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Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Poem: [you gather your friends]
by Jack Brummet
You gather your friends
Around you
Like a shock of wheat,
Like a bulwark
Or a last ditch bivouac
In the cold rain and snow.
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Around you
Like a shock of wheat,
Like a bulwark
Or a last ditch bivouac
In the cold rain and snow.
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Monday, June 04, 2012
70 years ago today the U.S. prepared to "intern" all Japanese Americans; 120,000 were eventually imprisoned
by Jack Brummet, Green River Valley Editor
On June 4 and 5, 1942, more than 1,000 Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) and Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) were rounded up in the Yakima Valley and sent to a camp in Wyoming, far from the west coast, where they would be presumably unable to assist Japanese invaders or terrorists. Other Japanese-named citizens and immigrants were shortly rounded up in other areas of the state, including Seattle. Many more Japanese Americans were rounded up in other states and areas--120,000 people all together were imprisoned. Three-fifths of those people were U.S. citizens.
The Japanese-Americans were sent to hastily, and flimsily, constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" (which we now generally call internment camps) in remote parts of the nation's interior. . .far away from where they might have, say, used a flashlight to guide a fleet of Japanese bombers toward the Boeing warplane plant.
I focus here on Kent, Washington (now a suburb of Seattle), because that's where I grew up, and know first hand about some of the aftermath of the camps. The first wave of immigrants to Kent, Washington happened shortly before 1900. The immigrants were mostly European. There were, even as I was growing up, several Italian families still farming the valley. The 1900 census count shows just 13 Japanese-named families in and around Kent.
By 1930 there were around 200 Japanese families farming the White/Green River valley. In 1942, months after Pearl Harbor, all people of Japanese descent in the White/Green River Valley were evacuated and detained at an internment camp at Tule Lake, California. They lost their businesses, farms and personal belongings. They lost everything in the war hysteria.
.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered them jailed under Executive Order 9066, a law designating certain "military areas" as zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded." In one of our more shameful national acts of jingoistic racism, all people of Japanese ancestry were removed from the entire Pacific coast--all of California, Oregon and Washington. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this law, saying it is "permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a "pressing public necessity."
In our war hysteria, we didn't want any Japanese Americans near the west coast. They would form cells and assist soldiers and pilots from the motherland in attacking The Pacific Coast. The number of Germans and Italians placed in the camps is only a fraction of their total population compared with the Japanese, virtually all of whom were locked up.
After the war only about thirty families (out of the original 200) returned to the valley area. I knew the Miyoshis, Yamadas, Nakaharas, Koyamatsus, Hiranakas, and Okimotos. Some of them got back into farming (not on their old farms, which had been confiscated and sold). I worked on the Yamada's farm a couple of springs, cutting and boxing rhubarb, and I worked for a couple of weeks on Kart Funai's farm one summer, bunching radishes and scallions.
In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed legislation awarding formal payments of $20,000 each to the surviving internees—60,000 in all. This same year, formal apologies were also issued by the government of Canada to Japanese Canadian survivors, who were each repaid the sum of $21,000 Canadian dollars. President Ronald Reagan even apologized on behalf of the United States. $21,000 would buy a fraction of the hundreds of acres of stolen land. It's better than the reparations paid to the families of slaves (zero, to date), but a pittance compared to losing everything you owned, and the farms you nurtured. If they held on until now, they'd all be rich.
Through the 1950's the Green River continued to flood the valley floor in late spring. This is what made the valley floor some of the richest soil in the world. . .but, alas, flooding prevented big business from locating there. In 1963 the Army Corps of Engineers built the Howard Hansen Dam (an earthen dam, still protecting the valley from floods) to regulate the river waters. The danger of uncontrolled flooding ended. The flat, treeless land on the valley floor now was an attractive area for business. And build they did.
Dust storm at an internment camp a/k/a relocation center
The Japanese-Americans were sent to hastily, and flimsily, constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" (which we now generally call internment camps) in remote parts of the nation's interior. . .far away from where they might have, say, used a flashlight to guide a fleet of Japanese bombers toward the Boeing warplane plant.
I focus here on Kent, Washington (now a suburb of Seattle), because that's where I grew up, and know first hand about some of the aftermath of the camps. The first wave of immigrants to Kent, Washington happened shortly before 1900. The immigrants were mostly European. There were, even as I was growing up, several Italian families still farming the valley. The 1900 census count shows just 13 Japanese-named families in and around Kent.
The number of Japanese immigrants rose steeply over the next few years until 1907, when the US Government put the brakes on the number allowed to immigrate. Eventually, in the 1920's, Japanese immigration was banned altogether. The Anti-Alien Land Law in 1923 barred these immigrants from owning land, or even becoming citizens. Those with a child born in America could put land in the child's name. Some of the Japanese worked for established farmers and some cleared land and began their own farms in Kent, Auburn, and the tiny nearby villages O'Brien, Orillia, and Thomas.
