports are recently introduced in various TV programs in Japan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbdqka5JdBs

In terms of trade of Syria, the European nations of Germany, Italy, France, and Spain accounted for 30% of the total Syrian export value.

Global Exports in 2008 by Syria

Market Value: 13,300 (millions)

Exports To	Trade Value	Share	Growth
	(thousands)	(%)	(% 5yr)
Iraq	2,507,109	18.85	384.30
Germany	1,630,637	12.26	5,665.84
Lebanon	1,289,121	9.69	546.70
Italy	1,179,148	8.87	(9.23)
France	1,008,147	7.58	(2.34)
Saudi Arabia	911,231	6.85	155.52
Egypt	677,388	5.09	510.13
Turkey	602,069	4.53	63.33
Algeria	455,641	3.43	953.59
Spain	422,455	3.18	105.76
United States	375,822	2.83	107.13
Jordan	362,404	2.72	137.77
Kuwait	229,626	1.73	306.87
Netherlands	205,560	1.55	62.00
United Kingdom	173,908	1.31	81.77
Austria	131,281	0.99	1,130.07
United Arab Emirates	125,223	0.94	157.11
Republic of Yemen	121,630	0.91	443.67
Greece	97,504	0.73	186.68
Japan	90,247	0.68	349.62
Sudan	90,079	0.68	371.75
Libya	80,866	0.61	120.08

http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/syria/tradestats/

These nations now occupying the land area of the ancient Roman Empire have a strong tie with Syrian businesses and officials.

If they think ending the civil war in Syria is good for them, they will be fully engaged in promoting the settlement of the internal armed conflict within Syria.

But, if they have no room in their diplomatic and political capability, they would just stand aside from Syria in the tragedy.  As the Greek Crisis and the euro crisis have taken their energy for so long, it looks very difficult that the descendants of the ruler of the Mediterranean embark on fixing the bloody calamity on the east end of the great sea.

However, in terms of import, a different aspect of Syria surfaces.  Russia and China have loomed as major partners of Iran.  Including Ukraine, too, they accounted for almost 40% of the total Syrian import value.

Global Imports in 2008 by Syria

Market Value: 15,060 (millions)

Imports From	Trade Value	Share	Growth
	(thousands)	(%)	(% 5yr)
Russia	2,330,552	15.47	578.60
Ukraine	1,766,972	11.73	217.22
China	1,590,282	10.56	221.05
Malta	1,442,780	9.58	NA
Italy	753,074	5.00	172.34
Saudi Arabia	609,838	4.05	84.63
Egypt	558,972	3.71	178.44
South Korea	544,310	3.61	83.77
Iraq	413,144	2.74	321.01
Turkey	368,643	2.45	22.47

http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/syria/tradestats/

Taking them together, it can be said that as the concerned European nations are so busy now in tackling their own financial and economic problems and thus have no time to interfere in the Syrian civil war, Russia and China are taking advantage of the tragic situation in Syria for their global strategy.

Put simply, Syria looks like a victim of struggling for supremacy between the West and the East (Russia and China).

In this context, the state of Syria might be close to the Vietnam War that continued through 1950s to 1970s.


(to be continued)


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Mar 9:14 And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them.
Mar 9:15 And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him.

"then came the twelve" - Somalia

Tokyo...

Somalia

In Somalia, a boy was abducted by insurgents.

He was trained in a camp; they seemed to plan to use the boy as one of young soldiers who were to be ordered to carry out a suicide attack.

But finally, his mother came to rescue the boy.  She paid about $400 to Islamic insurgents.  The boy was freed.

This is the most moving story I found today.

More specifically, the Somalian boy was about 15 years old when he was taken captive by al-Shabaab.  In the training camp where he was forced to live and fight, there were many youths aged between 12 and 15.  And it was three months after that his mother could finally rescue him.  But the lucky boy recalled that 20 of his friends were killed in battles, including his best friend.  Now he has started to go to school as he wants to be an architect.  

*** ***

European companies use the sea off Somalia as an unregulated dump yard.

They load dangerous industrial wastes in ships which sail to Somalia.  Then they dump every kind of dangerous factory wastes into the sea.  They just pay $3 per ton of wastes to Somalian persons of influence or military cliques while it would cost $1000 in Europe.

However some Somalian people living on the shore came to become ill for unknown reasons.  It is apparent that they were damaged and harmed by poisonous chemicals and components included in the dumped industrial wastes.

