Bear witness.

The federal week in review:

1. Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day.

2. House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES positions, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in Energy and State.

3. Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest.

4. House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA.

5. Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election.

6. Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it.

7. Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US.

8. House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department--for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists not science. Don't like that endangered species designation, Congress kills it.

We - progressive, liberal, libertarian and conservative - need to all wake up to what is actually happening to our beloved country.

#UnitedWeStand

COPY AND PASTE this entire post into your own status update instead of sharing. More of your friends will see it.

His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: "Who ­ who won the presidential election yesterday?"
The man behind the desk laughed. "You joking? You know very well. Deutscher, of course! Who else? Not that fool weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with guts!"
.
.
.
There was a sound of thunder.

- Ray Bradbury, 'A Sound of Thunder' (1952)

-Trump claims election process rigged if he loses.
-Comics fans claim Rotten Tomatoes illegitimate 'cause of bad reviews for new film.
-The film is called "Suicide Squad."
-Which aptly describes Trumps campaign.

Today in Awesome Korean Mom Hilarity

(My mom is babysitting my son Jack, who is resisting her attempts to clean him up post-lunch)

Mom: What are you doing? You're dirty Chinese, dirty Chinese!

(I give my mom a strange look)

Mom: Oh, in Korea, we call anyone dirty "Chinese."

Me: That sounds racist.

Mom: Yes, we are racist.

In the week that was, June 5 - 12, 2016 . . .

- We were reminded that committing rape doesn't mean the same if you're white, male and privileged. That a judge of similar background will show leniency in light of that person's "potential," and that potential will lead your parents to very publicly dismiss the gravity of your crime and its effects upon the victim (as well as the victim herself).

- That in the world of Chicago theater, despite its attitude of activism and action, its self-proclaimed striving for authenticity and the truth, can be home to 20 years of sexual harassment and abuse committed with impunity by an acclaimed and lauded artist, aided and abetted by silence, complacency and professional intimidation.

- That LGBT persons in America still have much to fear from others, simply for being themselves, simply for existing. That there's still way too many guns in the hands of the wrong people at the wrong times. That there's no political will to stop it. But there's way too much political will to dismiss the facts (like the fact the targets were LGBT) or to exploit the event (to inflame anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-immigrant hysteria).

- That one of our two major political parties continues to be fronted by an ignorant, wealthy, racist demagogue spouting dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric

- That urban violence continues unabated.

- That the middle class continues to shrink.

- That the climate continues to change.

Just trying to get my head around the week that was.

Reposted from the blog of Chicago Aikido Club.

Stay Calm, Parents

On Monday, May 9 and Wednesday, May 11, Chicago Aikido Club (CAC) member Dwight Sora gave a short demonstration of aikido for the parents and children of the Tampopo Kai play group at the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) of Chicago.

Invited by Tampopo Kai organizer Naomi Negi, Sora (whose 22-month-year old son Jack regularly attends Tampopo on Mondays) gave a short explanation of aikido's history and principles, and then demonstrated some basic techniques. He was partly aided in his demonstration by fellow parent Shimako Asakawa Walker (a former student of Tatsuo Toyoda Sensei at Tenshinkan Dojo), as well as some volunteers from the audience.

Aikido Instructor Relives the Past

This is a repost from the blog page of Chicago Aikido Club, the dojo where I have been teaching and practicing the Japanese martial art of aikido for the past four years. 

A member of the crew adjusts Joe Takehara's wardrobe

On Thursday, April 28, Chicago Aikido Club senior instructor Joe Takehara stepped back through time into his own past. Although the actual place was the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, it had been dressed up with props and other items to recreate the moment when Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and board trains, eventually bound for "internment camps" set up in rural areas around the U.S. following the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that kicked off the Pacific War and full-scale American involved in World War II. As a result of public wartime hysteria and racial intolerance, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, nearly all who lived on the West Coast and including many American citizens, lost the homes and businesses they had spent lives building up, and would largely remain in the camps until 1944.

This was the set for The Orange Story, a short film in which Takehara plays a West Coast grocery store owner named Koji Oshima saying goodbye to his store before heading to the camps. The film is the first of four planned productions, and is being made in conjunction with an educational website for inclusion in curriculums at all levels of education.

The film is being produced by Chicago filmmaker Eugene Sun Park and his company Full Spectrum Features, in collaboration with fellow filmmaker Jason Matsumoto (a member of the Japanese drumming group Ho Etsu Taiko and is providing the soundtrack).

A shot is lined up on set

In real life, Takehara grew up in San Diego, California, and was relocated with his family to Poston War Relocation Center in southwestern Arizona. When the internment ended in 1945, his family migrated east, following a wave of some 20,000 Japanese American resettlers from various camps to Chicago (he was fourteen at the time).

The Orange Story is also being shot in California, and is slated to be released this year. It has been partially made possible by a nearly $160,000 grant from the National Park Service, which allocates funding for projects commemorating and preserving Japanese American confinement sites.

If you are interested in more information about The Orange Story project, please contact Jason at jason@fullspectrumfeatures.com or 773.504.4107.

UPDATE

An official fundraising campaign has been launched for The Orange Story. If you are interested in contributing, please visit the campaign website at http://tinyurl.com/zqujy3s.

Please include any of these links to your family and friends if they'd like to learn more:
Project Website: theorangestory.wordpress.com/
Facebook: facebook.com/theorangestory/

Group photo from the railroad shoot