However, just like my undergraduate years at university, all good things must come to an end. As of this moment I’m not planning on posting any new serious content on lomohut though the twitter updates will continue to update the main page.

This isn’t the end of my blogging career, far from it. Sometimes it’s better to begin with a clean slate and a name of your own. A new home if you will. While my new home is still under construction, once it is finished I will let you know.

I am very much minimalist when it comes to design. Less is always more. I am the same way with my tools. Give me tools that get out of my way and let me get work done.

Often when one things of Japan in a design sense, one thinks of Zen. Pictures of rock gardens in Kyoto come to our mind. Simple. Minimal.

For others though the opposite comes to mind. The busy streets of Tokyo. The flashy lights in Shibuya. The crazy kids in Harajuku. The complete opposite of Zen. I would almost go as far as to call it madness.

This difference is huge and is often a point of conflict in my design. How does one find a happy medium between Zen and Madness? What does it look like? What does it feel like?

I don’t have any definite answers yet, but I am studying.

The video is the same location that I took one of my favourite photographs last year, so I hope you enjoy.

As more than one person has told me, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. I’ve graduate, and gotten a job in Japan, that’s not teaching english! Moreover, I started just over 2 weeks from my graduation. Not a bad turn around time in today’s economy.

The question immediately comes up, what I am doing. The answer is really, whatever is needed, as I don’t really just do one thing. Right now, I am working on helping the company launch and market it’s new iPhone Game business. This means web development for their site and utilities, writing copy, etc.. In the future though I should also be programming some iPhone applications for them.

For right now, I am still staying with Yumi and her family in Shounandai because it gives me time for all the proper paperwork to finish going through, figure out where I want to live in Tokyo, and find the right place.

Unfortunately, since I am working i n Tokyo, it won’t be in a place like this:

Photo taken on a short trip to Hakone over Christmas with Yumi.

I have added a few things though that is neat for me and you might enjoy too. First is Twitter support. Twitter is a kind of “Microblogging” website, that is it is a blog that is limited for 140 characters per “post” and excells at being updated fairly often. Notes during the day, random thoughts etc.

What’s more, there are some awesome apps for iPhone and such that allow me to update Twitter without being in front of my computer of anywhere near WiFi (thanks to intertube connection on my iPhone). As such, I found myself updating Twitter more often than my full-strength blog and decided to go ahead and integrate Twitter into Lomohut, which you can see above.

The other is what I’m deeming a “Foodblog”. The idea is, since I am always taking photos of food anyway, I might as well use it to keep track of what I am eating day in and day out. It also adds some accountability so I “can’t” go out and eat a gallon of ice cream without posting (not that I’ve done that before). Maybe it will help me eat healthier. My current idea is anything and everything I eat.

I will be continuing to tweak this more throughout the week as I have time so be on the lookout.

Even though I was only gone for a year in Japan and have never been backpacking in my life, the film has a certain amount of resonance within me. It’s something I’ve dreamed about for a long time. I don’t want to say right now is not the right time to travel, because it will never be the “right time”.

It’s a matter of making something a priority in one’s life and finding a way, any way to achieve that. After all, “Maybe in sixty years I’m dead. I want to say, ‘I had a good life.’”

I’ve also got my plane ticket for Japan. Flight leaves a a few days after graduation. I will be returning in January for the job hunt etc.

Until next time.

People often ask what is the purpose of the United Nations, mistakingly believing that its purpose is to prevent war completely. In this post I will argue that preventing war is not the role of the UN and that if we assess it based its unique position in the international system we will discover that the UN actually quite effective.

Many people believe that the purpose of the United Nations is to prevent war. After all one of the purposes written in the United Nations Charter is to “maintain international peace and security…” However there is a large gap between maintaining peace and preventing war. Maintaining peace generally refers to using troops for peace keeping or using troops for peace enforcement, a nuance that we will get to in a moment. As a neutral third-party it is not the United Nations’ place to act on behalf of either states nearing a conflict as doing so would displace their neutrality.

Once a conflict has occurred the United Nations still cannot send troops in immediately to ensure peace and stability. This is where the nuance between peace enforcement and peace keeping comes in. Peace enforcement is military action to reinstate the sovereignty of a nation i.e. collective self-defnse e.g. Kuwait vs. Iraq in 1991. Kuwait’s sovereignty was breached and it called for collective self-defense to get Iraq out of Kuwait to restore peace and stability in the region. Conversely, peace keeping can only occur when all parties involved agree for the United Nations to come in and maintain order and they must remain neutral. The moment both nations do not agree to their presence they must leave.

Thus any military action prior to conflict must be preempted by many attempts at diplomatic and economic coercing. However as long as any issues remain internal to a nation the United Nations and its member states cannot legally make any actions militarily. Much of this is due to the fact that the international system is anarchical and that no state has the inherit right to manipulate other states.

This said I can imagine to most people without the ability to enforce peace preemptively or of its own individual will the United Nations is completely useless and irrelevant. However if we consider the United Nations has a unique position in this anarchical international system the relevance of the UN becomes clear. The UN is not a world government (as some like to believe), it does not have sovereignty nor any rights beyond those in its charter, and membership is completely voluntary. But because of its position outside of the state and existing purely as an international body it can act neutrally on a global scale.

With its existence outside of the state, voluntary membership, and neutral position, the ideal role for the United Nations is clear. Organizations and agencies created by the UN should be able to move about the world relatively freely to fulfill their purpose. The UN is not so much as a keeper (or enforcer) of peace, but rather the only organization that has the position and structure necessary to create, manage, and more importantly legitimize these international organizations. Thus any organizations or associations have the reach and neutrality necessary to complete their job without stepping on regional toes.

Today’s globalized world requires an organization that can manage global issues while maintaining state sovereignty. The United Nations is not perfect in its form and function nor is it necessarily the best organization through which to manage all international affairs. However, thus far for as per diplomacy, research, and administrative tasks on a global scale we do not have any other organization that has the international legitimacy and neutrality to perform this tasks. Simply put, it might not be perfect but it’s all we got. Given the choice between a global world with an United Nations-esque organization and a global world without I would pick the world with.

Everywhere I look in society I see madness. I see 4 dollar a gallon petrol prices yet people still drive their large trucks as fast as ever, seemingly unaffected, unaware, or uncaring. Politicians calling for change with an arrogant and stubborn population. It’s not entirely their fault though. The required change is fundamental and difficult. The house needs a good shaking.

Here I sit, a stranger in a stage land. Only the truth can guide me home.