When Pseudo Science Is Finally Defeated

Kinoya Whale Meat Cans, Tokyo

I've never looked a whale in the eye.  Nor have I ever been tempted to eat one.  

My friends will testify that I have always been prepared to try anything on a dinner plate that is put in front of me, the one exception being a menu option I experienced in Stavanger, Norway.  

The restaurant were offering whale meat as a main and something within me rebelled against the thought of doing so.

Perhaps it was and is the idea of eating an animal that is critically endangered or that the meat in question was quite unprepossessing.  

A good dose of  angry cynicism about the Japanese instance on their right to conduct "scientific whaling" in our southern waters, when clearly they have been doing so to sell it in their open meat markets, no doubt contributed to my decision at the time.

Perhaps it was also a growing realisation of mankind's selfishness to consume every palatable species around us thereby sowing the seeds of our own inevitable destruction as a species.  Whatever the reason I settled for Norwegian salmon on the menu instead.  Although it is fair to report that two of my museum colleagues at that time did try it.

So I awoke this morning to the news that the International Court of Justice had handed down a ruling against Japanese whaling in southern waters, with a sense of relief as well as admiration for those who had campaigned so vociferously against the practice.

Not that I regard myself as a "Greenie' but I do appreciate nature's bounty and beauty both on my plate and around me.  It is selfish in the extreme to plunder the world's food resources without giving a damn about generations that will follow.

Now it will be a question of who is going to enforce the whale ban ruling?  I suspect both the New Zealand and Australian governments will police and enforce the ban.  At least I would like to think so.

It is perhaps no coincidence that today is April Fool's Day.  For once we have stopped fooling around with the balance of nature and have respected the rights and conservation needs of another deserving mammal.

Related articles

• UN court to rule on Japanese whaling
• UN orders Japan to halt whaling in the Antarctic
• Antarctic whale hunts not scientific, ICJ rules

Ramen Romps

Who cares about the Olympics and gold medals when there are much more important feats to celebrate. Take the Singapore Ramen championship for instance which was won by Ikkousha Ramen who have sold 100,000 bowls of the stuff in the past twelve months

The gentle art of noodle pulling has apparently become a 'fine art' under their tutelage. Ramen might well be regarded in the West as student fodder but in Asia they take it very seriously.


 And on the subject of matters culinary spare a thought for the FEDEX workers in the States who redefined the meanin of "some like it hot". 
A 19 litre container of liquid capsaicin, a chili pepper component destined for hot sauce was accidentally punctured by a forklift. resulting in a sudden evacuation.  I wonder what the health authorities made of this mishap?
Speaking of health, Bloomberg has just ranked Singapore as having the healthiest population in the world. It nudged out Italy, Australia, Switzerland and Japan for this honour. The country has a very strong healthcare system which means that residents are living longer and death rate is lower than it has been in the past. Get rid of the endemic cigarette smoking by new migrants and the result will be even higher.
Mind you such healthcare doesn't come cheaply so it is essential to have some form of insurance. We found NTUC's policies were best value for money. The added advantage is that they can be paid for out of CPF contributions.

Related articles

• S'pore "world's healthiest country": survey

The Japan Earthquake Swarm

This shows the smaller quakes which were a precursor to the larger magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan.

The Pacific plate also affects New Zealand and both countries are prone to these forces of nature.  Thank goodness though that New Zealand has remained nuclear free. 

The serious reactor problems in Japan threaten to be even more destructive than the earthquake and tsunami.

Related articles

• Is Japan's quake part of a cluster? (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
• RAPatton: Giant shock rattles ideas about quake behaviour : Nature News (nature.com)

Seeing Red

Outside our kitchen window is a self sown tomato plant from last season's crop.  It is struggling to survive the winter, a bedraggled reminder of a more glorious summer past.

Adding to its misery are the predation marks of a caterpillar but it has luck on its side.  This winter has been mild by all accounts and thus far there have been no frosts to kill it off.

I have an empathy with this tomato plant as I too look somewhat bedraggled after being cooped up in the house for three solid days as the winter rains battered Auckland.

Dishevelled might be a better term, as I have not had a haircut since leaving Singapore in a vain attempt (pun intended) to have my hair longer during the winter months.

