spbpb comments

So, I don't necessarily share the idea that the mother is unqualifiedly blameworthy, but I'll grant it for the sake of argument.

The kid is still undeniably blameless. Why is he being made to suffer for something as random as being born to undocumented parents? Any country that ostensibly recognizes equality among persons cannot discriminate against a person based on their parents' actions because that is based on luck.

The kid deserves Japanese citizenship for being born and raised in a country tbat now constitutes his home. Forcing one to leave their home is cruel. Even more so when the individual could have done nothing to change their situation.

TigersTokyoDome

She's the manager, which means she's there every practice, and is used to being around baseball. She is a member of the team, and I think that alone gives her right to be on the field. If we say "players only" then we must exclude all coaching staff too. After all, the coaches don't all have playing experience in Japanese schools, and most of them are out of shape too.

I'm not sure what's motivating you here. Considering your previous comments, her gender really seems to be sticking out.

And on the hair comment, I'm a male with long hair. I tie my hair back into a ponytail too. That activity can be done in 3 seconds, and there's plenty of time to do that in any sport.

I hear what y'all are saying, and I agree. Japan should be more open and honest about its own atrocities. But my two points still stand.

1) This is a conversation about the atomic bomb and the suffering that it caused. Conversations about other atrocities and Japan's own history is a red herring. The suffering experienced by these individuals is not affected by those things. The bomb caused awful damage, and that should be remembered and respected. Whether or not it was justified, we should be aware of the harm that we caused. My point with the kid example, was that harm, whenever it is caused, is regrettable.

2) The people who suffered, the people in this story, are civilians. These people were innocent. These people did nothing wrong. They are no more deserving of punishment than citizens of the British Empire, or even of the US back in our expansionist days.

None of us know the horror that these survivors went through. Knowing this suffering and regretting it is a valuable thing. Telling survivors Japanese to "just get over it" is an inappropriate response for the above two reasons.

The fallacies are strong in this thread. First, the fact that Japan committed atrocities does mean that the atrocities committed against them require any less apology or acknowledgement. If two kids hit each other, they both apologize. Bringing up Japanese crimes in this discussion is neither here nor there.

Moreover, the individuals who suffered from the bombs were civilians. They didn't commit the crimes that y'all want Japan to apologize for. They were innocent.

Knowing and remembering their suffering is valuable. It keeps us honest in discussions about war.

The Barenaked Ladies did a song called "Be My Yoko Ono" which accepts that she broke up the band but defends her nonetheless. ... That is all

@Joshua DegreiffMar.

08, 2015 - 12:08PM JST We not need diversity we need the all FREMIUM games and DLC has to be burn in hell! All that AAA companies like Avtivition, EA, and more and is milking our money! We are paying a weekly fee for play video games ? This need be stop it first and later we talk about diversity shall we!

False dilemma. It's not as if you can't tackle multiple problems at once. And anyway, I find it interesting that you seem to value the respectul treatment of women less than you value your gaming experience.

@scipantheist

but please stay on your side of the aisle

I don't understand why you wrote this. Are you envisioning a seperate boys and girls section in game stores? Otherwise, I don't see the need to create sides at all. People buy a game because they like it. Their gender plays no part in it.

@AiserX

What if this diversity ruins the quality of the product which it most certainly will?

It most certainly will? See, claiming that the quality of a product will drop if more women are involved in its creation pretty much is sexism. As for the rest of your comment, the problem is that women are being prevented from engaging in video game community as ful members. As players and creators, they face barriers because of their gender. That's a problem

My parents kept tabs on my pretty well growing up. But then again, I was dropped off and picked up from school by one parent who only worked part time while the other worked full time. My society didn't approve of children being alone, which happens very often in Japan. My parents worked really hard to involve themselves in my life and know what was going on. I guess I was privileged. This story makes me realize how that might not always be possible in some households.

It makes me more determined to know what goes on in my own kids' lives in the future.

I read this article, but I didn't have to. There's nothing new.

Japan - Stop denying it. Embrace it and swallow your pride. You already made an official apology with reparations that was accepted in the past. Korea has no right to demand further action, but they do have a right to demand that you don't deny or diminish past wrongs.

Korea - Let it go. Nothing can be done to change the past. Keep this to what it is, an intellectual and historical debate. Stop using it as political propaganda.