Many Japanese farmers owned dairy farms until the price of milk plummeted after the World War I. Those farmers jumped into vegetable and berry farming, and their truck farms were profitable. They sold produce in Seattle, at the public market and farm stands, and shipped lettuce and cabbage to the east coast.
By 1930 there were around 200 Japanese families farming the White/Green River valley. In 1942, months after Pearl Harbor, all people of Japanese descent in the White/Green River Valley were evacuated and detained at an internment camp at Tule Lake, California. They lost their businesses, farms and personal belongings. They lost everything in the war hysteria.
My mother, Betty Brummet, remembers Japanese American kids being marched from Ballard High School one day. Some of the students lined up and booed.
The phrase "shikata ga nai" (loosely translated as "it cannot be helped") summarized the interned families' resignation to their helplessness. This was even noticed by the children, as mentioned in Farewell to Manzanar. They tended not to make waves, and complied with the government to prove themselves loyal citizens.
Dust storm at an internment camp
Photo of a shop owner in my hometown of Kent, Washington, in 1942
Through the 1950's the Green River continued to flood the valley floor in late spring. This is what made the valley floor some of the richest soil in the world. . .but, alas, flooding prevented big business from locating there. In 1963 the Army Corps of Engineers built the Howard Hansen Dam (an earthen dam, still protecting the valley from floods) to regulate the river waters. The danger of uncontrolled flooding ended. The flat, treeless land on the valley floor now was an attractive area for business. And build they did.
Boeing built an aerospace lab, and the floodgates were opened. Farming was over, and dwindled rapidly, although there are a few pockets left. One of my old high school mates, Danny Carpinito has in fact become a wealthy vegetable farmer. Of the Japanese kids I knew in school, virtually none remained in Kent after high school. Of course, neither did I nor most of my friends, although some of our families still live there.
Sources:
The Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
The History of Kent, Washington: http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/vtours/kent/
Japanese Relocation Centers: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html
The Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American
Previous articles, and photos on the Green River Valley and Japanese-Americans from All This Is That (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/)
Previous articles, and photos on the Green River Valley and Japanese-Americans from All This Is That (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/)
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Sunday, June 03, 2012
Saturday, June 02, 2012
The end of the barn
By Jack Brummet, Green River Valley Editor
It was bittersweet today. The barn at my mom's house in Kent finally had to go. My dad bought the barn when I was about five years old. It came from about eight blocks up the street, where people had kept a horse or two in it. In about 1959, my Dad bought it when that house was sold to make room for a Big Bear grocery story in downtown Kent.
One of my first memories is of that barn traveling slowly down 4th Avenue to our house on 4th and Crow Street. I was about five, and actually remember that I was watching Howdy Doody on TV when the barn came into sight. It became my dad's workshop, and my Webelo group's meeting room. We made root beer and soap in there, and my dad and his pals cooked up their batches of home brew there. It was also lapidary central, where my father polished and cut the rocks and gems we found on our various rock knocker/pebble puppy trips and expeditions--obsidian, moss agates, jasper, opalized cypress wood, jade, morrisonite, fossils, and other rocks we found and dug up. He built at least three dinghys in there with his friends, as well as our home-made camper, my pinewood derby cars, cub scout genius kit constructions, and many other projects. My father would die in the garage, not totally unexpectedly, of heart failure, in 1964, a few months after JFK expired. It was moving, but not sad, to see it come down today.
Like a lot of barns you see as you travel in the hinterlands, it was not a beefy structure, and like many of those barns you see, it began to sag and lean in the last few years. I tried to find someone who wanted to recycle all that fine 100 year old shiplap and first growth beams and timbers, but I could find no takers. So, alas, we had to have it taken down. My brother Guy shot this video of the first moments of the demolition. And so it goes. . .
It was bittersweet today. The barn at my mom's house in Kent finally had to go. My dad bought the barn when I was about five years old. It came from about eight blocks up the street, where people had kept a horse or two in it. In about 1959, my Dad bought it when that house was sold to make room for a Big Bear grocery story in downtown Kent.
One of my first memories is of that barn traveling slowly down 4th Avenue to our house on 4th and Crow Street. I was about five, and actually remember that I was watching Howdy Doody on TV when the barn came into sight. It became my dad's workshop, and my Webelo group's meeting room. We made root beer and soap in there, and my dad and his pals cooked up their batches of home brew there. It was also lapidary central, where my father polished and cut the rocks and gems we found on our various rock knocker/pebble puppy trips and expeditions--obsidian, moss agates, jasper, opalized cypress wood, jade, morrisonite, fossils, and other rocks we found and dug up. He built at least three dinghys in there with his friends, as well as our home-made camper, my pinewood derby cars, cub scout genius kit constructions, and many other projects. My father would die in the garage, not totally unexpectedly, of heart failure, in 1964, a few months after JFK expired. It was moving, but not sad, to see it come down today.
Like a lot of barns you see as you travel in the hinterlands, it was not a beefy structure, and like many of those barns you see, it began to sag and lean in the last few years. I tried to find someone who wanted to recycle all that fine 100 year old shiplap and first growth beams and timbers, but I could find no takers. So, alas, we had to have it taken down. My brother Guy shot this video of the first moments of the demolition. And so it goes. . .
