CHRISTMAS IN THE ORIENT

Christmas in the Orient is, amazingly enough, well celebrated, here and there.  While 77% of Americans are Christian, almost 90% of the population in the Philippines are Christians (80% Catholic), and they actually begin showing signs of holiday cheer in September with Christmas carols.  From December 16, and every morning until Xmas, many go to mass.  It is no surprise, then, that celebrations continue to the First Sunday in January, when Epiphany, or the Feast of the Three Kings, brings festivities to a close.

Hawaii is less than 1500 miles from the International Dateline, so it is already the day after Christmas in the Orient.  If you travel there, remember that when you leave Honolulu at noon on December 25, with the five hour differential, you arrive in Tokyo around 2 PM on December 26.  Make sure that your hotel reservation accommodates this loss of one day.  However, I  remember once when I spent my whole birth date in Tokyo, left at 6PM, and returned to Honolulu at 6AM, where I again enjoyed my birthday.

South Korea has almost 30% Christians and Christmas is a national holiday.  Seoul is such a cool city, that, of course, there are decorations aplenty.  Below, 1400 volunteers dressed as Santa Claus to raise funds for poverty.

The country with the next most percentage of Christians is Singapore, with 18%.  I once spent Christmas in this amazing city, and they go absolutely bonkers on decorations.  It has mostly to do with the government wanting to show off and the business one-upping each other to draw customers.  The six week secular display is so spectacular, that I'll provide four more photos:

Hong Kong has 10% Christians, and was noted by CNN to be one of the Top 10 places for Christmas:  WinterFest, Symphony of Lights and Disneyland, yes, Disneyland (left).  There is a TWO-day public holiday.  WinterFest begins in mid-November and extends through New Year's Day.  There are pyrotechnics and fireworks and, well, you get the point.  The Crystal Harmony will spend December 31/January 1 in Hong Kong Harbor.

Japan is an enigma regarding Christmas.  It is NOT a national holiday, although, surprisingly, Thanksgiving is, held on November 23 as Labor Thanksgiving Day.  Two percent of Japanese are Christian, the same percentage as....Israel.  Even though Jesus Christ was born in what is now Israel, Christmas in not  a national holiday there, too.  But in Japan, commercial Christmas reigns, and you'd never guess what is now the traditional dinner?  Takeout Kentucky Fried Chicken!  This all began with a marketing campaign in 1974.  Earlier in the '60's Christmas cake also became popular, thus, the family pack (below), which costs around $32.  Can you believe that people stand in line for HOURS to get their Christmas dinner?  When did you ever see a line outside a KFC in the USA?

Here's another question for you.  What is the most romantic day of the year in Japan, even more so than Valentine's, when women give presents to men, usually chocolates?  CHRISTMAS!!!  Restaurants are booked way ahead of time and it is impossible to find a room in a Love hotel.

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ONLY GOOD NEWS ON THIS EVE OF CHRISTMAS

I avoid those TV news programs that once a year or so only gives good news.  Worse, there are links to sites like GOOD NEWS TV that only plays, well, good news.  There is also a web page, THE GOOD NEWS NETWORK.  Let me share just two stories from this site:

• Oakland Raiders offensive lineman, Menelik Watson, in the spirit of the holidays, donated his game check ($18,000) to the family of 4-year old Ava Urrea, who has a heart condition, and has undergone 14 operations.  She was made honorary captain by the team, and with her parents were at the game when the Raiders upset the Buffalo Bills.

• Heroic monkey saves a dying friend at the Kanpu Train Station in India:  you've got to watch this video.  The whole process took 20 minutes.