@ReformedBasher

Agreed. I'm disappointed when I think about the time and effort that gets put into this anti-Japan movement. If only they'd devote their time to something that might actually produce something positive.

@MarjG

Feb. 26, 2015 - 07:50AM JST Disturbing....could this open eyes to the multi-culture movement? When I visit an established stable countries, I DO like to feel the culture. It seems industrialized nations are diluting regional cultures. Here in USA the culture historically was to asymilate into. Now we have Spanish as a second language. ALL the immigrants from decades ago learned English. They didn't introduse their cultures to mainstream USA.

I'd like to point out that of the three, none were US citizens. This story should not be taken as support for your claim.

One benefit of absolute monarchy is that the leader doesn't have to worry about politics and can call things as they are. He or she can get unpopular but necessary things done.

While not having governing power, the prince is in a similar position with regard to public debate about policy. He can bypass Abe and the LDP to project politically unpopular things to the nation. I hope he continues to take advantage of his position and continues to act as Japan's conscience.

@Illyas I think it is a fault of the article's writing that it didn't emphasize this more clearly, but the article was referencing civilians in war, not soldiers. The opening quote, while framing the discussion, encourages the reader to think what follows will discuss the danger's of civillian women as opposed to soldiering men. However, it says at the beginning, "While war is devastating for all civilians, woman and girls are confronted with specific threats." Since the article doesn't seek to compare the experience of soldiers, referencing soldier's experience in response to the article is red herring. Moreover, only that first paragraph makes a comparative statement of any kind. The rest is entirely devoted to simply highlighting unaddressed problems of sex crime, of which women are almost entirely the victims.

@scipantheist Efforts to reduce physical violence in combat equate to efforts to reduce war, since violence is the currency of war. Would you agree that the UN spends a lot of its time trying to reduce war? If so, then proportion is not the issue. You also seem to imply that we cannot expect moral behavior from men in combat. If so, the idea of a war crime is ludicrous.

Suffering endured by soldiers is well documented and understood. We erect memorials to the struggles of soldiers, in the US, we have a national holiday dedicated to veterans. We provide for soldiers financially and emotionally upon there return (granted perhaps not as much as we should.) Sexual violence in combat, however, has no holiday, no national memorial, and is given very little time in the public discourse. This article decries that victims continue to suffer because of rape in war long after the war has finished.. That is the sort of thing that legislation can directly change.

@volland

I'm afraid I don't understand the flow of your argument.

You begin by talking about male veterans, emphasizing the plight of their situation. This is entirely unrelated to severity of sexual assault in war. Perhaps soldiering is more dangerous than being a woman in combat zones, but that in no way lessens the danger of being a woman. The quote at the beginning might be hyperbole, it might not. That doesn't change the fact that women are raped in war, and it's a problem, and it's in large part due to their gender.

You seem to be saying sexual assualt in war is not a problem because there are bigger problems. That is not logical. We would apparently disagree about the frequency of occurence for sexual assault in war, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and that it's not a problem deserving of attention.

The article talks about victims of sexual assualt being punished and ostracized after the fact precisely because they were victims of a certain kind of violence. The article calls for more attention to be given to this problem. How is that insulting people in the "real world"?

Talk about first world problems... I was amused until I thought about how much effort their putting into such a silly endeavor.

"Being unpopular with the opposite sex is a class issue." What a load. Being popular with the opposite sex from a certain class might be a class issue. But I've never met or seen anyone who couldn't have romance with the opposite sex because of their class.

@coskuri

I don't agree that you lump my sweet Indian male friends (yoga teachers, businessmen; IT geniuses, students, artists....) with criminals . Do you say all Japanese men are collectively responsible for Ichihashi ? American men for Charles Manson ?

When an act is committed by a member or members of a larger group, that act reflects on the group as a whole. This is not to say that the group necessarily endorses the actions of every individual, but it does mean that the actions of individuals affect the identity and perception of the group. For instance, though a majority of Muslims are not radicalm they do have a responsibility to speak out against radicals and enforce a peaceful group identity. Moreover, if the majority of muslims were silent about extremists, the lack of criticism would appear to the rest the world as tacit appoval.

