Yesterday's News: Guilty of rape. . . now what?

As some of my readers may already be aware, late last year two men were accused of raping and robbing an Okinawan woman in her early 20's. These two men, both active duty military members, were temporarily stationed in Okinawa for a training mission. The event took place the night before they were scheduled to depart.

Following the accusation of rape the US Forces Japan were put into a nation wide curfew and drinking ban. Although this move by the US was controversial it was not the first time that something like this has happened and was arguably less severe then in 2008 (if my memory serves me correctly) when US Forces in Okinawa were on complete lock down. (During this lock down military and civilians alike were not permitted in any off base establishments whatsoever. This included but was not limited to stores, shops, tourist attractions or restaurants.) This also did not stop the string of incidents which would follow.

The situation also pushed many of Okinawa's residents, who were already upset about the deployment of the Osprey and relocation of Futenma within Okinawa, over the edge. The message at the already frequent protests was not only "Marines Go Home" and "No Osprey" but now included "No Rape".

Those who serve in the military, and their families, also had their share to say about the situation. Although there were a great deal of people outraged and disgusted by these two men there were also a surprising amount who defended them. This was not limited to currently active military members on Okinawa either. One ex-military member who was never stationed in Okinawa and now lives in mainland Japan even went so far as to make a YouTube video which placed blame on the victim.

After a short while, and the occurrence of more crimes committed by US Military Members, the story fell from the front page and became a tag line at the end of related articles until recently.

 



 

The Trial

The two men, Christopher Browning and Skyler Dozierwalker, were tried in a Naha court where they were charged as guilty of rape. During the trial prosecutors noted that Dozierwalker choked the victim from behind and forced her into a parking lot where she was then raped. This was confirmed by surveillance camera footage, presented as evidence, which caught the act on film. Christopher Browning was sentenced to ten years in prison and Skyler Dozierwalker was sentenced to nine years. Christopher Browning was also convicted of robbing the victim of 7000 yen (at today's yen rate just under $75.00 US) Both men will serve their time in a Japanese prison.

Now What?

This incident shook Okinawa and for many I am sure that it is a relief that these men have been tried and will serve time in prison. I am, however, of the opinion that there is more that needs to be discussed before this story turns into a distant memory.

I can't help but wonder what is being done to prevent crimes like this from happening in the future. Are military members and their families really even aware of the consequences for their actions? To be honest I am not entirely sure and the military doesn't have a very straight forward approach to these types of matters either. Just go ahead and check out the UCMJ. You'll see that the consequence for an act of rape is:

"shall be punished as a court-martial may direct".

What does that mean? Well that's a great question. In fact as we're seen in the case of some female service members being raped by their superiors it could mean just about anything or nothing. According to an article on this subject by the Air Force Times in November 2012:

"Military courts often have great flexibility in sentencing. . "

The article goes on to say that a military member who has been found guilty of rape could be fined or have a reduction in pay but ultimately committing this type of crime isn't a career ender.

It is this answering questions without actually providing answers approach which I believe gives some military members and their families the illusion of being above or exempt from Japanese law. AFN Radio and TV are always showing ads about how you could be charged under the UCMJ but usually forget to mention that you could also be charged under Japanese Law. In fact reading about the Browning/Dozierwalker case there was only one out of about twenty articles that I read which mentioned that they will be serving time in a Japanese prison.

Only Time Will Tell 

Unfortunately what happens next will only be told as time passes. My hope, although it might be wishful thinking, is that some changes be made. The sad reality is that with the rotation of people and management in and out of Okinawa will undoubtably put this story out of sight, out of mind until the two are released ten years from now.

First Cherry Blossoms Bloom In Japan - Yaedake

Cherry blossoms are a sign of spring so you might imagine my surprise when I saw them blooming the other day as I came down a mountain road on Yaedake. Knowing that Yaedake is known for having the first cherry blossoms in all of Japan I could not resist so I pulled over and started snapping away.



Being that it is only late December this was a rare sight. The blossoms are not supposed to show themselves until at least mid January but here they were all around. It is said by the locals that when the cherry blossoms bloom that means we have seen our coldest day of the year. Being that it is so early in the winter I hope that this is not the case. I would like to enjoy a few more cool days before the summer returns.



If you would like to view cherry blossoms you can do so all over the island of Okinawa but remember there is no set time that they will bloom and there's no saying how long they will be around. Some say that is what is so special about cherry blossoms.

