JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

These days so much seems to be going on all at once. And if a person only has time for a brief rundown of the news, one might think there’s nothing but negative events in our daily lives. Of all the online major news sources, I choose Yahoo News for having the easiest and most complete site. And even though the site is extremely thorough in providing a wide range of general topics and sources, what is lacking on that and other main sites is a category for the positive daily events. I ran across this smaller, somewhat biased (I think I would change the title of the “Unhappy News” category to “Standard News”), site that seems to understand the need for a balance in the human psyche.

Almost every weekend someone new comes to the club and I inevitably get asked the same question, “What is it like living in a foreign place, specifically Okinawa, for so many years?”

Since this is the only place I have resided at for a lengthy amount of time, I can only surmise that it’s the same as any other place that a person lives for over twenty-five years. It has good points and bad points. Of course, having lived in other places tends to place more emphasis on the island’s strengths and weaknesses.

Seems that not everything in Japan is as black and white as the image held by many people. No longer do the simple terms conservative, liberal, and radical depict the typical politician. In these times terms that could be included are is one a radical conservative, a conservative radical, an authoritative liberal, or a liberal authoritarian.

I was reading about Starbucks’ quotes. I think the quotes have achieved what was initially intended. People are discussing differing points of view. What’s wrong with that as long as the list of quotes is diverse?

We were watching satellite TV for about 5 minutes, and then a bulletin came on that mainland had a 5.0 quake in the Kanto area. The plates sure are on the move this year. Between the shaking and Wilma, looks like we’re headed for another active weekend from Mom Nature.

Another update on ongoing changes to the site. In addition to new themes, a spell check plugin has been added to the site. I was able to find the site icon on the “weekly hogen” search in Feedster and the “today’s current weather” search in Technorati. So, little by little the changes are beginning to take effect.

Okay here I go again. My Feedster icon only shows in the actual Feedster account, not on the Feedster search section. So I’m trying to see what it takes to get that portion of the site to display the icon.

If you have been following the site then you will notice I’ve made a few changes. The varying themes have been updated to provide a more complete and wider selection. I’ve also added links for little “escapes” from the island life. I am continuing to try and learn the scripting languages of each program in order to provide a site that can be viewed accurately in as many applications as possible. Good news is I was finally able to get my icon on the Feedster claim and it actually shows up on the Technorati site!!! One down, one million nine hundred ninety-nine… things to go.

I was watching a program on the psychology of beauty on CNN today. Joan Rivers was the chosen Queen of “reality” advice. I’ve taken Psych 101 and am familiar with the statistics of the reality of beauty. But, as most people are aware of, humans tend not be ruled only by the encoded behaviors that have been passed down through the generations. True there is a statistically proven attraction to symmetrical images, including those of humans. Also true, at least statistically, those who possess higher symmetries are at an advantage. But to say that a society is doing a disservice by trying to instill a sense of being, I don’t buy that. Every day an untold sum of money is spent on people trying to get “an edge”. Promoting the belief that the outer person is more important than what a person’s behaviors indicate is leading to nothing more than trouble. I’m not a person who follows the tabloids, or any other fad for that matter. Maybe part of the trouble of society in this day is that they are always looking for the immediate payoff. And if everything is about beauty, than why were so many people such big fans of George Burns, Jessica Tandy, and look at Art Linkletter! (The man is 93 and still as astute and entertaining in his observations as he was 40 years ago.) And what about Oprah? Do you really think that she has made it so far by falling back on the typical image of beauty? She’s so popular because she is a smart everyday person that people can connect to without feeling that they have to degrade who they are as person. Let’s face it, the reason many men dislike Jon Bon Jovi is because he is a threat with all his talent and looks. And women like him because he is one of those lucky people who didn’t let that interfere with being a down to earth person. I think to say that people should go under the knife to remain physically attractive to the opposite sex is nothing more than a superficial sellout to the pressures of modern business. Very few of us are lucky enough to have it all, but the key should be how to accentuate the strengths, not annihilate the perceived weaknesses, of each person