"a well of life" - A Strange 170 Yen Ticket

Tokyo

A Strange 170 Yen Ticket 

It was 170 yen (1.5 dollars).

So I pushed the touch panel on a ticket-issuing machine.  On the screen, fares indicators from 140 yen to thousands yen were displayed in a matrix.  I only had to touch the 170-yen mark.  But what I got was an 830-yen ticket pushed out from a slot of the machine with a change of 170 yen coins.  I was so puzzled, since I had really selected a 170-yen ticket.

Accordingly, I decided to make a detour, taking a seat in a train going around Tokyo.  It arrived at one of major stations in Tokyo, Shinjuku.  Then I stepped out of the train and took a different line walking across the inside of the big train station.

After taking one more transfer at a certain station in the suburb of Tokyo, I was approaching my original destination.  I was standing near a door inside a train car when it got into a kind of nameless station.  The door opened, and some passengers got off while others were entering the vehicle.  Among them there was an old man walking with a cane.  He came into the vehicle with his upper body almost half bent to the floor, looking so fragile.

But the vehicle was crowded.  On the seats near the door, there sat an exhausted-looking middle-aged woman with her eyes closed, a middle-aged man in a gray suit with a sullen attitude as if he were in shark business, a middle-aged man with little hair half sleeping, etc.  I slowly moved further inside along with the old man with the cane managing to hold a vertical bar separating the door space from the seat and making a desperate effort to move around the seat near the door.

Then, suddenly, the middle-aged man in a gray suit with a sullen attitude spoke to the old man, "Sir, please sit here!"  But the old man with the cane replied, "It is ok!" in a weak voice、meaning "No, thanks."  The man in a gray suit stood up in front of me and invited the old man to the seat, saying "I will soon get off."

The old man took the seat, looking relieved.  And the man with a sullen attitude got off the train at the station next to the next one.

I also got off at my destination station.  I had to get to the third floor of a certain building by 6 p.m.  It was 5:55 p.m. when I exited the station to hurry to the building.  I entered the building three minutes before 6 o'clock.  I had to go up to the third floor.  I got in an elevator and pushed the button numbered three, but it didn't move.  I realized the entrance of the building, connected to the station through a raised corridor, was on the third floor but not the second floor.   I just made it, no delay.

When I bought a return ticket at the station, I correctly touched the 170-yen mark of a ticket-issuing machine to get it exactly.          

So, my day was almost over today, so peacefully and mercifully.






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Pro 10:11 The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.

"neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves" - Arab Female Beggars

Tokyo　Downtown

Arab Female Beggars

There is a notable female author in Japan.

Decades ago, she traveled to an Arab country and happened to visit a certain influential business man.  While she was talking with the Arab rich man, a young female beggar came to the office.  The businessman gave her a dollar or so.  The Japanese woman observed that the beggar had a gold wristband in one of her arms.

Then after a while, another female beggar also came to the office.  The Arab man gave her five dollars or so.  The Japanese woman observed that the beggar had a few gold wristbands around her arms.

So, the Japanese female author asked the man why he had bestowed different amounts of money to the two beggars.  The man answered that he had to give money according to status of each beggar.

The Japanese author, who happened to be a Catholic, thought that she had learnt something important or interesting.

The teaching of Christ Jesus, however, seems to be "The more you are given, the more you are requested to give," but not "The more you have, the more you will be given."  






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Mat 10:10 Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat.
Mat 10:11 And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence.

"The kingdom of God is come" - Warnings about Hiroshima A-Bomb Attack in 1945

The Tokyo Station

Warnings about Hiroshima A-Bomb Attack in 1945

There are still some arguments as to whether the US announced beforehand its planned attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in early August of 1945.

Note that the US military planes had dropped more than one million leaflets in Japan to persuade Japanese citizens to end the war against the US in the last months of WWII.  For example, the following leaflets seem to have been surely delivered to Japanese citizens by the US military at the time.

Primary Resources: Leaflets warning Japanese of Atomic Bomb, 1945 

Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945

TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE:
America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.
We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. 

We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city. 

Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan. 

You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war. 

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES. 

ATTENTION JAPANESE PEOPLE. EVACUATE YOUR CITIES. 