---o0o---
Friday, June 01, 2012
ObamaCare -- The outsource shocker: Tijuana dentures, Bulgarian kidneys, Albanian hips, and Guatemalan rest homes
By Pablo Fanque, All This Is That Medical Editor
In recent conversations, well-placed senior administration officials told All This Is That that the health care plan championed by President Obama and the Democratic leadership includes little-known provisions for outsourcing surgeries and medical procedures. One official told me "Let's say you need false teeth, uh...dentures. We can get this work done for you in Tijuana for less than half what it would cost anywhere in the states. And that's after adding in plane fares, meals and a couple of nights in a hotel."
Several independent sources revealed to Mona Goldwater, in the course of fact checking this article, that the U.S. government has already contracted for outsourced medical services in at least seven foreign countries. In some cases, the U.S. Government has purchased or leased land, and is breaking ground on a series of medical facilities in "medical outsource partner countries."
As one government health services analyst on Capitol Hill told me, "Change. And you guys thought we were bulls***ing, didn't you?"
In recent conversations, well-placed senior administration officials told All This Is That that the health care plan championed by President Obama and the Democratic leadership includes little-known provisions for outsourcing surgeries and medical procedures. One official told me "Let's say you need false teeth, uh...dentures. We can get this work done for you in Tijuana for less than half what it would cost anywhere in the states. And that's after adding in plane fares, meals and a couple of nights in a hotel."
Several independent sources revealed to Mona Goldwater, in the course of fact checking this article, that the U.S. government has already contracted for outsourced medical services in at least seven foreign countries. In some cases, the U.S. Government has purchased or leased land, and is breaking ground on a series of medical facilities in "medical outsource partner countries."
Prospective plans include, but are not limited to, outsourcing kidney and liver procedures to Bulgaria, knee- and hip-replacements to Albania, dental work to Mexico, and reproductive services to Yemen. The most potentially explosive outsourcing initiative involves exporting virtually all geriatric, rehabilitation, and rest home care to Guatemala, where per-patient costs are a fraction of those in the United States.
As one government health services analyst on Capitol Hill told me, "Change. And you guys thought we were bulls***ing, didn't you?"
---o0o---
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Mitt Romney takes one more courageous stand
By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
(Reuters) -"Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney chose Veterans Day to proclaim to the American people his conviction that the world is a dangerous place, and the United States must remain its most formidable military power." OK. And how is this different from every other Presidential candidate of any party in the last fifty years? Except for a few random dingbats and Ron Paul, Dick Gregory, and The Greens, this is what every single politician says, and, except for a few extreme cynics, actually believes.
I have to say it again--I think Mitt Romney is probably the most charmless Republican candidate I remember in my lifetime, and in recent memory, only Steve Forbes comes close. And that list includes Dick Nixon, 41 and 43, David Duke, and a whole raft of other cretins, pinheads, charlatans, and mountebanks.
(Reuters) -"Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney chose Veterans Day to proclaim to the American people his conviction that the world is a dangerous place, and the United States must remain its most formidable military power." OK. And how is this different from every other Presidential candidate of any party in the last fifty years? Except for a few random dingbats and Ron Paul, Dick Gregory, and The Greens, this is what every single politician says, and, except for a few extreme cynics, actually believes.
I have to say it again--I think Mitt Romney is probably the most charmless Republican candidate I remember in my lifetime, and in recent memory, only Steve Forbes comes close. And that list includes Dick Nixon, 41 and 43, David Duke, and a whole raft of other cretins, pinheads, charlatans, and mountebanks.
---o0o---
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Revisiting The Rapture, A Year Later
by Jack Brummet, Apocalypse & End Times Editor
A little over a year ago, some of us were bracing for The Rapture. I did a series of drawings/collages for about a week before and after The Rapture, which either never happened or was far more subtle that we'd been expecting. . .
Here was my take on The Rapture:
A little over a year ago, some of us were bracing for The Rapture. I did a series of drawings/collages for about a week before and after The Rapture, which either never happened or was far more subtle that we'd been expecting. . .
Here was my take on The Rapture:
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Middle Finger roundup for May (including Anthony Bourdain, Andy Warhol, Ashton Kutcher, Kathy Griffin, Vince Neill, Mr. Rogers, and a host of unknowns)
By Mona Goldwater, Signs, Symbols, & Gestures Editor
Our latest release of middle finger images sent in by our readers. Send us your fingers!
Our latest release of middle finger images sent in by our readers. Send us your fingers!
Anthony Bordain
interspecies middle finger
Vince Neil
an arrestee
Ashton Kutcher
Kathy Griffin
Mister Rogers
Australian fellas
The famous finger in a protest march. This was a ubiquitous poster in the
60's and 70's, hanging in just about every dorm room and bedroom I visited.
Shaft. John Shaft.
Andy Warhol
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