An ambitious peasant overcompensates for his humble origins.

He is assisted by:

~epw, professional badass;

Aaron, his man in Japan;

Adam, Dean of Albuquerque;

Rachel, Muse;

Martin, still undercover in England;

Randy Brown, Prison Doctor;

Kevin, Cave Gentleman, and

Simon, the one true overmind.

All death threats, complaints, and other communications direct to:

kikuchiyo-*-at-*-gmail.com

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Kikuchiyo News is maintained by a soon-to-be graduate in economics and international relations preparing to study reading for an M.Phil in Economics at Oxford University.

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Kikuchiyo Translations:

Shock and Awe
McChrystal
Rumsfeld, 4/1
Rumsfeld, 4/17
Jenny Russel
Tony Snow
Tariq Ali
Hein
Levy
Bush
Wolfowitz
Shaffer
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Streams:

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Nader.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 12:22 PM

 
In the way that only B3ta can. link.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:20 AM

 
Clay Kitten Shooting / CKS 2. Can I go to bed now?
posted by Kikuchiyo at 11:19 PM

 
More depressing news on the state of American youthdom. Teenage Suicide plummets. The silver lining? In an apparent nod to this film, there's a lot more hanging around. Have a lovely day.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:28 AM

 
If anyone out there happens to have a day off that I could borrow, I'm interested.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 5:19 PM

 
Alright, I guess this didn't need to be said... and, I guess I feel sorry for a guy who will be eternally remembered either as Wesley Crusher or nothing at all. However, two points of evidence force me to conclude that... Wil Wheaton is an idiot.

Submission A: Wil's Audioblog...

"I'm in Hollywood on my way to an audition. I'm actually at the intersection of Fairfax and Beverly Boulevard right next to?yeah that's a red light jackass! ... There's these people waiting for the Price is Right and they are wearing name tags, like elementary school kids! It's so surreal. And then there is a guy flipping them off. Even more surreal."

Somebody lived on a Star Trek set too long if he thinks that is surreal.

Evidence B: Wil's Moblog Entry for April 20th, 2004

"This was shot tonight at the Barnes & Noble on Colorado in old town Pasadena. I have mixed feelings, to be honest: I'm so excited that my book is really in bookstores . . . but I'm bummed that they put it in with the Star Trek books, because it's not a Star Trek book. It should be in essays. I felt like a real ass telling the guy, "Uh . . . I think it rules that you have my book . . . but it's in the wrong place. Can you . . . uh . . . move it, or something?""

Wil thinks he is a real author, and that his book got published for a reason other than it would sell to Star Trek nerds. Delusion, delusion...

In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I would even venture (at the risk of exposing myself as a Star Trek nerd) that Wil Wheaton is more Wesley Crusher than the character was. I mean, winy self-importance, delusions of grandeur, spandex.

Ok, maybe not. I'm sure Wil is actually a great human being. More like that kid he played in Stand by Me. Wil, here's to hoping you don't turn into Richard Dreyfus. However, stop making the lousy posts... makes people think that Wil Wheaton is an idiot.
posted by Aaron at 4:07 PM

 
I'm sure that it's just a tradition thing, but maybe it's time to update the grammar used to refer to the place where Oxonians take their big nasty tests. As it is, we are informed by the University that "[t]he Examination Schools is headed by an Assistant Registrar designated as Clerk of the Schools (currently on secondment until August 2005)."

Alternately, I'm willing to give them some grammar slack so long as they don't mind adding a few point to my exam scores.

Like, say, fifty points.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 1:08 PM

 
90 degrees, probably 70% humidity. Finally, I'm in my element.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 11:08 AM

 
I have long had a love/hate relationship with The Atlantic Monthly. It's a politically unpredicatble journal, putatively New Democrat but also a showcase for David Brooks, Pat Buchanan, P.J. O'Rourke and other conservatives. Before his death in Iraq, Michael Kelly edited the magazine, which injected a stridently anti-Clinton/Gore strain into the NDN politics. It also remains one of the wonkiest political magazines out there, particularly with its annual "State of the Union" issues, which are jam-packed with eye-glzaing disquisitions on the numbers of various policy proposals.

But, it also reularly contains some of the best deep reportage in American journalism. I have particularly enjoyed its penchant for picking out the revealing portraits of great dictators writ small, not ordering the familiar attrocities of history, but the small, self-indulgent, extravagantly crazy excesses of unchecked power.

As exemplars I offer:

A exceprt from the memoirs of Kim Jong-Il's personal chef.

An account of Nicolae Ceausescu's personal bear hunts and the national policy that facilitated them.

Saddam Hussein at home.

posted by simon at 10:03 PM

 
things get funny. Probably only if you've hung out in the UK for a while.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 7:10 PM

 
Thanks in large part to Kevin's patient willingness to help me refine some rather poorly phrased initial ideas, my first choice for supervisor accepted my M.Phil. thesis proposal.

