The Voice of Korea in English: Jennifer Clyde
Seoulites will find it hard to escape Jennifer Clyde’s voice, making the English-language announcements on subway lines 1 to 4, as well as SK Telecom, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines commercials. Millions of people listen to her every day.She is also the main DJ of the Arirang radio program “Travel Bug”, Korea’s only English-language travel program. Since September 2003, Clyde has been talking about tourist attractions, the daily life and culture of Korea. So what is it like being the voice of Korea all across the world?
“My friends often tell me, ‘You look like an American, but your character is genuine Korean,’” she says. “I like Korean food -- everything except dog meat and boiled silk worm. I love ddeokbokki” -- a hot broiled dish of sliced rice cakes with assorted vegetables -- “and panbroiled octopus with hot pepper. I make Korean food better than Western food.”
She also likes soju, Korean distilled liquor, and Korean-style boilermaker better than wine and Western spirits. Just like other Korean girls do, she loves a bowl of hot and spicy instant noodles late at night. Clyde was born in California, but she came to Korea at the age of four with her American father and Korean mother. After graduating from Sungnam International School, she went back to the U.S. and graduated from the Parsons School of Design in New York. She has been back in Korea since she was admitted into the second year class in the department of industrial design of Hongik University.
It’s been 10 years since she first appeared in an English-language program for children as a part-time job when she was a student, and she has been in broadcasting ever since. She has also written seven books from textbook for Korean SAT to English learning material for adults
“I’ve never experienced any problems living in Korea. If you ask me about identity confusion as a half-Korean and half-American, I have nothing to tell you.” Jennifer has spent at most six to seven years in the U.S. during her 30-something years on earth. Although she has a distinctive exotic appearance that may draw attention, her thoughts and words are just like those of Koreans.
She says she is likely to marry a Korean. “My dream is to live in Korea, making a happy family with my children and my Korean husband.”
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
For Watcher
Taliban Agree to Release All Korean Hostages
The Korean government on Tuesday announced that negotiations with Taliban kidnappers for the release of all 19 remaining Korean hostages in Afghanistan were successfully concluded. The announcement came at 8:25 p.m. on the 41st day since the Islamist militants abducted 23 Koreans in the war-ravaged country.
Dennis Prager on Mother Teresa
He should leave the spiritual diagnoses of Catholics to Catholics.
The media and pundits have been discussing the recently discovered letters by Mother Teresa, in which she writes about the dark night of the soul. (These letters don't reveal anything new--this had been known for a while, though perhaps not the extent.) What do they know about the three stages of the interior life? Nothing. And so they think that the doubt of Mother Teresa is the same as the doubt of someone who hasn't even achieved the purgative stage. Others fail to understand that progress is not marked by feelings but by growth in the virtues and one's prayer life.
The Three Ages of the Interior Life - Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange...
Catholic First - St. Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle
The Interior Castle Index
St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel (CCEL; Catholic Treasury; carmelite.com; franciscan-sfo.org)
Jordan Aumann, O.P.: Spiritual Theology
Ron Paul on Michael Medved
I don't think this is the complete interview, which I heard on the radio and ran for about 50 minutes.
Michael Medved ended the segment arguing that Ron Paul was very far from being a Republican, because he didn't endorse... how did he put it, "strength in peace"--claiming that this was something true conservatives believe in, because that's what Reagan believed in.
Ronald Reagan is not the measure for authentic conservatism. But I don't think Mr. Medved understands this.
At least she's pretty
Comments
What do we really expect from beauty pageant contestants?
Philip Giraldi on the beating of Iran war drums
Iran or the White House?
via The Western Confucian
More yellow journalism?
Classical Roman rite at ND
After several weeks of promising rumors, Campus Ministry has determined on a very favorable course of action regarding the Tridentine liturgy: a regularly-scheduled recited mass in the Extraordinary Form will be celebrated in the chapel of Alumni Hall dorm (it's generally considered one of the most beautiful on campus, and possessing a fine high altar, shown above) at 8 AM on Sundays, starting after September 14; and starting in second semester, missae cantatae will be offered once or twice a term on special occasions with music by the official university choirs.
official campus ministry announcment
Will we get anything like this at BC? "I doubt it."