Especially after the 2004 Great Indian Ocean tsunami, many Somalian people started to develop a radiation disease.  Actually 300 Somalians died.  The UN found that European ships disposed of radioactive wastes in the sea off Somalia.  

Of course, Somalia is full of pirates.  But they are under threat of radioactive contamination.



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Luk 9:12 And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place.
Luk 9:13 But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy meat for all this people.
Luk 9:14 For they were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company.
Luk 9:15 And they did so, and made them all sit down.
Luk 9:16 Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude.
Luk 9:17 And they did eat, and were all filled: and there was taken up of fragments that remained to them twelve baskets.

"and I received sight" - Portents

Tokyo Station...

Portents

On September 11, 2001, acts of terror fell in New York and around Washington DC, which changed the landscape of the US forever.

On March 11, 2011,  an act of God befell Japan, which changed the mind set of the Japanese people forever in terms of safety from a big tsunami and nuclear power plants.

The number 11 seems just coincidental.  But, if the God has intention to make people think of these tragic incidents together in a certain way, it is reasonable for Him to have set the dates of the two incidents with the number 11 as a key for connection.

Indeed just nine and a half years after the 9/11 Terror, the great M9.0 earthquake occurred in the North Pacific Ocean off Honsyu, the main island of Japan, being accompanied by 15-meter (45 foot) high tsunamis and the subsequent nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima Daiichi.

And between these two historic incidents, there happened the 2004 Great Indian Ocean Tsunami from an M9.1 earthquake that occurred off Sumatra in the Christmas season of 2004.  This Tsunami took more than 220,000 lives, while the 3/11 tsunami took on about 20,000 Japanese.

As the US Government failed in taking effective preventive measures against AlQaeda, terrorists could easily hijacked commercial jet planes in the US.  It was a human-generated calamity.

So, Japanese Government and parties concerned with the nuclear energy sector of Japan also failed in learning lessons from the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami as well as from the 9/11 Terror.  A natural disaster and a human-generated calamity together resulted in the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident of Japan.  Japanese Government and parties concerned with the nuclear energy sector of Japan should have fully examined their regime, regulations, and systems to manage risks on nuclear power plants and study a possibility of occurrence of a great tsunami in the scale of the Indian Ocean one as all of the Japanese nuclear power plants face the sea.

If Japanese lawmakers, experts, bureaucrats, and executives of utility companies had humbly checked their way of preventing a nuclear accident in Japan that could be triggered by a great natural disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident should have been prevented.  In fact, the God gave two warnings to Japan with the 9/11 Terror in 2001 and the Indian Ocean tragedy in 2004.

And, in turn, if the world does not fully regard the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, other nuclear accidents might happen in South Korea, China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Russia, Europe, North America, etc.

Pu simply, from a Japanese point of view, the 9/11 Terror in 2001 and the 2004 Indian Ocean natural calamity could portend the 3/11 accident in Fukushima Daiichi.  And, the 3/11 accident in Fukushima Daiichi of 2011 could be an advance notice for other future nuclear accident worse than Fukushima Daiichi.



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Joh 9:11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.

"the rising from the dead" - The Season of Election

Around the National Diet Bldg., Tokyo

The Season of Election

This summer was hot like last year.

But, politics in the US and Japan is also hot this year.

There is a kind of similar movement in politics between Japan and the US.

In 2008, Mr. Barack Obama was elected as US President, a revolutionary movement after the era of conservative Mr. W. Bush.  In 2009, a drastic regime change occurred in Japan from the conservative Cabinet mainly formed by the LDP to the liberal and socialistic Cabinet led by the DPJ.

As the US regime change in 2008 preceded the Japanese 2009 regime change, the Japanese politics was somewhat influenced by the great change in the American politics.

During the era of Mr. W. Bush, Japan had a very pro-American prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. The two leaders shared the same capitalistic view to cooperate in the War on Terror.  And in these three years when liberal Mr. Obama has occupied the White House, the Prime Minister Office in Tokyo was commanded by three prime ministers from the liberal DPJ: Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, Mr. Kan, and Mr. Yoshihiko Noda.

Even during the era of Mr. Bill Clinton who was also liberal, most of the Japanese Cabinets that had power in 1990s were rather liberal, socialistic, and moderately pro-Chinese though the pro-American LDP was in charge of national governance in most of the period.

Now, in 2012, the US has to choose liberal Mr. Obama or conservative Mr. Romney as new president.  In Japan, the LDP is to hold its presidential election in this September; the DPJ also plans to call an election where the new head of the party is to be elected though incumbent Prime Minister Mr. Noda is one of the most hopeful candidates.  And, after the elections in both the major parties, it is expected that a general election is to be held at any time.

