Article: “School for Takarazuka Revue trainees abolishes harassment-like rules.” Japan Times. Excerpt: “KOBE – The school training teenage girls to become actresses in the Takarazuka Revue, Japan’s famed all-female musical theater troupe, has abolished absurd and silly rules observed for decades by students, including bowing to trains that might be carrying Read more…
Article: Doctor blames Andrew Wakefield and anti-vaxxers for her baby son catching measles “A doctor has said public reaction to Andrew Wakefield’s discredited study linking the MMR vaccine to autism was to blame when her baby son caught measles.” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/doctor-blames-andrew-wakefield-son-catching-measles-vaccine-mmr-autism-anti-vaxxers-measles-a7813001.html Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing the benefits of vaccinations, Read more…
Iroha is an older Japanese poem with deep connections to Japanese culture and religion. There are a number of different versions – the original cannot be read by the vast majority of modern Japanese readers. It has been translated in a number of languages but the translations lose much of Read more…
Article : “Masked artist makes sticky issue out of radiation in Japan” “Known as 281 Antinuke, Japan’s answer to Banksy has covered Tokyo streets in images depicting politicians as vampires and children being shielded from radioactive rain to highlight the consequences of a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant after Read more…
Text: Extract from “Young Japan priests try to breathe life into fading Buddhism.” Religious News Service. “TOKYO (AP) — Buddhism suffers from a gloomy image in Japan. It is so closely linked to death — funerals, graves and memorial rituals in which priests chant sutras based on Chinese rendering of Sanskrit Read more…
Article: Lasers reveal Maya war ruins “ARCHAEOLOGISTS GUIDED BY laser images of a remote region of northern Guatemala have discovered 20-foot-high walls, watchtowers, and other evidence that ancient Maya societies waged large-scale warfare over many years. The finds have upended long-established impressions of a civilization that tamed the jungle and built Read more…
Text: “Mycorrhizal Networks.” UBC Botanical Garden. “[Fungal networks] have recently been discovered by Professor Suzanne Simard and her graduate students to connect the roots of trees and facilitate the sharing of resources in Douglas-fir forests of interior British Columbia, thereby bolstering their resilience against disturbance or stress and facilitating the Read more…
Text: “Don’t criticize government or TEPCO, guides in Fukushima told.” Shoko Rikimaru and Shinichi Sekine / The Asahi Shimbun. “Tour guides are bristling at instructions not to criticize the central government or Tokyo Electric Power Co. when speaking to visitors at a recently opened memorial museum to the 2011 triple meltdown at the Read more…
Text: “Don’t criticize government or TEPCO, guides in Fukushima told.” Shoko Rikimaru and Shinichi Sekine / The Asahi Shimbun. “Tour guides are bristling at instructions not to criticize the central government or Tokyo Electric Power Co. when speaking to visitors at a recently opened memorial museum to the 2011 triple meltdown at the Read more…
Text extract from: “Trump Covid President downplays virus on leaving hospital.” BBC. “US President Donald Trump has made a dramatic return to the White House to continue his treatment for coronavirus after a three-night hospital stay. The president removed his mask on the balcony of the White House, where several Read more…