relic1980 comments

"Barbie is and always has been for children, primarily little girls. I fail to understand the popularity of this and I find it’s a warning to us all about the declining maturity of society."

And those little girls grew up to be women who have a fondness for the things they grew up with. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator, and that's true for men as well as women.

"One book however, will never be banned, The Bible. This book is filled with violence, sexual content, and even incest, so why has it not been banned?"

Actually, there has been at least a couple of notable instances of the Bible being banned because of content, or at least only made available to older students, one of which happened in Utah.

"not to mention a sex icon. Beautiful, scantily dressed, and carrying a rope. Basically a superhero dominatrix."

Considering Wonder Woman's creator William Moulton Marston's, uh, proclivities, you're not wrong. But then, he wrote her stories with WW being bound so much, that the editor actually had to tell Marston to tone it down a bit.

I always find it hilarious when the Musk apologists claim to me that it doesn't matter to him how much money he loses on Twitter, as long as he is "sticking it to the Libs". Uh, yeah. Any billionaire who thinks like that won't be a billionaire for long.

Myself, the only thing I use Twitter for these days is posting my YouTube channel videos. And any posts I see when doing so are usually toadies like Gym Jordan and Ted Nugent comparing Democrats to pedos (which is chuckle-worthy, considering how he got one of his uh, YOUNG wives).

Does Japan allow for dual citizenship? In the US and some other countries, if you have dual citizenship you can vote in either country.

"Probably the americans requested it and the japanese said "Yeah ok, anything else" !"

Considering from what I have read (and that was the four volumes initially published in the US through Last Gasp Publishing, which I still have), the American military isn't really portrayed in a necessarily bad way per se. Americans would have nothing to object to, at least where the manga is concerned.

But what the schools perhaps should do is replace the random fragments of Barefoot Gen with Nakazawa Kaiji's more autobiographical I Saw It! That was published in the US through Educomics, and back in the late 1980s my little sister, who was in 10th grade, told her history teacher about my copy, and the teacher wanted to borrow it for her lessons.

She kept it till the end of the school year, the manga was so effective. I could imagine, since the book is much shorter than Barefoot Gen it might be more effective for classes that way.

Strong words from a mere toady, Med-boy.

"Gazoo"? For some reason I immediately thought of that little green alien guy from The Flintstones (voiced by the late, great Harvey Korman) :)

"Someone dies by a firearm in Japan, and it makes the news. Here in the States, over 300 people die by firearms every single day. If they all made the headlines, there would not be room for any other news."

True. Here in Columbus OH (mid-sized city by American standards) you have shootings literally every day. Not always fatal (though I think 144 did die last year). Most will only appear on the local news, and then only once or twice, the exception being if they are notorious enough (as in, mass shooting).

"At first I read New Order, and I thought great, they are putting out new music"

I saw New World Order and my mind went to Ministry. But still, incredibly poor choice of words by Nishimura, given how the tin-foil hat people interpret the phrase.

Stephen ChinDec. 25  11:40 am JST

Relic 1980

"Are you still Farenheitinging in Ohio? Does Ohio weather get better or worse after you have waited five minutes? I mean, "Do you like the weather better or, don't like it at all, after you have waited five minutes?" Stephen Chin in Montreal, Canada."

Well, perhaps I was exaggerating JUST a little :)...but after our frosty weekend, by this coming weekend it's supposed to be in the high 50s.

Stephen Chin

"Is Planet Earth sommersaulting ?"

Well, after we got wind chills of up to -32 F here in Columbus OH yesterday, by this coming Friday were supposed to get temps around 60 F and possible storms! People around these parts comment that "if you don't like Ohio weather, wait five minutes." :)

Here in South Columbus OH the temps are finally rising just a little bit. I think the high was 12 degrees F today, and is currently 7 degrees (about 7pm Saturday). Winds aren't as high as it was yesterday, so the wind chill, while still below zero, isn't QUITE as bad. Went out to get some milk for a pie that will be made tonight, and the rough weather apparently wasn't an impediment, judging from all the cars I saw at the local shopping center.

I'm right here in my home, in South Columbus OH. Right now it's -3 degrees F outside and a wind chill of -25. Earlier in the day it was -8 and I have a good 4 inches of snow, not counting snow drifts. Thankfully our power provider American Electric Power has been on the ball in the Columbus area, and quickly fixed any outages within I'd say a couple hours. My guess they (hopefully) learned their lesson after a June debacle that saw some 200,000+ people lose power when it was 97 degrees outside.

