Beef and Tofu

Beef and tofu with vegetables. Seasoned with sugar and soy sauce. Tofu, processed through cotton filter, is rich with protein, calcium and fiber. This dish is a simplified Sukiyaki. Tofu absorbs the taste or the umami of beef. 

Simple, nutrient rich and also economical! Good for elderly.

I am starting farming. Surprised to see how expensive the seeds of vegetables are now. Have ordered a couple of Tomato seed packs, which cost 14 USD. Most of them are imports from oversea. Farming materials are also mostly imported. The biggest trading partner is China. I am afraid the vegetables will get more expensive very soon. Only few japanese people are aware of that. I will take the seeds from the matured vegetables this year.  

Apres un Reve performed by Sol Gabetta and Bruno Fontaine

This lovely piece arranged by Casals from a Faure's song has been one of my favorites since young days. I have written about it for a few times quoting excllent renditions. 

This one by Sol Gabetta and Bruno Fontaine also attracted me so much. Gabetta plays it with beautiful and neat phrasing as usual. The piano part is playing mostly chords in eighth note all the way through. Very simple on the score. However, there are still a lot of agogique since it is originally a song. It might be a matter of common sense for such professional players but they, especially the pianist, are making perfect ensemble. That agogique is just for artistic expression like breathing in song. I remember music is originated from song whatever the genre it might be. Breathing is a basic characteristic of life. Breathing together in ensemble of music gives us the pleasure of living together.

I have missed all the chances for ensemble. Given my arms are getting better with possibly ulnar nerve trouble, I would try to play cello again. What pleasure of sense of existence I have been given in ensembles in the past. I am full of thanks to the company, especially, the violinist who has played together with me for almost 3 decades. 
 

Snowfall

It has snowed a lot yesterday. This amount of snowfall rarely occurs here. In northern areas, they have had too much snow and 45 people were killed in accidents due to snowfall yesterday.  Until the end of next month, we might have massive snowfall for a few more times. Yes, massive only in our standard.

Ume flowers seem to be ready to come out. It means spring is not too far from now. I should prepare planting such as potatoes and other spring vegetables. Hilling the farm with compost plowed into the ridges.

Winter won't last long. We should get ready for spring.

 

Prof Isoyama's memorial day A concert of a high school alumni orchestra 26 years ago

Yesterday, 8 years ago, Prof. Isoyama has been fatally injured falling on an icy road on the way back home from a chorus competetion working as a judge in suburb of Tokyo. It was so snowy as today. A couple of weeks later, he has died. He must be 72 years of age and had made excellent works on J.S.Bach. A week or two before that accident, he has published the dissertation on Johannes Passion which was credited the doctorate later.

I have been greatly influenced by his another book on Matthew's Passion, which I repeatedly read from time to time. Other than reading his books and attending a concert of Matthew's Passion in Toyama where he gave a short lecture before the performance, all I have known his activities was through his blog. I knew of his serious injury and consequent death from the news his disciple made there. Almost all of these topics have been written here in the previous posts like this;

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/229771691402494724/5236348433992853847

I have mentioned of his high school in Nagano and possible relationship with the orchestra of that school, even though I have not definite evidence showing it. He seemed to be captivated by classical music, most likelily, J.S.Bach. He has majored in aesthetics at Tokyo University and has become one of the most renowned researcher in Baroque music.

As I told in this blog, it has been one of the sweetest memories that I was invited to a concert of the high school alumni orchestra by a friend of mine 26 years ago. I also mentioned about her a few times as a chamber music company since med school days. The concert master has turned out to be the husband of a violist at the university orchestra whom I had known quite well. Ever since, I have exchanged the season's postcard every year, even though I have had no chance to see her in person. At this alumni orchestra, we have played the pieces of Faure and parts of Messiah together with chorus. Achievement with the music as well as reunion with old friends or seeing new friends was an extrordinarily pleasant gift to me.

Later, I knew of Prof Isoyama having graduated from the high school and possibly related with this music circle. I could not help feeling there is such mysterious relationship with all of them. I wonder if Prof Isoyama has been contented with what ha had made when he was leaving the earth.  

Among the jungle of files in this computer, I accidentaly found this photo of the concert. I was on the 3rd pult of audience side in the cello part. 

 

Reason why head copy is recommended in reception of Morse Code

Away from operating CW for some time, I might seem to have lost interests in it. No way. That hobby still resides deep in my mind. Whenever anything happens or come in sight  regarding it, I always pay attention to it. It may not be changed until I leave this earth. 

Enough about self-telling. While I was reading on generative grammar and related brain science, I happened to meet an interesting finding. 

As I iriterated in this  blog, head copying of CW is indesipensible for real communication on CW like conversation. One reason is that our working memory could handle only 5 to 7 things at a time. If we try to remember all the characters flowing in a CW message, we tend to forget those sent prior to 5 or 7 characters before. Then we grind to write down all the characters, that is, hand writing copy. It is quite different from conversational CW and hinder the latter.  

