Monday, March 31, 2008

Rare photos of the new Jesuit General Fr. Adolfo Nicolas

Here are some rare photos of the newly elected General Superior of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas,S.J., taken around the time he was ordained. He was ordained priest on March 17, 1967, with fellow Jesuits Fr. William Currie & Fr. Anzorena at St. Ignatius Parish, near Sophia University, Tokyo, by the then Archbishop (now Cardinal) Shirayanagi. The photo prints are from the carefully kept collection of Fr. Currie, S.J., the previous President of Sophia University, currently teaching in the Philippines. The photos were digitized and sliced by this blogger, Sophian.


Fr. Nicolas holding a handmade gift like a trophy!
(c) Jesuits of Japan, 2008



Newly Ordained Fr. Nicolas in 1967
(c) Jesuits of Japan, 2008



Fr. Nicolas as a young Jesuit Scholastic in formation
(c) Jesuits of Japan, 2008



Fr. Nicolas and Fr. Currie in Jesuit Theologate, Kamishakujii, Tokyo
(c) Jesuits of Japan, 2008


Saturday, March 15, 2008

Sophia Jesuit Vladimir Kos to speak at 40th International PEN Assembly


Vladimir Kos (photo (c) BriFrancis)

Hardly anyone around Sophia University could have guessed that this simple, unassuming old man trudging in and out of Sophia frequently is to speak at the 40th Internation PEN Writers' meet to be held in Bled, Slovenia, towards the end of March 2008. Yes, Fr. Vladimir Kos, a Jesuit priest, ardent missionary, committed social worker, and retired professor is also a well-known poet, having already published more than ten acclaimed books of poems in his mother tongue, Slovenian. Even most of his Jesuit brothers at Sophia are not aware of his status and stature as a poet since he rarely speaks about the accolades he has received and, unfortunately, all his poems are in a language that nobody around here understands--except him!

Professor Alenka Zbogar, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, writes about him as follows:
Vladimir Kos, who comes from Murska Sobota, is a professor at Sophia University (Tokyo) and a missionary to a poor suburb of Tokyo. According to Lev Detela, he is one of the most original, qualitative, and productive writers of Slovene migration. We can claim that his diction in poetry is individualistically sharpened: he transforms some forms, and his language is modern. Vladimir Kos is also known as a writer of short stories and a publicist. In Slovenia he has published a book of essays, Eseji z japonskih otokov, and a selection of poems, Cvet, ki je rekel Nagasaki.

The Slovenian Wikipedia has an entry on him with a list of his publications, though with limited biographical data.

In the section of Eastern European Literature, Britannica Book of the Year 1999 identifies Vladimir Kos's Cvet ki je rekel Nagasaki: izbrane pesmi as one of the "two collections of poetry [that] stood out."

It's a pity that no-one nearby can read and appreciate Kos' poems, but the remarks of the Slovenian literati seem to suggest Kos is a significant contributor to Slovenian literature.

Kos is scheduled to leave Japan around Good Friday and return after rubbing shoulders with the academic elite--only to continue his humble work of serving the poor in a Tokyo suburb.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Brittonia Article Plagiarized!


Although I've seen several extracts from my report here about Fr. Nicolas, some with clear reference to this blog and some without, for the first time I see almost the entire article stolen by some Indian publication called Navhind Papers & Publications Ltd., which has printed my essay without any attribution or credit to this source. You can see the plagiarized article, without any credit to this blog or my authorship, here: http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.php?Story_ID=01213 and my original article here. Apparently they have done a very quick job of stealing. I posted the first version of my blog on January 19, 2008, and their plagiarized copy is dated January 21, 2008! Well, someone said "Imitation is the Greatest Form of Flattery," but I wonder whether being plagiarized too is a form of flattery. At any rate, it's quite disappointing and painful to see what looks like a decent newspaper from Panaji, Goa, stealing from someone's blog in Japan. Or are Indians still so backward as not to know what constitutes plagiarism? Getting a few facts from other sources and using them in an original blog entry seems somewhat acceptable; but for a newspaper to steal the entire article from someone's blog seems a bit over the limit and dishonorable. Perhaps there are many other more illustrious bloggers who are continually ripped off?