600,000 Twinkling Lights - Itoman Peaceful Illumination

 



For a number of Americans the holidays just aren't the same here as they are in the US. There are, however, some things that can give you a little taste of the holidays while here in Okinawa. One of these things is referred to as "illumination" but you might call it a "christmas light display". These can be found all over Japan and there are various that happen here in Okinawa however this year I returned the Itoman Peaceful Illumination, where I went last year.



Located in the southern part of the island this illumination features over 600,000 lights in various forms. Last year there was a large eagle, this year there was a spectacular huge tent of lights as well as an ocean of lights on which a Japanese style ship was sailing. Everyone of all ages can enjoy this illumination. Young and old stare at the lights in awe.





The highlight of the night is when all of the lights are shut off for a moment and spectators can see just how bright the lights are. Then as the entire crowd counts down the lights go back on and everyone enjoys the rest of the evening. There are food vendors which gives this a matsuri feel as well as pony rides and live performances.









Admission for the event is 200yen and prices vary for other goodies such as hot cocoa, cotton candy and corn on the cob. For me this is a great place to come each and every year. It puts me in the holiday spirit. The event runs at the end of December through the new year which is perfect for those of you who want to add a taste of home to your holiday here in Okinawa.

Discontinuation of Weekly Current Events Videos

With the winter coming I have decided to discontinue the weekly current events video. There are various reasons for this but one of them is because with the weather being much cooler with winter here both myself and Rusty enjoy getting out and doing fun things rather than staying cooped up in the house like we usually are during the summers.

With our adventures getting us up and out of the house it can be strenuous to follow all of the current events stories to ensure that we bring you a video each week. It can also be difficult to bring a variety of stories with many of the things that are going on right now.

The plan is to continue to bring the current events stories to you just rather than bringing a weekly video you will get a video whenever it is relevant or as the news happens. I also think that this will be a better way to get the important news stories out to you as they happen rather than wait until Monday of every week.

At this time we will continue to also do Fan Mail Friday as well as the JVLOG on Wednesday. You can also certainly expect various other videos throughout the week to include vlogs about where I have gone as well as just plane old video of the sites and sounds I experience when I'm out and about.

Thank you so much for your understanding!

Orion Presents New Beer

CHECK HERE TO SEE A PHOTO

Orion (pronounced Oh-ree-ohn) is a beer which is made here in Okinawa. Each year they produce a variety of different cans with images of Okinawa as well as a special sakura blend in the winter. This year, however, they have come up with a new beer known as "Mugi No Shuzuku". This beer is said to have a strong taste of malt and has the highest malt content of all Orion products giving it a distinctive taste as well as an aroma of hops which is similar to American beers.

The product is 5% alcohol which is modest for alcoholic beverages here in Japan and is targeting those who drink regularly at home. We picked some up to give it a try and we'll have to get back to you on what we think.

What's Been Happening In Okinawa?

As most of you know I have not been making regular videos recently because of my recent trip. This has provided so many videos that I have not had the chance to post anything other than those videos and so I am not getting back into the swing of making videos.

So what has been happening here recently?

This weekend there were two very fun and exciting events that took place on the island. The first of these events was the 10000 Eisa Dance event which happened in Kokusai Dori down in the southern part of Okinawa. This is an event which happens once per year where dancers from all over the island come to perform. The event is amazing because the sheer number of dancers is outstanding. There are some negatives to this event which are the lack of parking and being that it is summer it is very hot. The best place to park, if you get there early, is the parking garage which is located in the immediate vicinity of the event however the price can be a bit expensive however, it is better than paying for a cab.

The other event which happened was the Ginowan City Festival. This is a fun event which happened every year at the Ginowan Convention Center. This year I did not go to this event but one of the fun things I was able to do was watch the festival's closing fireworks which I could see from my house.