We should not write down or not try to remember the characters being sent but should try to understand what the words/sentences the message brings mean. That is the essence of head copy. The finding on brain mapping for linguistic activities tells a particular area named pars orbitalis of inferior frontal gyrus responsible for handling sentences different from the center for words, irrespective mode is concerned. In practising head copying, this area must be activated and trained. From this finding, we could tell not to copy words basis but do with what sentences are meaning. It is much easier to copy and gives us pleasure when our expectation for the following is correct.

This finding with fMRI, a kind of brain mapping, excited me a little bit. Morse code, the simplest mode of communication, could be a tool to investigate our cognitive process in epistemology, even though it is not a spontaneous languag without its unique syntax. 

Since the scientific methods like fMRI, PET or procedures of transcutaneous magnetic stimularion or of intrinsic optial signal are applied to research in mapping and functions of lingistics, there are numerous new findings accumulated. But because of limits in accuracy in location and timing, it is far from understanding in neuron level. It is still fascinating to know any new findings in this area.     

An old postcard to my father in young days

 A photo of an old postcard has been sent to me as a file in an e mail by my brother.

Brother has found it inserted in a book. The postcard is toward my father in Tokyo dated back in 1937 when father was around 20 years old. With the sender's unreadable handwriting, the name is not identifiable. But the content of the mail convinced brother he had been the person whom father had met in Tokyo and had been lead to Christianity by. Having lost his parents early in his life, as brother said, father had tried to study at a prep school and to attend to a higher education in Tokyo. 

The coup d’etat by the young soldiers in Tokyo,  the Feb 26 Incident in 1936, has increased the power of the military in politics. They have surged into the invasion to Manchuria at first and later into the entire China, even though it was destined to be defeated. Father has been swallowed up by the inevitable avalanche into war whatever he might have wanted in his life. He was recruited to the military twice and has spent a few years in China. Although he has not mentioned of his experience so much as a soldier there, he seemed to have seen the dark side of the war. 

From the church, a person, possibly very poor without any family members, has been sent to the sanatorium at this place, as mentioned frequently, my aunt had managed for tuberculosis patients in poverty. Father has visited here to see her for a few times and has seen mother working here. It was after the war when they got married and had a family. Without seeing the person who sent that postcard, father would not have had his family including myself.

As reiterated in this blog, father has been concerned what and who have caused that war which had ruined his youth. He never stopped rebuking any movements toward rearmament and war. I strongly wonder what he would say now since the ultra right PM and her cabinet would be approved in this general election going on now. They predict that in polls conducted recently.  

The person who sent the postcard to my father wrote in it that he would care for his parents and brother. It was from far north Aomori. How has he lived there around WWII? 

Impovertization as well as increased inequality of wealth going on in our country

So far as the wiki explains it, Gini Coefficient(abbreviated as GC) is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the inequalities in income, wealth, consumption within a nation or a social group. It is expressed before and after redistribution of wealth. In no inequality, which is theoretically impossible, GC is 0, while, in only a theoretical situation, all wealth belongs to one person in the community, GC is 1.     　

GC before redistribution of wealth in this country has been steadily increasing since '80s. The most recent data has hit the worst, that is, over 0.6 among the OECD member countries. It has made me so surprised. It might be due to progrss of the population aging and increased contigent employment. The asset bubble in economy also might be a factor for that. The introduction  and gradual increase of the consumption tax, a regressive tax system, might be contributory to it as well.  

Fortunately, GC after redistribution of wealth still remains lower and in the mid range among OECD member countries. It may mean the redistribution of wealth, ths social security and the redistribution of income by taxation, is still functioning in our country. 

We could not be too optimistic for the inequality of economy. In fact, the people is getting generally impoverished in our country. The absurd economic easing since so called Abenomix has caused economic disparity among the people. Now, the government is steadily reducing social security benefits. Together with impoverishment due to inflation without rise in income corresponding to it, reduced social security benefits may result in failure of redistribution of wealth sooner or later. 

One of the imminent, or rather already beginning, problems is the lack of workers of nursing care. We have a public insurance for nursing care. More and more individual payments are required in it. The expenditure for nursing care workers is not abundant to pay the workers enough for specialists. The workeres, either Japanese or those from developing countries, won't continue working long time. The aging is in real fast progress in the society. They assume they could benefit from the long term care public insurance established in 2000. Its benefits have been reduced step by step by the government.  The service supplier system is not going to function soon. The workers for the service is already insufficient in number already.

The general election is going on in our country. They predict the ruling parties would win in it thanks to the reputation of the 1st female prime minister. Only few know what is going on in our country expressed with GC. The society is facing an absolute aging problem with retired people having impovertized with contigent employment throughout their lives.