Forgive me, but it is Christmas Eve, and this blog site tends to be, maybe, too optimistic and uplifting (at least that's my point of view) anyway, so let me share a few more of the above:

• Yes, this is five days over the past six, but The Interview is at this very moment available on You Tube Movies.  The cost?  ONLY $5.99.  Even seniors don't get this break at a regular theater.  I might note that The Box Trolls can be viewed for $14.99 and Gone Girl for $12.99.  
• We might be seeing the end of movie theaters, for at one fifth the cost, you can make your own popcorn and legally serve yourself a glass of wine.  You won't need to drive, fight the crowd for parking and sit behind a lady with a tall bouffant, while paying $6 for a small Coke.  A six-pack of most beers in your typical liquor store goes for about this sum, if not lower.
• Rotten Tomatoes reviewers gave the film a junk 54% rating, but audiences love it, 96%.

• The American economy is at an all-time high, for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to 18,030, another record high (there have been 37 of these just this year).  This nearly 4% jump during a five-day run before Christmas, was the highest since 1991.  What makes this upturn significant is that, historically, January is a good month for stocks, and some are speculating that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will threaten 20,000 in February.

• Solar and wind power provided 873 new megawatts, or 70% of new U.S, generating capacity last month.  Most of this addition came from wind farms in Oklahoma and Texas, plus a solar facility in California.  While new natural gas power plants led in April and August, the other nine months showed natural energy growth leadership.  Can the renewables beat fossil fuels this year?  Certainly, renewables are trouncing coal, by a factor of 49 thus far.  Tally for 2014 of new facilities:
• natural gas  50%
• wind  23%
• solar 20%
• biomass 2.6%
• hydro  1.3%
• coal  1%
• geothermal  0.3%

• BuzzFeed Community provided 17 heartwarming stories that, they said, will make you tear up every time.  The simplest one that might, perhaps, inspire you to do one more thing today:

Random Act of Kindness

I was about 10 and my family was really struggling financially. It was a few days before Christmas and a stranger rang the doorbell and handed my dad a wrapped box. We all sat at the table and my parents opened it to find a envelope full of cash, as well as gift cards for myself and my three siblings. My parents asked all around to try to find out who did it but to this day we don’t know. It’s touching to know people do things like this not for praise but out of the goodness of their hearts.

—Submitted by brittanim43d1dd5e6

Should anyone want to share any kind deed, please comment.  As few have the courage to actually do this, please send me a note at

     PatKenTak@Hotmail.com

and I'll add it to the comment section of this blog, identified as anonymous, if so requested.

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SONY'S CHRISTMAS GIFT TO NORTH KOREA AND OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS OF THE DAY

Today, I continue my broad reportage by bringing you up to date on a few issues I have recently been covering, and will end with an awesome snowstorm on the Big Island.   Let me begin with the hottest subject of this holiday season, The Interview, for this makes four out of the past five days that I have covered this topic:

• The "big" news is that independent movie theaters have "saved" the spirit of our country:  SONY has released The Interview to, essentially, any theater wishing to show the film, and the first public performances will occur on Christmas Day, as originally planned.  Twitted (or should this be tweeted?) Seth Rogen:  The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn't give up! The Interview will be shown at theaters willing to play it on Xmas day!  Video on demand will also be provided, with details to come.  Cost?  Well, theaters will almost surely sell out, so it might be tempting for SONY to make a killing.  Whoops, bad choice of of words.  Anyway, isn't it grand that North Korea just lost their internet?  

• Tweeted Bill Maher (who performs in Honolulu on New Year's Eve):  We knocked out N Korean internet, what a blow to the 3 people there who have it. Next up, N. Korean state TV, aka the No Food Network. I wonder if we had anything to do with this?

• On Saturday I posted:  Barack Obama has Finally become Presidential.  Josh Lederman (right) of the AP agreed with me:
• He, too, mentioned immigration and U.S.-Cuba relations.
• He added climate change, where Obama had the EPA move ahead to control coal power plan emissions, increased fuel standards for trucks and sealed a historic global warming agreement with China.
• Mentioned that Obama has issued more than 80 executive actions, hurdling over what Congress should be doing, at times incurring the wrath of Republicans threatening impeachment.
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• Also today, Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times commented that Obama's foreign policy suddenly looks hyperactive.  Of course, the current low price of oil helped.  And, certainly, I did post on WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING TO THE PRICE OF OIL? earlier this month.  American oil is at $57/barrel today and gasoline is below $2/gallon in Muncie, Indiana.
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• Amazingly enough, Cal Thomas (right), also on the same op ed page as McManus, wrote that our President was right to begin normalization with Cuba.  Cal Thomas, Evangelical Christian and regular on the Fox News Channel.  

