In Several Generations, My Family Will Be White!

In 2 or more generations, the Chikamori family will end up hakujin (white). You won't be able to tell us apart from the average Joe Smith running around Canada. That's provided my sons do not marry a Japanese girl to preserve the Asian-ness of the family name. My daughter Storm will end up making her own family with a man and become a part of their family whether she marries a Japanese man or someone from a different race. Am I one to dictate who they marry? No, I am not. The Chikamori family may be an old Japanese name, one of the more uncommon ones and one that has prided itself on staying relatively homogenized in Japan, however time marches on and as such we evolve into a more blended family (at least in Canada and the United States)

How does it make me feel? Well...the maternal (my estranged mother) side of this family (the Mimoto end) went through the internment. It pretty much destroyed the cohesiveness of the Japanese-Canadian community. The general concensus of the Japanese-Canadian population was to assimilate fully into Canadian society and that meant "intermarriage": that way, they would never be hurt again. As the first blended generation of my family - as a sansei, who married a young woman of Irish-Italian descent, having had four children, it has been an eye-opening experience. My kids look hapa, though they overwhelmingly bear a marked appearance to me, their skin tone is much lighter. Whereas I am a rich beige in skin coloring, my kids share their skin-tone coloring with my wife. Their facial bone-structure is similar to mine. Their eyes are much like mine, but their eye-shade is much lighter. My daughter's eye color is hazel where as mine is a dark, dark brown almost obsidian black.

So how do we preserve our Japanese culture while living in Canada? That's the hard question. Of particular note, since Pauline Marois' legislation in Quebec (which got soundly rejected with the defeat of her Parti Quebecois in the Quebec by-election by the Quebec Liberals which formed a majority government), culture has been a hot-topic recently. And it is a hotbed of resentment between all involved in cultural preservation. Simply put, there is no Canadian culture, per se. North America, frankly is a land of immigrants. What culture is present was brought over over 400 years ago. The Voyageur culture was brought over from France. The English-speaking populace's culture was brought over from Britain, Ireland and other Celtic countries. And each culture that has come over since has brought over their own brand of culture and all of that mixed together with a bit of sugar and salt makes up what passes for Canadian culture as a great big mixed pot of goulash (sorry, Hungarians!). So we as a mixed family have to preserve our Japanese culture by participating when we can, in the Powell Street Festival; by hanging out at the Nikkei Cultural Center in Burnaby, BC. (or in Toronto if you live in that area) and/or making sure that holiday customs are celebrated in our home. To preserve the Japanese-Canadian culture, you have to be a part of the Japanese-Canadian community; to make a connection to those who do remember the cultural values brought over from the old country.

So as far as my opinion is concerned - Do I care that my family will end up looking entirely white in several generations down the road? The answer to that would be a resounding no. The only thing I care about is that they remember where their roots came from. Embrace the future, but remember your past. And as far as the injustices were concerned with respects to the Internment, during the Second World War? Shikata ga nai. There is no positive ending to making noise about the Internment. Deru kugi wa tatakeru.

Bald Eagles: "Don't Call Us American!"

North American Bald Eagles are incensed to be called American Bald Eagles. "We have no partisanship" says one Bald Eagle named Harry, who lives in Serpentine Fen. "It's a case of the United States thinking that they have ownership over us. Next thing they'll do is imply that we are part of their tax base. How do you put a figure on the number of rats and the latest dead carcass that we consume and what sort of tax form do I fill out and send in? Hell, I don't even have fingers, damn it!?" He looked off to the side and gave me a gimlet stare with one of his eyes "I'm sorry, but I'm Canadian. I was born and raised in Serpentine Fen and haven't ever been across the border. I have no idea why the United States would think that I'm part of their own and pay taxes to the IRS? That's absolutely f*ng ridiculous!" At that Harry gives off a resounding snap of his beak in annoyance.

