It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Quintessence of Man II

I feel it only appropriate on the 25th day of March, being our shared day of birth, to honour this young Irish soldier who came to America to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and continuing his service with the military after the war, died in the Battle of Little Bighorn. Intrigued? Visit http://www.myleskeogh.org/ for a remarkable history. May he someday come charging out from the "glorious" shadow cast by George Armstrong Custer.

The Quintessence of Man

Honesty
Integrity
Compassion
Kindness
Loyalty
Thoughtfulness
Courage
Respect
Honour

(which at any given time, due to human frailty, may be summarily destroyed by: Greed, Vanity, Intolerance and the clincher - Deceit)

I am Canadian

You are ten years old and were born in the country in which you live, but your parents were born somewhere else. They have lived in this country for three decades, and have become citizens in this country. It is home. War breaks out on another continent, and the country which used to be your parents' home enters the war, on the wrong side. You and your kind are deemed to be a threat to national security, so the authorities take away fishing boats, property, homes, livelihoods, etc. and you and thousands of your kind are rounded up, detained in livestock stalls, and then sent to "internment camps" in different areas of the interior. Your movements have been monitored, your mail is being censored, and you aren't allowed to have a radio because it might be used to communicate with the enemy. The war ends, and your family has the option of moving farther east in this country or being deported to a country that is no longer their home.

That was close to 65 years ago, and I don't believe kids learn about it in school, and no one ever talks about it. So.... who were those people? and why did they come back?

I was born in this great country, as were my parents, but my grandparents were not. I am Canadian damn it, I just happen to look Japanese.

How sad is this

You have read my welcome, and now I have to say "how sad is this?" - I have been reading other people's blogs. So there you have it, I have done both the "sad" and the "more sad". In my defense I have to add that I skip a lot of them and read the ones that make me laugh, which I don't do a whole heck of a lot.

Let me add

If you read my Welcome, I did say that I would endeavour not to write about my personal life. This should be simple for the fact that I do not have one. However, the difficulty therein lies in the fact that I have a tendency to feel it necessary to justify my actions or words, and to explain why I have done or said certain things. The crux of the matter is that one cannot justify or explain things without revealing some tidbit of oneself or one's personal life.

Inaugural blog

In this, my inaugural blog, I decided to start off with a story from one of the books that I have sitting around, which goes as follows:

Two monks were once travelling down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming around the bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.
"Come on girl," said the first monk. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
The second monk did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he said. "It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"
"I left the girl there," the first monk said. "Are you still carrying her?"

My question, which you must answer without thinking - Are you the first monk or second?