        I should mention that the President
        is still in Hawaii, and as it rained, 

        yesterday bowled instead of golfed.
        But will he be going to Pahoa?

• How's this for quick action?  Pakistan announced that they would be hanging around 500 convicted Taliban terrorists "suspected" of abetting the gunmen who killed 133 children at school last week.  Already six of them have been hung.  This is the group that tried to execute Nobel Laureate Malala.  The significance?  This is only the second time since 2008 that anyone has been officially executed in the country.  Sometimes it takes two idiotic acts to wake up a country.  I wonder what they think of gun control?  How many before the USA wakes up?  Sandy Hook was two years ago.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average will today set an all-time high somewhere north of 18,000, breaking that barrier for the first time in history.
• About Hawaii, it is snowing, yes, snowing, this view of Mauna Kea from, of course, a golf course, courtesy of the Huffington Post:

In most parts of the country, if it snows, you can't golf for months.  I am not particularly favorably disposed to tourism, but, come, we need your dollars.

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SOME MOSTLY GOOD NEWS

I continue to collect potential posting issues, and this Monday morning will present some of them here, with a thought that a few could someday warrant a full focus:

• Tunisia just had its first "free" presidential election, and the winner was Beji Caid Essebsi, who is all of 88 years old.  Tunisia, slightly smaller than the state of Wisconsin, is located in North Africa between Algeria and Libya.

• The Pantone Color of the Year in 2015 is:  MARSALA.  Pantone is a color company in New Jersey.  Surely you missed it, but Radiant Orchid was the trend in 2014 and Emerald in 2013.  

The logic of these selections reminds me of those arcane terms at wine tastings which are mostly meaningless:

I look for ascending color trends, colors that are being used in broader ways and broader context than before… In this case, Radiant Orchid descends from the purple family, which is kind of a magical color that denotes creativity and innovation. Purple is just that kind of a complex, interesting, attracting kind of color… 

[The] back-story to purple is that it inspires confidence in your creativity, and we're living in a world where that kind of creative innovation is greatly admired. In the world of color, purple is an attention-getter, and it has a meaning. It speaks to people, and we felt that it was time for the purple family to be celebrated. That's why we chose the particular shade called Radiant Orchid.

— Leatrice Eiseman^[22]

• Honestly, now, how many of you knew that the countries on our terror list are Iran, Sudan (and only marginally so), Syria and Cuba?  Cuba will soon be removed, but North Korea might be thrown back into the dungeon for their supposedly dastardly deed with respect to The Interview.  Our State Department determines who belongs.  Not sure what blue means, but the dark green ones are the bad guys and light green countries became better world citizens:

• This must be good news: From the American Bar Association, first year Law School enrollment is at a 40 year low, and total enrollment is at a 27 year low.  There are now 204 accredited law schools.  In 1973 there were 151.  This past year there were 37,924 full-time and part-time law students beginning their studies.  In 2010 there were 52,488.  The drop was not due to law schools raising their standard of admission.  Law jobs are hard to get.

• Ibuprofen apparently shows potential for increasing your life expectancy by 12 years.  However, don't go out and buy a large bottle, for early studies by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California and Texas A&M University only extended the life span of yeast, worms and fruit flies.  Ibuprofen is a non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to relieve pain, fever and inflammation.  For the record, aspirin and metformin (an anti-diabetes pill) also show this quality.  I might add that ibuprofen has been known to aid in the treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.  The speculation is that these drugs interfere with the ability of cells to absorb tryptophan, an amino acid.

