sarahsuz25 comments

Agree with AdamB, it's not "playing the victim card" to mention that they were in fact victims, nor does it mean they think they were the only victims, since Yad Vashem and other Holocaust memorials do honor non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

As my History teacher(jewish) said Germany got nailed because they had better book-keeping of what they did than other nations.

The Spanish inquisition and the Soviet Union also kept good records of how many Jews they killed. What's your point? That Germany gets a bad rap that they don't deserve just because they kept good records?

Anyway I think it's great that Muslim leaders are getting involved in this kind of interfaith movement, since they are often accused of not doing enough to change the reputation of their faith as radical and violent. Here they are doing exactly that--what can there be to complain about?

Thank you for the info on how the books are censored, but it begs the question: censored by whom? The people who censor it could just as easily be swayed by what's written, and their decisions on what is appropriate completely biased.

Everything prisoners/detainees write is read, and censored if necessary, by the prison officials, especially when it is something that is meant to go outside the prison walls. I think you'll find this is the case in most prisons in most countries, because you can't have prisoners writing home to ask to have drugs or weapons brought to them, or to have the witnesses in their trials murdered, etc.

I think we'll find, as details come out during and after the trial, that much of the book was made up, either by Ichihashi himself or by his editors at the publishing company. The real story is probably not quite the heartwarming adventure story this book is trying to be. Details that will be evidence in the case, such as who, if anyone, helped him, etc., have not been made public yet and so would not be allowed to be published.

I read the many reviews of the book on amazon which were enough to get a good idea of the contents. Several of the comments were from people familiar with the pretrial detention system and the lay judge system that pointed out that everything detainees write is censored, and so he almost certainly was not allowed to publish anything that had a bearing on his case. So yes, if he wants to publish his completely fictional, completely self-serving account of what he wishes he life was like, then let him. It is apparently a terrible book, and once the freak show appeal of it wears off, I'm sure everyone will forget about it.

limboinjapan

Yes, in other countries they usually go through the media, or someone else writes the book for them. But they still do whatever they can to get the story out there.

Kinda defeats the objective, IMHO.

I was mostly just offering that as an alternative to public burnings of books which have already been purchased.

I disagree that it is pointless, though. It's always good for people to be mindful of the choices they make. I'm sure most people are just buying it from curiosity and don't really think about the harm that can come from giving people like him a public platform from which to spout their crazy (encouraging copycats, for one.) Most likely it won't make bookstores pull the book, but it will at least give people something to think about.

Incidently, I think that my feelings would be different if the book was written by the psychologist who interviewed him, or his defense lawyer or something. By putting the book out so early he's clearly trying to change the public's mind about what happened and rewrite history to be what he wanted it to be. If a third party wrote about their observations of him, it would be a different matter.

Zenny11,

Exactly, there's nothing unique about this. It happens in every country. Personally I prefer not to support people like him with my money. The salient points will be all over the internet anyway, for the curious, since people like that don't know how to be quiet.

I think that all British in japan should get together, buy this book so the proceeds go to the hawker family and then burn the rubbish on the steps of the diet building as a sign of out total disgust at the "justice system"!!

No, don't buy the book. If you want to give money to the family, give money to the family. If you want to lodge a protest, perhaps a boycott of booksellers selling the book would be a better idea. The government doesn't have anything to do with this, but the publisher and booksellers do, and buying the book allows them to profit, regardless of what you do with the book.

Personally not sure what his motivation for doing so is as he won't get the money from the sales and I doubt it will make a difference in his trial.

People like that want to tell their "story." His life is a movie, and he is the hero; everyone else is supporting cast. He's just dying to make sure everyone knows his side of the story, couldn't even wait till the trial was over to get it all out there, even though it is likely to hurt his case, since he admits to the crime in the book. I've no doubt that if some enterprising publisher or reporter hadn't snapped it up, he would have just posted it online.

Gentosha official Kanako Oshima said the book “could be a valuable document from criminal psychology standpoint” but declined to comment further.

I'm sure that's what he tells himself, but really it's just a way for him to make pots and pots of money, and he's just glad he got in there before Ichihashi uploaded the whole thing to the internet.

Would this book help to know how certain people think? Especially the ones who have the tendency to commit heinous crimes?

Not really; psychologists already know plenty about what makes narcissistic killers tick, and this book is unlikely to contribute anything new to that field. As for opening up, people like this are just aching to tell their story, and he would have found some way to get it out, to the press or whoever else he could get to listen to him. Google Christian Longo for a similar story. And like Longo, Ichihashi has found his "mission," he's going to give the money from the book sales to her family or to a good cause, so that he can say to himself, "see, I'm really a good person, I do good things. Her death is just an unfortunate side effect." The money doesn't matter to Ichihashi; what matters is that people listen to his story, and see him the way he wants to be seen.

I don't think the nationality of either the killer or the victim matter in the least in this story. People like him exist in every country, and it would have been equally terrible if his victim had been Japanese. I'm sure the fact that he killed her had nothing to do with her nationality, and more to do with his issues--she could have been anybody.

I also think this kind of book would sell in any country. It's unfortunate, but true.

After wandering around Tokyo, he drifted north to Aomori Prefecture, where he lived homeless, before embarking on a pilgrimage tour of temples on the southwestern island of Shikoku, wishing Hawker could “come back to life.”

It bothers me immensely that this psycho probably drifted right through my neighborhood (I live on one of the pilgrimage routes in Shikoku).

“Israel is of greater importance to the U.S. than Japan,” he says. “The government can’t ignore the huge influence exerted by Jews in its media and academia.