It is because Prime Minister Mr. Noda promised Mr. Tanigaki, the President of the LDP, to hold a snap election as Mr. Tanigaki wishes in exchange of help from Mr. Tanigaki and his LDP to pass a critical bill for PM Mr. Noda.  Noda has made it his big agenda to pass a bill to increase the rate of the consumption tax from 5% to 10% in a few years.

However, Mr. Tanigaki today announced that he would not run for the presidential election of the LDP.  On the other hand, Mr. Noda now faces three rivals in the election of his party.  So, the first stage in this election season in Japan has just started.

But, it is most likely that the general election in Japan will be held after the 2012 US Presidential Election.  Accordingly, who will be elected, Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney, as the next US President must have a deep influence on the minds of Japanese voters.

If Mr. Obama wins, the liberal DPJ, presently a major ruling party in Japan, might not lose so badly the coming general election for new members in the Lower House of the National Diet.    

If Mr. Romney wins, the capitalistic LDP, presently a major opposition party in Japan, might also win the coming general election for new members in the Lower House of the National Diet.       

(From surveys conducted by the Media, it is expected that the very pro-American LDP will take over power from the very pro-Chinese/Korean DPJ in the coming general election.  So, from the Japanese point of view, the Republican candidate Mr. Romney is expected to defeat the Democratic candidate Mr. Obama in the American Presidential Election.)

If the season changes to the fall, the atmosphere around the Japanese parliament will continue to be hot.
 



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Mar 9:9 And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead.
Mar 9:10 And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.
Mar 9:11 And they asked him, saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come?
Mar 9:12 And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought.
Mar 9:13 But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.

"save Jesus only with themselves"- No More Wars

Tokyo Station...

No More Wars

It is 11 years since the 9/11 Terror on the World Trade Center in New York.

It is said that 3,000 people were killed on the day, Sept. 11, 2011.

And, the subsequent War on Iraq took lives of 5,000 soldiers on the US and its allies side, 1,000 of war subcontractors in the private sector on the US side, 9,000 Iraqi security soldiers (newly formed after the collapse of Hussein's regime) subject to the US, 5,000 Iraqi troops commanded by Saddam Hussein, 15,000 armed insurgents against the new Iraqi Government, and about 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

And also, in the subsequent War in Afghanistan, it is estimated that more than 5,000 soldiers and war subcontractors in the private sector on the US side were killed while more than 38,000 Taliban and AlQaeda fighters were killed.

The news about the 9/11 Terror spread all over the world on the day, Sept. 11, 2011.  People who were later killed in those wars must have heard of the news, too.  How many of them felt that they were facing coming danger?  It is very, very horrible.

Of course, if then US President George W. Bush had not decided to launch those wars, many of them should have been living even today.

It can be also said that if the Imperial Government had not decided to launch the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the Empire of Japan should not have lost 1.7 million soldiers, the US should not have lost 350,000 soldiers, and the UK 86,000.

It really looks like that mankind has not learnt a lesson from past tragedies.

It is very difficult to stop every terrorist from starting an act of terror along with his plan.  But it is more difficult to prevent top leaders of a nation from deciding to go to war after suffering terror.

Even in the era of Christ Jesus, Israelites could not refrain from touching off the revolt against the Roman Empire, while they had been blessed and taught directly by Christ Jesus Himself.  In the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), it is estimated that 20,000 Roman soldiers were killed and 250,000 to 1 million Israelites lost lives.

As even Isrealites could not refrain from starting the war against Romans despite the great effort by Christ Jesus to educate them, it might be inevitable that today's leaders could not abandon the idea of going to war when they were put in such a situation as the 9/11 Terror.

Nonetheless, it is against the teaching of Christ Jesus to begin a war.

http://www.monacome.com/2008/09/911-september-11-2001-terrorist-attack.html


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Mar 9:8 And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves.

"John was risen from the dead" - Effects of Obama

Around the Japanese Parliament Bldg., Tokyo

Effects of Obama

Obama was not a man who wanted to be rich by becoming a politician.

But, he could enjoy being rich as everybody while there are many poor people.  And, eventually he has become a rich man.

He is not a fellow poor man in Chicago any more.

But for Obama to be rich, he had to first help the poor to be trusted and elected by them.  So, it has become the secondary matter for Obama to save all the poor guys in Chicago.  He is too busy handling Wall Street, GM, new energy, China, etc. as a rich US President.  Besides, nobody blames him for incompleteness of his mission to completely save poor residents in Chicago.

