AMA: Jasmine

[GoCubsGo]

I am from Hawaii. Born and raised here. So were my parents and all my grandparents. I guess their ancestors migrated from Japan at some point.

Are you of Japanese heritage or Polynesian?

[Jasmine]

I am from Hawaii. Born and raised here. So were my parents and all my grandparents. I guess their ancestors migrated from Japan at some point.

Are you of Japanese heritage or Polynesian?

Japanese.

[O Really]

I am from Hawaii. Born and raised here. So were my parents and all my grandparents. I guess their ancestors migrated from Japan at some point.

Are you of Japanese heritage or Polynesian?

Japanese.

So your grandparents might have been abused by the US government during WWII just for the color of their skin and shape of their eyes. I'd think you might be more opposed to discrimination and not support the right to discriminate as you have here from time to time.

[neoplacebo]

Did you have to hide in a storm sewer whnn that false alarm about a missile attack happened a few years ago? And do you think the person responsible for activating the alarm should be fired, honored, or executed?

I actually slept through it. I didn’t know about it until I woke up and browsed through my social media. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had to experience it in “real time.”

The guy should have been fired. I know it was an honest mistake, but he had to be made accountable. He made tens of thousands of people panic and think they were going to die. The governor should have had consequences, too, for allowing so much time to elapse before telling us it was a false alarm.

Good choice. Speaking for myself, I'd much rather die in bed during a nuclear missile attack than in a storm sewer. Besides, the blast might just generate a king hell tsunami that would overwhelm the drainage systems to the point of cracking the goddamn roads above the sewer. Anyway, glad you didn't get wigged out. And as far as I'm concerned, the dipshit who sounded the alarm should be fish slapped in public on Wakiki Beach. Stay out of the sewer and die in bed instead.

I was sleeping when Sept. 11 happened, too.

I am on Eastern time so I was at work when 9/11 happened. I don't remember when (local time) the false alarm missile warning happened; I saw it on ABC news either the same day or the next. I have long suspected that nothing happens while I'm asleep.

[Vrede too]

So your grandparents might have been abused by the US government during WWII just for the color of their skin and shape of their eyes. I'd think you might be more opposed to discrimination and not support the right to discriminate as you have here from time to time.

It probably wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad in Hawaii:

Internment of Japanese Americans

... In Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the territory's population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were incarcerated....

In the 1930s, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), concerned as a result of Imperial Japan's rising military power in Asia, began to conduct surveillance in Japanese American communities in Hawaii. Starting in 1936, at the behest of President Roosevelt, the ONI began to compile a "special list of those Japanese Americans who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the event of trouble" between Japan and the United States. In 1939, again by order of the President, the ONI, Military Intelligence Division, and FBI began working together to compile a larger Custodial Detention Index. Early in 1941, Roosevelt commissioned Curtis Munson to conduct an investigation on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and in Hawaii. After working with FBI and ONI officials and interviewing Japanese Americans and those familiar with them, Munson determined that the "Japanese problem" was nonexistent. His final report to the President, submitted November 7, 1941, "certified a remarkable, even extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group." A subsequent report by Kenneth Ringle (ONI), delivered to the President in January 1942, also found little evidence to support claims of Japanese American disloyalty and argued against mass incarceration.

Largely ignored, except in Hawaii.

... In Hawaii, under the auspices of martial law, both "enemy aliens" and citizens of Japanese and "German" descent were arrested and interned (incarcerated if they were a US citizen)....

Like many white American farmers, the white businessmen of Hawaii had their own motives for determining how to deal with the Japanese Americans, but they opposed their incarceration. Instead, these individuals gained the passage of legislation which enabled them to retain the freedom of the nearly 150,000 Japanese Americans who would have otherwise been sent to concentration camps which were located in Hawaii. As a result, only 1,200 to 1,800 Japanese Americans in Hawaii were incarcerated.

The powerful businessmen of Hawaii concluded that the imprisonment of such a large proportion of the islands' population would adversely affect the economic prosperity of the territory. The Japanese represented "over 90 percent of the carpenters, nearly all of the transportation workers, and a significant portion of the agricultural laborers" on the islands. General Delos Carleton Emmons, the military governor of Hawaii, also argued that Japanese labor was "'absolutely essential' for rebuilding the defenses destroyed at Pearl Harbor." Recognizing the Japanese American community's contribution to the affluence of the Hawaiian economy, General Emmons fought against the incarceration of the Japanese Americans and had the support of most of the businessmen of Hawaii. By comparison, Idaho governor Chase A. Clark, in a Lions Club speech on May 22, 1942, said "Japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats. We don't want them ... permanently located in our state."