There were more things that happened this week check them out here:

*Voting On Tax Bill: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12507

*Kinser Marine Denies Driving Drunk: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12501

*Teen Prostitution Laws Violated By Man: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12494

*Osprey Grounded. . . . For Now: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12488

*Osprey A Threat To Endangered Species: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12478

*US Enforces Futenma Move: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12477

*Osprey Protest Postponed: http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=12461

*Remains Found From Battle Of Okinawa: http://english.ryukyushimpo.jp/2012/08/08/7670/

 

For those of you who want to communicate within the JVLOG community forum style: http://jvlog.org/forum/

Thoughts on OkiNinjaKitty's Current Events Weekly Video

I am currently in the process of gearing up for bringing the OkiNinjaKitty Channel back to it's regularly scheduled programming and with this I am having thoughts about whether or not I should continue doing a weekly "Okinawa Current Events" video. Of course there is news that is happening here in Okinawa, it would be silly to assume that there wouldn't be, however I find that there is not enough interesting news each week that occurs to do a weekly video.

Now I should be clear here, this is something that I am thinking about but I am not sure that this is going to take effect immediately or anything like that, I will continue to do these current events videos for the current time until I make a clear distinction about what it is that I want to do. Of course all of your opinions are very much appreciated and valued. Please let me know what your thoughts are if you are here and if you have been reading the current events blogs and/or watching the videos.

Although this has been a small video I thought that it would be something I would mention in order to get the thoughts out there and maybe people will give their thoughts and it will help me decide what it is that I do here in the future.

Top 20 Tourist Locations, Brown Sugar Cola, Ospreys and More: This is Current Events.

It's Monday and that means it's time for "Current Events".

As this is the beginning of these new segments I have been thinking about ways to make these segments better and more interesting for those of you who are reading. In today's blog and eventually VLOG you will find that we talk about some of the current events here in Okinawa as well as some other current events in the JVLOG community. I hope that this is an improvement.

Okinawa Aquarium one of Top 20 Tourist Attractions in Japan

An organization in Hiroshima Prefecture has announced that the Okinawa Aquarium is one of the top 20 travel destinations here in Japan. I imagine that this is no surprise to those who have visited the Okinawa Aquarium before. If you have never been to the Okinawa Aquarium before let's talk a little bit about it. This is not just an aquarium, this is a vacation destination. The area known as the "aquarium" is an aquarium, gardens, beach and outdoor eating area. The area is amazing in and of itself is amazing but this is before you even look at the building that is the aquarium itself. The building was actually featured on Modern Marvels which was an amazing show and you should check it out if you have not already. Now going in to the building itself you will see some amazing animals including whale sharks (which are personally my favorite) and a variety of other sea life which are all in the oceans surrounding our little island. The amazing things, however, is the tank that they have which is considered the largest in the world. Looking at it is feeling like you are standing on the bottom of the ocean floor because of it's massive size. This is a must see for anyone coming to Okinawa and in fact I have been told that this is also one of the destinations that school children visit when they are traveling to Okinawa from the Main Islands. It is no surprise for Okinawa's Aquarium to be listed in this top 20 but then again it is pretty awesome to hear that something we have here on Okinawa is one of the must-see attractions in the country.

Osprey's Coming to Okinawa 

If you know Okinawa you know that we have a heavy military presence here by the US. If you are a follower of my work you may know that I have not focused so much on the politics and details of what happens here as far as the US Military goes. This is not because I have any particular political stance or because I want to avoid the comments that people may have on these areas. The honest reason is because I don't want my blog and VLOGS to be mostly about the military presence and politics and trust me there are so many of these situations that it would take over much of my blog and VLOG. That doesn't mean that I will never talk about anything like this and hence why I am writing about this right now.

As many of you may know there is a base here in Okinawa called MCAS Futenma which is known by many as a dangerous base. There are many reasons for this but for the sake of time I will not discuss that at this time. Nonetheless there is a new aircraft that will be deployed here to Okinawa in the near future known as the Osprey. This is a very interesting aircraft which can take off like a chopper and then fly like a jet. Unfortunately although these are awesome and interesting planes there have been a lot of crashes and malfunctions that have happened during the development of this aircraft. This coupled with the recent crash of an Osprey in Morocco has not make anyone feel really warm and fuzzy about the aircraft coming here to Okinawa. To be completely honest I do share concern with those who are worried about these aircraft. The reason for this is very basic. Honestly I live around the area of the flight pattern of these aircraft and I am very aware that they fly extremely low and in bad weather. It doesn't really matter your position on this or that there are times when you have concern.

It has been reported that Okinawa officials are going to receive training regarding Osprey Crash Training although I am not sure of any other details. I will keep you posted if I hear anything more about it.

