Mark Bossingham

New train line!

DUE IN part to the astonishingly quick gentrification of my once-factory neighborhood, the Yurikakome train line has been extended to Toyosu. We now are the shuten (end of the line) for a scenic little train that runs around the bay, from my neighborhood, through the Daiba entertainment-convention complex, over Rainbow Bridge and finally on to Shiodome and Shinbashi. A fun ride and a great view. No train driver to be found, fully automated. I could take it to work, but it would increase my commute time by about 20 minutes. Also, my company won't pay for this line. Must stick with the boring old underground.

UPDATE – Crazy Noise

OK, HERE it is the 15th installment of the best novel ever written about contemporary Japan. Somebody must have said that. First, we find May upset at what she considers her brother's anti-Japanese attitude Next, Sam gets an unpleasant visit from our favorite corrupt cop, Nakazono. As usual—you know the drill—you may buy the whole thing online buy clicking on the link on the left. Still available at Amazon and Amazon Japan, too. Just sold one, yes ONE, last week! You could be next!

Jill Carroll II

JILL CAROLL says her pro-terrorist comments reported yesterday were coerced. There is no reason not to believe her. I suspect most of us would say any damn thing rather than have our heads chopped off. That many people, including myself, felt it even possible that an American big media journalist (Carroll is actually a freelancer and is, if normal practice is employed, paid by the story) could say such things is a sign of how far things have unraveled in the United States.
    Describing her captivity in Iraq as horrific, freed American hostage Jill Carroll disavowed critical statements she made about the United States, saying on Saturday she had been forced into making a propaganda video.
"During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video," she said in a statement read by Richard Bergenheim, editor of The Christian Science Monitor, the Boston-based newspaper where she worked when she was abducted in Baghdad on January 7.
"They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed," she said.

Jill Carroll?

THE INTERVIEW Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll gave to her captors is eye-opening. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but her comments via ABC news echo so precisely the deluded-journalist template, I conclude she actually believed what she was saying. For God's sake, the insurgency was defeated months ago. The idea that the "Mujahedeen" could defeat the US. or the New Iraqi Army is idiotic. That a political solution may fail is indeed possible, but militarily, Jill's defenders of the homeland (the former Saddamite mass murderers) are toast. Read what she has to say and ask yourself: Was her kidnapping a sham?; why in the world would the CSM employ such a naif?