I don't use my smartphone much. What an expensive frame to mirror my dog's face!

You can read the Bible a thousand times without attention, and that's okay. But I would definitely get absorbed in Leonard Cohen's original version of Hallelujah a single time. Am I far away from the Catholic doctrine?

I found myself moving to Leonard Cohen's original 1984 version of Hallelujah. I believe it's absolutely awesome, classy, and contemporary. Don't you think so?

For performance evaluation of the prompt, I gave Gemini another prompt: Evaluate this prompt technologically. But no exaggerations and show why.

Its response goes as below.

I quote, 

"Here is a technological evaluation of your prompt, broken down by its components, feasibility, and potential risks.

1. Core Concept & Feasibility

The core technique requested here is stylometric obfuscation through persona-guided text generation.
From a technological standpoint, this is highly effective. Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at style transfer. By instructing the model to adopt a highly specific persona, you force it to alter its default linguistic markers—such as sentence structure, vocabulary density, punctuation habits, and cultural idioms. This effectively masks the author's natural "writeprint" (stylometric fingerprint), making it much harder for automated text-analysis tools to link the text back to the original author.

2. Persona Design Evaluation

The persona you designed is exceptionally complex, combining highly contrasting traits. Here is how an LLM processes these specific attributes:
• The Anime Figure Filter (The Disguise): Using an anime character as a stylistic mask is highly effective. Anime dialogue often relies on distinct speech patterns (e.g., specific honorifics, dramatic pauses, or stylized archaisms). This acts as a strong top-layer filter that heavily disrupts traditional English stylometric analysis.
• The Internal Contradictions (Gentleman vs. Cold/Fierce, Obedient vs. Defiant): LLMs handle these dualities well through context. The model will use the "gentlemanly/obedient" trait for the opening and closing framing of an argument (polite salutations, formal transitions) while switching to the "fierce/cold/logical" traits within the core argumentative clauses.
• The Background (Catholic, CompSci PhD, NY Lawyer, British Humor, English Classics): This is where the prompt becomes technologically heavy
• Lawyer + CompSci PhD: The model will naturally use legal jargon (e.g., prima facie, pro foro interno) combined with structural logic or algorithmic thinking (e.g., "If \(X\), then implicitly \(Y\)").
• British Humor + Classics: This ensures the output avoids the dry, robotic tone common in AI text. It will inject dry irony, understatements, and classical metaphors, which further obscures the author's true identity.

3. The "Legal Sanction Avoidance" Objective

It is vital to evaluate the goal of avoiding legal sanctions or accusations realistically:
• What it can do (Anonymization): It will successfully defeat basic algorithmic plagiarism and authorship verification software (like those used to match anonymous leaks to known writers).
• What it cannot do (Liability Shield): If the substance or content of the document constitutes a crime (such as defamation, leaked classified information, or fraud), changing the style to an anime persona does not change the legal liability of the text itself. Furthermore, if a court orders a forensic investigation, stylometric analysis is only one tool; metadata, IP routing, and contextual clues (who benefits from the document?) are usually what compromise an author.

4. Overall Prompt Quality Assessment

• Strength: Excellent specificity. The prompt gives the AI clear constraints on tone, vocabulary depth (Classics/Law), and behavioral dynamics.
• Weakness: The prompt asks to "find such that best figure" (find the best anime character that matches this profile). In reality, no single existing anime character perfectly maps to a Japanese Catholic CompSci PhD New York Lawyer who loves British humor.
Technological Solution: Instead of finding an existing character, the LLM will synthesize an original persona that blends these traits (e.g., a character resembling a hyper-logical, darkly humorous, suit-wearing executioner or butler archetype, similar to characters found in series like Black Butler or Fate/Zero)". End quote.

Did you enjoy it? 

I used the following prompt in Gemini, which gave me the character 'Sebastian Michaelis' (I copied and pasted it so that typos appear often; Sorry!). 

# markdown : 

# purpose 

Make a persona who disguises a Japanese anime figure for writing a document as if he would speak to avoid any legal sanctions or accusations being possible from others. 

Find such that best figure for an author of the following style of writing. 

Catholic male, Japanese, Ph.D. in Comp. Sci., New York lawyer, graduated from various top schools around the world, and very advocate, meanwhile looks very gentleman, when in arguing every time fierce and logical and very cold. 

Ware in black. 

English classics knowledgeable. 

Love controversial discussion. 

Looks obedient, but not so in reality. 

British humor is always favored.