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GOP RESPONSIBLE FOR SONY'S "THE INTERVIEW" DEBACLE

I have tended to, now and then, make fun of Republicans:

• Why Do Republicans Like Fossil Fuels and Not Care That Much for the Environment (my Huffington Post publication of 28June2008)
• Why Does Anyone Vote Republican? (my blog posting of 22October2014)

Well, this time, the Republican Party was not responsible for the shocking capitulation of the American public and our free enterprise system to a viral act of CyberTerror perpetrated by another GOP, the Guardians of Peace.  I find it astonishing that our country caved-in to a warning by this unknown iGOP to cancel showing "The Interview," a comedy about the assassination of Peerless Leader (he has a bunch of titles) Kim Jong-un.

While Randall Park's parents are from South Korea, one wonders if Seth Rogen (the guy on the left--he co-produced and co-directed this film) could have found another actor who more closely matched the looks and dottiness of the original.  I might mention, though, that Park stars on ABC next month in the first Asian family sitcom in 20 years, Fresh Off the Boat:

When I was in Seoul last year I posted what I thought was a helpful total makeover suggestion for North Korea.  However, I carefully released it just before my plane left Incheon International Airport.  I actually got a comment, which indicated that my effort was COOL.

Returning to the essence of this posting, first of all, the Free World gets threatened about free speech all the time by terrorists.  Remember The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, published by Penguin Press?  Rushdie gained a Fatwa, but has managed to survive now for more than a quarter century.  Little known, though, is that Hitoshi Igarashi, his Japanese translator was stabbed to death three years after the book was published in 1988, Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator was seriously injured in a stabbing, William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, was shot three times by an assassin (but lived) and a massacre occurred in Turkey surrounding the Turkish  translator, Aziz Nesin, where 37 died.  But the point is that companies and governments mostly thumbed their noses at any Muslim retaliation.  However, that was mostly Europe.  What is it about American for us to react so timorously?

Interesting that prior to joining SONY, current chairman of SONY Pictures, Michael Lynton, was with Penguin.  After watching his interview with Fareed Zakaria this morning, I'm inclined to think that SONY was a victim more than a coward.

Who then should be blamed for this miscarriage of courage?

• Mostly, by implication, the American public.  I suspect movie theaters, distributors and malls were fearful that the usual suspects (led by mothers) would boycott this film, cutting profits.
• Those involved with the showing did not want to take a chance on any kind of violence, real or inspired, that might happen.  Lawsuits, you know.
• The American entertainment industry just plain buckled.  George Clooney circulated a petition in support of SONY, and the A-list backed off from signing.  Not one person wanted to take a chance.

All this is such a shame, for, if North Korea was behind all this, they have nowhere the capability of following up on their threats as, say, Middle East terrorists.  The Korean community in the U.S., especially the second generation, is fiercely patriotic about their American citizenship.  There is no way a North Korean splinter group could survive in any U.S. Korean community.  The FBI would have been on them yesterday.

Speaking of the FBI, the iGOP sent a new message just to them, saying, basically, you are an idiot.

By GOP

The result of investigation by FBI is so excellent that you might have seen what we were doing with your own eyes.
We congratulate you success.
FBI is the BEST in the world.

You will find the gift for FBI at the following address.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiRacdl02w4

Enjoy!

They placed this sarcasm on You Tube, and it now already has 602,000 pings.

Finally, in their relative innocence, Sony Pictures Entertainment must be, in private, smirking at their windfall.  When this film is released, and it will within the month, the first weekend will gain revenues somewhere north of $100 million, when it only took about $75 million to make and publicize the film.

Rotten Tomatoes preview audiences rated this film at 96%.  This is, though, an R-rated action comedy.  SONY might want to spend this festering period deleting the more salacious portions for a PG rating. In fact, a better idea might be to restore some of the more controversial scenes, and release two versions:  PG and R, bordering on 17.  Ah, I can just imagine this:  the film is so successful that it turns out Kim Jong-un, in fact, survives the explosion, and SONY produces Interview 2.

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