... The 100th Infantry Battalion, which was formed in June 1942 with 1,432 men of Japanese descent from the Hawaii National Guard, was sent to Camps McCoy and Shelby for advanced training. Because of the 100th's superior training record, the War Department authorized the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. When the call was made, 10,000 young men from Hawaii volunteered with eventually 2,686 being chosen along with 1,500 from the continental U.S. The 100th Infantry Battalion landed in Salerno, Italy in September 1943 and became known as the Purple Heart Battalion. This legendary outfit was joined by the 442nd RCT in June 1944, and this combined unit became the most highly decorated U.S. military unit of its size and duration in U.S. military history. The 442nd's Nisei segregated field artillery battalion, then on detached service within the U.S. Army in Bavaria, liberated at least one of the satellite labor camps of the Nazis' original Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945, and only days later, on May 2, halted a death march in southern Bavaria.

Hawaii

(more, in detail)

(analysis and aftermath)

[Jasmine]

I am from Hawaii. Born and raised here. So were my parents and all my grandparents. I guess their ancestors migrated from Japan at some point.

Are you of Japanese heritage or Polynesian?

Japanese.

So your grandparents might have been abused by the US government during WWII just for the color of their skin and shape of their eyes. I'd think you might be more opposed to discrimination and not support the right to discriminate as you have here from time to time.

No. My maternal grandpa was a civilian who worked for the army. He says he was always treated well. Any discrimination they faced was more from the general population.

[Jasmine]

Did you have to hide in a storm sewer whnn that false alarm about a missile attack happened a few years ago? And do you think the person responsible for activating the alarm should be fired, honored, or executed?

I actually slept through it. I didn’t know about it until I woke up and browsed through my social media. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had to experience it in “real time.”

The guy should have been fired. I know it was an honest mistake, but he had to be made accountable. He made tens of thousands of people panic and think they were going to die. The governor should have had consequences, too, for allowing so much time to elapse before telling us it was a false alarm.

Good choice. Speaking for myself, I'd much rather die in bed during a nuclear missile attack than in a storm sewer. Besides, the blast might just generate a king hell tsunami that would overwhelm the drainage systems to the point of cracking the goddamn roads above the sewer. Anyway, glad you didn't get wigged out. And as far as I'm concerned, the dipshit who sounded the alarm should be fish slapped in public on Wakiki Beach. Stay out of the sewer and die in bed instead.

I was sleeping when Sept. 11 happened, too.

I am on Eastern time so I was at work when 9/11 happened. I don't remember when (local time) the false alarm missile warning happened; I saw it on ABC news either the same day or the next. I have long suspected that nothing happens while I'm asleep.

Did you get much work done on 9-11? I remember we were all glued to the TV. It was an eerie feeling.

[Vrede too]

Complicated story but I was at the Brasil/Peru/Colombia border, stuck for a day waiting to get a Brasil visa at a Colombian consulate. I got to an outdoor cafe for breakfast in time to see the 2nd plane hit. Folks there expressed sympathy, but also made it clear that they weren't surprised. Neither was I, except by the audacity and skill of the attack. I had a scheduled guided rain forest tour for a couple of hours, but otherwise I watched the Discovery Channel, in English!, in my hotel room all day. It makes for a good story, but it was weird being alone. Otoh, despite being so remote I was more plugged in than some of my Montana friends without TVs. Go figure.

[neoplacebo]

I actually slept through it. I didn’t know about it until I woke up and browsed through my social media. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had to experience it in “real time.”

The guy should have been fired. I know it was an honest mistake, but he had to be made accountable. He made tens of thousands of people panic and think they were going to die. The governor should have had consequences, too, for allowing so much time to elapse before telling us it was a false alarm.

Good choice. Speaking for myself, I'd much rather die in bed during a nuclear missile attack than in a storm sewer. Besides, the blast might just generate a king hell tsunami that would overwhelm the drainage systems to the point of cracking the goddamn roads above the sewer. Anyway, glad you didn't get wigged out. And as far as I'm concerned, the dipshit who sounded the alarm should be fish slapped in public on Wakiki Beach. Stay out of the sewer and die in bed instead.

I was sleeping when Sept. 11 happened, too.

I am on Eastern time so I was at work when 9/11 happened. I don't remember when (local time) the false alarm missile warning happened; I saw it on ABC news either the same day or the next. I have long suspected that nothing happens while I'm asleep.

Did you get much work done on 9-11? I remember we were all glued to the TV. It was an eerie feeling.

Not as much as normal. Me and my immediate boss watched the tv coverage for a couple of hours. And I will admit that my initial thought was thet Israel was behind it as an effort to spur US action against their regional enemies. Turns out I was wrong on the source but the end result was just as I figured. Both Iraq and Afghanistan were a disaster.....Afghanistan should have been a low intensity special forces gig and Iraq never should have happened in the first place.