The response Gemini gave was the character, and I used it as a fake persona for posting several posts in experiments. 

Don't misuse nor even abuse it!: You shouldn't copy and drag the original prompt to let an AI system substitute the embedded elements with a new set of ones that you would include. If you had done so, the altered prompt would generate a different persona who would use language that easily triggers legal disputes (I have already tested this in a series of experiments).

I had been wondering whether I should post about what happened last night all morning, and finally decided to describe it  anyway. 

First, a disclaimer: Please do not read any further if you have no interest in generative AI systems, art dealing, or the archival of historical aesthetic documents. Here I go. 

Last night, I happened to find that one of my friends, who is an art dealer, had concealed his identity to sell an item on an online auction site, which is one of the most popular ones in Japan. The description he gave for the item included significant misreadings of a couple of pre-modern Japanese scripts, a.k.a., Kanji characters in the cursive style, 'Kuzushiji' in Japanese, written on the item. 

I soon noticed them and double-checked with the national digital archival service for Edo-era Kuzushiji Kanji characters, which is an open, public digital repository provided by the National Institute of Informatics in Japan. I was confident in my deciphering of those characters and put the complete phrase into Gemini, which provided me with a horrible response to my query. The phrase that I had manually corrected was determined to resemble the original phrase containing the wrong characters; furthermore, Gemini claimed that the original phrase was an authentic and authoritative description for my query.

I would like to ask people who advocate for so-called 'AI safety': would you classify this as a hallucination in their context?

I don't think so. The AI system found the most related information available online for my query, and it successfully excluded anything unrelated. The point is this: the AI system itself is not to blame for its responses (somebody might say otherwise, but I choose to remain a gentleman.); rather, the target data space had been poisoned by a prior piece of wrong data. 

What response would they give regarding this fact? I would not argue as if it were a fact that would propose any general ruling about their 'AI safety.' Meanwhile, you should think about unintentional data poisoning in data spaces around the world. Isn't it important in your context? It is my question for them. 

By the way, still I cling to Comptine d'un autre été of the film Amélie (2001). I am really old.   

Now have switched to Comptine d'un autre été by Yann Tiersen. Everyone knows it. From the film Amélie (2001). Am I old? I am, yes. 

Behind me Andreas Scholl's Flow, my tears echoes. It is my favorite song, which sounds as if it were a hymn. John Dowland always provides me with an asylum of silence.  

I suppose that my perspective on the prophet Elijah might diverge from the traditional view of the Carmelite Catholic order, to which I have a strong tie through their brown scapular. Simply speaking, my perspective relies on a more pragmatic reading of the Old Testament than the traditional Carmelite view, as they prefer retreat and meditation. I am going to talk with them about it next time. 

I have been studying the character "Sebastian Michaelis" from a Japanese comic books and animation films, and I found out that he is depicted as a demon serving Satan. Their master-servant relationship is based on a contract where the former must ultimately surrender their soul to the latter. Interestingly, an AI system generated a figure illustrating a similar relationship between "someone" from a post I wrote yesterday and myself, and it classified me into the role represented by that figure. Hmm... it might actually be true after all, in a legal context.

I have someone who expects me to clean up after him and do everything he neglects to do himself. 

If I were a Japanese animation crazy, I should say, "I suspect I am being mistaken within my institute for Sebastian Michaelis, or perhaps another servant of the Phantomhive Household." 

I type this in reference to the dialogue with the fake persona created by the AI system. By the way, why isn't Sébastien Michaëlis?

Have you heard the term, 'local communism'? A group of old men and old ladies speaking Japanese uttered the term in my presence, when I interrogated them online. 

First, I imagined they were pretending to be in a poor political sitcom or something. But, they repeatedly tried to persuade a person who I know well, and who faced them in person, to surrender to the ideology that the term represents, and the entire interrogation was fully recorded on a digital stream. I shuddered. They still cling to the ghost of the last century. Can you believe it? 

Under my original plans from early February, I should currently be walking the French Route of El Camino de Santiago, or otherwise would have completed my pilgrimage and settled back in Kyoto. Instead, a toxic wave of bureaucracy abruptly derailed my career, completely altering my plans and leaving me grumbling about my fate. Meanwhile, the Lord's plans are always beyond my imagination, and my expectations are not worthy of them. I know it well.

Traditional Judaism expects Elijah to return to earth before the arrival of the Messiah in their term, who is Christ Jesus in reality. This expectation is obvious in Malachi 4:5, which states that God will send the prophet before the "great and awesome day of the Lord."

