poollymook comments

Corporate governance is this country is basically non-existant. There should be policy and guidelines in place for when this kind of bamboozle happens. Automatic termination with fines/penalties and a full-blown criminal investigation. It’s not the perp’s choice whether to resign or not. Good grief!

A couple commenters hit the nail on the head: the whackiness of that story starts with the mom not even bothering to ask her son “who are your friends?” and the son not saying anything when the ‘unknown to him’ boy followed him into his house. Disfunctional on all levels...

Fail all around. There is a huge lack of feeling of community and warmth in this land that breaks my heart. And public welfare and government organizations need to open up and build better channels of communication in this country- so unbelievably unorganized!

If you can run and skate it’s not bone on bone. Trust me on that.

Getting to higher ground should have been part of disaster drill training and done automatically. No waiting for “higher ups” to give orders. And, Norman Goodman, I find your comment to be incredibly offensive. Proof you are definitely not a “man taught to be a man”. I’d like to write more of what I think of you but will leave it up to the imagination of anyone reading this. It’s not pretty...

It's a terrible sickness people!

My father was a terrible hoarder and it (among a variety of other things) caused a huge rift between us that was never mended! When he died my family rented a huge container that the big transport trucks take away...I think we filled it up five times to empty the house? (This is junk the junk...none of the "good" stuff that he hoarded too!) The house was FULL of junk...not just trash but ANYTHING he deemed too valuable to throw away...might have something to do with growing up after the war when all kinds of items we take for granted today were limited but it's just sick...I don't think any amount of counselling at that age can rehab these people...too far gone!

And anyone here who blames the parents outright must have had a terribly boring upbringing and youth!

"Bitter half" is a new'ish expression...C'mon...Google things before asking easy questions...it's all out there! @Mike - good on you to trade the van in and not take any crap from kids' idiot parents or your nasty wife. My folks did an amazing job of raising kids but I still managed to sneak out...never stole the car for a joy ride but it is completely understandable how this isn't just the parents' fault. A bunch of stupid kids who will have to pay for their idiocy for the rest of their lives!

65 years old is not elderly! Is that word (elderly) being used as an excuse for her complete and utter stupidity?

Maybe she thought she was Mary Poppins. I lived in Niagara Falls and you just do not do that. I'd love to have typed in all caps for that but you get my message. It just does not happen. If locals had been around, they'd have told her to get the hell down. Unfortunate stupid accident. Darwinism at its best.

Just get them to swim over and they won't have to worry about the extra dose of radiation once they reach dry land! As for food and whatnot, I'm pretty sure irradiated J food is still a heck of a lot healthier than most of what them 'Mericans stuff in their mouths.

Zenny11 In real life you just can't give/hand money out to anyone.

Really? I've had people hand me money here in Japan PLENTY of times! The Japanese are famous for that. Over the course of my first few years here I had received a total of at least 350,000円 from a variety of my adult students for a variety of reasons...from: "You're going home for Christmas? Take your family out!"...to..."enjoy your trip." etc. No funny things going on, just kindness of people. Believe it or not...

Lilas is how her name is spelled. It's the lilac flower (in French).

Haha! United is a joke! This musician wrote some songs about his bad experience with the airline. They broke his guitar and gave him the runaround. Crap service is right!

http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/music/ubg-videos/

The Seibu Shinjuku sen is absolutely bonkers during rush hour heading into town! The punk was more than likely talking i Hiroshi's ear.

If you are going to talk back, pick your fight well...that's all I have to say! Oh...and the guy on the phone is a wanker.

Hiroshi-1 Wanker-0

It takes two to tango...the are both cows.

He would have been drunk and beat up if it'd been me he made tumble!

That is a lot of alcohol! They must have been drinking for hours. LOT of alcohol ...my foot!!! Thats nothing much 5 beers each and 500ml sake

betterdays...couldn't agree with you more. Especially considering he's a man and police officer, hopefully a bit 'bigger' than the average bear. I'm a woman and even I don't consider 5 beers and 500 mls of sake to be all that much! Hell...a lot of the guys I know can down a whole case (24) of beer and still function!

hey, I thought I had 8,400 yen on my card...what the...??! oh yeah, this Relet thing...

Had something like this happened to me on a train, I could not for the life of me imagine reacting in that way. Additionally, I have trouble believing the purported reaction of her fellow passengers:

...the others on the train car weren’t just staring blankly, but were actually glaring at me. I imagined that I could feel their disgust. I was flooded with shame: my body registered the old hopelessness I’d always felt as a blond foreigner on a Japanese train.

Most passengers could care less about what others around them are saying and/or doing. A woman fainted in front of me two days ago and myself and a Japanese woman came to her help. The other passengers were walking over and around us to get off the train! This story sounds like a complete fabrication to me. An uninteresting one at that!

Life coach? Sounds like she needs to sign up for some of her own lessons!

...If I had a million dollars...

I don't know if meth is an issue here...

i just think it was a stupid mom not thinking (as many 'people' in this country...BTW, no comment on being Japanese or whatnot...) of anything else but right 'now.'

Let's get a proper education system going on in the schools that calls for people actually having to make decisions and choices ON THEIR OWN, through true learning and experience as opposed to having them all made up for them a priori!

This educational system is lacking! Let's try to get a bit pro-active here and take responsibility. Does anyone in the Japanese government even read this board!?

The mom is sick, that's beyond doubt but we do not know her circumstance. Whether she be on drugs, not had a meal in a couple days, or in want of the latest LV bag...

The bottom line is, the Japanese governemnt NEEDS to start taking steps to providing real assistance to families, especially single parent families; i.e. those most in need. Ready access to affordable and reasonable day-care, to mental health professionals (I'm under the impression that visits to the psych. are NOT covered under Jp. Public Health Insurance...is that correct?), to more woman's shelters, to 'soup kitchens', to more subsidised housing for the elderly and home-care.

Every time something like this happens I give my head a shake and wonder why the government does not take real action as opposed to their cockanany bandaid solutions (one example is the recent article here or in JT...sorry if my details are not spot-on but something about offering suicide counselling at HelloWork stations...by whom? average joe civil servants? qualified health professionals? Get the pros. in hospitals where people can have conselling paid for by the government.)

How do they expect the declining birth rate to even start to recoup? Never in a million years with the current lack of social programs.

I really doubt that the woman had an intial poor reaction! To me that smells of someone prone to panic. Her reaction of "catching" the boy shows quick thinking and a degree of calm...not something a frantic person with a case of the screaming meemies would do.

Why do posters have to read into things and make up little scenarios? Let your imaginations run wild!!

Absolutely no excuse! "I didn't know there were lights"...right! How about lifting your head up and looking straight ahead to see three little kids a few meters in front of you. What a lame duck excuse! Throw the book at the ol' geezer!

5Speedracer5...are you kidding me?

"drop 10000 yen a person on a dinner for the sake of art,"

What kind of 'art' are you talking about? Sounds like you've got velvet Elvis on your place...since when does 10,000 yen in Tokyo buy anything even closely resembling 'art'?

Okubo and Shin Okubo are both within Shunjuku Ward. Has anyone stopped to think for a second that the victim MAY have been a Chinese national too? Duh...