For all the Fair Skinned People Living in Japan

Novel approach to treating cancer

By CESAR CHELALA

NEW YORK — The discovery that two new drugs can control melanoma could revolutionize the treatment not only of melanoma but also of other cancers as well.

Melanoma is cancer of the pigment cells in the skin. Although it accounts for only 4 percent of all skin cancers, it is responsible for almost 80 percent of the deaths, particularly because it tends to spread early in its course.

Melanoma kills by spreading through blood and lymph nodes into the internal organs of the body. This is what makes it more dangerous than other skin cancers, which don't metastasize as easily.

A melanoma the size of a dime on the skin has a 50 percent chance of having already spread. In addition, melanoma is spreading faster than any other kind of cancer in the United States. It is estimated that at least one person in the country dies of skin cancer every hour.

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Japanese House Plans

Japanese House Plans, what you didn't know

(Photo by Ian Griffin)

by Lyanne Thomas

What's there to know about Japanese houses besides that the houses are versatile and small compared to those in Europe and America?


Well for one, Japanese homes allow you to maximize your available space. Most Asian houses, including those from Japan are simple with an aesthetic beauty to them. The traditional Japanese house is built by erecting wooden columns on a flat foundation of stones.

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Sarah Bareilles helps out in Tohoku

Musician Sarah Bareilles of the USA and former resident of Minamiashigara, Chris Zanella is a member of the volunteer group “All Hands” dispatched to Ofunato, a city badly damaged by the last tsunami. Using EM and his own “Hands”, he is helping to clean up and reconstruct the city along with his group.

He wrote a very touching story of a girl, a victim and evacuee, that I pasted below.
Hope you like it.  Read More




Sara Beth Bareilles ( /bəˈrɛlɪs/ bə-rel-is; born December 7, 1979)^[1] is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She achieved mainstream success in 2007 with the hit single "Love Song", which brought her into the number one spot on the Billboard Pop 100 chart.^[2] She has sold over 1 million records worldwide and has been Grammy-nominated three times.^[3]

日本と海外における教育の未来

日本と海外における教育の未来

by Kevin R. Burns

イギリスのサマーヒルのような学校について読んだときと同じように、TED.comでケンロビンソン氏と 初めて話をしたことでも、私は奮い立たされました。そして、ウマが合う教師たちと私の考えを共有しました。 私はとても創造的だったのですが、学校中の生徒にうんざりしていました。私のIQテストのスコアは高く、 私の恩師も私に話しかけるのが好きでしたが、私は学ぶことを押しつけていたこと気づき、しばしば不快な思いをしていました。 私は自分のプロジェクトを行いたかったのです

日本と海外における教育の未来

Anti-Nuclear Power Protests Continue in Tokyo

TOKYO -- Protesters held mass demonstrations against nuclear power across Japan on Saturday, the three-month anniversary of the powerful earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 23,000 people and triggered one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.


More Stories about Life in Japan



Streets in parts of Tokyo were completely jammed with thousands of chanting protesters, paralyzing sections of the city. Some marchers called for the country's nuclear plants to be shut down immediately and for stricter radiation tests by the government.

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The Reality in Tohoku is Worse

Tohoku, Japan

"The Reality in Tohoku is Worse."--stated Hiroko Takeshima recently after she got back from
Tohoku.

Takeshima went up north to volunteer during Golden Week.   She helped to clear debris from
one of the towns devastated by the Tsunami.   She hails from Tohoko but lives in Kanto now.

She related that things in Tohoku are not like they appear on the news.   You often don`t see the details on the 6 o`clock news.

For example one volunteer spent a day digging a car out from the rubble.   He retrieved the body hoping to give relief to the relatives.    The body was intact except the fingers had been cut off.    Her hand was hanging out the window of the vehicle.

Tsunami`s don`t usually cut off fingers.    But people do.

Someone had beaten them to the punch and taken the unfortunate lady`s rings.   Takeshima related that these are some of the stories you don`t hear on NHK.

For more stories about Living in Japan 


Cases of theft have actually increased in Fukushima Prefecture, up 207 cases after the earthquake and Tsunami.   Cases of other crime are down across the board, for example: violent crime, and rape.

A journalist I know reports police numbers have been bolstered in Tohoku due to increased looting and now more about this in Japanese:

福島、侵入盗４割増６９５件…原発周辺狙われる

読売新聞 6月10日(金)1時37分配信

今年５月までの３か月間に福島県内で発生した侵入盗被害が、昨年の同時期より約４割増の６９５件に上ったことが警察庁のまとめでわかった。   Read More

FBC - Foreign Buyer`s Club Going Strong

TOKYO —

When American Chuck Grafft and his wife Kelly started a co-op in the late 1980s to import items that they and their friends in the foreign community missed most from home (bagels, breakfast cereal and peanut butter), they probably had no idea that more than 20 years later, their business would be booming, offering more than 40,000 items to thousands of families ordering several thousand items every week.
Japan Today hears more from Grafft about his success story.
Why did you start the Foreign Buyers’ Club?
Kelly and I started the FBC to help those of us in the community who missed things from home. It was like a hobby for the first few years. We took two years to get set up and get approval to import items.
How has business been so far this year?
Fairly steady. We have about the same number of orders but less items per order.