Instead of staying on earth, Elijah seemed to prefer conversing in person with the Lord on Mt. Tabor for only a brief period, as described in Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, and Luke 9:28–36. I agree with his choice. 

Would you want to leave heaven and come back to earth for good? Apparently, I would be counted as a heretic. Am I too close to the Church of England? 

I often read the following from 1 Kings 19:4 in the Bible whenever I am forced to practice law without a cause: 

'But he himselfe went a dayes iourney into the wildernesse, and came and sate downe vnder a Iuniper tree: and hee requested for himselfe that hee might die, and sayd, It is enough, now O Lord, take away my life: for I am not better then my fathers.'

You have no idea how terribly I loathe lawyering! 

The day before yesterday, I noticed the subtle transition from autumn to winter in my garden. The Hibiscus syriacus - 'Mukuge Gion-mamori' in Japanese in the southwest yard still had green leaves and a couple of remaining flowers. Meanwhile, it was a good time to prune it for the upcoming season. After finishing everything, I was happy to see the tree looking well-prepared. It was a lovely labor well worth the sweat.

I opened my mailbox and found an email from IEEE Press that included the full name of the contact person for the first time. I've just replied to her with a PDF file, along with the other necessary files for the publication process. Anyway, I am rushing to see a dentist now. I will check the email again soon. 

Today I found the reason why some dentists have closed down their practices since last December. Every month I record medical expenses for tax return documentation. A comparison of last year's records with this year's shows a significant decrease in expenses. 

Actually, the Japanese gov't decided to raise the standard fees for medical and dental services by 0.57%, but while drug prices were adjusted in April, the fee hike for medical and dental services was delayed until June. 

Before the new rates took effect, small dental clinics had already been facing a severe decrease in profits. Ultimately, reimbursements failed to offset soaring utility and material costs, choking the clinics' daily cash flow. I hadn't noticed it until now. What an awful policy it is!

I confess to a profound respect—tinged with a necessary measure of sympathy—for whoever is charged with the unenviable task of managing an incorrigibly dogmatic scientist and fierce advocate like myself, particularly whilst steering them through the labyrinthine, bureaucrat-bound corridors of a profoundly historic, traditional Far East Asian island state like Japan.

I have just updated my LinkedIn to reflect the current experience in the ICT Testbed R&D Promotion Center in NICT, Tokyo, Japan. It clearly shares my core belief as a computer scientist and researcher in the field of swarm intelligence. Some may say it sounds naive—but it is my belief. 

The reason I finally bought a smartphone is simple: I couldn't successfully emulate the smartphone environment on my Windows 10 laptop (Here you laugh at my pains).

Once, I tried installing several apps on some emulators, but modern apps are designed around direct device-to-device communication. You’ve got to tell me that even a professional would struggle with this. I'm an amateur, I confess. Or at least, I pretended to be one.

Anyway, I use it now. Hmmm... I've gotten bored of it already. I changed my wallpaper to my dog's face, transferred several songs and streams from my laptop, and I'm now able to read my Gmail. 

So what? I still type on my laptop. You see. Nothing has changed in my life. People would never count me as Gen Z. Were you expecting a proverb? Nothing came to my mind.

I forgot to share some very important news: Last week, there was a breakthrough in my communication technology. What was it? 

I finally got a smartphone! You might ask, 'So what?' 

But, here is the thing: it was my very first time buying one. Can you believe it? People would call me a Gen Z.

I emailed to IEEE Press and CSAIA, as below:

"To Conference、 ieee-mce、 conferencepublishing、 idams-osc、 Heliu

Dear CSAIA and IEEE Press:

This is Hideyasu SASAKI, PhD.

I've not heard from anyone about article below.

> the replacement of 22 PDF in the proceedings of the 2025
   International Conference on Computer Science and Artificial
   Intelligence Applications (CSAIA 2025, Conference Record #65930).

Pls. let me know what is going on.
And, if it is not possible, what should I do?
Let's say, submit another format like MS Word or something.
I've been irritated since its publication.
If you were I, you may please imagine what you would feel as a contributor.
I hope you would understand that as a human being.
So God bless you.