Andrew J. Bacevich, Vietnam’s Real Lessons
Vietnam’s Real Lessons
via Conservative Heritage Times
It amazes me that the president would actually compare the situation in Iraq to Vietnam, especially when those opposed to the war used Vietnam as an example against invading Iraq in the first place, especially to highlight the lessons about 3GW and 4GW, which the political and military elites in the Pentagon have never learned. He needs to fire his current advisors for being woefully incompetent. That and do something about his hubris.
Conservatives who still naively believe that Vietnam could have been "won" if only the U.S. had done this or that are in serious need of an education.
Monday, August 27, 2007
US could be heading for recession
US could be heading for recession
Last Updated: 12:05am BST 28/08/2007
Ex-Treasury Secretary Summers warns of risks 'greater than any since aftermath of 9/11', reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Rising power, my foot.
Developers try to carry out a virtual land heist against a village near Harbin. Farmers set up roadblocks but are charged by police and private enforcers sent by developers.
Polluted rivers, health risk for over a sixth of the population
The warning was carried by the China Daily, which reports “enormous volumes” of polluted material dumped on a daily basis into the country’s major waterway. The government’s appeals prove useless as the situation continues to deteriorate.
EB, Economics August 27
Daddy, where does money come from?
Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
Anyone who hasn't watched "Money As Debt," an animated DVD by Paul Grignon, should consider purchasing this extraordinary explanation of money's origin in an economy totally dependent on debt. Almost everyone has seen footage of federal printing presses cranking out paper money, and some of us have even visited a government mint or two and have observed the process firsthand. But like so many other illusions with which the U.S. economy is replete, money is not created by government printing presses.
During the first few minutes of "Money As Debt" I began feeling my eyes glazing over in anticipation that I would soon begin viewing photo footage instead of animation. I then realized that I, like the masses of Americans who demand that every video experience provide them with entertainment, was unconsciously holding the same expectation. I then promptly hit the rewind button and started over, this time listening and watching attentively.
"Money As Debt" is not entertainment-far from it. The film offers amazingly elementary facts about the creation of money in the United States, narrated by a soothing voice, which could make for a bland presentation, yet the film's message is anything but vapid. In fact, if it doesn't leave your blood boiling, it behooves you to check your vital signs.
Beginning with the most fundamental question of all, Grignon asks: Where does money come from? The answer to this question will almost never be found in grammar school-or even college. What we aren't told in formal education is that money is created by central banks.
Banks create money, not from their own earnings or from the funds deposited by customers, but from the borrowers' promises to repay loans. Most importantly, borrowers not only promise to repay, but to repay with interest, and the bank writes the amount of money of both into the borrower's account.
(23 August 2007)
My One And Only Stock Market Advice Post
Sharon Astyk, Casaubon's Book
...Now I regularly get emails and posts requesting that I give my opinion on the state of the stock market, whether to liquidate your 401K, how and whether to plan for college and a host of other financial advice I'm totally unqualified to give. I generally ignore these questions, not because they aren't real and legitimate, but because I honestly don't know how to answer. I can tell someone what I do, or what I've read, but I feel even less qualified to advise here than usual. My basic take on the stock market is the same as my basic take on driving - it seems crazy to me that everything would work as well as it does, so I'm probably not the person to expound enthusiastically about the possibilities of any particular investment.
And part of the reason for this is that I don't quite understand why the free market system works even to the extent it does. That is, I understand why economists say it works, but any close look will point out that the claims economists make about rational choices and market resilience don't tell even half the story.
Now my personal financial strategy is pretty simple. No debt, except mortgage debt, and get rid of that as fast as humanly possible. We save some money, save some for the kids college/setting up house funds, and the rest goes back into the farm in the form of new roofs, barn repairs, goat fencing, perennials, warm boots, down comforters, rechargeable batters, etc... I don't have a lot of gold or silver (a bit, mostly inherited), we have no major investments, and we tend to trust that our savings plus our willingness to work will get us through most crises.
