Street Fashions in Tokyo

If you are not in Japan, more precisely in Tokyo, how can you know what’s going on? I have a simple answer to that question - fashion photos from the streets of Tokyo.  Each season those styles change, subcultures come and go and brands are born and gone. In a fast moving fashion town like Tokyo, trends may be gone by the time you read about them. Check these pictures to see the latest trends and trend-busters in Harajuku, Shibuya, and beyond.

Kids will be kids.  Shop til they drop and strive to be the coolest.

The history of the United States is complex and very diverse.  Many movements and associations came into being.  Some stayed and became prominent institutions, others faded away.  One that faded away, thankfully, was the German American Bund.

The German American Bund or German American Federation (German: Amerikadeutscher Bund) was an American Nazi organization established in the 1930s. Its main goal was to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany.

Bund march Manhattan 1939

In December 1935 Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess ordered all German citizens leave the Friends of New Germany (FOTNG), while also recalling all the group’s leaders to Germany.  In March 1936, the German American Bund (AV) was established as a follow-up organisation for the FOTNG in Buffalo, New York.  It elected a German-born American citizen Fritz Julius Kuhn, a veteran of the Bavarian infantry during World War I.

Fritz Kuhn on left

 The Bund was one of several German-American heritage groups; however, it was one of the few to express National Socialist ideals. As a result, many considered the group anti-American. In the last week of December 1942, led by journalist Dorothy Thompson, fifty leading German-Americans including Babe Ruth signed a “Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry” condemning Nazism, which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers. In 1939, a New York tax investigation determined Kuhn had embezzled money from the Bund. The Bund operated on the theory that the leader’s powers were absolute, and therefore did not seek prosecution. However, in an attempt to cripple the Bund, the New York district attorney prosecuted Kuhn. New Bund leaders would replace Kuhn, most notably with Wilhelm Kunze, but these were only brief stints. Martin Dies and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) were very active in denying any Nazi-sympathetic organization the ability to freely operate during World War II.

No, this is not Berlin. Rally in Madison Square Garden 1939.

 No, this is not Nuremberg.  This is Chicago 1936.  A Nazi youth rally.

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Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are engaged in a battle for leadership of the Republican party in the United States.  This circus prance could go on until the end of June.  Then the big ring around the rosie, the Presidential campaign starts, this will go on for another five months.  Perpetual election campaigns.

If anyone wants more information on this phenomenon just tune into CNN.  This news channel has 24/7 coverage of this never ending story.

One pundit said Newt Gingrich doesn’t have just skeletons in his closet, he has a cemetery.

CNN’s off-beat news reporter Jeanne Moos gets caught up in a satirical Canadian political video.

The 2012 Winnipeg river skating trail has been shifted to the Red River from the Assiniboine River this year.  The unusually mild temperatures have caused thin ice on the Assiniboine.  The river levels are also very low.  In the middle of January there is open water on both rivers, unheard of!

Open water under the Main street bridge on the Assiniboine.

The skating rinks at the Forks by the train bridge.  Those boxcars must have been built-in the 1950′s.

The start of the skating trail on the northeast side of the Norwood Bridge.  More open water in the distance.

The view of the trail on the other side of the bridge.  It appears to go on forever.  A person could go for a never-ending skate. A guy would have to take a taxi back as exhaustion could kick in.

‘Calamita Cosmica’ (Cosmic Magnet in English) is a 28 meter long sculpture of a human skeleton created by Italian artist Gino De Dominicis and is on display at the Museo Nazionale della Arti del XXI Secolo – MAXXI museum of contemporary art in Rome, Italy. Except for the strange long nose, is a perfect scaled model of the human skeleton.

Before Calamita Cosmica settled at the MAXXI, it toured Europe for a number of years visiting places such as Versailles, Naples, and Milan. The Giant was first unveiled in 1990 at Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Grenoble, France. Thereafter in 1996 it moved to the courtyard of the Palace of Capodimonte, Naples. In 2005 it was at display at Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Italy – the home town of the artist. In early 2007 it moved to Palazzo Reale at Milan and after few months it landed in Versailles at ‘Parterre d’Eau’, in front of the facade of the Versailles Chateau. Thereafter in 2008 it was at display at Musée des Arts Contemporains, Hornu, Belgium. After the display in Belgium it was moved to Rome, where it currently resides.

The NHL All-Star game is one of the most useless concepts ever devised by a human being.  It is a complete waste of time and energy.  The players move at less than half speed and they don’t touch each other.  There is no defence, no checking and definitely no rough stuff.  It is like watching paint dry.

Back in the sixties and seventies there would be fights between players during the game.  And the intensity was almost the same as during the regular season.  But in the last while the game has devolved into a corporate promotional event.  The sport has been taken out of it.  It is all about advertising.  There really is no use for this game.

It does raise some revenue for charity which is good.  But watching those players skate around at 35% and not going into the corners is very funny, and I would say quite disgusting.  The Ice Capades are more dangerous than this sorry excuse for a professional sports game.

And the format for the picking of teams is asinine.  Whoever thought this one up should be deported to Nunavut. During the 2010-2011 season, the NHL announced a change to the way the teams were selected, modeled after drafts in fantasy sports. The conference vs conference (East vs West) approach was replaced by a player draft, conducted by the All-Star players themselves, to determine the rosters for each team. The captains for each team now select players from a combined pool of both fan balloting and the NHL Hockey Operations Department. The change in format was a joint effort by the League and the National Hockey League Players Association.

And the brain trust that thought up this years game entertainment brought in a Homie from the Hood to Rap during the second intermission.  This Hip Hopper was from some giant U.S. city.  The game this year was held in Ottawa.  Tickets for the game were too expensive for young Rap fans.  So this guy was Rapping to white middle-aged suburbanites.  Go figure.

Wow, 34′, 80 mph, 900hp, 6 machine guns, $600,000. Texas knows how to make a proper police boat.