Harry looks over at the Canada Geese milling around aimlessly on the pond a few meters over. "Snowbirds" he mutters disgustedly. "The IRS should take a look at those bastards. They spend six months out of the year in the United States munching on US resources, flying in US skies. Hell they even down US planes for heaven's sake. At least they're using resources in the United States. We don't use a single piece of vermin in the US and we get taxed. We hunt, kill and feed our young all up here in Canada. Our lives are spent up here and the United States wants to tax us? Are they kidding me? I talked about it with Ma and Pa in White Rock and Mom n'Pop in Green Timbers, y'know, friends of mine, and they're telling me that extraterritorial taxation is a crock of shit. Hell, I'm not going to pay it." Harry says. "It's not a fair tax and Obama can go kiss my feathered ass!"

Harry snorted contemptuously as he looked around trying to see if there were any crows present. "Those bastards will rat you out." he said. "You hear about that amnesty program, called OVDP?" he said with a disgusted look "One of my buddies over by the Delta Dump went into that. He got taken for a ride. They wanted tax returns from 6 years back and to admit that he was guilty of tax fraud because he didn't claim 66,000 rats taken last year. He didn't know he was supposed file that stupid piece of paper called an FBAR."

"Lil' Chucky", Harry grumbled. "He got away with his villa in the Dominican Republic.", "James..." he said. "...the list goes on. These bastards get to shill for the tax paying public and get away scot free when they evade taxes. It's a mother lode of bullshit." Harry said as he preened his feathers. "And they're coming after the small guys like us. Well...I can't wait until I get classified as a Canadian Bald Eagle..." he paused for a moment.

"Well...did you know that Canada signed an IGA with the United States on February 5th, 2014?" I asked him.

"Bloody Fucking Hell!!" Harry swore vehemently. "Maybe I need to ask my friend Boris, he's a Eurasian golden eagle, if he's got a place I can crash at for the next forty years."

Anti-American and Damned Proud of It.

I'm tired of hearing American apologists saying that "we are so lucky that the United States is our friend". Yeah, well, what friend extorts 30% out of Canada's banks and then tries to mask that as going after tax cheats?. What "friend" goes into Afghanistan and Iraq as a masquerade for going after non-existent weapons of mass destruction then conducts a regime change in Iraq? What "friend" enacts extra-territorial laws against other countries in the world not respecting the fact that other countries have privacy laws? What "friend" is an enemy of most other countries in the world.

Canada on February 5th, 2014 surrendered their sovereignty to the United States in the American's attempts to find "tax cheats" which are laughing uproariously at the fact that the IRS has diverted attention from them to expatriates in foreign countries tarring them as "not pulling their weight". In fact frankly, why should they? Expats pay taxes in their own country of residence usually at rates higher than in the United States. They also get no benefits from the country of their birth. There is no consulate protection. All of the rhetoric coming from US government financial entities is unadulterated bullshit. Expats are considered resident in Washington DC? Well, where are the rent receipts and tax forms utilized to determine residency? What the United States is doing is creating phantom citizens to pad their tax base. The United States is a tax-and punish society.

...which is incredibly hypocritical of them as the formation of their country was formed on seceding from Great Britain under protest for "unfair taxation" and now they have become the epitome of "unfair taxation".

Now the United States is telling Russia that they are impeding on Ukraine's sovereign right to govern themselves. Well, they're the world's biggest hypocrite in enacting financial laws that are extraterritorial (and usually unenforceable outside of the good ol' US of A), but because of America's military might and nuclear weapons - the unspoken threat, those laws were rammed through at the barrel of a gun. And they're considering sending in the USS George Washington battle group to make their point about Russia being an abusive power. What the United States is doing is making steps to starting a war that they cannot win. At what point will Russia resort to using nuclear weapons? At what point will the United States retaliate with the same? Then we'll all have other things to worry about than FATCA going through.

The US is nobody's friend. And the United States' behavior as of recent is like a rabid dog. And rabid dogs need to be put down with due prejudice. Time to start digging your bomb shelters.

Ashley Wagner Face - Tanki!

Yes, as you can tell, my new addition is Tanki. As a matter of fact. since my last post, I have leveled up two ranks to Sergeant-Major from Master Sergeant. And considering some of the wonderful expressions out of Ashley Wagner from the 2014 Sochi Olympics, we now have a new Meme - the Ashley Wagner Face.

