@Unlimited Coffee and Duck and Decanter

TIGER, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tiger by William Blake, 1757-1827

Ichiro Koyama was 20 years old when he was drafted. He is 88 today. The army he was drafted into was the Imperial Japanese Army. His war experiences can be divided into approximately equal three parts. To my way of thinking, this is a somewhat fearful symmetry.

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The first third he spent doing what he was ordered to do. One of the things he was ordered to do was bayonet Chinese civilians because they would not reveal the location of the Chinese Red Army. He killed his first man a week after he was drafted. That seems fast by today’s standards but in Japan during WWII most training was done on the job.

I was scared to kill a man at first; I felt much guiltier killing someone with a bayonet than with a pistol from 100 meters away.

It was hell; I still cannot forget their blood spraying.

Ichiro Koyama as reported in Imperial army war vet haunted by horrors in China, Japan Times on Thursday, April 9, 2009

It took only a week to transform him from salaryman in an ironworks into a monster who didn’t hesitate to kill (his descriptions of himself). A week to go from valued member of society – in Japan being a salaryman (regular employee) is honored- to killing machine. In the US military it takes longer. I suppose that’s progress.

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In 1945 the Imperial Army surrendered and he was taken prisoner by the Soviets a few days later. He spent most of the next five years digging coal in the Soviet Union. He survived by eating such things as dandelion leaves.

All I did there was count the days until I returned to Japan.

Ichiro Koyama as reported in Imperial army war vet haunted by horrors in China, Japan Times on Thursday, April 9, 2009

In 1950 he was turned over to the Chinese. They put him in prison as a war criminal and fed him three times a day.

I used to be prejudiced against the Chinese . . . but I received good treatment in China. My attitude changed.

Ichiro Koyama as reported in Imperial army war vet haunted by horrors in China, Japan Times on Thursday, April 9, 2009

Then they (the Chinese) put him on trial (military). By this time Koyama San (Koyama San is the polite and respectful way to address him; In Japan people are never addressed by their first name. San is used for males and females.) had become aware of the effects of the war and repented of his part in it. He wept when he was freed and sent back to Japan. Today he is on a mission to pass his experience on.

We must not resort to war to solve our problems.

We need to pursue real peace, and that means to cherish each person’s life.

Ichiro Koyama as reported in Imperial army war vet haunted by horrors in China, Japan Times on Thursday, April 9, 2009

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There are several points that are not obvious at first reading of Koyama San’s story. It is ironical that he was starved and put to hard labor by the Soviets who had only declared war on Japan after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (a month before they captured Koyama San) and wanted to obtain the spoils of victory. China had suffered an unprovoked war with Japan from 1937. There were many atrocities during the war yet they treated a draftee (that had committed some of those atrocities) well. And, they did this at a time when Chinese forces were actively fighting US troops in Korea. Japan was an important staging ground for US and UN forces during that war.

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Then there is his name. Koyama means Little Mountain in Japanese but there is nothing small about this man.

TIGER, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tiger by William Blake, 1757-1827

It was no immortal but that of man.

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I wonder why the Chinese released him when they did. Was it because he repented?

I wonder what religion he practices. Do Buddhists or Shinto adherents repent of their sins?

And lastly, – because when I grew up as Ichiro Koyama was doing time for being on the losing side and would have never thought that members of US armed forces (or civilians working with them) would commit atrocities, -

I wonder who that has served in Iraq will repent. Will anyone?

Or will they continue to use the justification Ichiro Koyama used before he repented – there is no choice because it was war?

@ Duck and Decanter

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I was going to post yesterday but I had a bad case of blogger’s block. Oh, I had lots to write about but nothing that you could not read in the political or financial news elsewhere. As for instance how my question about the GM board was answered. That night on the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer I heard that they too were going – at least some of them. There have been several articles (here, here & here) in the past week about directors and compensation. But how is this related to the teachings of Jesus? Life has always been unfair and tales of those with wealth stealing from the rest of us are not new or unusual. Surely, I don’t need to point out the parables of Jesus or other stories in the bible related to this issue. Do I?