...The other reason I don't invest is that I believe that the origin of our economic problem is growth capitalism - that is, the debt based money system that requires that our economy grow always faster and consume more and more resources. If we don't change that, we'll never be able to live within the bounds of nature. But that means I want to participate as little as possible - to pay and receive as little interest as possible. What I make I'd like to be the profit of my own hands, and my own labor, not a system I deplore. The interest I want to live on is my own fair share of the natural resources of the world - the dirt I live on, the food I grow on it, the energy I produce from it. I'm not there yet, but seeking out a significant return in interest seems contrary to the basic principles I hold.
Now I'm not perfect, and my savings accounts do pay a little interest. I don't keep my money under my mattress, and I am no saint. But generally speaking, I stay out of the money game to the extent I can.
(26 August 2007)
For what it's worth, here are some basic books on investing and retirement that I've found useful:
Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well (Nolo Press)Your Money Or Your Life ("Transforming Your Relationship With Money & Achieving Financial Independence")
Books by the late Sylvia Porter
Possum Living by Dolly Freed.
Information from Vanguard.
Books and writings from the Simple living movement. I'm especially fond of the books by the late Mennonite author Doris Janzen Longacre.
-BA
No reason to assume she'll be right, mate
Scott Burchill, The Age
THOSE who have much at stake in the current stock market shakedown employ an interesting, if self-defeating strategy to mask a financial system that seems crisis-prone.
The subprime mortgage meltdown in the US triggered a liquidity crisis in markets that are not even exposed to its bad debts or irresponsible lending practices, including Australia. Recent central bank interventions in the US and Europe may have only delayed the inevitable reckoning, which at worst could result in highly leveraged hedge funds tipping over, dragging the whole financial system down.
And yet the mantra of most analysts is that we are only witnessing a "market correction" - an idea that is as wishful as it is misleading.
Belief in a self-correcting market has a long and mythical status in liberal economic thinking, something approaching a law of nature. It is based on two false assumptions.
The first is that the involvement of the state isn't required when markets fail - or that markets never really fail. And yet this occurs even in the US, where the Savings and Loan scandal (in the early 1980s) and Long Term Capital Management crisis (1998) were only cauterised by federal government interventions.
The second assumption is that the world economy, despite its volatility, is inherently rational and therefore manageable. There is little evidence to support such a belief.
Dr Scott Burchill is senior lecturer in international relations at Deakin University.
(27 August 2007)
If the financial crisis gets worse, we can expect more criticism of capitalism like this essay from Dr. Burchill. Keynes and Marx will make a comeback, and mainstream neoliberal economics will go into decline. -BA
Perennial wheat crops?
Wheat, forever? Perennial wheat crops may end the era of monocrops, topsoil runoff, and aquatic dead zones
Kim Carlson, Culinate
Here’s an entwined pair of modern food-related problems: First, high-output annual monocrops — such as wheat — take nutrients from the soil but don’t restore them. Farmers then supplement the soil with fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. Some of the fertilizer, in turn, is rinsed away, sending nitrogen into streams and rivers. The runoff occurs because the soil, which lies bare for much of the winter, has little in the way of naturally occurring erosion control.
Second, hundreds of miles away from the Midwest’s vast monocrops, the nitrogen runoff is at least partly to blame for the giant algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When the algae die and sink to the ocean floor, the bacteria that help decompose them utilize all the oxygen in the water, making it impossible for other aquatic life to live. This phenomenon, called hypoxia, is the reason for the Gulf’s massive “dead zone.”
...What are the best ways for fertile farms and not-too-fertile fisheries to co-exist? One scenario is that farmers could plant perennial wheat that needs much less fertilization — if there were such a thing.
(7 Aug 2007)
More on the perennial wheat movement in this long article, Full Circle by Tim Steury or in my interview with Jerry Glover of the Land Institute. -AF
AvP 2 trailer
Will it satisfy fans of both franchises? Will it make money for Fox? Does anyone really care?
SF Chronicle runs column on peak oil
It's available at EB.
