History Rewrites Itself…
A poem by Ellen Talleon, resident of Tsukuba, in honour of Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States
November 5, 2008
History rewrites itself ...
What a historic, epic moment
There will never be a time
Captured for all eternity
That will thrill and dazzle
As today.
When a Man of Color
Stands in the threshold
Of a portal so long
Open only, so it seemed
To the Whites in color and race.
When a Man of two races
As diverse as black and white
Origins as divergent
As East, West and North
Comes to the pinnacle
Of ultimate power in the
Western world.
Will such defining moment
Help redeem the world as
It stands on such turmoil
Material as well as spiritual
That it needs a country
As huge and overpowering
Led by a certain kind of Man
To turn it right again?
And will the Man of Color
Stand true to his promise
To make a difference
To serve the world
Even outside borders
And heal all rifts and
Bridge all divides
Of color and faith.
Will such an event
Be a momentous
Triumph of the human spirit
As it strives to redefine
Itself into what is right
And Fair and destined by Fate?
Ask me later, not today
For who can foretell
What will transpire
Beyond the glory and sheer greatness
of today’s special moment in history.
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Ideas about Improving Tsukuba
I am a member of the International Relations Subcommittee of the Tsukuba Science City Network. The committee exists to promote international exchange in Tsukuba, especially as it pertains to science and technology, and it includes various people from research and educational institutes around Tsukuba and representatives of the city and prefectural governments.
The committee has just completed one project and is looking for suggestions about where to focus its energy next. If you have any ideas about how to improve international relations in Tsukuba, please feel free to get in touch with me. Your ideas could include:
- ways to make Tsukuba a more international city
- ways to make Tsukuba more appealing to foreign researchers who are invited here
- ways to make it easier to live in Tsukuba
- ways to increase the profile of Tsukuba in the world
Feel free to "think big" and brainstorm, as well as coming up with ideas that just need a little bit of work to implement. Your ideas can be in point form, or you can write out a full proposal -- anything is fine. I cannot promise that your ideas will be implemented, but I will promise to pass your thoughts on to the committee so they can get an idea of Tsukuba looks like from our perspective and how we might like to improve things.
I am not sure yet when the next committee meeting will be held, but it will probably be in about one month or so. If you come up with any ideas in the meantime, please feel get in touch with me (through TsukuBlog).
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Jon Heese Running for City Council
Jon Heese, a long-term resident of Tsukuba who now has Japanese citizenship, is hoping to become the first foreign-born City Councillor (つくば市議会議員) in Tsukuba (and the third one in Japan). He was born in Saskatchewan, Canada and he came to Tsukuba in 1991.
The election will be held on October 26 and he is officially allowed to start campaigning on the 19th. Have a look at his website and get in touch with him at jon@aishiterutsukuba.com if you want to help him with his campaign.
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Jon’s Stunning Victory
Jon Heese, who ran for City Council this past week, has amazed and impressed his supporters (and possibly even himself!) by coming in second!
Tatsuro Igarashi (LDP) came first with 4,463 votes and Jon (no party) came second with 4,011 votes. Forty people ran in the election with 33 people being voted in. A total of 89,364 effective votes were cast. The full record is available on the City Hall website.
Jon says that his first order of business will be "to try and get Joyo and Kanto banks to make their machines bilingual. Ideally they will also allow their customers to withdraw money 24 hours a day, if only from the Seven 11 machines."
The Tsukuba community congratulates Jon on his impressive win! We look forward to hearing about his adventures in politics!
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Misleading Displays of an Advertisement-Article Placed in the November Issue of NATURE (The Schizophrenia Issue) a Revealing Symptom of Tsukuba`s TWO-SIDED Nature
Last week when I walked into one of Tsukuba`s Kominkan ( Community Centers), I was greeted by one of the staff members, whom I know well, as if he/she had being waiting for me arrive .
Instead of a usual greeting, all I got was an excited- " Look what`s been published!", while to my surprise I was proudly handed a set of stapled-together sheets of paper, which at a glance I could see was a color-copied version of an issue of the respected British science journal NATURE.
What stood out most about what I had been handed was the unusally striking cover illustration- which I instantly recognized as being what is called outsider-art, works of art created by patients diagnosed as being mentally ill- and in fact, reading the heading I saw that this issue, that of November 11th 2010, was a special on schizophrenia.
Now I realize that some must see me as being more than a bit strange, and I certainly AM moody, but I couldnt for the life of me imagine why I had been so enthusiastically given this specific material to look at.