[O Really]

About a week before 9/11 I had been in NYC meeting our new client, Metro North railroad. Their offices are close to Grand Central, about 5ish miles from WTC. When it became apparent what had happened, I didn't really think too much about my own "close call", which really wouldn't have been all that close anyway in terms of actual danger, but I thought of how normal things had been that week before, and how nothing would ever be the same. About how some events have such an effect that everything in one's life uses them as a landmark. Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination, Watergate, yada. The responses to 9/11 have changed everyone's life in more ways than you'd ever be able to list. And mostly not for the better.

[GoCubsGo]

I was at home working on my kitchen renovation, my wife called me and asked if I heard about a plane crashing into the Tower. I thought small private plane yada....turned on the tube and was on the phone with her when the second plane hit.

Sat transfixed the rest of the day.

Memories of the week included walking the dog and the eerie calm with no airplanes in the sky.

[Jasmine]

Were any of you around when Reagan was shot? What was the mood like then?

I’ve never had a presidential assassination in my lifetime. Trump doesn’t count because he wasn’t president and it was only an attempt. I just wonder what it would be like. Complete turmoil?

[O Really]

I remember Reagan and Brady getting shot but it wasn't nearly as traumatic as JFK or John Lennon. Maybe because he wasn't killed.

[Vrede too]

I remember Reagan and Brady getting shot but it wasn't nearly as traumatic as JFK or John Lennon. Maybe because he wasn't killed.

I was working in the ND oil patch. We heard it on the radio and kept working. Worked the next day as normal, too. Zero turmoil. My workmates didn't like it when I expressed some pleasure, so I bit my tongue after that.

Joke from a friend a couple of years later: Free John Hinckley, give him another shot at the presidency.

[Jasmine]

I remember Reagan and Brady getting shot but it wasn't nearly as traumatic as JFK or John Lennon. Maybe because he wasn't killed.

Speaking of Lennon, here is Howard Costello on MNF announcing the tragic news:

https://youtu.be/n73GFvAyIjs?si=KksjUSxOXmByRNUl

And here a behind-the-scenes snippet of the MNF crew debate whether they should announce the news:

https://youtu.be/ZmiGr0mCnJk?si=Amp4DE5HOOlOdquf

I think they made the right call.

[Supsalemgr]

I remember Reagan and Brady getting shot but it wasn't nearly as traumatic as JFK or John Lennon. Maybe because he wasn't killed.

I agree. It is probably because the seriousness of his injuries were not immediately known.

[GoCubsGo]

I remember Reagan and Brady getting shot but it wasn't nearly as traumatic as JFK or John Lennon. Maybe because he wasn't killed.

Speaking of Lennon, here is Howard Costello on MNF announcing the tragic news:

https://youtu.be/n73GFvAyIjs?si=KksjUSxOXmByRNUl

And here a behind-the-scenes snippet of the MNF crew debate whether they should announce the news:

https://youtu.be/ZmiGr0mCnJk?si=Amp4DE5HOOlOdquf

I think they made the right call.

Howard Costello?

That's an eerily accurate typo.

[Vrede too]

Speaking of Lennon, here is Howard Costello on MNF announcing the tragic news:

https://youtu.be/n73GFvAyIjs?si=KksjUSxOXmByRNUl

And here a behind-the-scenes snippet of the MNF crew debate whether they should announce the news:

https://youtu.be/ZmiGr0mCnJk?si=Amp4DE5HOOlOdquf

I think they made the right call.

Howard Costello?

That's an eerily accurate typo.

I missed that. Bud Gifford was correct about making the announcement. It may have been how I learned of the tragedy.

[neoplacebo]

Were any of you around when Reagan was shot? What was the mood like then?

I’ve never had a presidential assassination in my lifetime. Trump doesn’t count because he wasn’t president and it was only an attempt. I just wonder what it would be like. Complete turmoil?

I remember Kennedy getting assassinated even though I was only nine years old. I didn't really grasp the gravity of it all but remember how upset my parents were. And I remember watching the funeral coverage on tv. And then a few years later Robert Kennedy and MLK were also killed. Saw the news coverage the same day Reagan and Brady were shot. I don't recall any prevalent "mood" about it but I felt bad for Brady becoming disabled. Reagan came through it pretty much unscathed.

[GoCubsGo]

I missed that. Bud Gifford was correct about making the announcement. It may have been how I learned of the tragedy.

Bud Gifford?
.

Any relation to Frank?

Gifford should have made the announcement, Cosell Costello'd it.