Because your military leaders have rejected the thirteen part surrender declaration, two momentous events have occurred in the last few days. 

The Soviet Union, because of this rejection on the part of the military has notified your Ambassador Sato that it has declared war on your nation. Thus, all powerful countries of the world are now at war with you. 

Also, because of your leaders' refusal to accept the surrender declaration that would enable Japan to honorably end this useless war, we have employed our atomic bomb.
A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s could have carried on a single mission. Radio Tokyo has told you that with the first use of this weapon of total destruction, Hiroshima was virtually destroyed. 

Before we use this bomb again and again to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, petition the emperor now to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better, and peace-loving Japan. 

Act at once or we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war. 

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/truman-leaflets/   

Nonetheless, the above leaflets seem to have been dropped on Japanese cities after the Hiroshima attack but before the Nagasaki attack, since the Soviet Union declared war against the Empire of Japan between the Hiroshima bombing and the Nagasaki.

It is unlikely that immediately before the Hiroshima attack, the US would provide any specific warning of its use of an atomic bomb, since this new type of bomb might have failed, though they actually gave general warnings on their exhaustive air raids on Japanese cities before Hiroshima.

But, a Japanese veteran of WWII wrote a book claiming that he, as a soldier of the Imperial Army troops stationed around Canton, China, was in charge of listening to radio broadcasting in Japanese by the UK and the US Governments and military.  They received messages, news, reports, etc. contained in such broadcasting to relay them to superior officers and finally to military headquarters in Tokyo. 

WW2: AMERICA WARNED HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI CITIZENSARTICLE #11 • WRITTEN BY ALAN BELLOWS

... 

Shortly before the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the United Stated showered the Japanese cities of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and 33 other potential targets with over 5 million leaflets warning civilians of the impending attack.

... 

An American-controlled radio station on Saipan was broadcasting a similar message to the Japanese people every 15 minutes. Five days after the fliers were distributed, Hiroshima was destroyed by the "Little Boy" atomic device. Following the first attack, the U.S. air force dropped even more leaflets: 

America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. 

We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city. 

Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan. 

You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war. 

Three days after Hiroshima, the "Fat Man" bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
The distribution of these leaflets, along with the radio broadcasts, does put a dent in the argument that America was unconcerned about the potential civilian deaths as a result of an atomic attack, but the debate over the bombs' necessity in ending the war will never be truly resolved. 

http://www.damninteresting.com/ww2-america-warned-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-citizens/

It is not yet confirmed, but the Japanese author wrote that a broadcast called "New Delhi Broadcasting" provided information even about success of an atomic bomb test conducted in New Mexico, the US, in July 1945.    New Delhi Broadcasting is said to have delivered news reports BBC had broadcast after translation into Japanese. 　

There are still some mysteries about the Hiroshima tragedy of 1945.





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Luk 10:9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.

"the sheep did not hear them"

Lunar Eclipse








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Joh 10:6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
Joh 10:7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
Joh 10:8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.

"who created heaven" - An Old Japanese Anti-Nuclear Photographer

Mt. Fuji, 100 km Far, after a Typhoon

An Old Japanese Anti-Nuclear Photographer 

An old Japanese photographer Kenji Higuchi was told by a medical doctor not to go into Fukushima because of his health condition.

But three months after the start of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant disaster triggered by an M9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunamis on March 11, 2011, Mr. Higuchi got there, taking photos of cows abandoned in a cow shed and agriculture fields deserted by farmers and residents who had lived around Fukushima Daiichi.

It was a publishing company that helped him prepare necessary gears, including a dose meter, protective garments, etc.  The company wanted to publish a photograph book focused on nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima accident.  Mr. Higuchi was well known in this genre.  He is an anti-nuclear photographer.

So, three months after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima Mr. Higuchi drove around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Pictures he took there were included in the book later published.  Though he could not enter the premises of the Plant, he said, "It was better, anyway, for me to have visited the contaminated area."

In addition, the old Japanese anti-nuclear photographer Kenji Higuchi was covered by The Washington Post one moth after the sudden occurrence of the 3/11 Fukushima disaster.

