The San Francisco Citizen

Aging veteran Thomas Sakamoto was honored at the Presidio Saturday for his labors during World War II and beyond. This is how it looked at the ceremony on Mason Street in front of Building 640, originally built as a 10,000 square foot aircraft hangar.

Colonel Sakamoto listens to Consul General Yasumasa Nagamine, who represents Japan in San Francisco and Northern California. “This is a history all of us must know.”  Click to expand:

Presidio Trust Executive Director Craig Middleton spoke about the ongoing project to fix up the historic building. ”Let’s get this done.”

The mise-en-scene:

A sign from 1942:

Read on for more details of the day.

(more…)

Or, How the Examiner Embarrasses Itself With Japanese Water Car Story.

Now, over at the Denver Green Living Examiner, writer “Linnae Selinga-Puyear” has this bit called “How Dasani, Fuji and Evian will replace Exxon, BP and Shell.” (Of course she probably means Fiji Water and not Fuji, but let’s not dwell on that as it’s probably equally stupid to get your drinking water either from the slopes of Mount Fuji or from the South Pacific.)

As stated before, you can use water to make a car go down the road, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s powered by water. If the Genepax company in Osaka, Japan were claiming something along the lines of cold fusion, then there’d be a chance they might actually have something.

Is this a real Japanese Water Car?

It must be tough to come up with “something green” on a regular basis for today’s demanding readers. Even if you’re sort of joking around, you’ve got to try harder to show you don’t believe in fairy tales. Especially automotive-related fairy tales in the age of $5 per gallon gasoline.

Don’t you think?  

When you’re selling your Japanese sword on the streets of San Francisco, always demand cash payment.

It’s better all around.