I was then told that this internationally esteemed journal had published something about Tsukuba City. And since it was all written in English, my native tongue, it seemed that everyone thought that I would want to have a look. They also wanted to know what I thought of it ( since the text was written in print so small and packed together as to discourage any of them from trying to read it).
When I opened to the first page past the cover, I saw that indeed there WAS an article about Tsukuba. I could not help but chuckle when I saw the title- A TALE of Two Cities- and wondered if the writer knew that this article would be part of the schizophrenia issue- which made that choice of a heading seem so witty ( Get it ? Schizophrenia,......a tale of Two Cities?!). Could it have been an INTENTIONAL pun?
Leafing through the text I found that there were in fact SEVERAL separate articles on the Tsukuba Science City, with plenty of color photos ( with TWO pics of Mayor Ichihara!?), and all in all it ran for quite a few pages. In fact, a large portion of the schizophrenia issue seemed to be devoted to Tsukuba!
"What is this", I thought to myself.
Then I noticed written on the top and bottom of EACH page, in small print, ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE and NATURE MAGAZINE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT OF THESE ARTICLES.
When the expectant KOMINKAN staff , eagerly awaiting my reaction to the articles, asked me what I thought, I bluntly responded- "Its an advertisement"!
Maybe I should have used more tact, because they seemed to be genuinely disappointed, even hurt. The way these texts had been presented to them by the city office, with an order to display them, they were led to believe that these were articles which a famous magazine had to have written as a special feature on Tsukuba. In fact, the Japanese language explanation sheets which were provided to be part of the display at the kominkan merely said that an internationally respected journal had published a special feature on Tsukuba.
I could understand why they would be disappointed.
They were even more upset by the fact that these Tsukuba articles appeared in the special schizophenia issue ( they didnt realize that until I explained it to them. And in fact, within the next couple of days the city had special covers printed up so that the original cover could not be seen! They did not want Tsukuba`s name to be connected with a mental disorder.)
I was a bit disturbed myself. Sure , I think its a good think to promote our city, and putting an ad in a journal like NATUREl is probably good publicity. But why try to pass the advertisement off as a REAL ARTICLE. Why fudge the facts? For face? Did the mayor`s office imagine that the citizens of Tsukuba would feel proud of such an article and as an extension have positive feelings about the mayor?
What would be wrong in simply stating the truth- that a certain amount of public money had been spent on advertisements in Nature as part of a publicity drive? The ads could then be displayed to show in the spirit of showing what types of work the publicity division had been doing.
But instead, the mayor is trying to pass them off as REAL ARTICLES!
Very strange. Especially when considering the fact that the ad-articles in Nature try to impress readers with the fact that Tsukuba is a city which embodies GOOD SCIENCE and scientific INTEGRITY.
Well one thing for sure is that FUDGING THE FACTS to try to look good does not mesh well with scientific thinking, or scientific ethics.
I mean, it`s hard enough for Japanese scientists having to overcome all the various inherent obstacles to doing good science which exist within traditional Japanese culture ( especially the sempai-kohai, senior- junior system which makes presenting new ideas, different from those of your teachers or seniors extremely difficult), without having a citygovernmentl which acts with such little integrity.
I think City Hall should be setting a better example.
( but then again it would be difficult to explain why the taxpayers money should be spent for puttuing TWO photos of the mayor into NATURE. Maybe not the best move from a publicity point of view!)
This story illustrates just how great a gap there is between the institutes and laboratories of the Tsukuba Science City, where great efforts are made to do real and meaningful science, and the conservative Tsukuba City Government for which FACE and appearances are all important.
Yes, it apparently really is a Tale of Two Cities.
When I called the mayors office to ask how much was spent on the article ( and then changing the cover for display in Tsukuba) they said they could not tell me the sum at this moment!
Hmmmm.
The Japanese language explanation provided for display does NOT mention that the article on Tsukuba was commissioned and paid for by Tsukuba City
I also think that NATURE should be more considerate of its Japanese customers and more sensitive to Japanese culture. In Japan, people are very sensitive to connections and symbols. When something positive is being presented, there should be no negative or inauspicious symbols involved. Tsukuba City should have been informed that the very expensive advertisement it was placing would be in an issue dedicated to schizophrenia. If they had known that, I am sure they would have asked the material to be printed on a different date.
The advertisement-article on Tsukuba on display with a new, non schizophrenic cover at all community centers in Tsukuba
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