What Does Obama Really Believe In? 

By PAUL TOUGH
Published: August 15, 2012
...
As Obama’s time on the South Side progressed, he grew preoccupied by the fate of Roseland’s young people, especially the teenage boys, who seemed increasingly directionless and hopeless. It was not just money they were lacking, he realized, but something deeper. As a boy, Obama spent several years in Indonesia, with a close-up view of third-world poverty, and in his memoir, Obama compared the lives of the children he saw in Altgeld Gardens with the lives of the children he saw as a boy growing up in the slums of Jakarta. In many ways, Obama wrote, the Indonesian slum-dwellers had it better. “For all that poverty, there remained in their lives a discernible order,” he explained. “The habits of a generation played out every day beneath the bargaining and the noise and the swirling dust. It was the absence of such coherence that made a place like Altgeld so desperate.” 

In the spring of 1987, Obama wrote, he began to feel that “something different was going on,” on the South Side. It was a subtle shift — “a change of atmosphere, like the electricity of an approaching storm” — but to Obama, that spring brought to Roseland the “sense, shared by adults and youth alike, that some, if not most, of our boys were slipping beyond rescue.”...

And so in 2009 and 2010, the Obama administration put a tremendous amount of money, very quickly, into the hands of low-income Americans. As part of the Recovery Act, the administration extended the eligibility rules for existing programs like food stamps and unemployment insurance, and the combination of the collapsing economy and the more generous rules meant the programs grew quickly. The number of individuals receiving food stamps rose to 45.1 million in 2011 from 27.4 million in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, an additional 6.8 million people, mostly children, began receiving Medicaid. Temporary changes in the eligibility criteria for various tax credits, including the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit, produced tax refunds for millions of low-income workers, often totaling thousands of dollars a year....

In Roseland, the stimulus may not have made things much better, but it stopped them from getting much worse. Food stamps helped some families get enough to eat, teenagers got summer jobs, some tenants received help with their rent. A stimulus grant to the Chicago public schools helped pay for the YAP program, which let Steve Gates start working with children like Jasmine and Damien. But it was, by definition, a temporary fix.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/obama-poverty.html?pagewanted=all)

Obama must have learnt that all he had ever learnt and acquired was useless for his great mission to save all the poor in Chicago.  And as he had nothing other than what he had ever learnt and acquired, he had no means to completely eradicate poverty in Chicago.  So, he could excuse himself for his failure, since he had no means and tools effective for the great mission.

But, of course, Romney would not be interested in the great mission to completely overcome poverty in Chicago if Romney should be elected as President.

But, poor people in Chicago would understand that Obama did as much as he could for them.  Nobody would blame Obama for not becoming poor as much as they are.  

One great experiment might be going to end as the 2012 Presidential Election has started with Obama and Romney, two strangers for poor people in Chicago.


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Luk 9:7 Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead;
Luk 9:8 And of some, that Elias had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again.

"power on earth to forgive sins" - Chiang Kaishek in 1927

Around the National Diet Bldg., Tokyo

Chiang Kaishek in 1927

Chiang Kaishek visited Japan in 1927 as he temporarily stepped down from the leading position of the Nationalist Party.

This visit to the Empire of Japan was, probably, the most decisive moment and chance to avoid the tragic war between the Empire and China that would be set off a decade later, though Chinag and Japanese counterparts failed to grasp it.

Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th-century China... 

Chiang was an influential member of the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy, and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT when Sun died in 1925. In 1926, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to unify the country, becoming China's nominal leader.[3] He served as Chairman of the National Military Council of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 to 1948. Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Nationalist government's power severely weakened, but his prominence grew. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek

He stayed in Japan 40 days on this occasion, moving from a Japanese port city Kobe to Tokyo.

Chiang met some Japanese leaders in politics and business.  But the most important meeting was the one with Giichi Tanaka, the then prime minister of the Empire of Japan and a general of the Imperial Army.

Chiang asked Tanaka about his opinion about future of the relationship between the Empire of Japan and China.  But PM Tanaka did not answer the question; instead, he asked Chiang why he came to Japan.  Then, Chiang said that his aims were,

To request Tokyo not to tie up with rotten military cliques in China and Manchuria but to support the Nationalist Party,

To request Tokyo not to interfere with the military campaign of his party to conquer northern part of China and thus achieve unification of China in a revolutionary manner, and

To  request Tokyo to adopt a diplomatic policy toward China based on economic relationships but not on military concerns.