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The City of Angels, Bangkok, Thailand

The City of Angels, Bangkok, Thailand





Another perk of living in Japan, is making our income in a very high currency, then traveling to
exotic locales throughout Asia.


My brother Wayne talks about Bangkok and what is is like:

Introducing a city invites superlatives, especially when that city is Bangkok. It seems that every travel guide must impress its readers with the most grandiose and arcane aspects of the metropolis into which they are about to dive. But chances are that, for most, Bangkok`s reputation has prededed its reality. So it would be wise of those reading these wordsm who are about to plnge into the maze of Bangkok`s whirl, to review their preconceptions.

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Many Drown in Japan each summer

 Learn what to look for!

 

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

How did this captain know – from fifty feet away – what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

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Dealing with Fallout

What to eat and what not to eat?

I`ve probably “erred” on the side of caution or even paranoia on this one, and it hasn`t been because of my health but I have been concerned about what my rapidly growing children eat. How can I keep them safe?

The government, local and national has been saying things are safe?

I guess my problem has been I haven`t heard the message. I didn`t really trust them.

However maybe I have to; and in fact maybe they are trustworthy in the case of food safety anyway.

So many politicians disappoint it seems, so it is natural to lose trust in them.

About food though, I think the Japanese government is doing a good job. And if they fail or if the local government fails to inform, NHK or some fifth estate media
source fills in.   Read More:

Have back problems in Japan

What to do about them? Where to turn?


(Pictured, Japanese actress Yuki Uchida)


Back Problem in Japan, Have you put your back out while living in Japan? It is
not fun, no matter where you do it! I know, I have done it countless times now.

I first put out my back at age 34. My friend Doug commented I guess you are
getting old. He meant well but I was not amused at the time. Now that I have no
doubt that I am old, I understand he was trying to be helpful. I guess I
shouldn`t have put him into the full pretzel! Just the half-pretzel would have
sufficed!
Read More:

Japan`s Earthquake Warning System

No other country in the world has one!

Is there any way to know there will be an earthquake in advance?

Yes. The earthquake early warning system operated by the Meteorological Agency provides advance warning of earthquakes.

According to the agency, the nationwide system is unique to Japan. But it only gives people seconds, not days, to prepare.

When an earthquake hits, two kinds of waves travel underground, first the P-waves and then the S-waves. When the agency detects P-waves, a warning is sent immediately, before the S-waves, which people actually feel, arrive.

People can receive the warnings on mobile phones operated by NTT DoCoMo Inc., Softbank Mobile Corp. and KDDI's au, or through TV or radio broadcasts.

But according to the Meteorological Agency, there is as little as only 10 seconds between the warning and when the tremors arrive. Close to the epicenter, the quake arrives faster than the warning.

The Meteorological Agency updates its technology to improve the system every time it encounters problems. For example, the system didn't function properly after the March 11 quake because big quakes occurred too frequently. The agency is now working on solving this issue, according to its Seismological and Volcanological Department.

Read more

Accusing the Innocent, one tragedy of Japan

I have heard of a few cases like this.  There was a Keio student who too, I believe was innocent.
The Keio teachers (my friends) who new this young man, knew him to be a very good student and a good person.  They had known him through 6 years of jr/sr high school.    I think the people that know you well, have a good rapport with what you are, and are not capable of.   



This young man was accused of groping late at night by a young woman.  He was grabbed by the
train line attendants then grilled by the police.   He too was released.    And according to the
Japan Today article that follows this implies innocence though the police will not tell you that.
They should, it is their job.



The Keio student unfortunately, was traumatized by this young woman and the police and jumped from a Kanagawa building four days later.  What a tragedy!    And what a waste.

Japan is wasting her youth on events like these.   A youth that is becoming a all too small minority as it is.    She needs to do away with the guilty until proven innocent model.   It doesn`t work.
How do you prove you are innocent when it is your word (only) against the accuser and the police.

 Some people really are innocent, but it is difficult to prove.  I think the innocent until guilty
model of justice, while not perfect, works much better.   The police have less power and I believe
fewer go to prison because of it.


Japan Today Story Follows:

TOKYO —

Shortly before midnight on Dec 10, 2009, a 25-year-old university worker named Shinsuke Harada was making his way through Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station on his way home. Suddenly a young woman cried out, “He touched me!”

The woman’s male companion grabbed Harada, apparently roughed him up a bit, and hauled him over to a station employee. Station officials brought in the police. After some seven hours of questioning, Harada was released. Dazed and humiliated, Harada took a subway to Waseda Station and jumped in front of a moving train.

On Jan 29, 2010, Tokyo Metro police processed the case as “chikan” – groping – and passed the documentation on to prosecutors, who quietly laid the matter to rest in view of Harada’s death.
On April 26 of this year, Harada’s mother filed a civil damages suit against the city of Tokyo, on the grounds that police got prosecutors involved even though they knew that Harada was innocent, causing his family to suffer social disgrace.

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If Hamaoka is potentially deadly, what about all the other nuclear reactors?