Yep, her expressions say it all.

Tanki - An Addictively Fun Game.

There is this game that my sons have introduced me to. A first person shooter game involving tanks created by the Russians called "Tanki". Simple controls, space bar to shoot and a ton of people playing this MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game. It's addictively fun to upgrade your tank (the reason for collecting crystals - the currency in this game) and seeing just how effective your tank is in different scenarios (battles). There's a variety of different locations that you can battle in. My favorites being Serpuhov and Highland. There are others including an insanely fun battleground aptly named Madness (a stuck in space battleground) where you hurl yourself off the highest point and tumble (hoping to heck through God and Superior Firepower) that you can land on your treads and continue in the game, most of the time you land on your back (turtled) and have to hit delete to self-destruct). You also upgrade through different ranks (and each leveling up affects how many crystals you get. The higher rank you are, the more crystals you can get. You also get a certain number of XP (how much XP you have is how you level up) for killing opponents (a lower amount for killing someone lower rank than you, a higher XP value is assigned when you kill someone that ranks higher than you in the game.

This game is insanely fun and absolutely a hit to play. My sons are addicted to the game and thanks to them, now I am too.

If you want to play a game that's fun and addictive, come on and join us...at Tanki Online. And prepare to have a BLAST of a time. Добро пожаловать в России, товарищ!

'Murrica...FUCK YOU!

I used to be a big U.S. apologist. I had bought into their war on terror and the fact that George W. Bush was going after the "bad guys" and that Canada should help. Well, this viewpoint has changed considerably since my family came under attack from FATCA. I will forgive most anything, but I will not forgive an all-out attack on my family be it physical or financial. Therein lies the reasoning for my switch from being a US apologist to an outright US enemy.

When the United States instituted FATCA, they waged economic warfare on my family. My wife is the big earner in the family and unfortunately, unwittingly, she is the Trojan horse that allows the US to scrutinize our financial dealings. My photography only makes enough to get by if that. I have a bad back from falling down a set of stairs thanks to my mother not maintaining them. So, I do what I can under the physical limitations of my back. I do not collect welfare, I depend on my photography to carry me through.

Our children hold US indicia through her, whether they've opted to go American or not; which they haven't. We haven't even informed the US consulate of their birth and have no intention of doing so. And my oldest son has the intention of renouncing his US citizenship when he reaches the age of 18 which is in 7 years. Which means Uncle Sam has their claws in the majority of my family.

Peter W. Dunn of The Isaac Brock Society said it most succinctly and accurately that Canadians being taxed by Uncle Sam is a human rights crime. His quote: "Many Homelanders are a special breed of bigot who believe that you live abroad so that you can shirk your responsibility to pay for their Social Security, their Food Stamps, their welfare, and their wars across the globe" is exactly it. Homelanders keep hollering about "paying your fair share". What is fair share when you aren't represented in government? What is fair share when you cannot partake of the benefits (welfare, medicaid, unemployment insurance...etc) allowed to all Homelanders? What is fair share when we do not use their infrastructure? Should we have to pay the way of illegal aliens as well as career welfare recipients? Is it because the United States wishes to tax their expatriate indicia just for the simple fact that they carry a blue passport with an American Eagle on the face? Because a tax rate of 29% and fines of over 300% for not filing a stupid piece of paper is quite a steep rate for a little booklet and frankly not worth it in my books.

As of this year alone, the US renunciation rate has gone up 222% in the last quarter of 2013 and Americans are starting to get a bit concerned, but they still have the mindset of "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" or "Murrica, Fuck Yeah!". There is a note of exceptionalism and superiority with every "homelander" remark that they make about having to "defend the world" (when in actual fact, they stick their noses in everyone else's business even when they aren't supposed to) and "time for those who ride on America's coattails to pay up".

It's not a matter of US exceptionalism any longer. The rest of the world with the exception of a two bit banana republic called Eritrea, taxes their citizens based on residency and not citizenship. Even Russia, a hold out, folded their citizenship taxation when the Iron Curtain fell in 1991. So the United States, a nation 17 trillion dollars in debt holds company with a two bit dictatorship in Africa while the rest of the world tries to tax their citizenry fairly.