My point is that when there is a salient group identity such as religion or nationality, the actions of every individual influence that identity which every member shares. Your yoga instructors are certainly nice fellows, but they are responsible as Indians for India's identity. I think they do have some duty to engage other Indians in a discussion about women's safety in India.

You quotes of wiki seem like general crime statistics. It might be true that men are in general more often the victims of crime while women are simultaneously more often the victims of crime while travelling alone abroad.

But I think you would agree with me that more needs to be done to ensure the safety of individuals abroad.

I would refuse to wear such a privacy-invasive device on principle. But aside from that, it would stress me out to no end if I knew that my boss is electronically watching me at every moment.

Moreover, this article says it compares your behavior to a pre-determined paradigm of happiness which came from other groups who reported being happy. So if my bodily expression of happiness or unhappiness is unique, the system would give a false-reading. Those on the margins be damned.

I'm worried that this points to a world in which, when managers want to check the morale of their staff, they pull up a spread-sheet rather than engage in face-to-face interaction.

@noypikantoku

My question to you and you must answer this, If there is a sign " SHARK ATTACK OCCURRED HERE" at the beach, and you see people still swimming right in front of the sign will you not criticize those people!?

You are drawing a false comparison.

We cannot expect rational and moral behavior from sharks. We can and should expect such behavior from people.

I agree that some sexual assualts happen which might not have happened if the victims had shown more caution. However, that does not make it the responsibility of the victims to make sure they don't get raped. We should reasonably demand that individuals do not rape. When we hear about rape, we should be outraged at the criminal, not the victim.

noypikantoku, earlier you said that you blame the criminal 100%. You claim that, and yet most of your time on this thread has been devoted to criticizing the victim. That seems to suggest that you think the victim to be at least somewhat blameworthy.

"She's stupid" is not an appropriate response to news that a woman was raped. She's not responsible for what happened to her, the person who raped her is.

The article says that the man "introduced himself as a tourguide." But earlier it directly calls him an Indian tourist guide. For all we know, she could have arranged this through reasonably legitimate channels. Perhaps she was referred to the man because he was friends with some of the hotels staff. We don't know What's more, even if this was totally on the up and up, it still could have happened. Just getting into a taxi puts you in someone else's power.

My point is, we ought to expect from any country that a woman should be able to travel alone safely. When we hear about cases like this, we shouldn't blame the woman, but the perpetrator and the society in which it happened.

So, without actually committing a crime, some citizens can lose their privilege to travel outside the country? That doesn't seem right.

If make-up trends reflect the emotional atmosphere of the times, it does not follow that make-up wearing women in general are especially sensitive. I find it just as probable that most women who wear make-up are simply following trends without giving any thought to the emotional undertone of society. That correlation=causation mixup was bugging me.

You could propbably draw the conclusion, however, that the choices of fashion leaders and make-up artists are influenced by the state of society, which sounds interesting.

@scipantheist

I had some additional ideas: make praising ISIS a deport-able offense, put Muhammad on the $1 bill, and have free pork and alcohol on Fridays. The last three are designed to show the absolute contempt the civilized societies have for radical Islam.

This shows absolute comtempt for an entire culture not just a radical subset. Drawing a line between us and Islam only empowers the radicals who build their case to other muslims around the argument that the West seeks to destroy Islam.

@samwatters

People who read the Quran will come across this phrase in Quran (8:12), "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike of their heads and strike off every fingertip of them." I agree that education is a good step along with the empowering of girls and women but there is something sinister in Islam that must be confronted.

I agree with you up to the point where you might be implying that something in Islam will necessarily prevent muslims from living in peace with non-muslims. Christianity once waged holy wars, but I don't think anyone can genuinely accuse modern Christianity of being a violent religion. You say something must be confronted in Islam, and I agree, but by whom? I think it will have to be from within the religion. The best way we can facilitate that change of perspective from within is to make efforts to support the development of those communities. If we build a much needed water well, for example, in a muslim community, that community would not easily be convinced to wage holy war against us. The West needs to be visible agents of prosperity and stability, not people solely interested in extracting the region's natural resources. But I think the actual change in radical Islam can only come from people within the faith.

That's roughly what I think about how to deal with radical ideologies, but how to deal with IS is another matter. I'm honestly not sure if it's safe or even morally permissable to wait for a change within their ranks to occur on its own.

