First of all, I would like to take the time to thank Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his love of the Arctic. Asked to be a keynote speaker at this week's international AIDS conference in Toronto. He declined, citing a previous engagement. The previous engagement happen to be a tour of Canada's far North in the hope of rallying Canadians to its protection. Make no mistake, this is important stuff, no one more than me wants to see Canada's tundra and ice better protected. Left coyly unsaid by Harper himself is the oil factor, however, everyone else seemed to be up on it. My point is this; whatever he is arguing, whatever he is advocating, and leaving the climate change issue aside for the moment, that land is not going anywhere anytime soon. Being the Prime Minister, I expect alternate arrangements could have been made for his visit. (And if someone caused it to be so completely impossible for alternate arrangements to be made: Shame on them. Show our Prime Minister some respect. If he wants to do two things in a week, so be it.)
However hard I try to imagine otherwise, I have to believe the international AIDS conference had been planned for quite awhile, maybe years, seeing as it was the biggest ever AIDS conference to date. They don't spring these on people the week before. A decision was made to instead send Health Minister Tony Clement. Lovely chap, to be sure. But, being as shocked as I about the absence of Prime Minister Harper, they interrupted his speech by yelling "Where's Harper?!?" throughout it. Rude, to be sure, and slightly funny, but the point was made, and deservingly so. I have never been there, but is the Arctic in August really worth the poor image he's projecting?
I choose my words carefully here for the next section. Why the whole thing looked bad to me was becuase the whole world's attention was on Canada, with many internationally distinguished scientists in attendance. By comparing the aims of the conference and where he was - kicking the snow tires so-to-speak - it trivialized the plight of 40 million people. (And I would like to again state I partly agree with Prime Minister Harper.) The incident also reminds me of comments from his base, or more accurately, extreme elements in his base. While I generally acknowledge the compassionate side of the average conservative vote. I have read enough to know that somewhere out there are so-called conservatives that deeply believe AIDS is a curse from God on poor black people and homosexuals. And I really have no problem with said statements, in-so-much that it's not based in reality. "Previous engagement" can be a political code work for a lot of things. Prime Minister Stephen Harper represents all of Canada and, while normally I consider this an implicit part of his job, sometimes it would be nice to see a sign that he is trying to contribute to Canada's image abroad for everyone that he represents, not just his voters.
I also noticed a link up on Drudge and I thought I would explain how this story is playing out here. (Read the link because it could go dead at any moment.) I can't give all the details but basically a Russian Boarder Patrol boat shot and killed a Japanese fisherman. It was all over the 7 o'clock news last night and from watching it you'd think the Cold War was starting all over again. Here in Shikaoi, while being quite close to the action, nothing could be further from away from our thoughts. The Japanese are understandably pissed and consider every Russian action during the events excessive. It is interesting to note that this same thing has happened before in 1956.
It is not widely known in the West, but there are a string of disputed Russian islands very close to the Japanese mainland. (Referring to the graphic: Nemuro, the boat's home port and where all four men are from, is represented by the star on the right. Shikaoi, were I am, is the star on the left. The incident happened somewhere in the red circle. Note how close the countries truly are.) Technically speaking, Japan and Russia failed to ever sign a formal peace agreement after WWII because of the dispute over these islands. Supposedly the islands are a very eeire place. Extremely remote, they are sparsely populated with a mix of Japanese and Russians. Because of the remoteness, there are still vestiges of the Soviet Union that no one has ever bothered to pull down and thus have been left standing.
I would definitely characterize the whole issue surrounding the islands as a sensitive spot in Japan. Even now, in Chomin-hall - the building where I work - is an exhibition of an artist/activist that wants to see the islands returned to Japan. The issue also pushes itself into the mainstream. I hadn't mentioned this months ago, but at the Sapporo Snow Festival an organization advocating the return of the islands had a large, professional booth offering information about the islands and also collecting signatures. I am not sure what is to be done about the islands but it is at the root of the current incident.
In lighter news - far less politically charged - Hokkaido won its game this morning against Himeji and are now moving on to the next round of at National High School Baseball Championship. We had it on the TV over lunch (at Urimaku Junior High School) and everything just stopped, which I feel is unusually, for the last couple of innings. Hokkaido kept on getting themselves into very tense situations. This kept everyone glued to the TV but somehow Hokkaido managed to dig themselves out everytime and pulled off a narrow win. I'm no expert at baseball, but I can tell the High School students - all grade 11 and 12s - are not nearly as polished as professional baseball players. From what I can see, they make more mistakes and the hitting is far less spectacular. However, what is easy to see, and what makes watching the games so rewarding, is that they play with so much more heart than professional players. The ups and down of the game, the mistakes, the great plays, are all very dramatically portraided in their faces. It's a fun and engaging game to watch. (I pulled an image illustrating Hokkaido's cheering section.)
2 comments:
Hey yo, the star on the right is Kushiro not Nemuro. Nemuro is pretty much in the red circle.
Duly noted. Everyone please listen to this comment.
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