TexPomeroy comments

Actually my erstwhile boss was the one who suggested to several Japanese trading companies to go look for good salmon for sushi around the world; he also suggested salmon fishery in the southern hemisphere to them in filling the needs for salmon for use as breakfast and lunch staple - I say good luck to my British and Norwegian friends in trying to provide the finicky Japanese consumers with what they want!

I disagree with "100% driver's fault" - nobody can be 100% at fault in a situation like this... put yourself in the driver's seat: you're leaving the station, your colleagues have all given you the "safe to proceed" sign, you accelerate out of the train station (I daresay 40km/h sounds too slow for an accelerated train), you spot two kids "about" 100 m ahead {for argument's sake it was actually 88 m} and slam on the brakes [they have safety systems on Japanese trains that make announcements to make sure passengers are warned], praying no passenger dies because of the emergency halt since as driver your PRIMARY responsibility is towards your passengers' lives... I do hope the surviving child pulls through, I feel very sorry that the 3-year-old had to die due to his parents' and Japanese society (yes, neighbors, authorities, railway company) negligence... but perspectives behoove that comments trying to put all the blame on the driver be tempered; wouldn't be objecting if it had been "majority of the blame is on the driver" but this 100% statement to me is offensive!

I think rail operators in Japan need to be given many thumbs down. BTW indeed the thumbs up/down system on this site is inane - I ignore it... this ain't the Roman Colosseum and we ain't gladiators! I'd rather they used broken pieces of pottery a la Athens: whoever ends up with the largest amount suffers Themistocles' fate. But to get things "back on track," we need a tracking system at train stations for obviously deranged people and a system to provide warning to foreign tourists who cannot handle the Japanese language, but the rail/transit operators are probably putting profits before people...

Go Astros! The Oilers may be gone, The Post may be gone, but the Astros will always be in Houston!!!

This one isn't that bad!

I also happen to know that there is an inexpensive digital signage gizmo (from a Canadian inventor so is multilingual and "versatile") that could be "near seat" - but what has the response to this been amongst the Japanese rail/transit operators? Slower than molasses on a cold Canadian winter morning... Japan needs to "get on with it" I say!

I believe there is a tuna place in Tokyo near Coredo II, which also just opened up an international "sushi school," that has a similar "party plan" - though I don't know if they'll arrange for a "fishy pastor" to hold the actual ceremonies...

Interesting that the first paragraph starts out noting "a figure greater than the population of Germany"... which beings to my mind "a single party-led nation holding sway over the lives of many more from different nationalities" - sounds like the place the Allies fought against tooth and nail in the early 1940's...

Condolences to the residents and the crew.

Actually I believe these days there are fax machines that can send data as "PDF" or whatever so it can be received via Internet; the other way around has been around for a while (our office used "datacap" which caught/formatted mail messages into fax pages, for print out as needed)...

First, words of condolence for the innocent (in addition to the lady from Yokohama, possibly a man in his 30s?) - the 70-something's in Japan apparently are so self-absorbed [I say if the self immolator was unhinged then it was the responsibility of his peers to ensure he was kept under watch] that the younger generation is being smothered to Japan's detriment; allowing mentally-ill people to roam the streets freely is... nutty. My understanding is that there is a revolutionary imaging system developed by a Japanese inventor {worked together with Ross Perot} which detects problem activities at train stations and onboard, but the Japanese rail operators have ignored it.

So - had nothing to do with the fact that the Japanese Navy looked to end the war early while the Army was hellbent on "fighting to the last man, woman and child"? Is there some primary source on the US Navy side saying, in 1943 perhaps, "we don't want to bomb Yokosuka because we can use it as a base later?"

I found out Ryukyu Shimpo has an English webpage(about a page of newspaper info) - way too skimpy but worse a tad slanted as well... BTW in my earlier post that G was totally unintended, I assure you; just because I am a (former) Herald-Tribune subscriber does not mean I hate the Yomiuri, though I would want itself to identify itself as a sports rag rather than insisting it is general circulation...

My "Tex" machine gives me drawings, like maps - in areas with GPS coverage problems, worth more than a thousand words! BTW I hate using Japanese keyboards...

We need the Right Stuff, again!

Next thing we know the Abe government will start subsidizing Japanese men to make themselves look like this ape so the birthrate in Japan can rise...

If she had really wanted to Get Back at him there could have been a thousand other ways - now she has no way to return the cruel treatment she got from the unfaithful hubbie...

According to government mouthpiece http://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00084/ G Yomiuri has 9,240,000 circulation followed by Asahi at 7,210,000 and Mainichi at 3,300,000 (toshiko your math adds up at this level) but Sankei has 1,600,000 - if one were to count "left" or "right"... obviously not counting the Nikkei or specialized trade journals or Akahata or whatever then afraid there are some 330,000 readers reading center-right papers. Quoting primary sources's always better than just opinions no matter how well thought out...