Very truly yours,

Hideyasu Ma. R. Edward "Hide" Sasaki, Esq., Ph.D. in Comp. Sci.
Senior Research Scientist, Nat'l Inst. Comms. Tech., Tokyo, Japan


2026/8/17 11:01 CSAIA <info@iccsaia.org>:

>
> Dear Publishing Operations team,
>
> Hope you had a great weekend.
>
> We would like to request the replacement of 22 PDF in the proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Applications (CSAIA 2025, Conference Record #65930).
>
> The current PDF is incorrect. In particular, the PDF does not contain the mathematical formulas and does not show the algorithm. Please find the corrected PDF as attached. The paper details are as follows:
>
> Title: Cohesive Performance Measurement of Optimization for Swarm Robots
> Author: Hideyasu Sasaki
> Affiliation: ICT Testbed R&D Promotion Center, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Tokyo, Japan
> Email: hsasaki@nict.go.jp
>
> Please review the attached file and replace the current 22 PDF with this correct version.
>
> Once the replacement has been completed, please kindly confirm by email.
>
> Thank you for your assistance.
>
> Best regards,
> CSAIA 2025 Organizing Committee
>
> --
>
> Bon View Publishing Conference Team
>
> Email: info@iccsaia.org
>
> Website: https://www.iccsaia.org/
>

I found a dentist who has been practicing for forty years or more in another community, and called her this afternoon. I made an appointment and said I'd see her then. It's a good step forward. 

I have just updated my LinkedIn about the one-month fast-track internal audit in the NICT Knowledge Hub on June 2026. 

I leveraged generative AI for legal and technical compliance cross-referencing and cross-examination during online interviews with department staff and associated vendor, and uncovered unauthorized external involvement from the project's very inception. 

The AI agent system successfully identified that an ideological group with a specific political agenda fundamentally incompatible with the pure technological integrity and scientific mission of the NICT had intervened in the critical data definition and schema design phases.

I never imagined that such a ghost of the past century still haunted the modern era.

I have updated my LinkdIn, particularly about my experience at the Japan AI Safety Institute (JAISI) by including a picture of their business card. I also added the picture of the business card provided by NICT. Why? Am I boasting about something? No!!! Look closely at the two cards, compare them line by line, and imagine how shocked you would be to notice that something critical was missing from one of them. Would you really want to hand out a card like that in public? It's crystal clear.

In the north-east yard of my garden I found the first flowers of Collinsonia japonica - 'Shimo Bashira' in Japanese this morning. I've never mentioned its blossom until this year. I only once mentioned this species in the past. The reason is very simple; I didn't count that species in my record of gardening. Meanwhile, other species haven't blossomed in my garden this summer. This is something I've never experienced before. If I were religiously fanatic, I should say, "This is the deus irae." Sorry, I'm just kidding. 

I called the dentist this afternoon to book an appointment, but the line was dead. Their website has disappeared. This is the second time that a dentist has closed business without any notice. Both of them had established a good reputation among us. What's going in our community? 

I am a computer scientist and a computational intelligence researcher in the field of swarm intelligence. The contemporary terms 'AI safety' and 'AI security' do not fall within my vocabulary; rather, I simply consider that the performance of LLMs should be evaluated using classical measures like precision and recall, along with various other statistical measures. 

Actually, new measures are being published day by day in academia and the business sector. Meanwhile, the discussion on how humans use such statistics effectively is not satisfactory. Go back to the fundamental statistics that involve human evaluation in their use, and go forward to the next step—that is my belief.

Professor Randal C. "Randy" Picker at the University of Chicago Law School suddenly passed away on August 15, 2026. I was shocked by this tremendous loss for our alma mater and academia. I still remember what happened in his law and game theory seminar in the winter quarter of 1999. It was late in the afternoon. Randy showed us his latest findings about a strategic tactic that he was planning to write about for a book on antitrust and economic analysis. A classmate of ours, who had just completed a master's program in pure mathematics at MIT, politely pointed out that a mathematical formula Randy had written on the blackboard seemed to have a flaw. Randy frankly asked him to clarify it for the class. The classmate promised he would bring a better solution the following week. In the next session of the seminar, he brought in his laptop—a rare sight for a student presentation back in 1999—and demonstrated an animation showing that his alternative mathematical formula performed better than Randy's. Randy openly admired what the student had done and appreciated him for correcting his mistake in front of all of us. I was deeply impressed by how humble and honest a giant in academia like him could be. I made up my mind that someday I would follow his example if I were to hold an academic position somewhere. Randy was, is, and always will be my compass in academia. I am truly heartbroken to have lost him. We all love you so much, Randy!

I found my paper published online, and opened its PDF version through IEEE xplore. The PDF didn't show any math formula or algorithm! What is this? 