Brown Sugar Cola 

As I reported last week there is a new kind of brown sugar cola which is going to be released today. I am not sure where this cola is going to be sold although I am thinking that it may be in the vending machines like other drinks of this kind. I will be searching today at the end of the day and  I will report back to you and let you know if I find what I am looking for.

JLand Kev/Bussan Kevin: "Teacher gets suspended for giving 0's"

I watched a video this weekend posted by Kevin who is one of my favorite and I date to say (because my memory doesn't always serve me the best) first JVLOGGERS that I had ever watched. He was reporting on a story which basically said that a teacher in Canada had been suspended for giving their student's zeros in class. These students had not attended class or completed assignments and therefore this was the reason that they had received these marks, however the school had what is called a no zero policy which basically means that the students are graded on the work that they pass in and not on the work that they don't. Kevin being an educator obviously had an opinion on this as do I which is what I wanted to report to you now.

To be completely honest as an educator myself I think that this is only to be described as sad. This concept that this school has in place basically says that if out of 10 assignments if a student passes only one of them in and gets 100% they get a total grade of 100%. I do not understand how on earth this is beneficial to the students in any way whatsoever. How are students going to have the capability to succeed in life after school if they are being taught with such soft principles as this? Now I will add that I do not think that all of these kids will be failures nor do I think that all of them are failures for not coming to class or passing in work but in my opinion it is a concept of "if you can't do the time don't do the crime". Silly I know but if you don't pass in work, you get a zero. That's my opinion at least.

So ladies and gentlemen that is today's current events. I hope that you all enjoyed this post! Don't forget if you have any questions or comments please feel free to shoot me an email at okininjakitty@yahoo.com contact me via Facebook or cheek out the youtube page. Have a great night.

Golden Kings, Ferris Wheel and Much More: This Is Current Events

Welcome to the first of hopefully many segments where I write (and talk if you watch www.youtube.com/okininjakitty) about current events. Although I am not 100% sure on what the name of this segment will be called I am going with "This is current events" which has a nice little ring to it and I think that it will provide me with the appropriate feel of what I would like to discuss about. In this blog post I am going to talk about various things that I have found throughout the news in Okinawa in the past week. I will talk a little bit about the "event" and let you know how I feel about that particular item. So here we go!

Golden Kings Win Championship

For those of you who might not be familiar the Golden Kings this is Okinawa's basketball team. They were known as the Ryukyu Kings but recently for a reason that I honestly do not remember they had changed their name, uniform and everything to golden. This team is the pride of Okinawa as far as I have come to understand. In fact I have not met anyone yet who wasn't a fan of this team in one way or another. I truthfully do not know the details of the championship as I was not watching but the fact of the matter is that it was the big one, so big in fact that families gathered throughout my neighborhood and most likely throughout Okinawa to cheer on the team.

You might be asking why this is something worth noting. I mean it was only a game right? Well for me yes it was only a game. I personally am not too involved with sports but for those who were watching this game it was above the level of anything I have ever experienced here in Okinawa in my 6 + years. The families were chanting and cheering in their houses. It was actually startling because this is not something that one ever really experiences here in Okinawa. It was exciting just to listed to and what was surprising is that it lasted for two days. It almost felt like I was back in the US on Super Bowl Sunday.

Ferris Wheel Operational Again

If you have been following my videos or Facebook page you know that the iconic ferris wheel in Mihama has been closed down. This was sad for a lot of us here in Okinawa. Fortunately information has been released that the ferris wheel will continue to be operational dispute the recent claims that repairs were too costly. There have been some changes, however. The coke logo in the center of the wheel is now gone and I do not know if this has changed the theming of the inside of the ride which had also been themed with Coke products. Please keep yourself posted on the Facebook page for more information when it becomes available or if you have visited the building recently please post in the comments below.

Festival Season Kicks Off At Schwab

It's that time of year again, festival season. Each year throughout the summer and into the holiday season the military bases open up to the local public one weekend a month for various festivals which will feature local and state side entertainment. This year the festival season kicked off at Camp Schwab located in Northern Okinawa with a live performance by Candlebox.

These events are a lot of fun and allow something interesting for all walks of life. If you like it. . . . they most likely have it. For the kids there is a kids carnival area where they can take part in various activities, like any other festival food is abundant and don't forget the alcohol for those who want to drink the night away. If you want to take part in one of these festivals keep an eye out on the various web sites for the bases and local papers. The information is everywhere.

See the video by clicking here!