Published on 26 Aug 2007 by San Francisco Chronicle. Archived on 26 Aug 2007.
After oil supplies dry up, what's Plan B?
by Erica Etelson
At this point, you might be asking yourself: When oil becomes scarce, how will I get food? That's a very good question. Here are a few more: Will my garbage get picked up? How will my water district purify and deliver water and treat sewage without petrochemicals? What if I need an ambulance? What if my home is one of the 7.7 million that rely on oil for heating? Which of my medications are made out of petrochemicals? How will I get to work? Will I even have a job anymore?
But don't just ask yourself. Ask your elected officials, your public utility district and your grocer. Ask the U.S. Postal Service, Federal Express and American Airlines. Ask GM. If you have one, ask your financial adviser or stockbroker which companies will still be in business after peak oil hits. Odds are, he or she will give you a blank stare.
While the United States blindly carries on with business as usual, countries such as Sweden, Iceland and Ireland are taking steps to assess and mitigate peak oil impacts. Oil-rich Iran has begun rationing and has already cut oil consumption by 25 percent. But here at home, demand for oil is ever on the rise, and there is no talk of conserving reserves for essential goods and services or to develop an alternative energy infrastructure.
Instead, we are on course to squander every last drop on long solo commutes, leisure travel, mountains of plastic junk and the senseless transglobal shipment of unsustainably grown food.
That's where local government comes in. Small but growing numbers of municipalities are initiating a process that federal and state leaders should have begun 30 years ago, when domestic oil reserves peaked. They are, in short, figuring out Plan B.
In May, Oakland appointed an Oil Independent Oakland by 2020 Task Force. In June 2006, Portland, Ore., formed its own Peak Oil Task Force, which got busy fast: By March of this year, it had released its first major report, urging the city to "act big, act now," even without further study or analysis. The report prompted the city to pass a resolution to accelerate oil and gas conservation measures to halve Portland's fossil fuel consumption.
Last year, San Francisco passed a resolution to assess the city's vulnerability to oil depletion and to develop a transition plan. Other cities, from Austin, Texas, to Bloomington, Ind., are confronting the stark reality and trying their best to figure out how to soften the blow.
Cities are looking at options such as local food cultivation, urban redesign to minimize transportation needs, locally controlled electricity, rainwater catchment systems (to ensure local access to water for food cultivation), energy-efficient mass transit, and the preparation of emergency plans for sudden and severe food, water and energy shortages. They are embracing bio-regional sustainability - a concept once dismissed as an ecotopian fantasy that is suddenly starting to look like our last best hope.
But cities cannot solve the peak oil problem on their own. They don't have the revenue needed to build light-rail networks and wind farms or to store massive grain reserves. During a recession, they will be in no position to guarantee income supports for millions of laid-off workers. But the more they do now, while they still have a revenue stream, the better off their residents will be.
If the peak oil doomsday scenarios are to be averted, it will require coordinated action at every level of government, by every sector of the economy and by every community and citizen in the nation. We are heading into a political era in which the need to come together to invent and support life-sustaining social and economic systems will trump all else.
Bill Bonner, Lifestyles of the Rich on Welfare
The Daily Reckoning
Ouzilly, France
Monday, August 27, 2007
Benedict XVI's Homily on the Assumption
Benedict XVI's Homily on the Assumption
"Take Heart, It Is Love That Wins in the End!"
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 25, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered Aug. 15, solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at St. Thomas of Villanova Parish in Castel Gandolfo.
* * *
HOLY MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY
OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St. Thomas of Villanova Parish, Castel Gandolfo
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In his great work "De Civitate Dei," St Augustine says once that the whole of human history, the history of the world, is a struggle between two loves: love of God to the point of losing oneself, of total self-giving, and love of oneself to the point of despising God, of hating others. This same interpretation of history as a struggle between two loves, between love and selfishness, also appears in the reading from the Book of Revelation that we have just heard.
Here, these two loves appear in two great figures. First of all, there is the immensely strong, red dragon with a striking and disturbing manifestation of power without grace, without love, of absolute selfishness, terror and violence.