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So, let’s move on to something else. Say ecology and care of the earth. Yesterday I decided to multitask as I was trying to put my mind in gear and install new ceiling fans in my home. When I had my bedroom renovated recently I removed two old fans which had been painted white. The contractor that worked on the renovation recycled them for me (someone else is using them now). For two months I had agonized over what style to install. I finally decided that the simplest (and least expensive) was the proper choice. No light, no remote, no nothing except a fan. I was worried that the cheapest models would have features that I would not like, would come with poor directions and be flimsy. I should have not bothered about the worry. I had four fans to install – two to replace the ones that had been in my room and two for the “great room” that had been lacking fans ever since I bought the house in 2002. The only problem I had was that one of the mounting receptacle boxes in my bedroom had mounting screw holes to close together to accommodate the slots on the fan. Five minutes elongating the slots on the fan mounting bracket solved that nicely.

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The directions were simple, easy to read and covered every situation. The assembly process was a snap. In the case of the blades that is a literal description. The blades which are reversible snap into place. The fan has three speeds (plus off) and goes in two directions. All four work quietly and efficiently. According to the information printed on the side of the shipping carton this model moved more air with less energy than all the fans I compared it against in the store. There was even an explanation of why different directions are required in different seasons – “airflow toward the ceiling in cool weather to move warm air from the ceiling and down in warmer weather for a cool flow”. None of the fans required the blades to be balanced although a balancing kit and directions were included. For me the icing on the cake was that all of the shipping plastic was recyclable with the type clearly marked! All of which to my (engineer) mentality makes this model fan well thought out and engineered.

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As I worked installing the fans I thought about a coffee grinder I had recently purchased to replace an older model that had finally quit working. The new grinder (according to the box it came in) had been expressly designed for grinding coffee (the old model was an herb grinder that I used to grind coffee beans). The new model has a removable basket made of clear plastic (the old one had clear plastic for the lid only and the basket was not removable). The new model has selectable settings for amount and grinds – coarse or fine. According to its box it had an “automatic off” switch. Therein lays my major dissatisfaction with my new grinder. Settings are made with cute little back lit switches. The “automatic off” switch has to be held down until it shuts off depending on the grind selection made. The removable basket takes several attempts to replace (even after four months). The lid is also removable and is even more difficult than the basket to replace. One of the features advertised on the box was that the unit had a special feature that helped to remove leftover ground coffee from the basket. This feature turned out to be a three legged piece of metal that rotated and was supposed to loosen coffee from the bottom. It turns out that it traps more coffee than was ever left in my old model.

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I might have heartburn over all these details but the one that really bothers me is the switches being back lit. I am sure that the energy consumption is low but I expect to use this thing for the next sixty years (have I mentioned that my goal is to become the world’s oldest living human?) and even a little bit adds up over time. I did pay extra for all these features of course. The model I bought cost twice what the cheapest in the same store section did – and three times what my old model did in 1980. The unit came in three sections with each section wrapped in plastic as was the operating instructions. None of the plastic was marked with the type. I should point out that this model’s color is black which matches the rest of my kitchen so I don’t have to eat more food to replace the energy I would use up putting in away in the cupboard. I do however do expend the energy to unplug it after every use.

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I think similar thoughts every time I turn my car engine off and a red light depicting a lock starts flashing at intervals. Here is another light not needed by me or anyone else. With the advent of LEDs, the most energy USE efficient means of generating light, lights have become ubiquitous. In addition to using energy to power light sources that no one needs we are manufacturing them using a great deal of energy. In the case of LEDs, we make them out of materials that are not easy to recycle (and less often is it even attempted). The energy required to manufacture the switch with lights in my coffee grinder is surely more than the same switch without. Not only that, they require the same, if not more, plastic and they need the semiconducting material that generates the light. A small amount for each grinder but multiplied by millions. In my car the light flashes all the time a key is not in the ignition (even when I am not around). I don’t need it. I suspect that potential thieves don’t need (or pay attention to) it either.

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Does anyone ever grind coffee in the dark? I wonder.

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Does a light flash if no one is there to see it?