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TOKYO —

Toyo University geologist Mitsuhisa Watanabe has a startling revelation for Sunday Mainichi (May 29) and its readers – startling at least to those who think nuclear energy is serious business and should be treated (if at all) with respect.


If Hamaoka is hit by an earthquake-tsunami event approaching in scale the one that in Fukushima Prefecture is making nonsense of decades of blithe official assurances that nuclear power is safe – and seismologists rate at 87 percent the chance of a major quake occurring near Hamaoka within the next 30 years – Tokyo itself, the heart and lungs of Japan, would suffer what much of Tohoku is now suffering.


“Let history judge,” said Kan, implicitly elevating his decision to a historic level. Sunday Mainichi is not impressed. The nation’s entire nuclear industry, it claims, was built with astonishing recklessness. Closing one plant is, in the contemptuous words of former Tohoku University seismologist Masakazu Otake, “haphazard lip service, a kind of blood offering to the gods, a political performance.”

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The Mayor who saved his town from the Tsunami

FUDAI —

In the rubble of Japan’s northeast coast, one small village stands as tall as ever after the tsunami. No homes were swept away. In fact, they barely got wet.
  
Fudai is the village that survived—thanks to a huge wall once deemed a mayor’s expensive folly and now vindicated as the community’s salvation.
  
The 3,000 residents living between mountains behind a cove owe their lives to a late leader who saw the devastation of an earlier tsunami and made it the priority of his four-decade tenure to defend his people from the next one.
  
His 15.5-meter floodgate between mountainsides took a dozen years to build and meant spending more than 3.56 billion yen.
  
“It cost a lot of money. But without it, Fudai would have disappeared,” said seaweed fisherman Satoshi Kaneko, 55, whose business has been ruined but who is happy to have his family and home intact.
  
The gate project was criticized as wasteful in the 1970s. But the gate and an equally high seawall behind the community’s adjacent fishing port protected Fudai from the waves that obliterated so many other towns.  Read More

南足柄市の放射線 何が安全で、何が危険なのか

南足柄市の放射線　何が安全で、何が危険なのか？

南足柄市の住民皆、子供たちの安全を維持したいでしょう。
南足柄市加藤市長、何が安全なのでしょうか？

加藤市長、選挙での勝利おめでとうございます。さて、今こそ任務をこなすときです。
事をゆっくり進めている場合ではありません。南足柄産のお茶の放射線量に関するニュースが
NHKで報告されるのを待つべきではないのです。市長が先導するべきです。
あなたが市長なのですから、先導するのは当然です。
放射能がないかどうか、何をテストしたのでしょうか。食べ物は安全でしょうか。水は安全でしょうか。

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Smiths Schools of English in Japan, an opportunity?

Smiths Schools of English sells school franchises in Japan. Some teachers buy, build then

school or schools.

I think just being associated with a man like Mr. Smith, a man obviously with a lot of chutzpah and entrepreneurial spirit, is a great thing. A lot of that rubs off, if you learn as much as you can from people with their own business. Unfortunately few think like this. Most people think of a job - getting a job, keeping a job or looking for another job.  Read More

A Lot of Hot Water, but Not Much Is Being Used to Produce Electricity

YANAIZU, Japan — As visitors to any of Japan’s thousands of hot springs know, this country is sitting on a lot of very hot water. 

Related:

• Japan’s Nuclear Future in the Balance (May 10, 2011)

A blog about energy and the environment.

Go to Blog »

 

Continued, 

So far, though, little of it has been harnessed to produce energy. There are only 18 geothermal power plants in the country, and together they account for only 0.3 percent of Japan’s electricity production.
But some say that with Japan’s reliance on nuclear power plants coming into question, the country should harness more of its geothermal natural resource to provide clean, renewable energy.

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Sony confirms personal info theft of all 77 million network users

Kyodo

WASHINGTON — Sony Corp. has informed a U.S. congressional panel that personal information related to all 77 million users of its online services was stolen during a recent data breach involving its popular PlayStation gaming systems.

In a written response dated Tuesday to a question paper from the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee, Sony said, "The criminal intruders stole personal information from all of the approximately 77 million PlayStation Network and Qriocity service accounts."

Sony had earlier said an unauthorized person may have obtained the personal information, including names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdates and passwords, from the 77 million accounts by unlawfully accessing the systems.

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Could Fukushima provide catalyst for Japanese youth to reach criticality?

TOKYO —

Calls to protest bring thousands, the conventional press is shunned and rogue academics suddenly find people are willing to listen—it would be going too far to say Japan was joining the “Arab Spring,” but the nuclear crisis has shown there are limits to youth apathy in this country.
The 20 years since the bubble burst have at times seemed like an experiment to make a population as lethargic and hopeless as possible and then observe the decline. But there was always a twist that made things different than the malaise of a Tunisia or an Egypt: decent living standards. A roof over one’s head and food on the table are virtually guaranteed, and almost everyone has enough for a trendy wardrobe, a PlayStation and a night of oblivion in an izakaya once or twice a week. If you are satisfied with that, you don’t even have to work very hard for it.  Read More