I'm moving (I should say continuing) my blog on a new page, http://paul-ritsuko.blogspot.com/

Please go there for further updates, as I will not be updating this page any longer.

Thank-you,

Paul Andrews

This is a great article

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338

about the government monopoly on primary school education in America. I agree with the author 100%. I have had too many worthless teachers (prime example is Mrs. White, Shawnee Middle School, Fort Wayne Community Schools, Indiana. Any of my friends remember her?) growing up and, now that I am grown up, have a lot of friends who are excellent teachers. It pains me to think that the good and the bad all get paid about the same money. If you agree or disagree with the ABC story or what I've written, feel free to comment.

If you agree and are wondering what to do, here are some ideas:

1. Write your Congressperson or Senator or any public official and urge them to support a voucher system.
2. Write your Congressperson or Senator or any public official and urge them not to take your tax money in the first place so you can do what you want with it.
3. Support the Libertarian Party

One more week until Ritsuko goes into the hospital to have her thyroid and all the more-than-likely cancerous tumors in her neck removed. She will be hospitalized for 2-4 weeks, during which time Masashi will be attending a nursery school/day care 5 hours a day. Ritsuko's sister will help during the times I cannot get off work early to get Masashi.

I really have no fear for Ritsuko during this process; I'm positive she will come through everything fine. It is cancer (most likely), though, and with any cancer death is a possibility. This fact has made us both stop and think about how precious our short lives really are. I'm sure anyone who has ever had cancer or had someone close to them with cancer has had the same thoughts.

That made me think of something. If you don't care what I think about (my rantings), please skip down to where you see "So, I have posted new pictures of Masashi. . ." below.
I listen to podcasts of NPR, ABC Nightline, and other news-type programs everyday on my iPod. A lot of the stories (especially ABC) deal with some type of religious theme or subject. After spending almost 4 years in Japan, I've come to realize the important role religion plays in America. From politics to work to chatter at school, active religion is everywhere. This brings me to what I though of: I remember (from long, long ago) people saying something to the effect "It's all in God's plan" or "The Lord does everything for a reason" when they wish to comfort somebody dealing with some kind of hardship or lose. Now, if you think about it, and I mean REALLY think about it, what kind of person would say such a cruel, heartless thing to a person in a time of distress? I mean, REALLY, people! Only a society that views human torture, suffering, and sacrificial death as a means to a good end (oh, wait. . ., how did that story about Jesus go?) would tell a distressed person that the supernatural being that created and rules the universe PURPOSEFULLY brough injury or death, via its plan, to them or their loved one? I like the spiel about the devil being responsible for bad stuff much more than this. So, I warn you: anyone who might wish to comfort me in this way would be better off saying nothing at all.

Now, say you have never pondered how so many bad things could happen in a universe where some loving, caring superbeing is watching over everything. You fall in to one of two categories: A. You believe the superbeing is not really THAT loving and forgiving and punishes people, sometimes like Sodom & Gomorrah (for doing obviously "bad" things) and sometime like Job (who never did anything "wrong"). OK, can't argue. or B. You never thought very hard about it (at least not by yourself, all alone, outside of the zealous fervor of some religious function) and need to read something like Elie Weisel's Night.

That's another thing I've been worrying about recently. Getting roughed up by Mormons here in Japan every now and again is one thing, but back in America! No, it's not Mormons in particular I'm worried about. Readjusted to a society where so much revolves around religion and religious participation will be interesting, to say the least. Ah, just another adventure! The more interesting adventure will be exploring how to get out of paying as much state and federal income taxes as possible! WIth all the churches, you would THINK America could take care of its social problems solely through the use of private institutions. Yeah.

So, I have posted new pictures of Masashi, if you are still interested in looking at them. Masashi has been doing so many cute things recently. The best is the way he shakes his head "no" when he doesn't want or want to do something. He really understands just about everything we say to him, in either English or Japanese or a mixture of both. He even understands how to seperate the trash (and I'm not talking about just bottles and cans). He's begun playing people and animal toys in a way as to make them "do" stuff. He likes making stuff "nene," or go to sleep. He also makes his dog eat out of its bowl, and even makes an eating sound! Now, he did learn that by watching me do it, but I only did it once. I really have to be careful what I do, actually. It only takes seeing something one time for him to pick up on it.

So, here are those pictures.

Album 2006-01-17

Sorry, no disco stuff. This blog is retro only in the sense that I'm actually writing it on January 15th. Anyway, here are some pictures that have been up on the Net for awhile. I just forgot to put the link up to them.

Album 2006-01-04 

 

Yes, back to the blogger after an absence of over a month. A lot has happened in the past 30+ days, good and bad.

Of course, vacation time, Christmas, and New Year's are the good things that happened. Lots of fun home with Masashi and Ritsuko. Masashi really enjoyed Christmas Day this year (last year he wasn't really old enough to understand, and he got mostly clothing). He tore into the presents as excitedly as any kid, and the look on his face when he saw what was inside each one was wonderful! Of course, the toys we got him ARE pretty cool. I found a bunch of toys by the British toy company Early Learning Centre, most of them from their Happyland series. Great stuff made from hard, sturdy plastics, and colorfully detailed (as in details are actually painted a different color from plastic in which they are set). Then, a few days after the new year, we got a package from everyone in America. So, even more toys for Masa!! The holidays have been fun.

