Seems like I am still in the midst of post-processing my Kyoto pics and although I have not uploaded any of them here until I complete the entire series, the priliveged few from my stagnant friends' list in Facebook were treated to some of the finished ones. Yep and I have to be snobbish to admit that those worthy to be someone whom I know personally than merely a face that I can hardly remember will be showered with nothing less than what they deserve. Ok ok that aside, here is one recent event that I would like to share some thoughts on.
The Noriko Calderon Saga.
As the recent spate of news dying down from economic crisis and job layoffs from Japan, one seems to be the talk of the town recently. Lots of info on the net if you do a Google on it but in any case you just stepped out of your 1000 year old cave meditation, let me summarize it for you.
Noriko is a 13 year old junior high school student whose parents had entered Japan illegally sometime back. Because she was born in Japan, the Japanese government was lenient enuff to let her and her family stay since then so that she can continue her education. Since her parents were recently deported back to Philippines for various reasons, this whole saga have stirred up quite a storm in Japan. While the whole saga have sort of launched a following of both left wing hardcore Japanese who wants the entire family and the daughter out of the country, the other soft hearted and symphathetic Japanese seems to be supportive of them. Though I am not as harsh as the left wing Japanese, I am clearly leaning to the side of the Japanese government for going down stern on this issue and deporting The Calderons. The way I see it is that The Calderon have mistakenly taken the Japanese government's kindness for allowing them to stay for the sake of their daughter for granted and to the extent that justifies the non-existent of their illegal entry years back. Though The Calderons have a on going legal battle, I am simply not impressed.
The following factors have left me wondering...
When the government granted them permission to stay initially, they would have already know that someday they would still have to leave. Why have people failed to see the ugly side of greed to this whole issue? Totally baffles me...And then to exploit the kind nature of the Japanese spirit to lash back at the government for meing merciful...how ironical. If the Japanese government allows them to stay on then the signal to the world would probably mis-interpreted. "Come to Japan by any means legal or illegal, drop a kid and hey presto! You can skip all the tedious paper work that all other foreigners have to go thtu and instantly you are granted permission to stay." Sounds good I say but hell like it's gonna happen...even Noriko herself chose to stay here and abandon her parents so I say save the weeping drama mama saga stage plays. While various articles across the net have been leaning towards human affections and show supportive signals to The Calderons, I am one who will not yield simply because I believe that laws are inplaced because human in general cannot co-exist together with anything and that leniency should never be mistaken as forgiven.
I leave you to make your own judgement on this...
Next is a product update that I would like to share. Casio have recently (Mar 2009) released a Prestige Line Protrek watch dubbed Manaslu (PRX-2000T-7JF). Not sure if it's available outside Japan but the MSRP is ￥99,750 inclusive of tax. Click here for the official page.
If you have been following the Casio Protrek line of watches, this new model might be worth checking out. Protrek is the designation here in Japan or Pathfinder where the rest of the world knows it are a line of outdoor watches from Casio that have a few nifty tricks tucked beneath the menacing looking shell. Unlike G-Shock watches, these outdoor watches have digital compasses, barometers, graphs, altimeters, temperature indicators, moon phase, tides and are capable of receiving atomic calibration every night depending on where you are. That way the watch will always be telling the exact time with no excuses from a drained battery. Kinda suitable for the outdoor enthusiasts or techie geek but no vaporizing evil red lasers at the moment.
The initial line of watches were pretty big and sports weird 70s orange and blue color schemes. Until the titanium black series came out not too long ago for the discreet non-attention grabbing stealth profile. The older line have a dual lcd screen so that the blue digital compass can float above the normal display which makes them slightly thick and tough looking. The newer 1300 series have dropped the floating blue digital compass which I loved and replaced it with little dot indicators thus making the watch really thin. Somehow the latest 1500 series comes packed with even more features while retaining the thin profile but gaining a couple of pounds on the width. So this just release prestige model brings back the good old spinning blue compass indicator while retain the thin profile. Too bad it's still in silver and hopefully the all black titanium one will be launch not too long into the future.
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