But rest assured my diatribe does not single out the US alone. My enmity is for all those nations who capitulated and signed a pact with the devil himself, Uncle Sam. All the nations who willingly threw their citizens under the bus just because they held US citizenship (1/2 of a dual citizenship) are contemptible. Canada recently on February 5, 2014 signed an FATCA IGA and threw 1+ million (5 million or more if you count all those affected) US indicated individuals (Canadian citizens or those who are permanent residents and are seeking Canadian citizenship) under the bus. The Stephen Harper government did an end-run around the Privacy Act and made the banks reportable to the CRA (which has now become an arm of the IRS). Harper and his Tory cronies decided to sell-out Canada's sovereignty and tried to make Canada a territory of the United States. To this Canadian, the Tories are traitors to Canada and should be imprisoned for life. In fact, I doubt with the exception of Murray Rankin, Elizabeth May, Alex Atamenenko and Linda Duncan there is a politician in Canada that will stand up to and reject FATCA. What the world needs now is a nation with the backbone to stand up to the United States - a nation that is willing to tell the United States where to go and have the might to back it up.

All malicious empires have their Achilles heel. It's just a matter of finding where the United States' Achilles Heel is. This attack on innocent expatriates of every nationality just because of US indicia should not be tolerated by any nation.

Two Types of Asshole Drivers!!!

As I've said before in another post...I fucking hate tailgaters.

There seems to be two kinds of drivers in British Columbia that seem to piss most rational drivers off and there are VERY few of the rational drivers out there - they're about as rare as hen's teeth. In fact if you think that you're a rational driver, chances are; you're probably not. I'll absolutely 100% guarantee that you will fall within either one of the following categories.

#1) The "I Don't Know What The Fuck I'm Doing Behind The Wheel": (aka Richmond Driver, Asian Driver, Granny/Granpa): can be of any race or creed and can be of any age. These are the drivers who I call terminally stupid simply because they seem to lose their cognitive function when they get behind the wheel. - These are the idiots that will cut across two lanes to make a left or right turn because they didn't use enough foresight to think far enough ahead to make the lane changes prior to reaching the intersection. Or the idiot that can't seem to decide where he's going to turn and keeps going for five or six blocks with the signal light still on.

#2) The Over-Aggressive Jack-Ass: This encompasses road-ragers, tailgaters, speed-demons, Impatient Peters (I'll resist calling them "DICKS") and others of that ilk. These psychopaths have no regard for any safety measures, regularly flout speed limits as demeaning to their supposed "skill level", abuse other drivers and routinely cause havoc on British Columbia Roads as well as accidents.

There is a scarier driver than the Over Aggressive Jack-Ass and that's the IDKWTFIDBTW&OAJA combination. The Over Aggressive Jack-Ass "I Don't Know What The Fuck I'm Doing Behind The Wheel" combo is the type that you constantly see on driver forums touting their "supposed skill"; flaunting their mounds of speeding tickets and generally saying that they know how to handle their car. If they did know how to handle their car, they'd be driving in a calm rational manner, wouldn't they and their driving records would show it. These are also the ones thinking that they're an amateur road engineer or speed technician citing bullshit out their ears just because they haven't wrecked their car in three years though compiling an impressive list of near-misses. They're usually between 16 and 30 (though there is really no hard-line age-limit with this sub-type) and haven't had a rational road-safety thought in years. Their road skills amount to: hit the gas pedal and hope to hell they don't hit anything between Point A and Point B. These people are the reason why our insurance levels rise substantially over the years.

Most rational drivers have over 20+ years of Road-Star (with no claims in the past 10 years). If you are under 25 - you don't know what the fuck you're doing, you haven't developed enough skill behind the wheel yet. It doesn't matter what ICBC does, what will matter is when they start taking #1 and #2 and subtype #1&2 off the road. If ICBC does that, then the chance of accidents will go absolutely way down...mainly because the roads would be damned near empty. Ah... what a paradise that would be.

...if it weren't for civil liberties groups; but that's another rant for another time...