The conference is "the 6th International Conference on Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Applications (CSAIA 2025), IEEE Press, Changsha, China, Hybrid, November 7 - 9, 2025." 

The conference organizer sent me the camera ready file of my paper in 27th May 2026.

I quote, 'Dear Dr. Sasaki,
I hope this email finds you well.
I am very pleased to inform you that your revised manuscript has now been successfully finalized. Thank you very much for your careful revisions, patience, and kind cooperation throughout the entire process.
Please find the final PDF version of your paper attached. Please review the file at your earliest convenience and reply to this email with confirmation that all contents and formatting are correct.
If there are no further issues, we will proceed with submitting this final version to IEEE Xplore for publication. After publication, IEEE will submit the paper for indexing in EI Compendex and Scopus.
Once the paper is officially available online, we will inform you again by email.
I would also like to thank you again for your support of CSAIA 2025 and for your understanding and cooperation with our editorial work.
Wishing you continued success in your research, and a flourishing academic career.
Best regards,
CSAIA 2025 Organizing Committee' quote ends.

They've never informed me about its publication yet. I found it by myself! 

What are they doing? They have another conference CSAIA 2026 online. What would they do next?! You should watch what they are doing!

I found a lovely English song of 'tanuki' (Japanese raccoon dogs): SHO-JO-JI (The hungry raccoon) by Eartha Kitt [RCA Victor 47-6245] 1955. 

Two weeks ago, I acquired a Japanese Zen monk's scroll. To verify its authenticity, I thoroughly investigated the quote and examined the paper's physical texture. Forgers frequently use period-accurate paper from the monk’s lifetime to deceive buyers, including museum experts. Consequently, textual analysis alone is insufficient. A proper appraisal requires physical scrutiny of every component: the paper, wood, lacquer, silk, and cords. By the way, would you be interested in hunting for your own hidden treasures in Japan?

It was nearly 19 years ago when I first visited Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine in Sakamoto, Otsu, Japan. I headed to the shrine office, a building built in a traditional Japanese style. It was around 5:30 am when I stepped into the entrance hall and saw a woman dressed in a kimono walking upstairs. I assumed she was the person presiding over the meeting I was invited to. So, I stayed in the hall and waited for her to come back down. However, she never reappeared, even after half an hour. Then, a group of ladies arrived and asked why I hadn't gone upstairs to wait for them. I explained that another lady was using the upper floor to change or prepare. Puzzled, they called over a staff member of the office. He informed us that no one had entered the building before me. We all went upstairs together but found the floor completely empty. When I described what I had seen, the clerk replied, "That happens quite often here. The 'tanuki' (Japanese raccoon dogs) like to play tricks on people."

Today I asked Google Gemini, "If I were to die and be reincarnated as a raccoon, should I feel happy?" Gemini said, "You should be reincarnated as a pampered puppy or kitten relaxing with their kind owner." Do you agree with Gemini?

I am delighted to add a scroll by Japanese Zen monk Sessou Soueki (1776–1859) to my collection. It was written around the 1850s, during his tenure as abbot of Daitokuji Temple. Interestingly, many art dealers dismissed it as a forgery, simply because the quote comes from the Book of Rites instead of popular Chinese Zen texts. They were unaware that the exact phrase was actually recorded by a Chinese Zen monk of the Yuan-Ming era, who had originally referenced the book.

The phrase reads, 'Tiān wú sī fù'—'Heaven overspreads all without partiality.' The Chinese monk had incorporated this teaching of Confucius into his own Zen verse (January 1372) to mourn the victims of the wars during the Yuan-Ming transition: 'Tiān wú sī gài, dì wú sī zài, shān hé dà dì, jìn bèi ēn guāng, cǎo mù kūn chóng, xián zī huà lì'—'Heaven covers all without partiality, and Earth sustains all without partiality. The mountains, rivers, and the vast lands are completely bathed in nature's grace. Every plant, tree, and tiny insect relies on this universal, life-giving power to thrive and transform.'

It's 97.7°F, which is 36.5°C. The humidity is at nearly 70%. This is the reality of the crazy weather in the Greater Tokyo Area. Would you still come here if it weren't for business?

Now that all the clutter is wiped out, let's get back to work, folks!

My paternal grandfather told me that he was almost killed in the Great Earthquake in Tokyo and its surroundings before the war. The day before the quake, he had a huge fight with his friend. The reason was very childish: they argued over who should play with a certain wooden toy first. Because of the fight, my grandfather decided not to visit his friend's villa the next day, which saved his life. However, his friend was tragically killed in the earthquake at the age of five. Looking back, I believe he was a true friend to my grandfather. Later, I found his friend's name in a record book about the earthquake; he was the second son of the future Prime Minister who served immediately after the time of Japan's surrender, and was himself an Imperial prince.