The Washington Post

In Japan, new attention for longtime anti-nuclear activist

By Michael Alison Chandler April 10, 2011
Long before the ghostly images of Fukushima’s nuclear workers in white suits and gas masks appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, photographer Kenji Higuchi was recording the lives and risks of the industry’s front-line laborers.

The 74-year-old, with longish gray hair, published some of the first images of nuclear workers toiling inside a reactor in 1977. He documented the struggles of radiation victims and, over a half-century, wrote 19 books, including “The Truth About Nuclear Plants” and “Erased Victims.” But in this energy-hungry nation, his no-nukes message did not carry very far. “I was the least popular photographer in Japan,” he said.

Everything changed after the meltdowns in the tsunami-stricken reactors. His schedule filled with invitations for interviews and speaking engagements; his book sales went up; and a 15-year-old British documentary featuring his research on “nuclear gypsies,” subcontractors hired to do the riskiest jobs at plants, is enjoying a revival on YouTube.

“I never imagined I would have so many people interested in helping me,” he said recently.

In the midst of the radiation crisis, in which miles of ocean and farmland have been contaminated and 80,000 people have been evicted from their homes, there lies a seed of hope for the people who warned that this day would come.
Until now, anti-nuclear activists here have counted some local victories, preventing plants from moving in or quashing the use of plutonium-laced nuclear fuel in their neighborhoods. But they say their national influence has been virtually nil.

They describe a block of pro-nuclear scholars, politicians and businessmen who have brought more than 50 reactors online in the past 35 years, making Japan the world’s third- largest producer of nuclear power.

But in the past few weeks, former chiefs of key nuclear safety commissions and government agencies have apologized for overlooking important safety concerns. And aging activists, who got involved in local battles opposing reactors in the 1970s or were inspired after the 1986 Chernobyl accident, are getting re­inforcements.

A wave of younger people are checking daily Geiger-counter readings online and carrying “No Nukes” signs up and down the streets of trendy Tokyo neighborhoods. Two separate protests in the capital on Sunday attracted more than 10,000 people, who called for a moratorium on nuclear power.

“The times are changing,” said Yukio Yamaguchi, co-director of the Citizen’s Nuclear Information Center, Japan’s most prominent anti-nuclear organization, at a meeting attended by nearly 300 people, including some who traveled more than 500 miles.

Higuchi is more optimistic that a moratorium on nuclear power production is possible. “The economic giants may still be saying, ‘We will not stop nuclear power,’ but the people, I think, will rise up.”

His inspiration

The son of a poor rice farmer in Nagano, Higuchi came of age in rapidly industrializing post-war Japan. He left the farm at age 22 for Tokyo, where he found a job as a heavy machine operator in a steel plant. At first he was happy. “I will be able to eat for the rest of my life,” he recalled thinking. But the job was dull and the fumes made him dizzy.

A few years later, he was inspired by a documentary photo exhibit and enrolled in a photojournalism program. Since then, he has worked as a freelance writer and photographer, recording how the environment and common laborers suffered during Japan’s economic boom.

In 1973, he photographed the clenched fingers and distorted features of a girl born with Minamata disease, a neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning. Two years later, he waded into waters inked black from an oil spill in the Seto Inland Sea, and in 1984 captured the mass funeral for 86 coal miners who died in a fire in Kyushu.

Higuchi focused much of his attention on the growing nuclear power industry. He documented the 16-year legal battle of Kazuyuki Iwasa, the first subcontracted nuclear worker to seek compensation for radiation exposure. Doctors diagnosed his radiation burns, but the courts never affirmed that his illness was work-related.

While researching that story, Higuchi captured one of his most defining photographs, taken during his lone visit to a power plant.

The tour at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant, where Iwasa had worked, took months to arrange. After his initial requests were denied, he moved into a cheap hotel room near the plant and stood at the front gate every day for a week. When that didn’t work, Higuchi asked the power company if he could photograph their oft-touted security measures. That worked.

He arrived at the plant one day in July 1977 with three cameras and 15 rolls of film. He took pictures of the workers’ safety routines, changing out of street clothes into bright orange coveralls and masks, and stripping down to their underwear at the end of their shifts and putting their hands and feet into machines that test their exposure.

He also took photos of the men doing their jobs, including one that he has published many times since, of three workers emerging from a dark hole near the center of the reactor, wearing heavy boots and gas masks, pushing a dolly.