Despite where you fall on the political spectrum, it's pretty hard to deny America's heavy-handedness in dealing with Cuba. Not all but most of Castro's demands seem pretty feasible. Guantanamo for instance is a US military base on Cuba's sovereign territory. If Cuba doesn't want the base there, I America's refusal to remove it seems pretty unjustifiable.

I hope America takes this opportunity to pursue a path in line with her stated ideals which will show respect for Cuba's legal sovereignty as an independent nation. Not making reparations is fine, but the US could at least stop all the sanctions and restrictions which are in place just because of the way their government works.

No... thats... not what I wanted to say....

(Japanese) failing to hold IS morally responsible equates them (IS) to animals.

I'm saying the perspective that IS are just bad people in the world and there's nothing we can do about it is akin to sayin IS are like animals and we can't expect better behavior from people like them.

You misread me.

I've been surprised at the lack of anger directed toward IS about the situation. It's as if most Japanese don't blame militant Islamists for being violent.

When this story started, I was hopeful that Japanese would caring about how people behave and what happens in other parts of the world. Instead, I see most people blaming the hostages and not talking about IS. Failing to hold IS morally responsible equates them to animals. It says we can't expect any better of them.

“Unfortunately bad people exist no matter what. ... We need to accept the fact that the Islamic State exists. It’s like you hate hairy caterpillars but you cannot eradicate them.”

Jeeze, I really don't know what to say if your going to resign yourself to evil in the world as you would resign yourself to insect pests every summer.

The paper never hesitated to humiliate (the men) who so selflessly staked their lives for Japan's independence and modernisation.

The Japanese military complied with international law and maintained high moral standards, with the world’s strictest military discipline, the document says.

Did anyone else find this disturbing? I can see that we ought to respect those who died for their country, but did Japanese soldiers really die for Japan's independence and modernisation in a military that complied with international law and maintained high moral standards?

This right here is evidence that Japan does not wholly appreciate their WWII actions. Comfort woman aside, what about treatment of POWs? What about occupation of Manchuria? Japan's conduct in these instances was certainly not up to high moral standards.

Perhaps the comfort women issue is exaggerated, I don't know for sure. But when you give such an unqualified defence Japan's WWII record, it suggests to me that you don't understand what happened or you have a political agenda.

I too wonder about the standard against which they're measuring the program's accuracy.

I'm not surprised that a person's self-reported personality matches with their likes on facebook. There is bias when answering a personality quiz. Your answers often reflect the person that you enjoy imagining yourself to be. Similarly, a subject might conscientiously like or refrain from liking a post on facebook based on the its perceived image. For example, suppose I have a secret love of J-pop, but I don't ever like J-pop posts because I don't want people to think I'm otaku. Similarly, some people might like a post about an intellectual movie only because their close friends are liking.

It would be interesting to see if, with enough likes, your real self eventually shows through, but I don't think so. Setting up self-reported personality as the truth, you assume that the subject infallibly knows their own personality. In fact, I can easliy imagine that my spouse knows me better than I do.

Park also said she was willing to hold unconditional talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, and to “meet just about anyone” to seek peace and reunification on the peninsula.

I'm young enough not to know a time when there was a unified Korea. So perhaps that's why I find present-day talk about reunification terrifying. Can someone tell me, is this just rhetoric, or is there a serious desire in SK to reunite with the North?

I cannot imagine Kim giving up any power in unification. I can only imagine a North Korean annexation of South Korean policy and ideals.

No harm done, just an annoyance. Shutting down online gaming seems pretty tame to me.

If fragments from his car are the only pieces of evidence linking him to the crime, maybe someone else was driving?

Anyway, I cannot begin to comprehend how you drag a body with your car for 1.5 kilometers without noticing.

@BertieWooster

Sanity does not preclude mental instability. I believe that crimina insanity is not having the ability to discern right from wrong. You can be extremely depressed and unstable, but still be sane.

Perhaps I misread, but I don't think the article mentioned "treating" terrorists with psychology. The question at hand is whether or not it's an effective heuristic tool for identifying lone-wolf terrorists. You say that it isn't effective, and your defense is that serial killers general have a history of mental health issues. That would seem support the claim that mental health can be an indicator of extreme violence.