There's a number of churches and organizations helping the homeless get to shelters, though I can imagine they're getting full about now (9:33pm Columbus time). And the city buses, since it's a Level 2 Snow Emergency, are free to allow people to keep warm.

I guess His Impotence's missile scare tactics aren't performing well?

"At least they are not asking for tips like they do in America now. So strange."

What convenience store in the US asks for tips in-store?

"Russian state media and pro-Kremlin war hawks defended the withdrawal as a necessary move while acknowledging a heavy blow."

"Retreat? We didn't retreat. We advanced in another direction!" :)

Horrible...reminds me of a concert my friend in high school went to in 1979, The Who, at Riverfront in Cincinnati OH. I think 11 kids died in a crush, and he told me it was all he could do to stay on his feet. I don't know the area, but surely there had to be some sort of crowd control that could have diverted these kids in Seoul to a larger street.

""They (Kudo-kai) don't care at all about harming bystanders" to achieve their objective, the source said."

"The vehicle carrying Tanaka, a senior member of a gangster group linked with the Kudo-kai crime syndicate, arrived at the police station in Kyoto shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday as a swarm of reporters and photographers awaited his arrival outside the building."

If this gang of thugs truly didn't care about harming bystanders, then what was stopping them from whacking this guy from among the "swarm of reporters"?

This all makes me think of the useless and bizarre things that came out during the venture capitalist-driven insanity of the late-1990s. Convince a VC and get billions in funding for a CueCat! Except this concept is even worse, because the human element is reduced to a couple of generic anime avatars.

The mayor clearly doesn't have enough to do in his official position. If he's going to micromanage like this, perhaps he should pick up a copy of Sim City or something.

Seems like the authorities need to bust the chikan, and bust them HARD. Then name and shame them if guilt is proved.

Par for the course from a Communist government overseen by Winnie the Pooh.

Perhaps the little man and his sister running the Hermit Kingdom should realize what would happen to their precious "Communist Paradise" if they tried to follow through on their threat. Yes, it would likely kick in Mutually Assured Destruction, but that pudgy lunatic would not like the results of his foolishness.

Hmmm...I've never heard of this show, but now that I have, maybe I'll check it out (not really, I rarely watch TV these days :)). But ultimately, Mr. Johnson needs to remember that, if he indeed values Free Speech, he needs to remember also that others he may not like have that same 1st Amendment right. And don't go hiding behind your Trumpified version of "Christianity" (more like Trumpianity) with your blatherings. As a Christian and human, I also have the right to be silent on things I clearly know nothing about.

",in America people trash is considered public property,"

Depends on the state and sometimes, even the city. Here in Columbus OH it's illegal for people to go through trash because of the worry of "dumpster diving", i.e. computer hackers looking for information they can exploit. Though to be honest, there are homeless who periodically go through trash to find recyclables they can take to the local recycle lot and make some money. That's why we take our aluminum cans and put them in a separate bag and sit them by the trash, so they can get them without going through our trash.

So he's 49 and she's 30. Big deal. They're both adults, and they look like a nice couple. I expect this kind of headline out of the Nationalmidnightstar, not Japan Today.

"The solution to higher prices is to switch to the cheaper supermarkets.

A little time and effort can be rewarded…"

I don't live in Japan, but do grocery stores use coupons there? Here in Columbus OH I use grocer and product coupons to help pare down expenses. We also look at stores that have comparable products at cheaper prices to save money. Granted, even the Dollar Tree stores have hiked their prices to $1.25. People around here joke they are now Dollar and a Quarter Tree stores.

Some locals are also starting gardens, and we cut down on waste by canning vegetables and potatoes we won't get to right away. Heck, we even pick apples to make our own pectin, and grapes to make homemade jelly!

They will plead the Fifth more often than that walking tree says "I am Groot".

"She was punished with three days of besshitu toko, “separate-room schooling,” a form of disciplining in Japanese schools where students who have broken a rule must do their day’s schoolwork in a separate room, away from the rest of the class, essentially a form of in-school suspension. She was also made to write an essay reflecting on her transgression."

Call it what it actually is: school-sanctioned humiliation.