Tuesday, August 19, 2003
I saw the best minds of my generation educated beyond their intelligence.
The folks at NHK come knocking on my door (and everyone else's in Japan) from time to time to collect fees for the public educational broadcasting that they provide. Do I dodge them as many young Japanese people here in Tokyo now do? Do I pay up? Of course I do, and with a smile in fact.
Needless to say, the now dormant American in me would, if reanimated, probably react in horror. "Why should you have to PAY for PUBLIC TV programming?" He might ask. "Aren't we doing just fine in the U.S. of A. with PBS and our sterling educational system? AREN'T WE?!?" Well, I suppose that we aren't. Although overall we do seem to be on the literate side of things in our "literacy ranking", but compared to other countries in our group, our position is no less than embarrassing.
What accounts for this? Well, I guess it must be all that time and effort that we spend on world peace (please be patient, this page takes a while to load). It seems to cost us dearly in lives and dollars. Well, perhaps this prevents us from otherwise spending such vast sums of money on our kid's educations.
By the way, here is an interesting factoid kids: the largest number of Americans to die an any war was 562,130 in the Civil War. This is a telling figure in that more than the combined 525,014 WWI and WWII deaths. Yes, Americans killing Americans over the issue of slavery lead to this grim tally, and as far as I remember, it still didn't solve all the issues. I recall vividly that in my hometown of Dawson, GA in Terrell County being taken to the doctor when I was a child of no more than 10 or 11 and being shown to the "white waiting room". I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The inhumanity. Even then, being brought up in that surreal environment, I knew that something terrible was going on, but no one ever had the courage to tell me right out. I had to figure it out for myself, and the burden of "my heritage" still crushes me slowly to this day.
But anyway, all conjecture aside, I do very much enjoy being able to study a language or two on NHK without leaving my home. I'm also into the calculus program and "Ally My Love" along with the rest of Japan. Of course, getting back to the language thing for a sec. my glee doesn't address the inherent sexisim to be found in the selection of the "language chicks" who will be picking up the gauntlet of second and third language acquisition. Being able to mull over that alone is worth my hard(ly) earned dollar that I give to NHK, but I digress.
Anyway, I think that my favorite is probably "Music Box" which comes on around 2:45 in the morning. It really is the best way to find out what Japan was like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s (and with songs in chronological order to boot)!
Needless to say, the now dormant American in me would, if reanimated, probably react in horror. "Why should you have to PAY for PUBLIC TV programming?" He might ask. "Aren't we doing just fine in the U.S. of A. with PBS and our sterling educational system? AREN'T WE?!?" Well, I suppose that we aren't. Although overall we do seem to be on the literate side of things in our "literacy ranking", but compared to other countries in our group, our position is no less than embarrassing.
What accounts for this? Well, I guess it must be all that time and effort that we spend on world peace (please be patient, this page takes a while to load). It seems to cost us dearly in lives and dollars. Well, perhaps this prevents us from otherwise spending such vast sums of money on our kid's educations.
By the way, here is an interesting factoid kids: the largest number of Americans to die an any war was 562,130 in the Civil War. This is a telling figure in that more than the combined 525,014 WWI and WWII deaths. Yes, Americans killing Americans over the issue of slavery lead to this grim tally, and as far as I remember, it still didn't solve all the issues. I recall vividly that in my hometown of Dawson, GA in Terrell County being taken to the doctor when I was a child of no more than 10 or 11 and being shown to the "white waiting room". I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The inhumanity. Even then, being brought up in that surreal environment, I knew that something terrible was going on, but no one ever had the courage to tell me right out. I had to figure it out for myself, and the burden of "my heritage" still crushes me slowly to this day.
But anyway, all conjecture aside, I do very much enjoy being able to study a language or two on NHK without leaving my home. I'm also into the calculus program and "Ally My Love" along with the rest of Japan. Of course, getting back to the language thing for a sec. my glee doesn't address the inherent sexisim to be found in the selection of the "language chicks" who will be picking up the gauntlet of second and third language acquisition. Being able to mull over that alone is worth my hard(ly) earned dollar that I give to NHK, but I digress.
Anyway, I think that my favorite is probably "Music Box" which comes on around 2:45 in the morning. It really is the best way to find out what Japan was like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s (and with songs in chronological order to boot)!