Hearing this answer, General Tanaka said to Chiang not to try to promote in haste the military campaign in northern China but concentrate Chiang's efforts in southern China.

So, Chiang argued against Tanaka, saying that the goal of the Chinese revolution was to unify China, so that the military operation in northern China should be carried out so quickly.  "And without unification of China, East Asia cannot be stable," said the Chinese young leader.

Chiang later commented that when he had used the expression of unification of China, Tanaka suddenly blanched his face (to hide some emotion inside).  So,  Chiang Kaishek understood that Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka had no intention to cooperate with Chinag and the National Party.  The Empire of Japan must have come to take Manchuria or northern part of China, so Chiang felt.

Eventually ten years later in 1937,  Chiang Kaishek started to attack the Imperial troops stationed in North China and Shanghai, though the Empire of Japan had already established its protected nation in Manchuria which was called Manchukuo.  These battles that started in 1937 continued till the end of WWII in 1945 through the Pearl Harbor attack.

But, if Japanese PM Giichi Tanaka and other leaders had had more compassion for the rising Chinese leader Chiang in 1927, many tragic incidents must have been avoided in Asia through the Second Japanese-Sino War and the Pacific theater of WWII.

Chiang Kaishek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek

Giichi Tanaka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaka_Giichi

It is also notable that Chiang Kaishek was educated in the Empire of Japan:

Chiang grew up in a time period in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He then left for the Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, an Imperial Japanese Army Academy Preparatory School for Chinese students, in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor of the Kuomintang (KMT) organization. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek

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Mat 9:6 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.

"Peter answered and said to Jesus" - A Holy Baptism

A Tokyo Subway Station...

A Holy Baptism

One of enigmas about Christ Jesus' life is that he received baptism from a man.

The baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his public ministry. This event is recorded in the Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In John 1:29-33, rather than a direct narrative, John the Baptist bears witness to the episode. 

In the New Testament, John the Baptist preached a "baptism with water", not of forgiveness but of penance or repentance for the remission of sins (Luke 3:3), and declared himself a forerunner to one who would baptize 'with the Holy Spirit and with fire' (Luke 3:16). In so doing he was preparing the way for Jesus.[4] Jesus came to the Jordan River where he was baptized by John.The baptismal scene includes the Heavens opening, a dove-like descent of the Holy Spirit, and a voice from Heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_of_Jesus

There are many arguments as to why He had to receive baptism while Christ Jesus never committed a sin.  Will God be christened by a man?

But, it was like children's play for Christ.   John the Baptist was doing something so primitive to the eye of Christ Jesus.  He might have even laughed at it.  Instead, Christ Jesus decided to encourage John as He saw that John was sincere and pious.  So, instead of correcting the way of John's administration, Christ Jesus decided to have John continue the way with good faith.

After this incident, whenever John the Baptist performed baptism on a sinner, he must have recalled Christ Jesus receiving baptism from him.  Accordingly, John must have felt so solemn when he administered baptism.  John must have seen the image of Christ in a man receiving baptism, which made John feel so blessed.

Christ Jesus' act of receiving baptism from John was not for Christ Himself but for John the Baptist.

It is so because without holy help a man cannot administer baptism on so many sinners from whom evil spirits should come out to defile the one baptizing them.

The incident gave great strength spiritually to John.

http://s.webry.info/sp/michi0103.at.webry.info/201206/article_59.html

Suppose that you are John the Baptist.  Then here comes God.  He lets you take a superior position against Him.  How do you feel?  Do you think now you are superior to God?  There are no such fools.  You will wonder whether this act of baptizing God is the worst blasphemy.  You would be, then, surely condemned forever.  But if you see God forgiving you, your faith in God will be so uplifted.  What honor you have been given, you must feel.  You will never betray God who loves you so much by positioning you above Him, if once, though.



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Mar 9:5 And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.

"they were talking with Jesus" - Battles against Cancer

Tokyo...

Battles against Cancer

Researchers in Japanese universities (Osaka Medical College and Kyoto University), etc. have developed a new method to combat cancers using neutron beams.

It is different from conventional ways to use neutron beams to destroy cancer cells.  Currently, neutron beams also destroy normal cells around cancer cells, thus causing pains in a patient.

But the new method uses boron to be injected into the body of a patient.  Then boron atoms converge into cancer cells.  When neutron beams are radiated to the cancer cells, neutrons cause radioactive reactions in the cells containing boron, leading to discharge of neutrons from the cells which destroy other cancer cells around them.  The flying distance of neutrons used in this method is just 0.009 mm.  They don't harm other cells and organs.

