Paper cranes and Memories

After reading about Hiroshima, I think it is time to revisit Grave of the Fireflies.

Also I remember when i was a kid, one of my favorite books was a Japanese one about this kid dying (i think she had cancer) and wanted to make 1000 paper cranes. She died before completing it.
I just did some searching and it seems that it is a true story of Sadako Sasaki and it is related to the H-bomb:

The paper crane has become an international symbol of peace in recent years as a result of it's connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki born in 1943. Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with Leukemia, "the atom bomb" disease.
Sadako's best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve.

The point is that she never gave up. She continued to make paper cranes until she died.
Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako's friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.
In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish which is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:

"This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world".

Btw, it is funny how the mind works. When I first remembered this story after reading the blog post with all the pictures, I didn't remember that it was Hiroshima related. But somehow my brain knew it. The wonder of it!

Hiroshima and its Justification

I found the following blog post showing photos of the effects of Hiroshima and some commentary and explanations. The Digg post with people's comments is here.

There are two points here for me. The first is indeed how this event has been all but forgotten. I am comparing it to events like the holocaust which still is the subject of many movies and books. Why is it that this horror is not as well `publicized'?
The second point is actually something which I don't know and I would like someone to tell me. I have heard many people use the argument that "if we didn't drop both of those about 5 times more people would have died in a mainland invasion (including civilians)". Is this correct and would it have happened with certainty? It seems to me that it is simply a an excuse or justification for the annihilation of such a massive body of humanity. Actually this is also a comment that one of the profs here at uni (makow.) made to me one day when i dared object to this attack. Now I know what to answer him. Japan was going to surrender anyway.

Here are some comments from people on Digg that I thought were interesting:

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, after interviewing hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, reported:
"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS-PTO-Summary.html#jstetw

He proposed the scenario where Iraq indeed had weapons of mass distruction, not chemical weapons but Nukes.
Just like the US was able to fight off the invasion of Japanese, Iraqis were able to defend themselves against the US intrusion and push coalition forces all the way back to the US border. They knew US wouldn't just give up and more people on both sides would continue fighting, so they dropped 2 nuclear bombs in 2 non-militarized cities, to put an end to war.
Would that be justifiable? Would you calmly accept the fact and nod at the loss of your own men for what's referred to as a "lesser of 2 evils"?

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-- Albert Einstein, in a letter to Harry S. Truman

do you really think this is an excuse? then anyone with enough power should bomb anywhere, and then say "well, if i didn't do that, i was gonna do something worse. thank me."

No doubt many more lives would have been lost in a ground invasion, please note that I'm not trying to deny this. It's just interesting that this intimidation tactic (one could say its purpose was to instill fear in the Japanese government) is deemed a necessary evil, whereas 9/11, yielding a fraction of the damage, was considered abhorrent and terrible and wrong.
One is called strategy, the other is called terrorism. What a funny world we live in.

Kaveh Golestan Photos

These are some very nice photos taken by Iranian Kaveh Golestan in some photo competition. I didn't see all of them (there were too many) but I def liked these ones.

This is a statue of Ferdowsi (I think) in Tehran. It has been nicely decorated no?!


Kind of dangerous!

Terrorists in Boston

This is a very funny blog posting about what happened in Boston recently: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/nonterrorist_em.html

I liked the following comment:

"It had a very sinister appearance," [Massachusetts Attorney General Martha] Coakley told reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."

> For heavens sake, don't let her inside a Radio Shack.

Thanks to Alvaro for sending it :-)

Three Original Cats

In my recent trip to Australia I had occasion to meet three weird and wonderful cats.


The first I would like to introduce is the cat of Mitra, a persian khepel (fatso!), whose hair is so long that it needs regular grooming. While Mitra and Daniel were away, his poor hair didn't get brushed and so it got all tangled and knotted so they had to shave him!! So here you see him with his body shaved and a full head of hair!


The second, is the wonderful and old cat of our friend Susan - the poor thing has osteoporosis - so last year when he tried to jump down from a relatively short cabinet, it broke his leg. :-( his leg ended up having to be removed so now he is a three legged cat. It was quite interesting watching him hobble around. Susan takes such good care of him.
This cat also reminds me a lot of our own cat, Misha. I can't find a nice pic of her right now. I'll upload it some other time.


Finally this is a garden cat. It is so cute that I had to take a photo of him. or maybe it's a her. Anything this cute has to be a her right? :-D

My flowers

My african violets are blooming and they are sure looking beautiful. It is amazing how nice it feels when you see a flower bud and then bloom and then stay blooming, looking beautiful. The pride in your heart is as though you are responsible for every single petal, the violent violet or the soft pink.

They're my babies and they're blooming :-)

A great movie

Tonight I watched a great Iranian movie called Ayneh or The Mirror. It was a stressful movie, but one of the most original and well acted movies I have seen in recent years. I don't want to talk about the plot very much because i don't want to give it away, so I will just write down what IMDB has said about it. Suffice it to say the expressions of this little girl who they were following, Mina, were amazing. You believed it all. And then there was the commentary about Iran, the little conversations going on around the girl. It really was a great movie.

A girl in traditional female clothing, and her arm in plaster, comes out of school one day and doesn't find her mother meeting her. She decides to travel home her self though she doesn't know her address and remembers the road only visually.