At the time when St John wrote the Book of Revelation, this dragon represented for him the power of the anti-Christian Roman Emperors, from Nero to Domitian. This power seemed boundless; the military, political and propagandist power of the Roman Empire was such that before it, faith, the Church, appeared as a defenceless woman with no chance of survival and even less of victory.
Who could stand up to this omnipresent force that seemed capable of achieving everything? Yet, we know that in the end it was the defenceless woman who won and not egoism or hatred; the love of God triumphed and the Roman Empire was opened to the Christian faith.
The words of Sacred Scripture always transcend the period in history. Thus, not only does this dragon suggest the anti-Christian power of the persecutors of the Church of that time, but also anti-Christian dictatorships of all periods.
We see this power, the force of the red dragon, brought into existence once again in the great dictatorships of the last century: the Nazi dictatorship and the dictatorship of Stalin monopolized all the power, penetrated every corner, the very last corner. It seemed impossible in the long term that faith could survive in the face of this dragon that was so powerful, that could not wait to devour God become a Child, as well as the woman, the Church. But also in this case, in the end love was stronger than hate.
Today too, the dragon exists in new and different ways. It exists in the form of materialistic ideologies that tell us it is absurd to think of God; it is absurd to observe God's commandments: they are a leftover from a time past. Life is only worth living for its own sake. Take everything we can get in this brief moment of life. Consumerism, selfishness and entertainment alone are worthwhile. This is life. This is how we must live. And once again, it seems absurd, impossible, to oppose this dominant mindset with all its media and propagandist power. Today too, it seems impossible to imagine a God who created man and made himself a Child and who was to be the true ruler of the world.
Even now, this dragon appears invincible, but it is still true today that God is stronger than the dragon, that it is love which conquers rather than selfishness.
Having thus considered the various historical forms of the dragon, let us now look at the other image: the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, surrounded by 12 stars. This is also a multidimensional image.
Without any doubt, a first meaning is that it is Our Lady, Mary, clothed with the sun, that is, with God, totally; Mary who lives totally in God, surrounded and penetrated by God's light. Surrounded by the 12 stars, that is, by the 12 tribes of Israel, by the whole People of God, by the whole Communion of Saints; and at her feet, the moon, the image of death and mortality.
Mary has left death behind her; she is totally clothed in life, she is taken up body and soul into God's glory and thus, placed in glory after overcoming death, she says to us: Take heart, it is love that wins in the end!
The message of my life was: I am the handmaid of God, my life has been a gift of myself to God and my neighbour. And this life of service now arrives in real life. May you too have trust and have the courage to live like this, countering all the threats of the dragon.
This is the first meaning of the woman whom Mary succeeded in being. The "woman clothed with the sun" is the great sign of the victory of love, of the victory of goodness, of the victory of God; a great sign of consolation.
Yet, this woman who suffered, who had to flee, who gave birth with cries of anguish, is also the Church, the pilgrim Church of all times. In all generations she has to give birth to Christ anew, to bring him very painfully into the world, with great suffering. Persecuted in all ages, it is almost as if, pursued by the dragon, she had gone to live in the wilderness.
However, in all ages, the Church, the People of God, also lives by the light of God and as the Gospel says is nourished by God, nourishing herself with the Bread of the Holy Eucharist. Thus, in all the trials in the various situations of the Church through the ages in different parts of the world, she wins through suffering. And she is the presence, the guarantee of God's love against all the ideologies of hatred and selfishness.
We see of course that today too the dragon wants to devour God who made himself a Child. Do not fear for this seemingly frail God; the fight has already been won. Today too, this weak God is strong: he is true strength.
Thus, the Feast of the Assumption is an invitation to trust in God and also to imitate Mary in what she herself said: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; I put myself at the Lord's disposal.
This is the lesson: one should travel on one's own road; one should give life and not take it. And precisely in this way each one is on the journey of love which is the loss of self, but this losing of oneself is in fact the only way to truly find oneself, to find true life.
Let us look to Mary, taken up into Heaven. Let us be encouraged to celebrate the joyful feast with faith: God wins. Faith, which seems weak, is the true force of the world. Love is stronger than hate.