The equipment to radiate neutron beams has a size of 3 meters (9 feet) x 3 meters x 3 meters, costing about 2.5 billion yen ($30 million).  So this machine can be installed in an ordinary hospital, though a conventional neutron machine is placed in a nuclear reactor.  

This equipment can radiate an amount of radioactive rays in 20 to 30 minutes that is equal to the amount of rays discharged from a conventional facility in six weeks.

http://maoccoy.tumblr.com/post/30835947429


Researchers in other Japanese universities (Tokyo Women's Medical University and Tokyo Medical University) are also engaged in study of a new method to kill cancer cells using laser rays.  They use a special medical agent that generates active oxygen when receiving light.  So, this agent is injected into the body of a cancer patient so that it will converge into cancer cells.  Then, laser beams are radiated to activate the agent.  Resultant active oxygen destroys the cancer cells.

 


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Mar 9:4 And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.
Mar 9:5 And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.

"exceeding white as snow" - Fukushima Rice

Imperial Palace, Tokyo

Fukushima Rice

Japanese eat rice, but not wheat products, as the principal food, at least, till lately.

All over Japan, most of agricultural land is used for rice farming.

So, there are many paddy fields in Fukushima Prefecture, too.  But, almost half of those rice fields faced the nuclear threat from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  So, last year some rice harvested in Fukushima showed a radiation dosage level higher than a provisional allowable level for safety of 500 Bq/kg.  As a result, 17,000 tons of rice harvested in Fukushima last year were stopped from delivery to be stored in special store buildings.

So, this year the Prefectural office of Fukushima decided to test all the rice bags (30kg each) produced in the prefecture to measure a radiation dosage.

For this purpose they purchased 190 units of special test devices.  They plan to test all the rice bags (12 million bags) of rice produced in Fukushima Prefecture.

Fukushima rice is sold, for example, at 5,000 yen ($60) per 5 kg in a department store in Tokyo.

Further, the general agricultural study center of Fukushima found that existence of potassium in the ground has an effect of preventing radioactive cesium from mingling into the rice plant.  Many farmers sprinkled potassium into their rice fields.

Peaches and other agricultural products produced in Fukushima Prefecture are also delivered to market after radioactive checks from Fukushima.


Radiation Doses in Fukushima Prefecture as of September 2:

Iitate 0.824 uSv/h

Minami-soma 0.38 uSv

Fukushima City 0.69 uSv/h

Koriyama 0.51 uSv/h

Shirakawa 0.21 uSv/h

Iwaki 0.10 uSv/h

Aizu-wakamatsu 0.10 uSv/h

(Tokyo 0.07 uSv/h, London 0.08 uSv/h)


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Mar 9:3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.

"which shall not taste of death" - A Japanese Writer

The Imperial Palace, Tokyo

A Japanese Writer

There was a Japanese writer who helped American soldiers flee from US bases in Japan as they did not want to be sent to Vietnam during the era of the Vietnam War.

The writer, Makoto Oda (1932-2007), became famous in Japan in 1961 as he wrote a book on his experiences of learning in the US in 1959 as a Fulbright student and subsequent traveling in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makoto_Oda

However after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it turned out that he and his organization to help Vietnamese received aid and money from KGB, a spy agency of the Soviet Union.

Oda recruited a young woman in a preparatory school in Tokyo, where he taught English, to an activity of guiding Japanese youths to the world using a special ship around 1980.  The woman later virtually married a member of a Japanese ultra leftist group.  Then she became a lawmaker of the Socialist Party of Japan in 1996.  As time went by, she suffered some money scandal and resign.  However, later she was reelected to come back to the parliament.  And, recently in 2010, she transferred to the Democratic Party of Japan, the incumbent ruling party of Japan.  At the time Mr. Naoto Kan, a leftist politician, was the head of the DPJ and the Prime Minister of Japan.

One common thing among Makoto Oda, the female lawmaker, and Mr. Naoto Kan, is that they are admirer, at least in one time, of North Korea.

Oda once taught in a university in New York.  Where he was taken in a picture with his young daughter.

http://odamakoto.jp/database/photos/photo_22.html

But it is said that his wife is a North Korean resident in Japan.  And it is suspected that she was highly recommended to marry a Japanese intellectual person who had compassion on North Korea.

Indeed, if some Japanese had learnt in Harvard University before the era of JFK, he might still have not forgotten the tragedy of WWII so as to be an anti-capitalism activist.

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Mar 9:1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.