Thanks, Kevin.


posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:41 AM

 
My sincere condolences to all KN readers and staff currently residing in the United States. Ronald Reagan has died, and now God's veil of protection is likely to be withdrawn from the country. Here's hoping y'all survive the locusts, water turning to blood, &c.;
posted by Kikuchiyo at 10:58 AM

 
Ever want to watch the intro from Denver: the Last Dinosaur or The A-Team. Yeah, well this guy has a ton of them on his site.

80's Tv Intros

It's partially in Dutch, but that shouldn't impede your finding the intros.
posted by Aaron at 4:09 AM

 
Points are deducted for fun at the expense of special needs students, but it is kinda funny anyway. The animation is included because we believe that this humor is intentional to some degree. Verdict: The bit with jail and no playstation is quite sad, and the bit at the end about no lights is downright creepy.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 7:50 PM

 
Story of my life. Sometimes. The rest of the newletter is decent this week, as long as for "decent" you don't read "acceptable for minors or people with sensibilities."

We need more words with only one meaning. Somebody work on that...
posted by Kikuchiyo at 7:43 PM

 
This new chair thing has totally worked today. Kikuchiyo is seriously pleased with it. Following today's reader request, I'll show you it's lovely picture:



Yes, this is very exciting to me. Yes, this does mean that any claim that I might have ever had of not sucking is wiped away forever. No, I do not have the time to care about that right now.

[ note: My normal personality is scheduled to return around June 17th, in case you were waiting around for that lazy jerk.]
posted by Kikuchiyo at 6:05 PM

 
...I do not have a morning link. I do have a new comfortable chair, and a lot of work to do. The present theory is that the new comfortable chair will prevent the awkward age-changing effect whereby I begin working at 9:00 as a twenty-three-year-old boy and end the day at 9:00 pm as a ninety-eight-year-old man who spent his working life immitating a question mark in a performance art troupe. In short: seldom in the history of human events has one man wanted one chair so very, very much. Have a lovely friday.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:19 AM

 
Here. It's no pandagolf, but it's very cute.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:21 AM

 
Link. Funny as hell, but kinda funny strange too.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:07 PM

 
Ass kickin ketchup.
posted by Kevin at 6:30 PM

 
I am glad my students like me. Cuz' when they get mad here, it's serious.

Yahoo! News - Stunned Japan Agonizes Over Schoolgirl Stabbing

If you check out the full article you'll see reference to a story about a boy who killed two younger boys and put the decapitated head of one of them on the school gate. That happened here in Kobe, and recently that kid, now an adult, has been set free from prison. Apparently reformed.

I guess we have school shootings, so maybe not as shocking for Americans. However, you have to admit a 12 year old girl slitting the throat of another girl with a box cutter is pretty gruesome. Somehow i just believe it takes a lot more malicious intent to slice somebody than to pull a trigger.
posted by Aaron at 3:32 PM

 
Asi es esta tierra del sol.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:26 AM

 
Charming, as far as I'm concerned.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 8:39 AM

 
If this book is available in the place where you live, then I suggest buying it. Also fun: stand around a bustling tourist area, reading a travel guide for an eastern European country that does not exist. Watch for smirks on the faces of passers-by, who seem to think that somehow you've confused England with "a land untouched by modern dentistry."
posted by Kikuchiyo at 8:24 AM

 
I can't prove PEP is a joke, but since they're giving the free-market a "second chance", I won't even try.
posted by Kevin at 1:56 PM

 
...and my nervous system is basically shot. I spent an entire night last night going over and over the minutiae of generalized least squares regression. It would have been OK if I'd have been awake, but I feel terribly robbed of sleep. And innocence.

Dreams are not the place for optimal weighting matrices to be derived. I fear that a part of my humanity has been lost forever.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:48 AM

 
Evidence indicates the Mike Moore might have done something classy. Noted.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 5:51 PM

 
Hey kids, I've got great news for you if you can read Japanese and so can your browser!

My new weblog in Japanese:

http://juicebear.blogspot.com/

Mega Juice Bear...

it's juicy!
posted by Aaron at 3:38 AM

 
For Adam. For movie-lovers.

For the rest.

Enjoy your hangovers, lads. And ladies. While you're drinking, think of me and my all-too-sober revision nightmare.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:08 PM

 
I guess that it turns out that lots of economists' blogs are full of posts that aren't about economics.

Whatever.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 8:46 AM

 
Only one month ago, American Idol viewers were "incredibly racist"; what are they now, incredibly patronizing?
posted by Kevin at 3:18 PM

 
The BBC looks set to let people check out their archives under Creative-Commons-type license agreements. I, for one, welcome our new free content overlords.

Thanks, Slashdot.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 10:47 AM

 
A website from New York City's Feral Cat Resource. It discuss methods fro catching feral cats.

This is one of those sites where the subject matter seems to be fake, but then it's serious. So, you read it, and then you stumble upon stuff like this:

5. Luring into a Closed Space
If you can draw the cat into an indoor space (with no exit, holes in the wall, etc.) and close the door behind him, he's yours. Once confined, you can take the patient route by setting a normal trap and otherwise depriving of food (though this can take days).

