April 27, 2007
An online bulletin board supervisor in Osaka is facing charges for not deleting a message from one of the bulletin boards users after a formal complaint was filed. The post in question was written by a junior high school girl who called a cram school classmate of hers “ugly” in the body of the post. The supervisor is facing abetting defamation of character charges for his “role” in the post, by failing to delete the post.
Sometime around Aug. 20 last year, a junior high school girl wrote on a bulletin board that another junior high school girl was “ugly.”
The student who was called ugly came to learn about the message in October after a friend informed her. The girl’s mother emailed the provider of the bulletin board and asked them to delete the comments. The provider told the mother to file a request with the bulletin board’s supervisor.
After the supervisor did nothing in response to the mother’s request, the mother reported the case to police. Osaka police investigators managed to identify the supervisor and the girl who wrote the slanderous message.
Police reported the girl to a local child consultation center for defamation of character.
The supervisor of the bulletin board reportedly deleted the message soon after the mother of the 13-year-old victim talked with police.
The BBS supervisor should have absolutely nothing to do with this equation. Apparently there is no DMCA-like “safe harbor” law here in Japan, or if there is then nobody involved in this legal twist seems to be aware of such provisions. It is completely inconceivable that a BBS operator, supervisor or not, should be faced with having to delete a so-called slanderous posts of this nature. I am stumped and dumbfounded that this could happen.
At least the mother of the “defamed” did take the proper action against the post author. The only target of any action, legal or otherwise, should have been the author of the post in question. I find it highly questionable that someone has is being charged with defamation for merely calling someone “ugly,” but that is not the only point.
This whole mess just reeks of stupidity on so many levels. But, charging the BBS supervisor? Colour me quite confused!
April 22, 2007
Stephen King is a master of the English language, and as such was asked to look over some of the writing that Cho sent to NBC News. In response to what he read, Stephen King offered up the following analysis, which struck me as the best way to frame the whole situation that transpired last week.
For most creative people, the imagination serves as an excretory channel for violence: We visualize what we will never actually do (James Patterson, for instance, a nice man who has all too often worked the street that my old friend George used to work). Cho doesn’t strike me as in the least creative, however. Dude was crazy. Dude was, in the memorable phrasing of Nikki Giovanni, ”just mean.” Essentially there’s no story here, except for a paranoid a–hole who went DEFCON-1. He may have been inspired by Columbine, but only because he was too dim to think up such a scenario on his own.
What I love best about the opinion that Stephen King offered is that it contains absolutely no psychoanalysis. Instead, King opts for the obvious, using common sense to frame the thoughts that just about everyone around the world feels about Cho and his murderous actions. Why bother using $20 words when something so simple will get the same point across and feel a lot more human?
Sometimes it pays to not be a new anchor, analyst or psychiatrist in situations like the world witnessed last week. What I truly despise about the whole episode is not the fact that this scum “went DEFCON-1″ on VATech, but the fact that the media has given it so much air time. This “paranoid a–hole” received all the attention that he craved his entire life, in the span of the last 6 days or so.
It is time to move on. Forget this murderous leech. There has got to be something far more important going on in the world these days. Maybe the news media can pay attention to the issues for a change.
No? You are so right. I forgot.
Oh well.
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In a recent survey, it was determined that Japan 0wns the blogosphere, out-blogging the rest of the world.
Japanese, a recent survey found, is the most common language for blogging. With 70-some million blogs now in all languages, Japan edged out even English and Chinese for the top spot of blog language. A third of all blogs in the world, or virtual world, are written in Japanese. Japan is now number one — at blogging.
I find that to be really damn cool. I imagine that there is an entire world of content that is being overlooked due to language constraints. Being right in the middle of the nation that blogs the most is a very cool feeling, which I imagine will get even cooler in the coming years. The times sure are interesting, no?
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April 16, 2007
What a really crazy week this has been. We have not only have we had to contend with the general nuisances that come along with moving, but also try and “finish” much of the landscaping around the house. Apparently, the developer was not interested in prettying up the yards around the house, instead opting to dump some rock infested dirt around the house, planting two small trees and building a very plain vanilla looking walkway up to the front door. Our neighbors house, who was built in unison with out house, was done the exact same way, much to their dismay.
Prior to this weekend the entire front of our house was nothing but the brown dirt that can be seen in the accompanying picture, along with the two small green trees. These are not “pretty” trees that will add to the look of the house, but some trees that the developer chose in a hasty attempt to finish the job. Had we opted for a “nice” front yard then you can bet your ass that the builder would have opted to add a few more yen’s to the price!
After much deliberation between Junko and I, we decided to go with this nifty plan that I devised for beautifying the landscape in the front yard. All Junko required was that a small path lead from the main path to the driveway and that grass be planted, though any other ideas were mostly fair game.
I came up with this idea to use a slightly darker colored brick for a border around the pathways, accompanied by rocks surrounding the stepping stones to be used as the actual walking path. After heading to a local Home Depot-like store called Joyful Honda, we picked out the salmon colored bricks and what is known as “Las Vegas Pink” colored rocks. We picked up some pinkish looking stone slabs to be used as the steps for the horizontal path that leads to the driveway.
After purchasing all the necessary items, I made my best attempt at creating a level walkway as I possibly could. After doing that I dropped down the brick border, even having to “cut” the bricks so that they had the right angle and were the right size. Once the brick border was set, I placed the stone walking slabs down in what felt like a comfortable walking stride, followed on by placing the rocks all throughout the dirt areas of the path. The final product is what can be seen in the accompanying picture.
It was a lot of work but oddly rewarding work. I never really worked out in a yard before, never really caring about the house because, well, it was not mine to do with as I please. I suspect that this will change now that my situation has changed. Although I am aching in areas that I never knew existed, it was all worthwhile. Now all I have to do is finish laying the grass and the whole project should be complete.
April 14, 2007
The past few weeks have been eerily silent around here for a pretty big reason: we moved to a new house and have been busy packing, moving and unpacking. It is amazing how much time is lost when you are as busy as we have been since the new year began.
This image is one of the first pictures taken of the house after all the rafters were removed from around the house while it was being built. The internals of the house were nowhere near being complete. Although the exterior looks well polished it, too, is not entirely complete.
I wanted to take more pictures while the house was being built, but was just too busy at work to get the time to take pictures during daylight hours. It would have been fun to have captured the entire building process, from when the foundation was first set down, to the time when the frame of the house was stood up, to what you see in the image here. But, alas, life got in the way as usual!
In any event, we have been moved in to the house for roughly 1 week now, give or take a day or two. All the days seem to intersect at some point, though where that point resides is completely beyond my line of sight. In the coming weeks, as life slows back down, I plan to take some more pictures.
Stay tuned!
April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut passed away tonight, at the ripe old age of 84. RIP. So it goes.
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