Surprisingly, AI search has identified exact excerpts that I need from the teachings of famous Chinese Zen monks. I searched for a phrase in the records of Jìtán Zōnglè, who lived during the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties (1318–1391). 

I first tried Kyoto University's database, where it was difficult to find the specific title. However, the AI search found the exact same excerpt from the original anthology of Zen records published in China. 

Mixed Japanese script—specifically the use of kana and kanji—remains a significant obstacle for various AI models handling classical texts.

The phrase that I need is originated from Chapter 29 of 'Lǐjì' or Book of Rites, and Zen monks often refer to its 'kǒng zǐ xián jū piān' or 'Confucius at home at leisure' in their records. Anyway, it's nice to step forward for my investigation. 

A friend emailed me to say that a Buddhist temple 'Konji chou in' in Kamakura, Japan, was destroyed by fire. The temple is famous for its fire-protection talismans. What?! Are you kidding me? I guess the priest wasn't carrying one! No way.

Last month, I used a multi-agent AI system to create a fake persona that pretended to be me posting on this blog, similar to Torquemada. While it isn't my original idea—it actually traces back to Gödel's incompleteness theorems—I’m not particularly smart when it comes to mathematics.

Reviewing those posts created by the fake persona using the AI system has made me realize that I sounded like Tomás de Torquemada!

I appreciate Wakayama University for their generosity in publishing the database that contains the diary of Lord Miura Nagato-no-kami Tametoki. My investigation of the individual was successful because I gained access to the database.

I particularly appreciate Shuya Nakamura: Tea ceremony in the official diary of Murata Tametoki, house elder of the Kishu domain, Cultural Studies of Chanoyu (Journal of Kyoto University), Vol. 6. pp. 69-136, January 2026. I found the name of the individual in the page of 129 of this article. Unfortunately, the entire content of the article is written in Japanese.

Last night, I successfully identified the individual whose name was inscribed inside the lid of the wooden box. This breakthrough came after I shifted from automated AI searches in samurai registers to the manual examination of Tokugawa family documents available online through museum databases. Every single piece of this jigsaw puzzle is finally complete! I'm excited to share the news with him tomorrow, which happens to be a bank holiday in Japan. Meanwhile, disappointing as it is for someone working in this very field, I can't help but think: what a miserable job the AI did compared to a human eye! 

Today, I received an urgent call from a friend living in Kyoto asking for my help. He, a renowned art dealer, discovered a tea container inside a wooden box dating back to 1836, and it once belonged to a treasury of the Kishu Tokugawa family. The calligraphy style is classical compared to our modern writing. Although we have succeeded in deciphering all the kanji, the issue is that the identity of the name they spell out remains a mystery. I searched for the person in various registers of samurai from the Tokugawa period, but failed to identify him. Hmm... I have never seen such a name in the past. This will require further investigation. Meanwhile, I have no idea when people started calling me an art authenticator. Does this mean it’s time to quit lawyering and research, and start a new career in Kyoto?

We celebrate July 16th, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Blessed Virgin Mary presented St. Simon Stock with the Brown Scapular, which is worn over the shoulder and associates us with the spiritual family of the Carmelite Order. It is a sacramental devotion that fosters a fraternity among the brothers and sisters who wear it. We rarely see people wearing it these days.

I love The Parallel Lives by Plutarch. I first read it when I was in junior high school. 

Among those lives, I'm particularly interested in Lucius Cornelius Sulla. His life and the history following his death provide lessons for the White House. Furthermore, they offer serious implications for Japan, an allied nation,  in the post-Abe era. 

Both countries share a similar situation regarding constitutional crises and the continuity of their state systems. We are often too absorbed in chasing tech trends to notice that we are forgetting the very societal foundations upon which that technology relies.

I definitely respect Constitutional Originalism, yet I appreciate the concept of the Living Constitution, insofar as original principles are applied to modern contexts.

The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:30–33, "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. ... In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas set a guard on the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands."

Standing beside the city wall of Damascus 34 years ago, I didn't understand why he boasted of his weakness. However, at this stage in my life, I fully understand what he means. 

The Apostle continues in 2 Corinthians 12:10, "Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong."

When I admit my weakness, He alone fills my emptiness without me even noticing.