GDemmons comments

Dropbox and Bento serve my purposes...

Oops...new iPad so I added the 'who' in there...

If you look at the fee schedule, it discourages intensive verbal interaction. It is very obvious that a professional who is given the opportunity to charge over ¥19,000 an hour or ¥4,000 per hour, you are not going to be very open to talking with a patient for an hour. As the doctor in this article takes 10 patients an hour, he is obviously not doing much in the way of proper counseling. Patient: "I hate my life. I want to kill myself. My mom and dad ignore me and I can never seem to get good grades in school because I am always so tired from staying up late ganbarre-ing. What should I do?" Shrink: "So, you are considering jumping in front of a train? Too much pressure at school and home? Well, I think that this drug who should help. It will take me a few minutes to write the prescription and explain to you how to take it and the possible side effects...Ganbatte kudasai!" Shrink: "Next, please..."

Hate Japanese beef. I prefer lean North American or Aussie beef. Stringy beef? Don't know where smith has been getting his American beef, maybe from the Salvation Army soup kitchen? I ate a Kobe beef burger in Kobe that turned my stomach. Went to a ryokan in Hida-Furukawa last year for Xmas. The beef there was ok, but still too fatty and greasy for my tastes.

Thank goodness...I was worried. Now we can get on with the business of fixing up the Tohoku area.

They are so natural-looking! I love the way the lighting brings out the undercurrent of natural highlights in their hair. So awesome!

Of course, MRSMR a test would be able to identify whether she was good at her job. As with the Olympus case, a test was obviously not administered for those guys either. I wish Japan would get on board with the job-testing thing.

Fortunately, she is the only dishonest Japanese person. Of course all other Japanese people would disclose that information. I think everything will be ok after this incident. With a little more ganbarre, she will be better and back soon! Funny how so many people cannot seem to find work, but a convicted felon has no problem...

Like the movie first referred to, no real solutions are provided. And sorry, Japan does not produce good results. In university system where Professors write graduate papers for students, and it is impossible to flunk, Japan succeeds in producing artificial results that cannot be relied upon. We used to think that Japanese lived longer because of fudged reports about age demographics (242,000 missing over the age of 100), and that their students are smarter (all schools here avoid real education in favour of test prepping students.) America is moving in the same direction with regard to education: excessive testing which has been proven to hinder intellectual growth in students will now become the norm so that we can produce reports for international media that show "academic" achievement on an easy-to-read graph. Read Krashen for some real ideas about how to fix the school system. It is not in ruins now, it is in the process of being ruined.

CONservatives want graphic comparison reports because reading takes too long. They promote extreme market principles because they have no conscience that leads them to social responsibility. Education is not about producing market-ready robots, it is about teaching children to understand the world around, something that CONservatives find revolting.

Don't talk about violence in schools as an American problem. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world for young people. Just as many kids are dying here, but by their own hand because this society treats them as cogs in the socially inept system of obey the one above, sit down, shut up and repeat after me.

I am Canadian, not American.

It is great that young people, rather than educating themselves about the crumbling Japanese financial situation, the pitiful political non-offerings and a social fabric that seems to be unlocking itself, are able to tackle important issues that have no importance in any, single context whatsoever.