The images he brought back were revelatory to many who had thought that nuclear workers sat in control rooms.

“I was always told these plants were an assembly line of super-modern machines,” said Hideyuki Ban, the other co-director of Citizen’s Nuclear Information Center. “In reality, pipes leak and workers have to go in and clean up with a rag.”

Higuchi said he wanted to show that the latest nuclear technology still relies on pre-modern labor force: “the sweat and the sacrifice of human beings.”

The photos were published in two prominent Japanese magazines that year.

Renewed interest

Higuchi received awards from anti-nuclear activists at home and abroad. But over time, it became increasingly difficult to sell his photos in Japan. He supplemented his freelance income by managing an apartment building. Occasionally Japanese tabloid magazines would publish his controversial images of sick workers, running them in between pages of lingerie-clad women.

But since the accident on March 11, he said, his work is getting more attention than ever.

When the Fukushima disaster struck, Higuchi did not grab his camera and drive to the plant; he was exposed to radiation during his last visit to an evacuation zone. But he went to a shelter at an arena outside Tokyo and sneaked past a barricade to interview the families. When a security guard caught him and erased all his photos, the elderly man got into a brief pushing match with the guard.

Higuchi said he is still trying to recover the images on his memory card. He wants to share them with the world.

Special correspondent Tetsuya Kato contributed to this report.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-japan-new-attention-for-longtime-anti-nuclear-activist/2011/04/05/AFMTG3GD_story.html

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Rev 10:6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

"to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"

Tokyo









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Mat 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

"Jesus answered and said unto them" - Afterlife

Tokyo

Afterlife

Let's confirm what Judaism teaches about the fate of a man after his death.

The Torah emphasizes rewards and punishments in this life, however, one can find in the Torah evidences of the afterlife, when the righteous will be reunited with their loved ones after death. Judaism is not focused on the question of how to get into heaven. Judaism is focused on life and how to live it. However, during this life Jews prepare for the Olam Ha-Ba through Torah study and good deeds. "This world is like the eve of Shabbat, and the Olam Ha-Ba is like Shabbat. He who prepares on the eve of Shabbat will have food to eat on Shabbat." The Talmud also states that all Israel has a place in the Olam Ha-Ba.The spiritual afterlife is referred to in Hebrew as Olam Ha-Ba (oh-LAHM hah-BAH), the World to Come, although this term is also used to refer to the messianic age. Nevertheless, we definitely believe that your place in the Olam Ha-Ba is determined by a merit system based on your actions, not by who you are or what religion you profess.
http://death.findyourfate.com/life-after-death/judaism.html

We can confirm even in one Gospel that Christ Jesus assumed as a matter of course that there is Heaven.

Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 5:12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. 

Matthew 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 

Matthew 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. 

Matthew 18:18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. 

Matthew 19:23 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 23:13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Indeed to deny existence of heaven is tantamount to denying divine nature of Christ Jesus.

Finally Islam also refers to life after death.

Islamic Beliefs about the Afterlife 

Paradise"O soul who is at rest, return to thy Lord, well-pleased with Him, well-pleasing Him. So enter among My servants, and enter My garden." (89:27-30)Paradise (firdaws), also called "The Garden" (Janna), is a place of physical and spiritual pleasure, with lofty mansions (39:20, 29:58-59), delicious food and drink (52:22, 52:19, 38:51), and virgin companions called houris (56:17-19, 52:24-25, 76:19, 56:35-38, 37:48-49, 38:52-54, 44:51-56, 52:20-21). There are seven heavens (17:46, 23:88, 41:11, 65:12). 

HellHell, or Jahannam (Greek gehenna), is mentioned frequently in the Qur'an and the Sunnah using a variety of imagery. It has seven doors (Qur'an 39:71; 15:43) leading to a fiery crater of various levels, the lowest of which contains the tree Zaqqum and a cauldron of boiling pitch. The level of hell depends on the degree of offenses. Suffering is both physical and spiritual. (See The Quran and The Hadith)

http://www.religionfacts.com/islam/beliefs/afterlife.htm

So, we should not be afraid of death, but the hell.




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Mar 10:5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Mar 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;