Toshiko Why don't you move to Okinawa and make a newspaper publishing company by yourself instead of depending Yubaru and Bertie if you can not formulate your opinion? Pay a lot of money to them for contributing to your business.

You obviously missed the last line where I said "all my oil wells are dry" - I would if I had the dough, though no one can make a proper newspaper alone, whether it be a former prince or Akahata leftover... ever hear of "Hito, Mono, Kane"? As for my opinion I have a full inkwell (I'd be "Bowdlerized" here though) as I said; I just mentioned the two posters as they seem to have the levelheadedness required in producing a proper paper that could fulfill market needs in Okinawa, offering alternatives to the two existing ones that apparently ignore English readers (and I don't mean the US presence there).

The judges will probably give him 3 years of light labor if it's a sunny day and they are in a good mood.. Nuts!!!

M3M3M3: in Japan foreigners are "nonentities" except for classifications of taxpayers, criminal suspects and cadavers - we have no "rights" here... so the name bit (though they have foisted this archaic "koseki" upon permanent residents now, or actually will as of July 24), they don't care as long as it isn't something involving taxes and law -THEN the idiot bureaucrats and judges will say, "Will, Mr. Po-Will, wi donto kea hou YU pronunce POWELL in US, hia yu aar Po-Will in Katakana"... BTW BlueSea67 this case also entails custody and visitation rights to kids?

I'd love to start a newspaper catering toward the Okinawan market, an English/local bilingual thing (not even a daily), which has Yubaru, BertieWooster and others involved in its operations! It'd be fun. I've got a "full inkwell" too - just too bad all my oilwells are dry...

I personally think the judges in this case probably know nothing of the real world: finish law "skool" [likely how they spell it!], end up in boondocks Legal Training Institute for a while then start OJT at the courthouses. Japanese judges should be forced to spend 3 years volunteering at hospitals emptying bedpans {did they even consider giving this woman such "mandatory community service time" rather than a suspended sentence which lets her off scot-free?} while observing how the real world works. Oh and 2 years at a kindergarten since obviously these judges can't add or subtract well either!

M3M3M3: Thanks a gob for the info about how "the state" got involved in the current legal setup, it was always a question which always stuck in my mind whenever I saw docos about the Occupation, though it isn't the reason behind my insomnia. My guess was that many "Christian charities and organizations" had set up shop in postwar Japan with some children sent off abroad to be adopted [personally I find this practice objectionable in the same way it deprived Aborigines or Native Americans who were adoptees of their heritage, no matter how well meaning the adoptive parents are/were]. However I think tinawatanabe makes a good point - unless they wish to adopt the British scheme where the orphans etc. are wards of the Queen, who now pays taxes unlike the Emperor from what I understand - then some responsibility should be relegated to the parents to pay for child maintenance rather than using taxpayer money to care for their offsprings (BTW DNA testing even today is not perfect, and either way the law obviously looks at the family as a unit comprising individuals living together as a household endowed with certain rights... again even if a child has been adopted there ought to be no discrimination under the law.)

I've always wondered - what happened to the war orphans in Japan after WWII if they weren't "wards of the GHQ" or whatever...?

Try to curb the freedom of the press? => Hyakutatakinokei! (Do let him off lightly first time, though likely he won't learn as obviously his parents didn't give him a good caning; second time, show him scenes of Nazi bookburnings digitally altered so they look like his books, for 100 hours; third time...)

Both tinawatanabe and Jumin Rhee make very good points - in fact I think even if one is divorced, if they took "the oath" the husband... even if cuckolded... should at least make sure his ex-wife won't end up shouldering the entire burden in case she is pregnant; heck, I know some guys who actually marry women who are already pregnant even though it is obvious it is someone else's baby since they love the gal so (I'd say these are "real guys"). Either way it is only 200-days' wait and biologically the women are taking more risks, even fertilitywise. In the US one could go and live in state for 6 months, gain residency and get a "quickie divorce" so it is about the same. Come to think it might even be a good idea to have prenuptial agreements stipulating a six-months wait after divorce before remarriage is allowed

Yes there are women sitting on the bench in the Japanese Supreme Court. Of course none of them earn much respect - in fact with the exception of the "chief justice" whose name almost never comes to mind, none are much respected in Japan (except for those involved in the legal field or relatives, I daresay a regular person in the street can't name even the top judge off the cuff unlike in the US {John Roberts [even a back-off-the-woods hick like me knows that, in the US]} to prove their position in society). BTW this is all a charade 'cuz I think my Japanese wife can obtain a divorce here today, fly off to Hawaii and wherever to remarry {yep two Japanese can do so there too} then foist it upon the government here; some laws - civil ones I guess - are "Zaru"...

Good bye, Mr. Steed...

It should be used with a small notice about the error pasted on the cover or thereabouts - as they say, "Forewarned is ... three-armed"(?)