And let us say with Elizabeth: Blessed are you among women. Let us pray to you with all the Church: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
© Copyright 2007 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
On Passing Through the Narrow Gate
On Passing Through the Narrow Gate
"We Must Commit Ourselves to Being Little"
VATICAN CITY, AUG. 26, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today before reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo.
* * *
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
Even today's liturgy proposes to us an illuminating and troubling phrase of Christ. During his last trip up to Jerusalem someone asks him: "Lord will those who are saved be few?" And Jesus answers: "Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able" (Luke 13:23-24). What is meant by this "narrow gate"? Why is it that many people do not succeed in entering through it? Is it perhaps a passage that is reserved only for a few elect?
When we consider it, in effect, the way of reasoning of Jesus' interlocutors is always with us: the temptation to think of religious practice as a source of privileges and certainties is always waiting in ambush for us. In truth, Christ's message goes in exactly the opposite direction: Everyone can enter into life, but the gate is "narrow" for everyone. There is no privileged group. The way to eternal life is open to all, but it is "narrow" because it is demanding, it requires commitment, self-denial and mortification of one's own egoism.
Once again, as we have seen in past Sundays, the Gospel invites us to consider the future that awaits us and for which we must prepare during our pilgrimage on earth. The salvation that Jesus worked through his death and resurrection is universal. He is the only Redeemer and he invites everyone to the banquet of eternal life. But with one and the same condition: that of making the effort to follow him and imitate him, taking up one's cross, as he did, and dedicating one's life to the service of our brothers. One and universal, therefore, is this condition for entering into the life of heaven.
On the last day -- Jesus observes in the Gospel -- we will not be judged on the basis of presumed privileges, but by our works. The "workers of iniquity" will find themselves excluded, while those who have done good and sought justice, at the cost of sacrifice, will be welcomed. For this reason it will not be enough to declare oneself a "friend" of Christ, bragging about false merits: "We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets" (Luke 13:26).
True friendship with Christ is expressed by one's way of life: it is expressed by goodness of heart, with humility, meekness and mercy, love of justice and truth, sincere and honest commitment to peace and reconciliation. This, we might say, is the "I.D. card" that qualifies us as authentic "friends"; this is the "passport" that permits us to enter into eternal life.
Dear brothers and sisters, if we too want to pass through the narrow gate we must commit ourselves to being little, that is, humble of heart, like Jesus. Like Mary, his and our Mother. She was the first, following the Son, to travel the way of the cross and she was assumed into the glory of heaven, as we recalled some days ago. The Christian people call on her as "launa Caeli," Gate of Heaven. Let us ask her to guide us, in our daily choices, along the road that leads to the "Gate of Heaven."
[Translation by ZENIT]
[After praying the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in six languages. In English, he said:]
I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors. May your stay at Castel Gandolfo and Rome renew your love of the universal Church. I welcome the new seminarians of the Pontifical North American College, and pray that their formative years in Rome will help them to grow in wisdom and pastoral charity. Among you I welcome the participants in the cycling pilgrimage from Canterbury Cathedral to Rome. You have cycled the traditional Via Francigena, following in the footsteps of so many men and women of faith on their way to the tombs of Peter and Paul. I pray that your visit will be a time of spiritual and ecumenical enrichment. May Christ keep you and your families in his love.
To the Muslim, Orthodox, Lutheran, and Catholic religious leaders from Kazakhstan, present at today's Angelus, I wish to extend warm greetings. Your gathering in Assisi and in Padua, together with your meetings in the Vatican, are a sure sign of the hope that mutual understanding and respect between religious communities can overcome distrust and promote the way of peace which springs from truth. Be assured of my prayers for the success of your visit and may your efforts bear much fruit for the noble land of Kazakhstan and beyond!
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform
Info on how to get a copy of the book--quantities limited!
Friday, August 24, 2007
Photo: Pope with members of a Japanese kimono culture association
Pope Benedict XVI (L) meets members of a Japanese kimono culture association after his weekly general audience at the Vatican August 22, 2007. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano (VATICAN)