Unfortuantely, a lot of bad things have happened over this holiday season. Ritsuko's Grandma Yamamoto seems to be getting a lot weaker and Grandpa Bando was admitted to the hospital New Year's Eve with pneumonia. The worst news, though, came a few days before the end of the month. Ritsuko went to the doctor because of sinus congestion. The doctor noticed a rather large lump in her neck and referred Ritsuko to another doctor. After a various scans and tests, Ritsuko was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, probably papillary. This is the most easily treated of all cancers, and many patients can be cured. But, cancer is cancer, and everybody is a little freaked out, despite the relatively good prognosis. Ritsuko goes in for surgery on January 26th. They will remove the main tumor as well as the entire thyroid, a number of smaller tumors that were found in the surrounding area, and begin a radioactive iodine treatment to destroy any thyroid (and thus potentially cancerous) cells remaining. Looks to be a stay of between 2 and 4 weeks.

During that time, Masashi gets to go to day care (which he loves!), and Ritsuko's sister will help out around the house and with Masashi. Ritsuko, Masashi, and I all went to the Hokkaido Shrine (Shinto) today so Ritsuko could take part in a prayer ceremony to help her through all of this. I, of course, won't bother with supernatural religious stuff, but I think it made her felt better, so it's all good. Having prayed to thousands and thousands of gods in that one ceremony, one more god probably won't make much difference, but feel free to pray to you god for her, too! hahaha Doing something I view to be more comforting than going to the shrine, Ritsuko has also started her own blog as a way to deal with the cancer and her feelings. It's all in Japanese (what, you can't read Japanese?), but check it out at
http://litzko.blogspot.com/

So, here are some (a lot) of pictures from the past month. Enjoy!

Christmas 2005
2005-12-11
2006-01-01

I'm tired. Working on DVD of home videos, want to get it done and perfect for Christmas. Here are some new pictures.

Even if Masashi doesn't look very Japanese (at least not when compared with other Japanese babies), there are several things that indicate otherwise. Besides Masa speaking Japanese, he has taken a recently liking to Sumo wrestling. Now, it is unfair of me to equate Japanese-ness with interest in traditional Japanese sports/culture, seeing as how many Japanese are not interested in Sumo and only the smallest minorty will ever even try Sumo. But, Masashi has shown some interest in this unique traditional sport. He loves watching Sumo on TV, and will squat like the Sumo wrestlers do before they go at each other. So, I did the squatting thing, too, and got Masashi to push and wrestle against me! I only had to do the squat and rush/push once and he did it back. Now, when I go into the squat, he smiles and rushes at me, trying to push me back!

Masashi is climbing over the fence and up the stairs all the time now. He has also learned how to jump, probably from me holding him up on Ritsuko's big yoga ball and letting him bounce. He hasn't gotten outside much, not seeming to like the cold or snow too much. But, when he goes shopping with us, he always loves watching any kind of construction going on (and there is always construction happening somewhere). The other day, he stood outside in the cold for over 20 minutes watching some giant cranes. When Ritsuko finally got him to leave with her, one of the construction workers tooted the truck horn to Masa!

It's snowing pretty hard tonight, so we should have a nice bit of snow on the ground tomorrow morning. I have the next 2 days off, so maybe we'll get Masashi out in the snow again. We'll also be putting up the Christmas stuff! Fun.

New Pictures: Album 2005-11-22

I get completely bundled up for my bike ride to work now: hat, gloves, scarf, the works. The snow has been coming and going each day, melting when the sun comes out and then accumulating again at night. I am and I'm not looking forward to more of it: more means snowboarding, but more probably also means the end to riding my bicycle to work. We'll see.

Masashi seems to be on a new sleep schedual now that it's colder. He doesn't seem to really like playing outside in this freezing weather, and so he doesn't ask (or want) to go out to play in the morning before I go to work. We don't know, but this might be why he gets up a little later and goes to bed later now.  Masa also has a fun new skill: climbing over the gate at the bottom of the stairs! He pushes a chair up to it and climbs over, holding on to the ledge on the other side for balance. Scary.

Album 2005-11-16

Yes, that's right. Today we had our first snow. We're not talking about that snow that falls, melts and never amounts to anything; this is real, accumulating snow. Suprisingly enough, we usually do get the snow that doesn't stick around first, but this year is different for some reason. The snow is later than last year's first by about 14 days, but it's sticking.

Ritsuko tried to get Masashi out in the snow today, but I guess he wasn't really too enthusiastic about it all. Of course, it was pretty cold today.

 First snow of the season.

It's going to snow this week in Asahikawa, and I'm excited! It's been nice the past couple of days, but today it's raining. There is nothing worse than icy cold rain. Snow would be much better.

Masashi is healthy with nothing more than a little cough so far this season. He's talking more, his favorite word being "Atta!" This word has many uses, but Masa seems to be using it to mean "I found it!" or "There it is!" He also said "What's that?" this morning. Masashi definitely seems to be speaking more Japanese, which is understandable considering where we live. He's always babbling and trying to talk, and we're sure he'll learn both Japanese and English soon enough.

The pictures I put up today are from my cellular. I finally got around to uploading them to my computer. The names of the pictures indicate the date and time in the form YYMMDD_TIME~##. All of the pictures were from March and April of 2005.

Album 2005 March-April