I had no idea that Japan's constitution limited military spending to 1% of the GDP. Guess who's pushing them to make it more?

This weekend there's a Japanese "peace poet", Yori Yaguchi, hosted by our small organization in Chengdu. I'm going there to hear from him, and my colleagues who have been living this week of earthquake mess a lot closer to it. Then I'm going to Nanchong to see some people that my heart yearns to see.

Yesterday a bunch of the counselors from our center attended post-trauma counseling training, though only one is, that we know for sure, going to Sichuan to help. The others barraged him with advice and support. What about the dialect? He's got a talent for languages he said, and he had a professor in college that taught in Sichuan dialetct. Should he take a sleeping bag or will they be sleeping together somewhere? They give extra phone batteries in case there's no way to charge his. Calls are free right now for anyone with an out-of-province phone in Sichuan. Thousands and thousands of volunteers like him have swarmed to Sichuan to help. A bunch of

Last night on TV some dumbass young reporter stopped three Sichuan men who were making their way along a mountain road to find out things like they what they were carrying in the buckets balanced on a bamboo pole across their shoulders and that their children and homes were gone. They answered her with a lot of quiet dignity, and maybe that was the point, but I was so annoyed at her there in her army pants and sporty shirt, pity ooozing out through her "慢走" and token assistance as they again shouldered their loads and continued on. The camera remained on her for a full ten seconds as she covered her face and burst into sobs. I'm sure being there really is hard, and that her emotion was true. I'm just saying it's a poor excuse for news, and pity is a lot less pretty than real empathy.