The review by N.K. Singh includes a haiku by Yasuhiko Shigemoto that seems dark and curious to me:
Mountains laugh.
Never say Hiroshima’s mountains
are laughing.
Yasuhiko has a self-introduction on his site that gives some background to this perspective:
When the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 in 1945, I was working at a factory about 2500 meters north of the A-bomb blast center as a student mobilizer. I was fifteen years old. Fortunately I did not have a burn, for I was in the shadow of a structure by chance.
recalling the day he first saw the incinerated city of Hiroshima as a 15-year-old boy. “I walked across this bridge and even five days after the bomb, it was covered in charred bodies. I had to step over them, but there were so many I walked on someone. The river underneath was full of people too, floating like dead fish. There are no words to describe what I felt.”
No words but haiku. I couldn’t help but notice that he credits his interest in haiku to a chance meeting with an English school teacher imprisoned by the Japanese:
I met with HAIKU written by R. H. Blyth during the days of my Hiroshima University. I was surprised to know that he was absorbed in translating haiku into English at a concentration camp during the war. And at the same time, I felt much interested in his English translation of haiku and thought that I would like to write haiku in English or translate haiku into English as he he did. But for me, this was like a dream in those days. 　About thirty years later since then, I remembered what I thought about R. H. Blyth and haiku in my young days and began to try to tackle the work like a dream.
Spring hills faintly melting seem to smile
Summer hills of pale green seem to trickle
Autumn hills bright and clean seem all dressed up
Winter hills faintly sad seem to sleep
The origin of haiku may be spontaneous but its craft depends on a lot of structural and exacting norms. This process, which is the essence of the haiku art, has no spontaneity. It is like a jeweller’s craft after “the feeling” has been caught. In fact haikus represent a delicate balance between spontaneous feeling like what Zen called “Satori” and subsequent craft.
I recently commented on the innovative approach to road safety in parts of Europe where all signs will be taken down. The Danes have apparently come up with the opposite strategy — make warning signs as distracting as possible:
Julia Pauli of the Danish road safety council told the BBC that the reaction to the Speedbandits video had been mostly positive.
“If you want to reach the young people, you have to communicate on their conditions… So, topless women are working,” she said.
She said the advertising campaign had been tested and in the target group it was really positive – more than 50% said they were thinking more about the dangers of speeding when driving.
Rediculous. But I have to wonder if the same approach might help in reducing the number of security bugs in web applications.
Edited to add (26 Nov 2006): Funny to see men in the promotional video hanging out of their truck to take pictures of the topless women. That seems safe. And then there is the interview of the truck driver smoking a cigarette while his passenger munches on lunch. With this approach I supect there will be more smoking, eating, and photography before there is more attention paid to road safety. Incidentally, I also thought it funny that the offical Danish Road Safety Council site suggests “Respecting the speed limits is the simplest way to save lives.” Respect, indeed.
The BBC has a rather sarcastic but informative comparison of the London and Beijing project management styles:
With two years to go until the Beijing Olympics the Chinese government says its preparations are on schedule and on budget.
So as London prepares to hold the Olympics in 2012 what can it learn from the Beijing experience?
Not surprising that the Brit’s recommendation is to remove worker’s rights and squash dissent in order to compete. I’m not saying I disagree with his characterization of what makes the Chinese method less prone to risk, but I wonder if that was the position he started with and thus the story is an affirmation of extant cultural beliefs (e.g. stereotypes) rather than an investigation…
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