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A blog, a bit of Nova Scotia in Osaka

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A different sort of blog — from Jerry Gordon

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Kansai Poets Vol.1
A CD of poetry Produced by Jerry Gordon
Click here

Pat Robertson in deal with devil

Pat Robertson confers with acquaintance, the Devil

It has been revealed that US televangelist Pat Robertson is cursed by a secret deal with the Devil.

In return for unlimited power, riches and TV air time, Robertson gave away his brain to Lucifer, thereby cursing himself to talk utter crap for the rest of his days, and cursing us to have to hear about it.

The revelations come from disgruntled Satanic associate and media personality Dr. Johan Faust.

Robertson's familiar, Rush Limbaugh, said that giving money to earthquake-struck Haitians was equivalent to saving their lives and that we should instead give all our money to him. Or Lucifer.

Beelzebub is as old as time, but not as old as Robertson.

January 17, 2010

Terror and underpants
When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day with a bomb secreted in his underpants, we wondered on this site whether this act would usher in underwear checks at airports.

Well, with an apparently straight face, the US Transportation Security Administration has announced just that. One hundred and fifty full-body scanners that can see through your clothes are to be installed in US airports. Trials of these machines at Manchester airport in the UK have produced complaints from travellers that the images from these machines are too graphic and invasive and offer a considerable potential for abuse.

While passengers at Manchester airport had the choice to opt out of being scanned by these machines it is not clear whether submitting to their use in the US will be compulsory. (There are also claims that the machines are easy to fool.)

Meanwhile, it has come out that Abdulmutallab was known to US intelligence who failed to join the dots that would have led to his exploding pants, obviating the need for intrusive body scanners.

It is also unknown why former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff went on television to tout the importance of equipping airports with the scanners without revealing that he is paid by the machine's manufacturers.

January 6, 2010

Xmas terror
Poignantly timed at Christmas, an attempted terrorist attack — this time on a US airliner arriving at Chicago. As you all know the bomb failed to go off and no one but the bomber was hurt.

The would-be martyr apparently evaded security at Lagos and Amsterdam airports by finding yet another new way of secreting explosives on his body. His was apparently a technique the security people around the world had not anticipated but will now usher in everywhere a new, stricter security regime.

Not so long ago in Britain, a group of men had the idea of smuggling the ingredients for bombs onto plances in innocuous bottles and making the bombs in the aircraft toilets. That meant that we could no longer take liquids onto planes.

Richard Reid tried hiding explosives in his shoes, and when that didn’t work, airport security demanded we all take our shoes off to be examined before boarding.

The recent bomber apparently hid his explosives in his underpants. Does this mean that we will now have to take off our underwear to have it examined before boarding a flight?

That should take the tedium out of those long security checks.

December 27, 2009

Where's Weed?
There's a new blog shamelessly promoting ebooks Weed and Shorts, and you can find it at: www.chris-page.com

Well, the site is not going to be about just the ebooks. Hopefully it will be full of profound observations on life and art and everything, farting noises and the odd laugh. There may be updates about new writing projects and old ones too, or maybe no mention of either. There will be lively and engaging discussions of the ideas in Weed, real world connections and the process of writing unless there aren't. And there will be links to lots of froody things in the world of ideas, perhaps. I hope readers will pop in from time to time to see what hasn't changed and what isn't new.

At the time of writing Weed and Shorts seem only to be available through Smashwords.com but that's a darn good outlet to be available through as they distribute through a host of associated ebook sites. Weed is also showing at Word Power Books.

December 4, 2009

Stoned at last

Weed pokes out of the ground and gets published.

Chris Page's shock-revelation novel about life in a suit has finally been published.

"About bloody time, too," exclaimed most of his pals, sick of hearing the unending tales of nothing happening with the book's distribution.

According to the nice people handling distribution, both Weed and Shorts are in the system now pending acceptance and both books are scheduled for distribution through Barnes & Noble on 11/6/2009 and Sony on 12/1/2009.

They are currently available at www.smashwords.com

Current plans are for the books to be available in paperback in Europe and possibly in north America after that.

It has been a long and frustrating process getting these books out and available, but it appears that there is something to be said for persistence. And something to be said for getting stoned, but you knew that already.

Watch Facebook (Chris Page), Twitter, The Guardian, Time, Newsweek and all good literary reviews for developments.

November 8, 2009

Monty Nobel's Flying Peace Prize
Barak Obama's award of the Nobel Peace prize has more than a tinge of surrealism about it.

While Obama must be cheered by all sentient beings for binning the east European missile shield, for engaging with North Korea and Iran, for attempting an exit from Iraq, it has not escaped the Pookian notice that one of Obama's election pledges was to step up the war in Afghanistan.

It is also conspicuous that Guantanamo is still open for business and Saint Obama has still made no noises about closing or reforming Abu Ghraib or Bagram prisons.

So … the peace prize goes to a president intent on war.
However, this award cannot be seen in the same way as previous awards to Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Menachim Begin, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin, apparently for merely suspending their murderous ways. Perhaps George Bush should get the prize for not nuking Tehran.

And this award is not quite as surreal as the failure of the committee to award the prize to Mahatma Gandhi.
Past nominees include Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin.

I would like to make a nomination for the peace prize: how about all the ordinary people from all countries around the world who have never gone to war, encouraged war, or wanted war but who have had to put up with leaders who insist on killing in their names?

October 11, 2009

Japan weather god wanted for crimes
The Japanese Shinto god of weather is wanted for crimes against humanity.

The International Court of Human Rights in The Hague has issued a warrant for his arrest.

The Shinto god of weather.

The Japanese government has been accused of hiding the fugitive god and of not cooperating with investigators, accusations the government denies.

