(The Evening and Nightly Fujis 100km far (of the Christmas version); The Nightly Tokyo Tower 25km far; Click to enlarge.)Another View on History
Now a VOA radio broadcast is telling that China is going to send its navy ships to the sea area off Somalia, though the country has kept its military forces mainly inside its own region.
There are some concerns among Japanese patriots about the Chinese military expansion bolstered by the Communism and the Sinocentrism.
The elite of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Government can most probably accept reality of the world and the Japanese supremacy; but the Chinese military would not do so until its capability is finally tested.
The New York Times must realize that there were two enemies for the Chinese people during WWII: the Imperial Army of Japan and the Chinese troops of both the Chinese National Party and the Chinese Communist Party, since China was at a civil war which was expanded to involve the Imperial Army of Japan in 1930's.
SECTION I: Carloman
A history textbook in Japan refers to an elder brother of Pepin III, King of the Franks, as an example of infiltration of Christianity into Europe.
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Carloman (between 706 and 716[1] – 17 August[2] 754) was the eldest son of Charles Martel, major domo or mayor of the palace and duke of the Franks, and his wife Chrotrud. On Charles' death (741), Carloman and his brother Pippin the Short succeeded to their father's legal positions, Carloman in Austrasia, and Pippin in Neustria. He was a member of the family later called the Carolingians and it can be argued that he was instrumental in consolidating their power at the expense of the ruling Merovingian kings of the Franks. He withdrew from public life in 747 to take up the monastic habit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carloman,_Mayor_of_the_Palace
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While his younger brother was busy building the Carolingian dynasty, Carloman left his status as the ruler of "what was called Austrasia, roughly what is now Germany" to go and live in a monastery called Monte Cassino in Italy.
His younger brother Pepin III is more focused on in a history textbook;
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His rule, while not as great as either his father's or son's, was historically important and of great benefit to the Franks as a people. It can certainly be argued that Pepin's assumption of the crown, and the title of Patrician of Rome, were harbingers of his son's imperial coronation which is usually seen as the founding of the Holy Roman Empire. He certainly made the Carolingians de jure what his father had made them de facto—the ruling dynasty of the Franks and the foremost power of Europe. While not known as a great general, he was undefeated during his lifetime.
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Yet, a son of Pepin III, Charlemagne or Charles the Great, is still respected today in both France and Germany as a great king or an emperor of their ancestors.
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By bestowing the Imperial crown upon Charlemagne, the Pope arrogated to himself "the right to appoint ... the Emperor of the Romans, ... establishing the imperial crown as his own personal gift but simultaneously granting himself implicit superiority over the Emperor whom he had created.". And "because the Byzantines had proved so unsatisfactory from every point of view—political, military and doctrinal—he would select a westerner: the one man who by his wisdom and statesmanship and the vastness of his dominions ... stood out head and shoulders above his contemporaries.".
The title of emperor remained in his family for years to come, however, as brothers fought over who had the supremacy in the Frankish state. The papacy itself never forgot the title nor abandoned the right to bestow it. When the family of Charles ceased to produce worthy heirs, the pope gladly crowned whichever Italian magnate could best protect him from his local enemies. This devolution led, as could have been expected, to the dormancy of the title for almost forty years (924-962). Finally, in 962, in a radically different Europe from Charlemagne's, a new Roman Emperor was crowned in Rome by a grateful pope. This emperor, Otto the Great, brought the title into the hands the kings of Germany for almost a millennium, for it was to become the Holy Roman Empire, a true imperial successor to Charles, if not Augustus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
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If two strong brothers are engaged in a life-and-death struggle, no royal house could stand long.
The modern European Civilization has been thus deeply influenced by a religious decision made in the 8th century by an elder brother of a king who became the father of an emperor whose success had led to the glory of contemporary Europe as an extension of the Roman Empire, though through the dark era of WWI and WWII.
It is so glorious that even Adolf Hitler must have dreamed of his coming coronation as emperor of Europe authorized by a Pope.
Finally, there was at least one man who opted for a Christian life rather than a king of Europe 1250 years ago.
American Christianity of course owes this historical incident, since Christianity might have not been fully developed in Europe but only subsisted as a minor urban religion in Europe without wider diffusion to farmers and other ordinary people unless one possible king of Europe had abandoned his worldly ambition.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frankish_power_481_814.jpg; Click to enlarge.)
SECTION II: JAPANESE OBAMAS
It is true there is nobody in Japan that can match Caroline of New York.
YUKO OBUCHI (The Liberal Democratic Party)
Ms. Obuchi is a daughter of a former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi who died of a fatal disease during his term of the Japanese premiership in 2000 when she was working in a TV broadcasting company.
Now she is the youngest state minister of Japan after WWII as she inherited the electoral regional base of her late father so as to be elected as a national lawmaker.
She emphasized in a recent interview that the LDP has lost confidence of the people. "Without relations of trust between the party and the people, no politics can work," she said.
She might become the second female Minister of Defense of Japan in the future.
http://www.obuchiyuko.com/greeting.php
MASAHISA SATO (The Liberal Democratic Party)
Mr. Sato, now a Japanese parliament member, was once stationed in southern Iraq as an officer of the Ground Self-Defense Force, though recently the Japanese Government has completely pulled out Japanese servicemen having been dispatched to Iraq for on-site aid to local people (and for actual support for U.S. military's noncombat activities) over land and in air.
The Japanese Iraqi-mission veteran, once so popular among Iraqi children, recently emphasized a need to take necessary measures against pirates, since it is a matter of national sovereignty rather than international contribution.
http://east.tegelog.jp/index.php?itemid=2105
KEIICHIRO ASAO (The Democratic Party of Japan)
Mr. Asao is one of the members of the National Diet of Japan who are promoting a policy of accepting 10 million immigrants.
In the context of the falling birthrate in Japan, some people want to keep the level of the Japan's population for various reasons even by adopting such a natioanl policy. Yet, most nationalists are against this kind of measures.
Mr. Asao is one of the typical elite lawmakers who graduated from the faculty of law, the University of Tokyo, and learnt in a grad school in America.
Though some such relatively young and elite politicians are spotted in both the LDP and the DPJ, compared with Mr. Barack Obama they still look like unfashionable public speakers probably due to the cultural difference between Japan and the U.S. even if they are selling an idea of welcoming 10 million immigrants to Japan.
Anyway, it may be in tune with an American diplomatic policy for Japan to accept 10 million immigrants mainly from Asia, including China, since the size of the Japanese market will be secured accordingly.
http://www.asao.net/
http://www.matsui21.com/media/03/08_10voice.htm
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That is all for today.
The American magazine "Science" has chosen the study on the resetting of a cell as the No.1 scientific achievement of this year.
The study is based on the revolutionary work of Mr. Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese medical scientist, on stem cells.
Another Japanese professor's study on superconductivity is also listed in the top 10 scientific feasts of 2008.
Without a fundamental and traditional cultural background of European Christianity, it is truly a wonder for Japanese to present such creative work to the world, isn't it?
Or the Japanese Buddhism that evolved as a state religion in earnest during the same period of deployment of European Christianity under the Carolingian dynasty must expect more fruits of Japanese intellectual work at the Nobel Prize level in the very 21st century, since the EEE Reporter blog was started in 2005 when a Pope from Poland was succeeded by another from Germany.
(For your good service:
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/latin/ainosanka.html
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/latin/koiwamizuiro.html )
Mar 12:19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
Mar 12:20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed.
Mar 12:21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise.
Mar 12:22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also.
Mar 12:23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.
Mar 12:24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?
Mar 12:25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.