It is also interesting how hair behaves differently in tropical climates.  In my own case while we were in Singapore it sat well and grew with alacrity. Here in New Zealand it does just the opposite, sticking out in all directions and proving almost unmanageable by brush.  This I think is largely to do with the dryness of the atmosphere.

One thing about tomatoes is that they are good for you.  This wasn't always realised as they are a member of the deadly nightshade family and were originally considered toxic, causing many conditions like appendicitis, “brain fever” and cancer.

According to a web source, tomatoes were not even eaten in the US until the early 1800s, when an eccentric New Jersey gentleman Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson brought them back from a trip overseas. Always one to take advantage of a dramatic opportunity, he announced an amazing display of courage would take place on September 26, 1820. He shocked his hometown of Salem by consuming and entire basket of tomatoes in front of a crowd of spectators, expecting him to keel over any second.

Maybe the longevity of the Japanese is due to a diet rich in tomatoes?  Mind you, the supposed long life of the Japanese is now proving to be more myth than reality.  Local authorities there are currently searching for the centenarians in their records as no one seems where they are?

The search was triggered when authorities in Tokyo went to visit a man they believed to be Tokyo's oldest at 111 years old, only to find he had been dead over 30 years.  He is now listed as Tokyo's youngest mummy.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Japan mysteriously losing track of centenarians (sfgate.com)
• Japan launches nationwide search for centenarians (guardian.co.uk)
• "Tokyo's oldest woman missing for decades" and related posts (arbroath.blogspot.com)

The Old Ford Factory

Museum Montage - Roger Smith

I have been using these few days of annual holiday to sally forth each morning to a different museum.

There are several that I have yet to visit and some that I frequent on a regular basis. Falling into the former category is the Old Ford factory, the site where the British surrendered to the invading Japanese army in 1942.

The trip to the museum is a mini-adventure in its own right; the MRT to Jurong and a change to the Red line sees one arriving at Bukit Batok. The bus interchange is adjacent to the station and easy to find. The bus to board is the 173 which winds through Bukit Batok and passes the museum in Upper Bukit Timah Road.

The much vaunted impregnable fortress of Singapore capitulated relatively quickly and Lt-General Percival received the terms of surrender in the Ford Factory.

As it transpired later, the Japanese were in fact out manned two to one and had seriously considered withdrawing from Singapore but Percival did not know this and his counterpart, Lt Gen Yamashita, succeeded in bluffing Percival by intimating that he had the superior strategic position.

February 15, 1942. Battle of Singapore, British Surrender. Lt.-Gen. Yamashita (seated, centre) thumps the table with his fist to emphasize his terms -- unconditional surrender. Lt.-Gen. Percival sits between his officers, his clenched hand to his mouth. (Photo from Imperial War Museum)

What followed was 44 months of brutal repression at the hands of the Japanese and it is therefore not surprising that many older Singaporeans will neither forgive nor forget what they lived through.

Singapore was renamed Syonan-to by the Japanese and the Old Ford factory documents life during the Syonan years.

The WW2 People's War archive that the BBC produced contains many first hand accounts of the fall of Singapore and the Syonan years. Those who were prisoners of war had harrowing tales to tell but the local population also suffered terribly. See the Haxworth collection of POW sketches and online diary.

Memories at the Old Ford Factory chronicles these events and how people survived.

Despite the cruelty metered out by the occupiers some of the principal Japanese war criminals escaped punishment.

One Masano Tsuji, who orchestrated the 'cleansing' operations of the local population ( i.e. massacres by the truckload), evaded capture. Reportedly he alluded his would-be captors thanks to the assistance of a wealthy Thai Chinese wife and became a 'monk' in Thailand. He ended up back in Japan in 1948 under the protection of the US occupation forces. Even more bizarrely he then went on to author a book documenting his escape!

As a footnote, shortly after my arrival in Singapore the father of my best friend from High School wrote to me. He is a medical doctor who had trained with another NZ doctor, the latter ending up at Alexandra Hospital in Singapore when it was overrun by the Japanese.

The NZ doctor was murdered by the Japanese when they massacred patients and staff on February 14th, 1942. Hear audio recollections

And if we thought the Singapore MRT was crowded..