"Close the door behind him, he's yours." Yikes.
posted by Aaron at 7:00 AM

 
Okay, I have never been one to pick on Bush's problems in using the English language. However, this is too ridiculous! The Abu-Ghraib incidents are likely going to cost him the presidency, and STILL he mispronounces it! Not once but three times!

For God's sake.
posted by Aaron at 3:51 PM

 
Before we get into discussing the relevance of Ken Wilber’s thoughts in the world today, I thought it might be good to introduce some of the basic thoughts which Wilber sets down in the first chapters of A Brief History of Everything (BHoE). In his previous book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Wilber outlined twenty basic principles, or tenets, which govern reality. He does not discuss all of them in BHoE, but he does share those he considers the most important.

Today, I'd like to just cover two tenets which will be important to our discussion on US political parties:

1) Tenet 1: Reality is composed of holons.
2) Tenet 4: Holons emerge holarchically..

Tenet 1: Holons is a term that Wilber uses to connote the fact that all things are both whole entities and at the same time part of something else. In itself an entity is whole, but it always composes something else. Wilber’s example, “a whole atom is part of a whole molecule, and the whole molecule is part of a whole cell….” So, all of these things are both whole in themselves, but also a part of something else. And this is true not only of the material world, but also in the biosphere and noosphere (sphere of human thought).

Tenet 4: This is the idea that all of these holons emerge in a naturally hierarchical fashion. The hierarchy spans form least wholeness to greatest. This is somewhat obvious in the material world. As Wilber points out, “particles to atoms to cells to organisms, or letters to words to sentences to paragraphs. The whole of one level becomes a part of the next.” Each stage above the next is more whole than the previous one, but also entirely dependant on its existence.

Alright, I don’t want to make things too complicated for now. I will leave the terms at this for today. Have comments, suggestions, or questions? Please let me know.

posted by Aaron at 7:07 AM

 
I want a large swath of the press to be partisan and brutal and ugly, all the time.

GR reminds us how pretty tame they're now, especially since they've got all that modern Constitutional leeway. However, in my view the real reason most media are way too polite for real human beings is that its patrons act like simpletons, and expect the published work to always be refined, to usually have manners, and to sometimes come framed in morals.

However, Instapundit suggests that blogs will bring media necessary diversity. Diversity is a codeword meaning, "To hell with diversity and temperance, I want blogs to coerce the media into a war of bombast and tripe, until my sitemeter explodes" or something of the sort. In the very least diversity means that "respectable" newspapers should generate a habitual mocking smirk on the faces of elite university students.

Frankly I don't trust myself. And if the I am part of the media, I can find no reason to trust Maureen Dowd and Ann Coulter at all. Besides, they're both women, allegedly and to the disbelief of my wife.
posted by Kevin at 3:32 PM

 
Sherpa scales Everest in 13 hours. As a measure of scale, it ordinarily takes four days. Via MR.

As for the spotty blogging: it's going to get worse before it gets better. ETA for full-court-press blogging by me: 10 July 2004, when exams and a trip back to the states are complete.


posted by Kikuchiyo at 9:08 AM

 


That is all.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 11:09 AM

 
The stream is here. What caught my ear today was a reading from the author of the week, which went something like:

"There's four sorts of people trying to get to be rulers. They're trying to make things better, but they all want to make them better in different ways. The conservatives want to make them better by keeping them exactly as they are now. The liberals want to make things better by altering them just a little bit, but not so much that anyone would notice. The socialists want to make things better by taking everyone's money off them. And there's the communists, and they want to make things better by killing everyone but themselves."

In fairness, the communists tried to kill a lot of themselves as well.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 4:42 PM

 
He had a good life. Easiest call so far. This is an incredible display of skill and threatening psycosis. The rest of the newsletter is here. You may be wondering if there's a special pick for people who need to funnel their livees into flash-based games for a few days. The answer is: Breakout, except in a circle. It's not as addictive as pandagolf, but it is 2 billion times more nausea inducing.


posted by Kikuchiyo at 10:14 AM

 
Thanks to a well-planned act of censorship by Rio Rancho High principal Gary Tripp, New Mexico has hit the blogs. The Agitator and The Volokh Conspiracy have noticed that Albuquerque is, by and large, a wretched hive of scum and villany.

It's always fun to watch people's reaction when they find out that there's something nasty and festering lying between Texas and Arizona. Please don't mistake this vitriol for a dislike of the place-- I absolutely love being from and even actually visiting the great smear of urban blight where I was born. It's just hilarious when somebody gets excited by some simple fact of life, like that at all times the principal of Rio Rancho High is a raging incompotent idiot.

People: they have student riots there every few years. The school board doesn't want to send a real principal down there just to see his remains come back packed neatly into a shoe box. Proof? He's a P.E. teacher.
posted by Kikuchiyo at 10:06 AM