I see this come up a lot in Japan. People seem to take it as a known and accepted fact that Jews control the media and/or the government in the US.

Sorry, I made a mistake. He's a representative, not a senator.

If my memory serves my right wasn't there a big controversy regarding taking the oath of office when a Muslim senator was going to use a Qur'an instead of a Bible during his swearing in?

Yes, that's the one. An utterly ridiculous thing to object to. I don't see why freedom of religion shouldn't extend to our elected leaders.

Talk about shams, what about the "Monde Selection"? Every can coffee, bottled water or cup ramen gets a gold award from the "Monde Selection". What is this "award"?

Yep, you're right. It's not an award; it's something that food companies can pay to put on their label. I work for a food company that gets requests from companies like "Monde Selection" all the time. They will give the award to anyone who pays them, but in their literature they try to make it sound like it's very exclusive and only offered to makers of the best products. It's not very expensive, though, so I can see why smaller companies might think it was worthwhile if it sold a few more products.

The Michelin guide is kind of the same thing, though. Why should I eat where a tire company tells me to?

I don't care about the religious beliefs of public officials as long as it doesn't interfere with the performance of their duties. This was a sermon in a church, not a public platform, so I don't see any problem with it.

However, I extend that to public officials of all religions. One of the senators from my home state is Muslim, and I don't see a problem with that either.

Yet more proof that leftists are dangerous.

Or rather, proof that people who have had a traumatic experience will react in emotional, often irrational ways.

So what does her quitting say about her ability to govern? Why should she ever be trusted with another office?

Taka, admit it, there is nothing. Nothing the woman could possibly do or say, that would in any way earn your respect. Ah wait, I take that back. If she changed parties and got that little d by her name, all of a sudden I suspect you'd be her biggest defender.

There's nothing she can do to earn my respect, no matter what party she belongs to, because I can't respect the fact that she blew off her obligation to the people of Alaska who elected her so that she could have her career as a celebrity or whatever. Honestly it surprises me that so many people are willing to overlook that because they agree with her politics. What she did is much, much worse than anything she has ever said, because actions speak louder than words, and her actions say that she didn't care in the least about the people she was elected to serve if doing her job got in the way of what she wanted to do. Can you name another politician, of any party, who has quit midterm for frivolous reasons and then gone on to be elected to a higher office? I don't care if she wants to have a career as a talk show host or whatever. I just don't want her to be elected to another position of responsibility that she will quit midterm. Doesn't the idea of a president who resigns midterm because they got a better offer elsewhere frighten you?

Blood libel never had any meaning or usage apart from the blood accusations of the Middle Ages. It is neither a common phrase nor an expression with a general meaning outside of its historical context. If Palin wants to assign a new meaning to an old word, she is free to do so, but she can't really be all that surprised when people associate the word with its original meaning.

Perhaps the recent decisive defeat for the Democrats at the polls have forced him and his Leftist cronies to temper their policies and their words.

Obama is not a Leftist. He is very solidly in the center, and not even really left-leaning. We have not ever had a real Leftist president in the US, and likely never will. It is ridiculous to get all worked up about Obama being a Leftist and a socialist, when in reality he is neither.

To me the most disturbing thing about Palin is that she quit in the middle of her term as governor of Alaska to do...what, exactly? To be a celebrity? Why should this person be given any sort of responsibility when she'll just quit as soon as a better offer comes along? Also, I've never heard any of her supporters come up with a good reason or explanation for that. Why should she be given a term as a senator or president or anything, when she wasn't even able to sit through one term as governor?

I mean yeah, she's a moron, and I don't agree with her politics, but neither of those things bother me as much as the fact that she's shown herself incapable of being trusted with even a relatively minor political post.

Aya Ueto, 25... The couple first met while Ueto was taking dance lessons around the time she broke into the mainstream in 1997.

So the couple met when she was 14?

why is it you go to their cemetary and honor their dead, while no yank will even come close to hiroshima or nagasaki???

Have you ever been to Hiroshima? because it's always crawling with Americans. The museum often seems to have more American visitors than Japanese.

doesn't it prove Japan was the most developed Asian country ?

That's quite a leap in logic there. Did it make you as dizzy as the guy upside down on the ladder?

If they can't cut it back home there is no magic yellow brick road in another country for them.

They are from countries that have been at war for the last 10 years. I'm sure they are chiefly concerned with living somewhere where they won't have to worry about suicide bombers or family members disappearing in the night. They probably had plenty of money, which they paid to the people smugglers to get them out--the poor have no choice but to stay.

It sounds like this woman had a perfectly reasonable reaction: she waited until she got to a safe place and contacted the authorities. Maybe she felt too threatened or intimidated to make a fuss on the train--we don't know what exactly he said or did to her.

It's not really surprising that people who have survived a decade of war and violence in Iraq and Afghanistan would feel that their children had a better chance of survival in a rickety boat on the ocean than they did where they came from.

It would be another thing if they weren't sailing across the ocean and just trying to cross the border. But they got greedy, and wanted to invade Australia. That's just dumb.

The border of an island is ocean. How else would they cross the border, if not by sea?

Maybe the train was crowded and she couldn't move away from him until it stoppped? Have you all never been on a crowded train before?

It's ridiculous to require consumation of any marriage before it's considered "valid".

Agreed.

a stipulation in the real estate law requires potential buyers be informed for up to seven years that the former owner of the property had committed suicide therein.

Wow! What is the point of that law? Do vengeful suicide ghosts only hang around for 7 years or something? I'm surprised it's legal to tell how the owner died at all, what with privacy laws surrounding medical issues, etc.