The Shinto deity has been accused of atrocities affecting millions of people on an annual basis.

Crimes include, boiling people in their skins, and irradiating people with a sun positioned recklessly close to the ground. Another serious crime is that of suffocating people with excesses of atmospheric humidity, a practice likened to perpetual water boarding.

Other tortures routinely inflicted on people are sleep deprivation and stress positions (standing, sitting, lying).

Trauma and heavy drinking including barley tea addiction are common among victims as is air conditioner abuse.

The deity afflicts his own people but saves his worst excesses for ‘those long-nosed bastards,’ not Tengu, but pale-skinned westerners who have no natural or metaphysical defences against this abuse. Many westerners come from countries where there are no temperatures, and being non-Shinto are not able even to pray for relief.

The court of human rights is quietly pessimistic about apprehending the god. The Japanese government, although denying it publicly, is thought to be shielding the fugitive. Indeed, the Japanese government insists that the god fled the country before the warrant was issued and has refused to comment on reports that evidence of his inhumane acts is visible on a daily basis up and down the country as people continue to sweat, simmer, boil, melt and catch fire.

‘ It will be difficult to catch him,’ concedes a government minister speaking on condition of anonymity because this reporter has yet to invent a facetious name for him. ‘This weather god lives in and is protected by a community of eight million other Shinto gods. Many of these gods themselves have a dark past they don’t want examined and certainly don’t want to set a precedent of being held responsible for their proclivities.’

The task of tracking down this particular god will be further hampered by his invisibility and transdimensionality.

‘ Moreover,’ the official went on, ‘this god has powerful friends, such as ex-prime minister Tojo, the Imperial war machine, Yukio Mishima, and Governor Ishihara of Tokyo.’ He is also thought to have forged an international alliance with climate change deniers.

July 11, 2009

Smiling bastards!
Life imitates art, or in this case damn near plagiarizes it.

Corporate bastards in Japan have evidently been reading this author's fandoobly novel Weed and have shamelessly ripped it off.

No, we don't yet have zero-G office environments, but the management of at least one Japanese railway company have evidently been reading the smile training scenes in Weed and have put the concept into action in Japan for real.

Read about the iniquitous swine here.

Now click here and read the future in Weed itself ...

July 7, 2009

The truth unmasked
By Matt Kaste

Every year in cold and flu and hayfever seasons, some Japanese people don dinky little surgical masks of cotton or paper. They stop the spread of germs, they say, they protect others from your bugs and keep you safe and uncontaminated if you're healthy. Recently, the arrival of swine flu has had everyone, but everyone done out like Dr. Kildare. Now read on.

Straight off, I hate masks and I’ll tell you why. They represent blind authority, bad science, magical thinking and baseless fear.

The current H1N1 virus (swine flu) near panic sweeping through this part of Japan has rekindled this mask loathing, as a clear majority of Japanese can be seen wearing the ineffective prophylactics in most public spaces this week. I have lived here a long time and I know all about Japan’s mask fetish and recognize that the mask has its proper time and place. They filter out some larger particles for those poor souls afflicted with allergies and they reduce the unpleasantness for others as you cough, sneeze and sniffle on the train. Please wear a mask if you have to be in our midst though, but recognize that you are wearing that mask because we don’t want to see or feel your flying mucous and phlegm. (Better yet, stay home if your mouth has become a launching pad!) Masks also offer some level of mental calm for a nation predisposed to worry about whatever the “elite” Tokyo University cabal want us to fret about this month, but this sense of mask-inspired inner peace is pure delusion.

Science is not on the side of the mask. If it were, I might consider waiting until they are back in stock at any local store and picking up enough to get me and my loved ones through to Ragnarök, Armageddon/Great Rapture, Doomsday 2012 or the next Axl Rose album, whichever comes first. In response to this outbreak, the World Health Organization is not recommending the use of masks in public spaces and warns that improper use of masks can actually increase the risk of infection. This increased risk must go back to the irrational invulnerability factor that some mask wearers might experience. Next time you get the “wearing a mask can’t hurt” argument, refer them to the WHO website: click here.
 
Are there people out there who would use a condom made of surgical mask material? Apparently, there are. Many of them live in Japan and they are everywhere. I shouldn’t be so harsh, but the faith many Japanese have in a facemask’s powers of protection makes me laugh the kind of laugh where I am feeling no joy whatsoever and my expression is utterly blank. Come on! The H1N1 virus is from 80-120 nanometers in diameter. Several studies have shown that surgical masks fail to stop the transmission of the much larger mycobacterium tuberculosis. Believing these masks stop viruses is F with a capital Foolishness. Yeah, I meant it that way.

This brings me to my problem with the mask. Is it the mask itself that bothers me so? On reflection, I think not. Given the whole aerobic nature of our species, the mask is filtering out about as much as it can without killing us. If we were to start wearing the costly and uncomfortable, but relatively bad-ass N-95 respirators you see in the movies, this mask properly fitted to our face would still be stopping an unimpressive 95% of the particles larger than 300 nanometers. Unimpressive because the H1N1 virus is about a third of this size and is definitely getting through the N-95’s inadequate defense.

As much as I’d like to avoid this conclusion, I simply can’t. I have a problem with people who wear masks….but not all of them. Not the allergy sufferers. Not the students and office workers ordered to wear them. Not the convenience store employees just following the memo from the Regional Manager. Not the health care workers who have plenty of good reasons to wear them. Not the moistened and mucous-laden, walking sick. Not paid actors wearing them in a mask manufacturer’s promotional video. Not any of them. Just pretty much the rest of you….and you know who you are.

May 25, 2009

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